Christ in Egypt Horus versus Set
Thrilla in Manila
I actually wish this chapter had more of the slugfest in the myth of Horus and Set, which is a dramatic match over many rounds. Murdock’s intent is to show the wide authoritative comparison between this Egyptian myth and the Gospel story. The battle between Horus, in the good corner, versus Set, in the evil corner, is the model for the story in the Bible of the confrontation between Jesus and Satan in the wilderness.
The Gospel story is from Matthew 4:
I’m not sure if Christian fundamentalists claim these events actually occurred. If not, they illustrate the difficulty of blurring the line between myth and reality in the Gospels, since Matthew tells this story in the same breathless historical tone as the preceding story of the baptism of Christ in the Jordan River and the subsequent gathering of the disciples. As far as the narrative is concerned, these stories all have the same epistemic status, so are either all myth or all history. You be the judge.Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 4:2When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry afterward. 4:3The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."
4:4But he answered, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'"
4:5Then the devil took him into the holy city. He set him on the pinnacle of the temple, 4:6and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, 'He will give his angels charge concerning you.' and, 'On their hands they will bear you up, So that you don't dash your foot against a stone.'"
4:7Jesus said to him, "Again, it is written, 'You shall not test the Lord, your God.'"
4:8Again, the devil took him to an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory. 4:9He said to him, "I will give you all of these things, if you will fall down and worship me."
4:10Then Jesus said to him, "Get behind me, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'"
4:11Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.
The Egyptian version presents the same archetype of good versus evil, but is rather different in detail. A widespread interpretation is that Set was the god of upper Egypt, while Horus was the god of lower Egypt. The victory of Horus is associated with the unification of Egypt, the two kingdoms, involving the vilification of Set as the incarnation of evil. In the myth they ding dong up and down the Nile, making Ali v Frazier look like a picnic. In this ancient mythical rumble in the jungle Set fights dirty, resorting to eye-gouging and rape. Each time the Great Virgin Isis, mother of Horus, or her alter-egos Hathor and Neith, restores her divine son Horus, just as the sun is restored each day and year after its death in the night and winter.
Murdock quotes Egyptologist EA Wallace Budge as pointing out that the Christian stories of Jesus, Mary, God and Satan “ousted the old … gods”, replacing Osiris, Horus, Isis and Set. These parallels show how religion is about cosmology, the daily and yearly triumph of light over darkness symbolising the victory of life over death and good over evil, and how the same cosmological functions were served at one time by Egyptian myths just as later they were served by the usurping Christian divinities.
Set was depicted as “creepy and demonic”, with ears and forked tail rather like our well-known old king sulphur breath. Set murdered Horus’s dad Osiris by tricking him to lie in an ark, which Set promptly nailed shut and set floating down the Nile to the sea. Entirely coincidentally (wow), Murdock wryly notes that this event allegedly occurred the same day of the year, around November, as Noah got shut up in his ark. This is a chance of one in 365. It just shows how all these myths are interlinked, symbolising the annual cycle of the seasons, in this case marking the path towards winter in mid autumn.
In Plutarch’s versions of the myth Set chopped Osiris in fourteen bits, and Isis found them all except the penis. The Greek historian Plutarch linked this story to the observation of the moon, which has fourteen days from when it is full to when it is new.
Murdock's main point in this chapter is that "Set is Satan, and the battle between Jesus and Satan - light versus darkness - represents a formulaic rehash of the far more ancient contention between Horus and Set... This readily discerned Egyptian precedent for a 'Christian' concept is noteworthy, as it easily demonstrates the apparent influence of Egyptian religion upon Christianity." (p75-77)