This changeover from the Egyptian to the Christian religion occurred within the Gnostic movement as well: The Egyptian Gnostics rejected many of the pagan cults of the early dynastic Egyptians, but they regarded Ra, Horus and Harpokrates [Horus the Child] as forms of their "One God of heaven," and they connected Isis with the Virgin Mary, Osiris and Serapis with Christ...[812]

In fact, when we include the apocryphal and Gnostic texts in our investigation, we develop an even longer list of parallels between the Egyptian and Christian religions that would require another volume.

Fortunately, like Budge not everyone has been afraid of making the Mary-Isis connection, as the correspondence between the two was recognized not only during the 19th to early 20th centuries but also long into the latter era as well. For example, regarding the work of Egyptologist Dr. R.E. Witt, who died in 1980, Curl comments, "Dr. Witt is particularly illuminating on the merging of Isis with the Blessed Virgin Mary."[813] Indeed, concerning Isis and Mary, in Isis in the Ancient World, Witt states: In Hopfner's invaluable collection of the literary sources, Isis needs more pages of the Index than any other name. A brief glance at her attributes as there listed reveals her sharing titles with the Blessed Virgin whom Catholic Christianity has ever revered as Mother of God. Some of these resemblances may be set aside as [sic] once as commonplace. Yet so many are the parallels that an unprejudiced mind must be struck with the thought that cumulatively the portraits are alike. Indeed, one of the standard encyclopedias of classical mythology specifically deals with "Isis identified with the Virgin Mary."

Let us observe a few of the resemblances. Isis and Osiris, as we have so often seen, are mythologically interfused. In the language of the Roman Church the Blessed Virgin Mary is "sister and spouse of God: sister of Christ." Christian writers identify Sarapis with Joseph and then make Isis "wife of Joseph." Like her heathen forebear the Catholic Madonna wears a diadem. She too is linked with agricultural fertility...[814]

Witt continues with a long list of comparisons between Mary and not only Isis but also other goddesses, such as Juno and Minerva. The list of parallels, in fact, goes on for several pages and includes both the Christian and Egyptian figures being at once "the Great Virgin" and "Mother of God."[815] Witt further remarks: Convincing examples can be found of the influence on Christian iconography of the figure of Horus/Harpocrates, both in his mother's company and on his own. The most obvious parallels appear when we compare the ways in which the sacred Mother and Child of Egypt are portrayed and the types of the Theotokos/Madonna together with the infant Jesus in Byzantine and Italian ecclesiastical art...[816]

Witt proceeds to name several pieces of art demonstrating the obvious link between the earlier Egyptian gods and the later Christian characters. In this regard, the connection between the Egyptian goddess and the Jewish virgin is so strong that Leipoldt described them as one syncretistic entity called "Isis-Marie." From all the evidence so far presented, it may be truthfully asserted that the Christian "Virgin Mother of God" concept represents a mythical construct based in large part on the Egyptian religion, as does much else of the Christian religion and tradition, including many other aspects of Isis found in the myth of Mary.

The Nativity Scene at the Temple of Luxor.

As an example of the pre-Christian divine birth, in the temple of Amun at the site of Luxor appears a series of scenes depicting the nativity of the king/pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty (c. 1570-1293 BCE), Amenhotep/Amenhotpe or Amenophis III, who reigned during the 14th century BCE. The precise nature of these scenes has been the subject of much debate since they were first analyzed by Western scholars in the 19th century, beginning most prominently with Champollion. In consideration of the magnitude of the Luxor-Karnak temple complex, it is apparent that Amenhotep III was a highly noteworthy king to have been figured there so abundantly. In fact, Amenhotep III is so important that he is called the initiator of the "new concept" of "a divine living king."[817] Among other divine epithets, Amenhotep III is also called "The Good God" and "Son of Re."[818] Indeed, so strong was the association of Amenhotep/Amenhotpe III with Re/Ra that the king deemed himself "the dazzling sun."[819] As stated by Egyptologist Dr. David P. Silverman, curator at the Egyptian Section of the University of Pennsylvania, in the temple of Luxor Amenhotep III is equated with the "dazzling disk of the sun,"[820] giving greater signification to the solar disk or Aten, an innovation that undoubtedly led his son, Amenhotep IV, to become the notorious "heretic" pharaoh Akhenaten/Ikhnaton. Also indicating his importance, Breasted refers to the king's nativity images and inscriptions as "representing Amenhotep III's supernatural birth and his coronation by the gods..."[821]

Regarding the Egyptian birth scenes overall, as well as the status of the pharaohs of the time, Breasted further comments: It is evident that the priests of Heliopolis had become so powerful that they had succeeded in seating this Solar line of kings upon the throne of the Pharaohs. From now on the state fiction was maintained that the Pharaoh was the physical son of the Sun-god by an earthly mother, and in later days we find the successive incidents of the Sun-god's terrestrial amour sculptured on the walls of the temples. It has been preserved in two buildings of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the temple of Luxor and that of Der el-Bahri.[822]

The Egyptian nativity must thus be considered to represent a divine birth no less significant or real to the Egyptians than the much later Christian nativity is to Christians. In factoring the potential influence of the Luxor nativity scene on the religious psyche of the centuries prior to the common era, it needs to be kept in mind that the pharaoh Amenhotep/Amenophis III has been labeled "extremely vain," having commissioned over 1,000 portraits of himself to appear in monuments during his lifetime. Having his birth cycle at such a significant site as Luxor gave Amenhotep greater notoriety than many other rulers, and it is likely his story was highly influential upon later versions of birth narratives. Indeed, it is obvious that the individual featured on the walls of the temple of Luxor, a massive and expensive edifice, was no minor figure, such that it would not surprise us if his birth drama were reenacted as a "cult play" on a regular basis, much like the nativity story of Jesus. As archaeologist Dr. Dieter Arnold of the Metropolitan Museum of Art relates, the Luxor temple was the "location for the annual celebration of the divine birth of the king and the awarding to him of the divine ka,"[823] the "double" and "life force" that accounts for the difference between a living person and a dead body. The fact that there was an annual celebration of the miraculous birth of the divine Egyptian king is, of course, striking, presenting one of several correlations to the Christian nativity.

The nativity scenes at Luxor were not the first to have been created, as similar depictions existed earlier concerning the birth of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut (15th century BCE) in her temple at Deir el Bahari. Nativity scenes were also commonly used in "the Mamisi of the later periods,"[824] mamisi or mammisis constituting "birth rooms" or "birth houses." As explained by Dr. Eric H. Cline, chairman of the Department of Classical and Semitic Languages and Literature at George Washington University, "The worship of the child born of divine parents finds an ultimate expression in the 'birth houses,' or mammisis, of the Greco-Roman period."[825] After bringing up the "so-called Birth House" near the temple of Hathor at Dendera, Karl Baedeker remarks: Similar "Birth Houses" were erected besides all large temples of the Ptolemaic period. They were dedicated to the worship of the sons of the two deities revered in the main temple, in the present case to Har-sem-tewe or Ehy, son of Horus of Edfu and Hathor. This "Birth House" was built by Augustus and some of its reliefs were added by Trajan and Hadrian....[826]

This fact means that these birth scenes or "nativity templates," so to speak, were popular and in the minds of Egyptians beginning at least 3,400 years ago and continuing into the second century of the common era, with its eventual creation of Christianity, which, as we shall see, evidently took yet another page out of the Egyptian holy book. Moreover, as Dr. Arnold says, "Birth houses started as way stations or processional stations entered by the procession of gods performing the mysteries attendant on the birth of the divine child."[827] It is important to note not only that the divine birth was reenacted as a play annually but also that there were mysteries attached to its celebration. Indeed, it is quite possible if not probable that this celebration of the birth of the divine child surrounded by mysteries was along the lines of, if not the same as, that discussed by Epiphanius, Macrobius, the Chronicle author(s) and Cosmas-previously mentioned concerning the baby sun god brought out in the manger, the god identified by Plutarch as Horus.

As Frankfort observes, the connection of the divine child at Luxor and Deir el Bahari to the sun god is undoubted. In his extensive discussion of the birth of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, Breasted states, "Beginning with the Fourth Dynasty, every Egyptian king might bear the title, "Son of Re," the sun-god.[828] Regarding the Egyptian royal birth dramas and the title "son of Re, Breasted further remarks that "in its strictest sense the title indicated that the king was immediately and physically the offspring of the god and a mortal mother..."[829] Breasted also calls these birth scenes a "stereotyped form" and comments that "both Hatshepsut and Amenhotep III used almost identically the same scenes in their birth reliefs..."[830] The imagery itself may be essentially the same in both the Hatshepsut and Amenhotep scenes, and some of the same language is used in both inscriptions. However, even though they have been haphazardly mixed at times, the inscriptions of these two pharaohs' birth cycles are "substantially different," according to Dr. Murnane, a director of the Great Hypostyle Hall Project at the Karnak Temple in Luxor.[831]

In any event, the same gods do appear in both the Hatshepsut and Amenhotep birth narratives, the father god being Amon, Amun or Amen, who is the "successor of Re" in divine kingship paternity. In addition, Amun is not just any god but one of the oldest and most revered-in fact, he is the creator of the world and father of the gods, who was given the attributes of many of the other deities. His temple precinct at the combined Luxor-Karnak sites was not only massive but also extremely long-lived, constructed over a period of some 2,000 years by a multitude of pharaohs and possessing some 80,000 employees during a certain point around 1200 BCE.[832]

Another "divine son of Amun" was Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE), possibly enjoying the same nativity template as Hatshepsut and Amenhotep, which makes sense in consideration of his relationship to Luxor in particular, where he ordered the temple sanctuary to be rebuilt. During his sojourn in Egypt, Alexander was established as a typical pharaoh, receiving honors as "Horus," along with a "Horus name." Thus, in Alexander we possess a divine birth with a major god as father a few centuries prior to the common era, with its similar claims of a Jewish son of God. In Alexander, in fact, emerges a tale about a "divine child" who became the prominent founder of the very city in which we contend much of Christianity was created, meaning that many thousands of people over the centuries had heard this famous birth tale, such that it may well have been in the minds of those who composed the gospel story, lending further credence to the suggestion that the Egyptian divine-birth template itself was used by them as well.

The Amenhotep Birth Cycle.

At Luxor, the pertinent scenes regarding Amenhotep III's birth appear in the temple of Amun "in the first chamber on the east of the holy of holies, on the west wall."[833] In The Nile: Notes for Travellers in Egypt, Budge provides a synopsis of the Luxor panels: First or Lowest Row. 1. Khnemu [Khnum, Kneph], seated opposite Isis, fashioning the body of the young king and his ka or double upon a potter's wheel; he predicts that the child shall be king of Egypt. 2. Amen and Khnemu holding converse. 3. Amen and Mut-em-ua [Mutemuia or Ahmose], wife of Thothmes IV., and mother of Amenophis III., holding converse in the presence of the goddess Selq, or Serq [Selkit], and Neith. In the text the god Amen declares that he had taken the form of the husband of Mut-em-ua and that he is the father of the child who is to be born. 4. Amen and Thothmes IV. 5. Mut-em-ua being embraced by the goddess Isis in the presence of Amen. Second or Middle Row. 1. Thoth telling the queen that Amen has given her a son. 2. The queen being great with child, is being sustained by Khnemu and Isis, who make her to breathe "life." 3. The child is born in the presence of Thoueris, the goddess of children, and Bes, the driver away of evil spirits from the bed of birth. 4. Isis offering the child to Amen, who addresses him as "son of the Sun." 5. The child Amenophis III, seated on the knees of Amen, whilst his destiny is being decreed in the presence of Isis or Hathor; Mut offers to him a palm branch, at the end of which is the emblem of festivals. Amen declares that he will give him "millions of years, like the Sun." Third or Top Row. 1. The queen seated on the bed of birth, and the child being suckled by Hathor in the form of cow. 2. The seven Hathors (?) and two goddesses. 3 The Niles of the South and North purifying the child. 4. Horus presenting the king and his ka to Amen. 5. The gods Khnemu and Anubis. 6. The king and his ka seated and also standing before Amen. 7. Amenophis seated on his throne....[834]

For our present analysis we will explore only a few of these images in any depth, especially scene 3 in row 1, in which we find the god Amun "holding converse" with the virgin queen-it is presumably at this point that the queen conceives the divine child. According to Budge, in row 1, scene 5, Isis embraces the queen, representing a sort of "annunciation"; while, in the first scene of the next row, the god Thoth-the divine messenger-announces to the queen that she will bear a divine "son of God" who is also the "son of the Sun." Adding to this description are details provided by Baedeker in his guidebook on Egypt, including that, in the hotly debated panel 3 of the first row, Amun and the queen are depicted as "seated on the hieroglyph for 'sky' and supported by the goddesses Selkit [Selq] and Neith..."[835]

In the various analyses of these famous images, we find them in a different order at times, such as Budge stating that the god Khnum appeared first, pre-fashioning the god-king and his ka before the sacred marriage and conception takes place, while others put the panel afterwards. The important ram-headed god Khnum, Khnemu or Kneph is called the "creator of the gods," among other epithets, and is equivalent to the "holy spirit," in Christian terminology.

Also, while Budge places the embrace by Isis (Hathor) after the "converse" by Amun and the queen, according to Breasted the "annunciation" to the virgin queen that she is going to be impregnated by a god occurs before the conception, with the goddess "informing the queen of what is to befall her."[836] Confirming Breasted's order, Murnane also tells us that, rather than starting with Khnum, the very first scene in the Luxor birth narrative represents the god Amun-Re watching as the "King's Chief Wife," MUTEMWIA, is embraced by the goddess Hathor.[837] In other words, again, there is an apparent transmission to the queen that Amun-Re would fecundate her, constituting an annunciation before the conception.

In addition to the varying order, we also discover commentary on the birth scenes only from the second row up, excluding the first row altogether, possibly because the latter had not yet been reproduced for study and/or was largely still unknown to European Egyptologists of the time.[838] These analyses begin with the scene of Thoth announcing to the queen, leaving the impression of a "miraculous conception" such as allegedly occurred in the Christian narrative, with the archangel Gabriel announcing to the Virgin Mary that she will give birth, a scene called the "Annunciation."

The Birth of Pharaoh Hatshepsut.

In describing the birth narrative of Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahari, Assyriologist Dr. Leonard William King (1869-1919), also a Keeper of the Egyptian Department at the British Museum, states: ...Amen's first act is to summon the great gods in council, in order to announce to them the future birth of the great princess. Of the twelve gods who attend, the first is Menthu, a form of the Sun-God and closely associated with Amen. But the second deity is Atum, the great god of Heliopolis, and he is followed by his cycle of deities... The subsequent scenes exhibit the Egyptian's literal interpretation of the myth, which necessitates the god's bodily presence and personal participation. Thoth mentions to Amen the name of queen Aahmes as the future mother of her husband, Aa-kheper-ka-Ra (Thothmes I), sitting with Ahmes and giving her the Ankh, or sign of Life, which she receives in her hand and inhales through her nostrils. God and queen are seated on thrones above a couch, and are supported by two goddesses. After leaving the queen, Amen calls on Khnum or Khnemu, the horned ram-headed god, who in texts of all periods is referred to as the 'builder' of gods and men; and he instructs him to create the body of his future daughter and that of her Ka, or 'double', which would be united to her from birth.

...When Amenophis III copied Hatshepsut's sculptures for his own series at Luxor, he assigned this duty [the ankh to the nostril] to the greater goddess Hathor, perhaps the most powerful of the cosmic goddesses and the mother of the world.... Monsieur Naville points out the extraordinary resemblance in detail which Hatshepsut's myth of divine paternity bears to the Greek legend of Zeus and Alkmene...[839]

Here the gods are sitting in council, being 12 in number, a significant development indicating a very ancient instance of a divinity associated with "the Twelve"-as in the story of Jesus-and demonstrating that, like the Greeks and Romans, the Egyptians possessed a circle of 12 gods.[840] Skipping ahead, in panel 9 of Breasted's analysis of the same Hatshepsut cycle, Hathor presents the divine child to Amun, who responds that the child is "his beloved" and that he will reign "upon the Horus-throne forever."[841]

As noted by Dr. King, Naville observed the "extraordinary resemblance" between the Egyptian birth narrative and that of the Greek Son of God, Heracles/Hercules. It should be further noted that Hercules's mother, Alcmene, was said to be a virgin before she miraculously conceived through divine intervention.[842]

As we can see, the order of the scenes in the Hatshepsut cycle is different from that of the Amenhotep narrative. This point of varying order is important to emphasize, in that the Luxor birth template fits more with that of Christ's birth narrative and its pre-conception "Annunciation." Also, this situation shows that if the creators of the Christian narrative wanted to change the order of any template they might be using, they had precedent in the creators of the Luxor cycle and, of course, were free to do so in any event.

The Egyptian birth narrative incorporates much beyond what is portrayed in the Christian nativity. Of course, the obvious correspondences between the Egyptian narratives and the story of Christ include: A god essentially fecundating a mortal woman; an announcement of the conception; an adoration of the divine child by a number of personages; a pronouncement of the divine child as the god's "beloved"; and the declaration that this son of God would reign forever. These correlations in themselves rank as enough evidence that the Christian divine-birth narrative is neither original nor unique.

The Christ Connection.

When it comes to older scholarship, we discover a distinct trend of writers who had little problem seeing correspondences between the Egyptian nativity narrative and that of Jesus Christ. For example, Gerald Massey's summary of the Luxor images and inscriptions appears in his book The Historical Jesus and The Mythical Christ: We shall find that the gospel history was "written before" from beginning to end. The story of the divine Annunciation, the miraculous Conception (or incarnation), the Birth, and the Adoration of the Messianic child, had already been engraved in hieroglyphics and represented in four consecutive scenes upon the innermost walls of the holy of holies in the temple of Luxor which was built by Amenhept III., a Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty. In these the maiden queen Mut-em-Ua, the mother of Amenhept, her future child, impersonates the virgin mother who bore without the fatherhood, the mother as the solar boat, the mother of the Only One...

The first scene on the left hand shows the god Taht [Thoth], the lunar Mercury, the divine Word or Logos, in the act of hailing the virgin queen, announcing to her that she is to give birth to the coming son. In the next scene the god Kneph (in conjunction with Hathor) gives life to her. This is the Holy Ghost or Spirit that causes conception; Kneph being the spirit. Impregnation and conception are made apparent in the virgin's fuller form. Next the mother is seated on the midwife's stool, and the child is supported in the hands of one of the nurses. The fourth scene is that of the adoration. Here the child is enthroned, receiving homage from the gods and gifts from men. Behind the deity Kneph, on the right three men are kneeling and offering gifts with the right hand and life with the left. The child thus announced, incarnated, born, and worshipped was the Pharaonic representative of the Aten sun, the Adon of Syria, and Hebrew Adonai, the child-Christ of the Aten cult, the miraculous conception of the ever-virgin mother personated by Mut-em-Ua.[843]

In Gerald Massey's Lectures appears a shorter essay by the same title that is slightly different but largely consistent.[844] The book version differs from the lecture version in a few instances, however, that indicate the former to have been written after the latter. For example, in the book version, Massey replaces the 18th Dynasty for the 17th, the former being the correct date. In addition, he substitutes the term "miraculous" for "immaculate" when describing the conception and removes the words "magi" and "spirits" as descriptions of the three individuals in the "adoration" scene. These latter changes indicate that Massey's work may have been criticized for using Christian terminology. Yet, it is surprising that no one appears to have taken him to task for not including the first row panel of the birth scene, such that he would be sure to incorporate it in his later analysis, if such had been known to him. It is possible, therefore, that this scene had not been copied and widely distributed from Egypt yet and was not known to European scholars of the day.

Massey ends the lecture edition of his description thus: These scenes, which were mythical in Egypt, have been copied or reproduced as historical in the Canonical Gospels, where they stand like four corner-stones to the Historic Structure, and prove that the foundations are mythical.[845]

Massey describes the scenes in his other works as well, including Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World, in which, regarding the panel with Taht/Thoth "announcing" to the "virgin queen" that she is "to give birth to the coming son," he adds, "That is, to bring forth the royal Repa in the character of Horus or Aten, the divine heir."[846] Thus, the divine child is identified with Horus, as we would expect, since both are the king. From Massey's interpretation of the scenes we can see a number of important correspondences to Christianity.

The depiction of the Luxor scene in terms of its relationship to Christianity emanates not originally from Massey but earlier from Dr. Samuel Sharpe, who presents the last two panels and then makes some surprising remarks: In this picture we have the Annunciation, the Conception, the Birth, and the Adoration, as described in the First and Second Chapters of Luke's Gospel; and as we have historical assurance that the chapters in Matthew's Gospel which contain the Miraculous Birth of Jesus are an after addition not in the earliest manuscripts, it seems probable that these two poetical chapters in Luke may also be unhistorical, and be borrowed from the Egyptian accounts of the miraculous birth of their kings.[847]

Like Dr. Sharpe, we would do well to suspect that the miraculous nativity scene in the gospels is no more "historical" than that of the Egyptian pharaohs. In fact, as we have seen and will continue to see, there is good reason to believe that, despite any differences, the gospel birth narrative was in reality a continuation of this old and ongoing Egyptian nativity tradition.

Egyptologist Sayce evidently concurred with some of Sharpe's conclusions: Yet more striking is the belief in the virgin-birth of the god Pharaoh, which goes back at least to the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty. On the western wall of one of the chambers in the southern portion of the temple of Luxor, Champollion first noticed that the birth of Amon-hotep III. is portrayed. The inscriptions and scenes which describe it have since been copied, and we learn from them that he had no human father; Amon himself descended from heaven and became the father of the future king. His mother was still a virgin when the god of Thebes "incarnated himself," so that she might "behold him in his divine form."[848]

The learned Dr. Sayce's notes indicate that he had before him the inscriptions and was translating them himself. In discussing the age of this virgin-birth concept, Sayce raises the nativity of Hatshepsut and remarks: How much further back in Egyptian history the belief may go we do not know: the kings of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties called themselves sons of the sun-god, and the Theban monarchs whose virgin-mothers were wedded to Amon, incarnate in the flesh, did but work out the old conception in a more detailed and definite way.[849]

Citing Sayce, The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia-again, a respected Christian publication-relates: "The birth of Amenophis III. of Egypt is described on the walls of the temple of Luxor as from a virgin and the god of Thebes, in other words, Ammon-Ra..."[850] Thus, in Sayce's work we possess a qualified authority using primary sources and interpreting them to represent the birth of the sun god and his proxy on Earth, the pharaoh, from a virgin mother and a god as father, a concept dating to very ancient times. The remarks about Amen/Amun being "incarnate in the flesh" and "working out the old conception in a more detailed and definite way" indicate Sayce also had before him the first-row panel, with Amun the queen sitting on a platform facing each other.

Naturally, the pronouncements of Drs. Sharpe and Sayce were met with all sorts of "skepticism" because of their implication of the unoriginality of the Christian nativity scene. It is interesting, however, that such profound skepticism rarely seems to be applied to the improbable divine birth of Jesus Christ, while impossible standards of proof for the existence of the virgin-birth motif within Paganism are often demanded.

The God-King as Horus.

Like Massey, Ernest Busenbark describes the Luxor scenes in much the same way and also identifies the divine child with Horus.[851] In Christianity Before Christ, Dr. John Jackson associates the god-king with Horus and his mother with Isis. This association is not without merit and precedent, since, as we have already seen, the living king was considered to be Horus on Earth, and Horus's birth was extremely significant in Egyptian religion, especially in later times, closer to the common era. Since Hatshepsut is not a queen but a pharaoh herself, she too is equated with Horus, Hare relates, "...Hatshepsut also made the same claims to being Horus and to being the son of Re that we find in all the standard pharaonic titularies."[852] Moreover, both the pharaoh and Horus are thus the "son of the Sun."

In the original birth legend of the "falcon god," it is Amun and Hathor, sometimes called "Mut," which simply means "Mother," who parent the divine child,[853] explaining their presence in the Luxor imagery. In fact, at Luxor there existed a very ancient sun-god festival involving the union of Hathor with the sun god, producing the "divine son," as related by Dr. Erich Neumann: The figure of the virgin bride of God has an analogy in the Luxor festival, where the royal priestess of Hathor joins herself, in an age-old predynastic ritual, to the sun-god for the production of the divine son. Later in patriarchal times, this role was taken over by the king, representing the sun-god.[854]

The sun god in this case must be the hybrid Amun-Re. Indeed, regarding the temple of Luxor, Budge says that "it formed an important part of the sacred buildings of Thebes, which were dedicated to the Theban triad of Amen-Ra, Mut, and Khonsu..."[855] In the later mythology, it is Osiris and Isis who beget the falcon god, i.e., Horus. Indeed, Khonsu was one of the many gods with whom Horus was identified. As Meltzer remarks: "Horus was combined, syncretized, and closely associated with deities other than the sun god Re, notably (but not exclusively) Min, Sopdu, Khonsu, and Montu."[856] As a "divine child" within the various Egyptian triads, Khonsu is also connected to the god Shu, who is likewise identified with Horus.[857]

In his description of "scene 12" at Luxor (Budge's row 3, scenes 1 and 2), in which the queen appears with the goddess Selkis behind her and two goddesses in front, Murnane states that these personages "each suckle a figure of the child, Horus NEBMAATRE,"[858] revealing the babe's Horus name. There are also a couple of (Hathor) cows under the bed, and four times is invoked the wish for the baby to "sit on the Horus throne." Murnane describes scene 13 thus: Two fecundity figures are shown, one bearing symbols of life, the other carrying the infant king and his Ka-the latter carrying on his head a serekh inscribed with the king's Horus name: The Horus, Mighty Bull "Who Appears in Maat."[859]

These "fecundity figures" (the two Niles) are guiding the baby and his ka into the "birth house of Horus and Seth" to be purified.[860] This paragraph with the inscription of the Horus name upon the forehead of the divine child's ka is noteworthy in consideration of the assertion that the birth narrative has "nothing to do with Horus." As we can clearly see, the baby in this scene is the proxy of Horus, as are all living Egyptian kings or pharaohs. Again, Horus is "the primary divine identity of the pharaoh."[861] Indeed, the serekh upon the ka's head is described by Murnane as the hieroglyphic "palace facade" that "encloses the first of the king's 'great names,' which defines him as a manifestation of Horus."[862] Therefore, identifying the baby in this birth narrative as Horus does not constitute an error-and this situation of the miraculous birth of a god and son of God could not have escaped the notice of those who ostensibly imitated the Egyptian divine-birth narrative in creating the Christian one.

Identifying the mother as "Isis" is also not erroneous but would be logical, since she is Horus's mother. Concerning the role of the king as Horus and his mother as Isis, Hornung describes a scene in the burial chamber of Tuthmosis III of "a stylized tree offering its breast to the pharaoh," underneath which is the inscription: "He sucks [on the breast of] his mother Isis."[863] The "Royal Mother Isis," Hornung continues, is the pharaoh's "real mother." The Swiss Egyptologist further remarks upon the fact that Tuthmosis thus "had an Isis as his earthly mother," while "[a]t the same time, the king as Horus on earth is able to return to his heavenly mother Isis..."[864] Hornung also relates that the king, like Horus, is "the loyal son born to Isis...."[865]

Moreover, in various of the hymns to Isis in her temple at Philae, built beginning centuries before the common era, appear references by the king to his "mother" Isis, identifying the Ptolemy who is the hymn's subject as the "beloved son" of the goddess.[866] As abkar relates: Thus Isis, mother of Horus, is also mother of the king, not only because she addresses him as "my beloved son," or "my son, Horus, my beloved," but because his royal function and character are coextensive with those of Horus, her son, who long ago had become the mythical prototype of the Egyptian king, with whom the Ptolemies tended to identify themselves.[867]

In discussing the "Egyptian royal rites," Griffiths also relates that the king's mother is Isis: ...In the coronation rites, attention is naturally focused on the new king, who is equated with Horus, but since Isis is the mother of Horus (in his forms as Horus the Child and Horus the Elder), she figures in the retrospective aspect of such rites, as indeed does Osiris as his father.[868]

Therefore, the divine child is essentially Horus, while his mother is identified with Isis, a perpetual virgin, taking the place of Mut, who, as we have seen, was said in later times to be a virgin mother. In addition, the confounding of Isis and Hathor-resulting in the composite goddess Isis-Hathor[869]-lends further weight to this identification, particularly since it is Hathor who is depicted in the divine-birth narrative as nursing the divine Horus-king's kas, as in scene 12 at Luxor. As Meltzer says concerning Horus's genealogy, "The full picture is more complex: Hathor (herself identified with Isis) also appears as the mother of Horus..."[870] Indeed, the name "Hathor" means "House of Horus," about which Griffiths remarks that "perhaps house here refers to the celestial domain of the falcon god... But her early claims to be the mother of Horus may more probably be implied."[871] As Egyptologist Delia White remarks, "Scenes of Hathor suckling Horus continued to be carved on temple walls down into the New Kingdom period."[872]

In this regard, the images in the nativity scenes are said to represent not only a king and queen but also a god and goddess, specifically Horus and Isis, who is a virgin mother. Hence, when we are debating the nature of certain aspects of the nativity scenes, we must keep in mind that we are addressing mythology, not set-in-stone biography or history. We have already seen that Horus's mother was unquestionably considered the "Great Virgin" in pre-Christian times. It would also follow that, despite any sexual innuendo, the queen too retains her "perpetual virginity" after conceiving and giving birth to the Horus-king, especially when the pharaoh's mother is at times identified with Isis.

Furthermore, concerning the nativity scene at Luxor, Dr. Wiedemann states, "There is a similar scene in a temple of Dendera, dating from about the time of Trajan and representing the birth of the Sun god."[873] From the imagery at Dendera of Bes holding Harpocrates on his shoulder, it would appear that this sun god being born is Horus, in a scene from the second century AD/CE, around the time when Christianity truly began to be formulated. Thus, we have a continual line of divine births of Horus-kings from over 1400 years before the common era until the second century into it-a long-lived motif of obvious notoriety, particularly in consideration of the popularity of Harpocrates previously discussed.

"Soft-Core Porn?"

In his extensive and frequently cited study of the birth scenes of the Egyptian pharaohs, Die Geburt des Gottkonigs, Egyptologist Dr. Hellmut Brunner (1913-1997), a professor of Theology, Archaeology and Egyptology at the University of Tubingen, presents the scenes at Luxor in the following order: 1. Hathor, in the middle, embraces the queen on the left, with Amun on the right.

2. Amun is on the right, with another figure on the left (the god Thoth? King Thothmes IV?).

3. Amun, on the left, turns back and looks at Thoth, who is holding scrolls.

4. The queen is sitting on the left, Amun on the right, of the platform being supported by the two goddesses. Amun is holding an ankh to the queen's nostril.

5. Khnum is on the left, with Amun on the right.

6. Khnum on the right fashioning the king and his ka, with Hathor on the left holding an ankh or cross of life.

7. Thoth announces to the queen.

8. Khnum is on the left and Hathor on the right of the queen, Hathor holding an ankh to her nostril, while Khnum holds one to the back of her head.

9. The queen is sitting on a couch surrounded by five figures on the left and four on the right, one in a group of three holding the baby. Below this couch appear 10 beings, while underneath them are three Anubis figures, three Horuses and the deities Thoueris/Taurt and Bes.

10. Hathor presents the divine child to Amun.

11. Amun is on the right in a throne, holding the baby, with Hathor in the middle saluting and another figure (Mut?) on the left.

12. In this scene several kas are being held and/or nursed by a number of figures.

13. The divine child and his ka are being carried by the two Niles.

14. Horus presents the divine child and his ka to Amun.

15. Once again the divine child and his ka are presented to a company of gods and others.

In his brief analysis of the scenes as portrayed by Dr. Brunner, historian Richard Carrier interprets Brunner's German translation of the inscriptions of scene or panel 4 (Budge's first row, scene 3), to depict a "risque" portrayal of "very real sex" between Amun and the queen: The inscription in Panel 4...describes the god Amun jumping into bed with the human Queen on her wedding night (or at any rate before she consummates her marriage with the human King) disguised as her husband. But she recognizes the smell of a god, so he reveals himself, then "enters her" (sic). The narrative then gets a bit risque-the god burning with lust, queen begging to be embraced, there's kissing going on, Amun's buddy Thoth stands by the bed to watch, and after Amun "does everything he wished with her" she and Amun engage in some divine pillow talk, and so on. At one point the queen exclaims amazement at "how large" Amun's "organ of love" is, and she is "jubilant" when he thrusts it into her. Ah, I lament the death of pagan religion. It's [sic] stories are so much more fun! At any rate, the couple relax after "getting it on," and the god tells her in bed that she is impregnated and will bear his son, Amenophis. To be more exact, the Queen inadvertently chooses the name by telling Amun she loves him, which is what "Amenophis" means.

Despite the giddy "Penthouse Forum" interpretation presented here, there is no mention by Budge, Breasted or Sayce, et al., that the Luxor inscriptions reveal the god "jumping into bed" or engaging in "very real sex," with the queen discussing the size of Amun's "organ of love," or that he specifically "thrusts it into her." Nor is the expression "getting it on" to be found in any rendition of the scene. Budge delicately describes the god and queen merely as "holding converse," while Rev. Dr. James Baikie (1866-1931) elegantly opines that the mother is impregnated by the ankh, "the divine breath of life, which is held to her nose."[874] Neither of these scholars indicates anything sexual about the scene, the implications of which represent the greatest matter of debate about these birth scenes. Like Baikie, Busenbark asserts that the virgin's impregnation occurs with the holding of the ankhs or "crosses of life" to the head and nostrils. Dr. Jackson recounts the scene with "Kneph" (Khnum) and Hathor holding crosses/ankhs to the "head and nostrils" of the virgin queen, after which she becomes "mystically impregnated."[875] Indeed, the activity of Khnum/Kneph putting the ankh to the queen's nostril to impart life constitutes another sort of conception, mystically and spiritually-a significant concept that is not tremendously different from that found within Christianity and that has been claimed as a predecessor for the Christian nativity motif of the Holy Spirit fecundating the Virgin Mary. In his description of Amenhotep's "birth room," Andrew Humphreys avers the conception occurs through the fingertips of the god and queen sitting on the bed/sky, remarking, "You can even see the moment of conception when the fingers of the god touch those of the queen and 'his dew filled her body', according to the accompanying hieroglyphic caption."[876] Nor does Egyptologist Dr. Karol Myliwiec give any inkling of "risque sex" in his brief description of the Luxor scenes in Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period, even though he cites the 1964 edition of Brunner's book in his bibliography, specifically as a source of his information regarding the birth scenes.[877] Other analyses that contain slightly erotic language such as Breasted and Frazer's concern the Hatshepsut inscription, not the Luxor one.[878] In any event, as may be obvious, there exists a debate as to when and how the conception/ impregnation occurs.

Moreover, where Carrier sees "pillow talk," in the image the god and the queen are seated on a platform floating above two goddesses. The pair is therefore not lying down on a bed, as is the impression given by the phrase "pillow talk." In describing the image of the fourth scene, Brunner's German simply relates what we can see: Amun and the queen are discreetly sitting on a "bed," which is simply a platform being held by two goddesses.[879] Again, this "bed" or platform is said to be indicated by the hieroglyph for "sky," while Murnane calls it the "vault of heaven." Describing this scene as "the god Amun jumping into bed with the human Queen" seems to be unnecessarily sexual, even when we factor in the inscription.

For the inscription of this "bed" scene, Carrier refers us to page 42, et seq., of Brunner, upon which we find two main paragraphs in German relating the words spoken by Amun and the queen as reflected in the hieroglyphs surrounding the image. Carrier states this is where the "very real sex" and "soft-core porn" come in. However, in "skimming" Brunner's text, as he puts it, Carrier has mistakenly dealt with the substantially different Hatshepsut text (Brunner's "IV D"), demonstrating an egregious error in garbling the cycles, when in fact we are specifically interested in the Luxor narrative (IV L). Indeed, the Luxor inscription is lacking two important passages found in the Hatshepsut text that could be considered "erotic" but hardly constitute "soft-core porn": "he gave his heart to her" ("er gab sein Herz zu ihr hin") (IV D a) and "she kissed him" ("[sie] kute [ihn]") (IV D d).[880] In the Luxor inscription, there is no kissing or giving of the heart.

This last point is particularly important because there exists another debate as to what the phrase "he gave his heart to her" means in the Hatshepsut inscription that accompanies the "bed" scene. Hare's translation of the pertinent Hatshepsut passage (IV D a) is as follows: Amun...found her asleep deep in the interior of her palace. She awoke at the scent of God and smiled upon His Majesty. He came up to her at once, and He was filled with passion for her, and He gave His heart into her, and He gave unto her His form as god to see. And when He had come before her, she rejoiced at His perfection. The love of Him penetrated her body. The palace was pervaded with the scent of God and every breath was fragrant with Punt.[881]

In his book cleverly titled ReMembering Osiris, one of Hare's main purposes is to explore glossed-over sexuality in Egyptian hieroglyphs. Yet, he only mentions the Hatshepsut narrative in order to demonstrate male dominance, and his translation of the pertinent passage indicates no overt sexuality, other than noting that "the expression 'gave his heart into her' represents a slight alteration of the direct translation of the Egyptian rdj jb=f r=s, which, if translated as 'gave his heart to her' might erroneously evoke the romantic associations of that English expression without the daring sexual significance the phrase had in Egyptian."[882] Hare does not clarify further but cites "Muller, 'Die Zeugung durch das Herz,'" an article the full title of which translates into English as "Procreation through the Heart in Religion and Medicine of Egypt." The germane point here is that Hare does not use the narrative as an object lesson for his thesis of erotic understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs, which he surely would have done, had the scene truly represented "soft-core porn."

While Hare sees the text describing Amun "giving his heart to her" as implying sex, Brunner explains the term "heart" (Herz) as "seat of being."[883] Brunner adds that the sentence could also signify, "He exposed to her his secret,"[884] apparently referring to the revelation of his Godhood in the next phrase. Indeed, Brunner specifically disagrees with the sexual interpretation of "heart," stating that this part when Amun gives his heart to the queen appears too early in the narrative to indicate conception.[885] In Brunner's opinion, the recognition of the god by the queen-"er lie sie ihn sehen in seinen Gottesgestalt," the Egyptian of which Hare renders as "He gave unto her His form as a god to see"-comes before the conception. In fact, Brunner recounts the opinions of several others debating whether or not true sexual intercourse (Zeugungsakt) is meant in the narrative.[886] Indeed, if there is a debate as to whether or not "he gave his heart to her" refers to the conception-and Brunner nevertheless says that it does not-there could not be any clear reference as to when exactly the queen was impregnated and hence no graphic description of sexual intercourse. In any event, this phrase about the heart does not even appear in the Luxor inscription, so the point is moot, and there occurs one less place to look for erotic intention.

Since we are concerned in reality with the Luxor narrative, let us look at the first paragraph of Brunner's German translation of the inscription in scene 4 (IV L a), in which we find the words of Amun, followed by a description of the initial part of the scene: Er fand sie, wie sie ruhte im Innersten ihres Palastes. Sie erwachte wegen des Gottesduftes, sie lachte Seiner Majestat entgegen. Er ging sogleich zu ihr, er entbrannte in Liebe zu ihr; er lie sie ihn sehen in seiner Gottesgestalt, nachdem er vor sie gekommen war, so da sie jubelte beim Anblick seiner Vollkommenheit; seine Liebe, (sie) ging ein in ihren Leib. Der Palast war uberflutet (mit) Gottesduft, und alle seine Geruche waren (solche) aus Punt.[887]

My translation of Brunner's German is as follows: He found her, as she rested in the interior of her palace. She awoke because of the god's scent, and she laughed at His Majesty. He went immediately to her, he was passionately in love with her; he let her see him in his Godliness, after he had come in front of her, so that she rejoiced at the sight of his perfection; his love (it) went into her body. The palace was flooded with God-scent, and all his aromas were (such) out of Punt!

Murnane directly translates the Egyptian of the same scene from Luxor: It was resting in the interior of the palace that he found her. At the god's scent she awoke, and she laughed in front of his Person. He went to her at once, for he lusted after her. He caused her to see him in his godly shape after he had come right up to her, so that she rejoiced at seeing his beauty. Love of him coursed through her limbs, and the palace was flooded the god's scent: all his smells were those of Punt![888]

As we can see, the phrase "he gave his heart to her" is missing, because it was not present in the Luxor narrative. Moreover, what Brunner renders "he was passionately in love with her," Murnane translates as "he lusted after her"; in this regard, Brunner's interpretation is actually less sexy than Murnane's. While there is the word "lusted" and a bit of passion on the part of the queen, there is no mention of Amun's phallus or anything else to give the impression of the "soft-core porn" we encounter in the Carrier interpretation. In fact, again, Murnane's rendition is so tame that it is not a bed upon which the two lovers are seated but the "vault of heaven." Also, the phrase "his love went into her body" does not necessarily mean, as Carrier (or Brunner) apparently believes it does, that he "thrust his organ into her," particularly in consideration of Murnane's translation of the Egyptian as, "Love of him coursed through her limbs." Naturally, the word "love" could also indicate romance, rather than "organ of love." In fact, the Egyptian word for love here is QK mert, which, as we have seen, refers to "divine love."

In addition, when Carrier is relating the words of the queen, he is likewise apparently referring to the section of the Hatshepsut inscription Brunner labels "IV D b," the text of which is substantially different from the Luxor inscription. One phrase in this part of the Hatshepsut inscription for which Brunner uses the German term "umfangen," meaning "embrace," might indicate intercourse.[889] In his translation of the Hatshepsut birth narrative, Frankfort states that the god "went to her immediately; then he had intercourse with her..."[890] Other writers likewise use the word "intercourse" to describe what went on between Amun and the queen Ahmose, Hatshepsut's mother, while still others call it "interview."[891] However, again, whereas the term rendered by Brunner as "umfangen" might indicate "intercourse," this phrase is not in the Luxor inscription.

Brunner's German rendition of the queen's words in the Luxor inscription (IV L b) is as follows: "Wie gro since doch deine Bas! Wie vollkommen ist diese [deine]...! Wie [verborgen] sind die Plane, die du durchfuhrst! Wie zufrieden ist dein Herz uber meine Majestat! Dein Duft ist in allen meinen Gliedern!", nachdem die Majestat dieses Gottes alles, was er wollte, mit ihr getan hatte.[892]

In Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating to the Old Testament, theologian and Bible scholar Dr. Walter Beyerlin, in collaboration with Brunner, provides an English translation of the same Luxor passage as follows: "How great is your power! How perfect is your...! How hidden are the plans which you make! How contented is your heart at my majesty! Your breath is in all my limbs," after the majesty of this god has done with me all that he willed...[893]