The following excerpt, from Chapter 12 of Gerald Massey’s “Ancient Egypt: The Light of The World” goes on to demonstrate how the episode of the raising of Lazarus, by Jesus, in the New Testament, is almost entirely inspired by the resurrection of Osiris by Horus, in Egypt.
I will not attempt to crosscheck Massey’s claims, and to demonstrate the extent to which he’s correct.
I have not read the Ancient Egyptian texts, except several hymns and excerpts, myself, and will not claim any expertise in Egyptology.
However, Massey is an expert in his subject, whether or not we agree completely with his conclusions.
As the fascinating Theosophist Alvin Boyd Kuhn wrote in his book “The Lost Light”:
“...he was an English literary figure of some prominence in the latter half of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th.
He studied the Egyptian hieroglyphics for 40 years and had a force of transcribers employed in his later years of investigation to assemble the material from the monuments, tombs and papyri.
His interpretation of Egyptian writings has been all too largely ignored by savants, yet he has the merit of having approached the task with a mind free from scholastic, theological or conventional biases, which have so utterly blinded the discernment and vitiated the conclusions of orthodox authorities.
It is permissible for us to state that it was his works that opened our eyes to the hidden meaning under the material, when the works of more accredited specialists in the field had left us without a single enlightening hint.
Massey is the only scholar in whose hands the recondite Egytpian material begins to take on rational significance.
All the others leave it resembling unintelligible nonsense. ”
Massey has made a very strong case in identifying the resurrection of Lazarus with the resurrection of Asar {i.e. Osiris}, and I do think he’s correct in saying that the Egyptian myth is rehashed in the Biblical.
Yet, I agree, not as an Egyptologist, but plainly on his own terms, considering what evidence he has offered.
There are important differences between the two accounts, but there are equally important similarities, and indeed very striking ones.
They are not identical in every detail, and such an idea would be ludicrous.
We look for similarities, not mirror-images.
Indeed, I’d first read about this in Kuhn’s book about 14 years ago.
I do think Kuhn makes some errors in his enthusiasm, but his own words are worth quoting, and in a way, summarize the entire issue:
“... Horus, the Egyptian Christ, who is identical with the Jesus of the Gospels in some 180 particulars, performed at Anu a great miracle.
{By “Anu” is meant the Egyptian city called “Heliopolis” by the Greeks – “Heliopolis” i.e. (in Greek) the “City of the Sun”.
This was typically known as “An” or “On”.
Modern experts have rendered it “Iunu” or something.
I don’t think the message substantially changes, even if the city was known as “Iunu” in Egyptian, because the Hebrew/Aramaic version around the time of the putative Jesus, was “On” or “An” or “Anu”.}
...
He raised his father Osiris from the dead, calling unto him in the cave to rise & come forth.
Anu, as we have seen, became Bethany of the Gospels; & it was at Bethany that Jesus raised Lazarus from death!
{Bethany = Beth + Anu = The House of Anu}
...
And who was Lazarus?
Here the greatest of all the marvels in this chain of comparative data unfolds under our eyes.
According to Budge and other eminent Egyptologists the ancient designation of Osiris was ASAR.
But the Egyptians invariably expressed reverence for deity by prefixing the definite article “the” to the names of their Gods.
Just as Christians say, or should say, the Christ, they said: the Osiris.
It will be found that the article connoted deity in ancient usage.
Our definite article, “the” is the root of the Greek word theos, God; the Spanish article, masculine, “el,” is the Hebrew word for God; and the Greek masculine article, “ho,” is a Chinese word for deity.
To say the Osiris was equivalent to saying Lord Osiris.
When the Hebrews took up the Egyptian phrases and names they converted the name of “the Osiris” or “Lord Osiris” directly into their own vernacular, and the result was “El-Asar.”
Later on the Romans, speaking Latin, took up the same material that had come down from revered Egyptian sources and to “El-Asar” they added the common Latin termination of the second declension masculine nouns, in which most men’s names ended, namely, “-us”; and the result was now “El-Asar-us.”
In time the initial “E” wore off, as the scholars phrase it, and the “s” in Asar changed into its sister letter “z,” leaving us holding in our hands the Lazarus whom Jesus raised at Bethany!
To evidence that this derivation is not a fanciful invention or sheer coincidence the Biblical names of High Priests may be cited.
We find one with the name of El(e)azar and another by name Azar-iah, “iah” or “jah” being suffixes of great deific connotation, matching “el.”
And so we are faced with the irrefutable evidence of Comparative Religion that Jesus’ raising of Lazarus at Bethany is but a rescript of the old Egyptian dramatic mystery in which Horus, the Christ, raised his “dead” father Osiris, or El-Asar-us from the grave.
And the Egyptian recital was in the papyri perhaps 5000 years B.C.
...
Also at the Egyptian scene were present the two divine sisters, Isis and Nephthys.
An old source-name for Isis was Meri, basic for the Latin mare, the sea.
The Egyptian plural of Meri was Merti.
In Latin feminine form this became Mertae.
In Hebrew it resolved into what was rendered in English as Martha.
So even in the ancient Egyptian transaction there were present the two Maries, or Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus!”
So basically we have:
1. Osiris – in Egyptian, Asar – is Lazarus = L-Azar-us = El-Asar = Asar
2. Horus = Jesus
3. Mary {Magdalene}= Meri = Isis-Hathor
4. Martha = also Meri, but derived from the plural, Mertae or Merti
{I will attempt to show that “Martha” has direct roots in Ancient Egyptian, and is not necessarily taken from the plural of “Meri”.}
5. Anu or Heliopolis = Beth-Anu = Bethany
As is well known, in the Ancient Egyptian pantheon, the hawk-god Horus is invariably {not necessarily} the son of Osiris.
He resurrects his father, Osiris.
The place where Osiris is resurrected is Annu, which was called Heliopolis by the Greeks.
This place is also “An” or “Anu” or “On”.
According to Massey and Kuhn, this “Anu” becomes “Bethany” in the Bible, i.e. Beth + Anu, “Beth” meaning “House”, and “Bethany” being a variant of “House of Anu” i.e. the place of Anu.
Along with Osiris are his sister-wives, Isis and Nephthys.
Another name for Isis is Meri, which becomes Mary, the sister of Lazarus, in the Gospel, she who is also known as Mary Magdalene.
In plural, both sisters can be called “Merti” which term enters the name of the other sister in the Gospel account, Martha.
There is undoubtedly a strong kernel of truth in all this.
Consider the fact that in Egyptian, the word “mer” means “any collection of water, lake, pool, cistern, reservoir, basin, canal, inundation, flood, stream”.
How is this not connected to the “Indo-European” root “mer” which means “sea”, or the “Proto-Indo-European” root “mori” – “sea, standing water” – which is said to lead to words such as the Latin “mare”, the English “marine” etc.?
Kuhn makes the right connection.
I’ve pointed out once earlier that the name “Mary” refers to the Sea or Ocean, as in the Ocean of Heaven, or the Skies, not just our terrestrial ocean of salty water.
There has never been any “transcription error” or misunderstanding in this.
If the name is ultimately traceable to a Hebrew word meaning “bitterness” – which doesn’t make much sense anyway – reference might be to sea-water, which is brackish or salty, and doesn’t quench one’s thirst.
The “marine” connections remain.
Virgin Mary is the sea, or ocean, or lake, or fountain, or a large collection of water.
That is why she was so often depicted with a blue mantle, or in blue robes, and sometimes, a blue robe with golden stars all over it.
{This is also traceable to the Egyptian goddess of the Sky or Heaven, Nut, whose body was painted over with stars, and who was also depicted as blue-bodied.
Massey derives Joseph from Seb or Geb, the consort of Nut.
Ernst Wallis Budge writes of Hathor in “The Gods of the Egyptians”: “...her body is sometimes marked with crosses, which are probably intended to represent stars”...}
This association of Mary with the colour blue, was turned into a mighty philosophic statement of the “Faustian” Man by Oswald Spengler in his “Decline of the West”.
There can be many seas or oceans, and in Indian literature, it invariably means, neither the ocean out there, nor the sky up there, but the Sky or Firmament or the Space within the Heart.
Whether or not this meaning was a part of Christian thought, clearly, the word “Mary” as Ocean is directly traceable to Ancient Egypt, because “mer” is said to mean “any collection of water, lake, pool, cistern, reservoir, basin, canal, inundation, flood, stream” in Egyptian.
In Sanskrit, similarly, the word “sindhu” means “flood, stream, river, waters” as well as “ocean, sea”.
It is not difficult to see why the Son of Mary the Ocean is Ichthys the Fish, and there’s so much fish-symbolism surrounding Jesus.
{Remember what Madam Blavatksy wrote in “Isis Unveiled” {Part 2, Chapter 6}:
“It is well known, that the earliest Christian emblems—before it was ever attempted to represent the bodily appearance of Jesus—were the Lamb, the Good Shepherd, and the Fish.
The origin of the latter emblem, which has so puzzled the archaeologists, thus becomes comprehensible.
The whole secret lies in the easily-ascertained fact that, while in the Kabala, the King Messiah is called “Interpreter”, or Revealer of the mystery, and shown to be the fifth emanation, in the Talmud—for reasons we will now explain—the Messiah is very often designated as “DAG,” or the Fish.
This is an inheritance from the Chaldees, & relates—as the very name indicates—to the Babylonian Dagon, the man-fish, who was the instructor and interpreter of the people, to whom he appeared.
Abarbanel explains the name, by stating that the sign of his (Messiah's) coming “is the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the sign Pisces.”
Therefore, as the Christians were intent upon identifying their Christos with the Messiah of the Old Testament, they adopted it so readily as to forget that its true origin might be traced still farther back than the Babylonian Dagon.”}
Indeed, in Egyptian “mer” also means:
1. a sea-going ship
2. pleasure boat
3. swampy land
4. the basin of a harbour, port, quay, harbour
5. the protecting spirit of the Inundation {this refers to the annual, periodical flooding of the Nile, which was the source of all life, all fertility, all agriculture, all prosperity in Egypt – the protecting spirit of the Inundation would thus, be a spirit of water}
Keep in mind the ship-boat connection, and the words which follow the above passage from “Isis Unveiled” immediately after:
“How eagerly and closely the ideal of Jesus was united, by the early Christians, with every imaginable kabalistic & Pagan tenet, may be infered from the language of Clemens, of Alexandria, addressed to his brother co-religionists.
When they were debating upon the choice of the most appropriate symbol to remind them of Jesus, Clemens advised them in the following words: “Let the engraving upon the gem of your ring be either a dove, or a ship running before the wind (the Argha), or a fish.”
Was the good father, when writing this sentence, laboring under the recollection of Joshua, son of Nun (called Jesus in the Greek and Slavonian versions); or had he forgotten the real interpretation of these Pagan symbols?
Joshua, son of Nun, or Nave (Navis), could have with perfect propriety adopted the image of a ship, or even of a fish, for Joshua means Jesus, son of the fish-god; but it was really too hazardous to connect the emblems of Venus, Astarte, and all the Hindu goddesses—the argha, dove, and fish—with the “immaculate” birth of their god!”
In other words, Jesus was to be depicted, not only as a fish, but also as a ship – “mer” in Egyptian.
I think it would be more appropriate to say that Jesus-Joshua was the Fish-god rather than the son of the fish-god, but Blavatsky is probably referring to the fact that in Aramaic, “Nun” means “Fish” – in Arabic nūn means large fish or whale – and since Jesus and Joshua are the same, and Joshua is the Son of Nun, i.e. the Son of the Fish, Jesus is also the Son of the Fish.
Which would, of course, be a fish.
There’s also a link with the Great Syrian Fish Goddess, Derketo or Atergatis – who obviously is more closely reflected in Mary Magdalene than in Virgin Mary, though they’re all the same goddess.
But do note, that in Egypt,
· “nenu” is the Sky-god,
· “nunu” is the Sky-god,
· “nenu” is a name of the Nile-god, and
· “Nen” is, again, the Sky-god.
The idea of “fish” is inseparable from the idea of “water” – and the water or ocean or sea here is the Sky or Heaven.
Jesus/Joshua the Son of Nun is the Son of Heaven.
The Fish is the Sun itself, swimming through the waters of the Sky, or the firmamental waters, or waters of space.
{Almost any celestial body could be likened to a fish, or aquatic creature.}
The Middle Eastern “Nun” is inextricably linked to, or derived from, these Egyptian terms, ultimately traceable to “Nu”.
Also, “mer” means “to love, to desire, to wish for, to crave for, to will”.
1. “meri” means “lover, a loved one, something loved”
2. “mer-mer” means “lovely, amiable”.
3. “mer-t” means “love, desire, wish, something loved, longed for or wished for”.
{This ties in with the word “merry”, which doesn’t seem to be traced to its correct roots – the root is evidently Egyptian.}
4. “merr” means “to wish for, to desire, to love”
5. “meriu” means “those who love, lovers, friends”
6. “merut” means “beloved woman, sweetheart”
7. “meruti” means “beloved”
All these words, and the related concepts, do tie in to the image of Mary Magdalene’s ardent love for, and devotion to, Jesus – the subtly erotic undertone of their relationship in the Bible – the apocryphal views of his loving her very specially – the legends about her being his “concubine” – the sexual relationship between them indicated in Gnostic texts – and of course, the more recent controversies about her being his wife & the mother of his child.
In a certain sense, “mer” and related words, through the romantic-erotic connotations, also point to Magdalene being a prostitute: a woman of desire, or a woman who satisfies desire, or who arouses desire.
Related to the words listed above, the Egyptian
· “mer” means “pleasure boat”,
· “merå” means “lover, friend”, and
· “Merr” – “the beloved”, is a title of several Egyptian gods.
This last seems to tie in very much with the name Mary itself, as in that of the Virgin Mary.
The importance of the name is Egyptian.
Merå is an ancient name of Egypt!
Budge quotes several Egyptian passages which make mention of the term “Rā-Meri” – i.e. referring to one of the greatest, most popular Egyptian gods, Rā – but the precise significance of the “Meri” is not clear to me.
“Meri” seems to be an important term.
As for “Martha”, according to Wiktionary, the word “Martha” is traceable to the Aramaic word “martā”, which means:
1. lady, mistress, ruler
2. owner
Now, in Egyptian, “mer” {which undoubtedly goes into the word “Mar-tha”}, also means:
1. overseer,
2. chief officer,
3. head,
4. superintendent,
5. director,
6. foreman
This certainly ties in to the meanings of “mistress, ruler, owner”.
“mer uåau”, for example, means “overseer of the boats, captain of the fleet”.
We do see a faint reflection of this sense in the Gospel of Luke, how Martha is the one doing all the work, while her sister Mary sits at the feet of Jesus and listens to his preaching.
Martha is the active, dynamic one – the one in charge.
Jesus’s relationship with “Martha” {indeed, her entire role in the Gospel scheme} is more hazy, but as we can see, the word or name “Martha” is not only linked to the word “Mary”, but also to the Egyptian “mer” and its variants.
It doesn’t have to be traced to the plural of “Meri”.
Akin to the Latin “mare” and Egyptian “mer”, the Egyptian “merit” also means
1. “lake, reservoir”,
and is
2. the name for the Goddess of the Inundation, i.e. of the flood, or water;
3. river bank, landing stage, sea coast, port, quay, dam;
4. celestial lake, heaven, sky.
Because heaven, or the sky, was often imaged as a great lake or an ocean or the sea.
Also note:
· “merit” means “love, desire, wish”,
· “meriti” means “beloved”,
· “mer-t” is the title of a priestess at Hermopolis.
The words “mer” and “merit” have similar meanings, and one may make a cautious but highly likely guess that
· “Mary” comes from the Egyptian “mer” or “meri” and
· “Martha/Marta” comes from the Egyptian “merit”/“merti”/“mer-t”, etc.
but since the words are related, and “merit” etc. are rooted in “mer” – one may say that “Martha” maybe ultimately traceable to “Meri” or “mer”.
The idea that Mary Magdalene might’ve been a Sacred Prostitute may conceal an uneasy ancient secret buried deep over the centuries – but while she has remained in the limelight people tend to ignore the role & meaning of her sister Martha.
They might be twin-sisters, or simply embody the timeless motif of twin siblings – Romulus & Remus, Apollo & Artemis, Jacob & Esau – one invariably being preferred over the other.
Both the sisters are evidently Goddesses of Love, of sexual desire, of eroticism.
Both “mer” and “merit” mean “love, desire” in Egyptian.
They are fertility figures.
They are intimately related to Aphrodite-Venus {note the ocean or water-body connection} and to Derketo-Atargatis {the ocean-fish goddesses of love in the Middle East, wearing the tower-crown} – and ultimately, to Cybele-Rhea {also endowed with the tower-crown or mural-crown}.
These in turn are all versions of Hathor-Isis.
Hathor, as Budge writes in “The Gods of the Egyptians” Vol.1, is:
“Ḥet-Ḥert, name of the goddess, means the “House above,” i.e., the region of the sky or heaven, and another form of it, which is to be read Ḥet-Ḥeru, and which means “House of Horus,” shows that she was a personification of the house in which Horus the Sun-god dwelt, and that she represented the portion of the sky through which the course of the god lay...
{This is important because the same concepts are associated with Virgin Mary.
For instance, she is the “Tower of David” – and the “Domus Aurea”, the Golden Palace, or the House of Gold.
As John Henry Newman put it:
“But why called a house or palace? And whose palace?
She is the house and the palace of the Great King, of God Himself.
Our Lord, the Co-equal Son of God, once dwelt in her.
He was her Guest; nay, more than a guest, for a guest comes into a house as well as leaves it.
But our Lord was actually born in this holy house.
He took His flesh and His blood from this house, from the flesh, from the veins of Mary.
Rightly then was she made to be of pure gold, because she was to give of that gold to form the body of the Son of God.
She was golden in her conception, golden in her birth.
She went through the fire of her suffering like gold in the furnace, and when she ascended on high, she was, in the words of our hymn.”
Though he’s a much later author, Newman has struck upon the most crucial & original point out here.
Mary is the House of Christ, just as Hathor was the House of Horus.
She is also the “Tower of Ivory”.
The word “David” is supposed to mean “Beloved” – exactly the same as “mer” and “merit” above.
“Tower of David” literally translates to “Tower of the Beloved”.
In the Song of Solomon, the Shulamite’s neck is called the “Tower of David” {SoS 4.4} – the neck being the special region associated with Venus.
Do note that the Shulamite’s neck is also likened to a “tower of ivory” {SoS 7.4} – which is another title of The Virgin.
There is perfect consistency in all the allusions, symbols, words, and concepts.
Magdalene itself comes from “Migdol” or “Magdol” which means “tower” or “watch-tower”.
The tower is, in one sense, the Mountain – and almost necessarily associated with it.
Unsurprisingly, in Egyptian, “mer” also means Pyramid – the tower & the mountain par excellence.
In passing, allow me to note that the neck itself may covertly allude to the birth-canal or yoni: the “Word” is born from the throat or mouth, as the child emerges from the yoni.
To continue with Budge’s description of Hathor & her worship:}
In the earliest times Hathor...typified only that portion of the sky in which, Horus, the oldest form of the Sungod, had been conceived and brought forth, and her domain was in the east of the sky; but at length she came to represent the whole sky, and in so doing, she, no doubt, absorbed many of the attributes of predynastic goddesses.
...
She was, in fact, the great mother of the world, and the old, cosmic Hathor was the personification of the great power of nature which was perpetually conceiving, and creating, and bringing forth, and rearing, and maintaining all things, both great and small.
She was the “mother of her father”, and “the daughter of her son”, and heaven, earth, and the Underworld were under her rule, and she was the mother of every god and every goddess.”
And, please note:
“The Greeks identified Hathor with, their goddess Aphrodite, and there are many passages in the Egyptian texts which show that they were justified in doing so.
She represented not only what was true, but what was good, and all that is best in woman as wife, mother, and daughter; she was also the patron goddess of all singers, dancers, and merry-makers of every kind, of beautiful women, and of love, of artists and artistic works, and also of the vine and wine, and ale and beer, and, in fact, of joy and happiness, and of everything which contributed thereto.”
Like Mary, Martha might also be seen as a priestess, and by extension, as a goddess.
That Isis and Hathor are known as Meri merely clinches the deal.
Meriti is a form of Osiris.
The primal Egyptian gods & goddesses, according to Budge, were known as “merti”.
It is these Venusian Goddesses of Love {Mary-Martha, as well as Virgin Mary} who are subordinated to Jesus – and he is said to expel the demons out of Magdalene, the Great Goddess of Prostitution.
This is nothing but the subjugation of the Ancient Mother Goddess with her erotic fertility rites, by the severe austerity of patriarchal Father-worship.
And while we’re at it, let me point out that in Egyptian:
1. mer, meru mean desert – this is nearly identical to the Sanskrit word for desert, maru.
2. mer, meru also mean mountain – and while this is obviously found in India {India’s most important mythical mountain being Meru}, the Sanskrit word maru also means mountain.
The connections multiply rapidly – one could go on & on & on.
Should one extend this thread?
One could easily say that this Egyptian “mer” which is at the root of words like “Mary” and “Martha”, and means love & desire, and is connected to pleasure boats & the ocean – becomes Amor — the Latin God of Love {i.e. Eros or Cupid}, and child of the Ocean-born Aphrodite-Venus.
It appears that while Massey is non-existent within, and Kuhn more or less despised by, the “mainstream” scholarship – they are, infact, correct.
They might not have revealed or known every facet of the origins of myths & symbols – they might not be absolutely correct in every detail – but they unveil a very important connection here.
If one starts digging, one will indeed find that almost every other word or concept in the Bible is traceable to Ancient Egypt.
The Bible appears increasingly to be the brainchild of the African race.
Take for instance that according to Wikipedia, the word “Amen” – which is used at the end of Biblical prayers & benedictions – is explained thus {italics mine}:
“Grammarians frequently list ʾāmán under its three consonants (aleph-mem-
Indeed, in Egyptian, “amen” means to make firm, to stablish, to fortify.
This is how the word is used at the end of every prayer or benediction – as something which reinforces, establishes, confirms, and makes sure {by agreement, acceptance & approval} the words spoken.
“Amen” means “May it be so” – in other words, may it be established firmly as true or abiding.
It sets the seal of approval on the blessing – making it sure & permanent.
Egyptian “amenu” means “made firm, established”.
By saying “Amen”, one af-firms and establishes one’s faith in the words spoken, or the prayer — one establishes one’s submission to the divine law & to the sacred writ — one con-firms one’s acceptance of the dogma & the authority underlying the rite.
It indicates a making sure of one’s faith.
Thus, if one starts digging, one can discover a million connections, which seem to go completely unreported by the “mainstream” scholars.
It might be a little extreme to say that the Biblical cult is simply a Hebrew-Middle-Eastern adaptation and continuation of the Cult of Amen, and that at the end of every prayer & every blessing, all Christians simply recite the name of the great Egyptian Amen! – but let’s not jump that far.
That Adam may be related to the Egyptian Tem, Atem, or Atum – and the Biblical Adonai to Aten/Aton – is again controversial, and can be taken up sometime else.
There is no need or desire for hasty conclusions.
Returning to the subject of this post, “Lazarus”, or “Eleazar” does seem to be a combination of “El” and “Asar” – that is, the Middle Eastern title for God {“El”} – and the Egyptian name of Osiris {“Asar”}.
He is Osiris written into the Middle Eastern, Semitic, Hebraic language & mythology.
The word “Bethany” also has no satisfactory explanations in mainstream scholarship.
Massey’s theory is way more convincing.
This post is meant to be a pointer for further research, and an attempt to give certain unexpected glimpses into lost history, lost wisdom, and lost connections, which underlie and explain a lot of mythological material which seems inexplicable and confusing today.
I’ll repeat: if one starts searching, one will find innumerable clues and connections.
Take for instance the simple fact that there’s a Mary in the Gospel accounts and in two of them she’s connected to tombs & dead-bodies.
Lazarus, the brother of Mary & Marta, is lying dead in a tomb.
One of the great miracles performed by Jesus consists in his bringing Lazarus back to life.
Now the Egyptian “mer” not only means pyramid, it also means tomb.
{The pyramids themselves have been thought to be tombs, though there’s no absolute evidence that they were built as tombs.}
Lazarus, Mary’s brother, who comes back to life & comes forth from a tomb, being Asar, makes sense because Osiris is the most famous dying-resurrecting god of Egypt.
She is invariably depicted along with Marta in these resurrection scenes by the tomb.
In many portrayals of the Resurrection, Lazarus is depicted like an Egyptian mummy, bandaged from head to foot.
I doubt if Jewish people are buried swathed head-to-toe in bandages: this is a quintessential Egyptian motif.
Mary, or Meri, or Mer – as Magdalene – is again associated with a tomb – she not only witnesses Jesus’s death & burial, but also, according to Gospel accounts, goes to his tomb.
As noted, “mer” means “tomb”.
In Matthew 28.1, “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb”.
These are both Mary, or Meris.
According to John 20.1, “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance”.
One cannot help wondering that there’s something much deeper going on here.
A “Mary” – whether as the Virgin Mary, or as Mary Magdalene, or as “the other Mary”, or as “the Three Maries” – is always associated with the death, entombment, the tomb, and resurrection, of Jesus.
Further, a Mary & a Marta are also associated with the death, the tomb, and the resurrection, of Lazarus.
In Egypt, “Mer” is the name of a Protector of the dead.
The two sisters Marta and Mary are evidently in conflict – Marta complains that Mary has dumped all the work on her.
Besides reflecting vaguely the timeless motif of the bickering twins, in Egyptian, “Merti” refers to two fighting sisters!
I don’t think all these correspondences are arbitrary, happenstance, or meaningless.
It isn’t very surprising that everything in the New {and Old} Testament can be traced to Egypt.
Both Judaism and Christianity developed in, out of, and in closest quarters to, Egypt.
Though modern scholarship tends to look for origins and roots of Biblical culture in the Middle East itself – and there’s nothing wrong with the approach – it looks like Massey is correct in thinking that the influence of Egypt runs much deeper.
Horus is the greatest & oldest of all Egyptian gods.
He is followed by Osiris, Ra, and Amen.
At the time Christianity was burgeoning, the cults of Isis & Osiris were the rage, as were those of Apis & Serapis.
{It couldn’t have escaped the notice of the early Christians, that Apis was worshipped alongside another Bull-deity, “Mnevis” – “Mnevis” being the Greek rendition of the Egyptian Mer-ur: who was, interestingly, worshipped at Heliopolis, or “Anu”, the site of Osiris’s resurrection, and the Bethany of Mary, Martha, & Lazarus.}
Their direct impact on the development of Christianity isn’t astonishing in the least.
Alexandria, under and after the Ptolemies, would be more influential on the incipient cult than Sumeria, which had disappeared almost 2,000 years before that.
All these words and concepts can be, and must be, examined and analyzed further.
More relations and revelations would follow.
That has to be the task for the future.
All in good time!
The excerpt from Massey is as follows {some sentences have been split by bullets, for easier & faster reading; all highlights, underlines, and italics, have been made by me}:
The canonical gospels may be described as different collections of ‘episodes’ & ‘sayings,’ & one of the most disconnected of these episodes is to be found in the raising of Lazarus from the tomb that ‘was a cave,’ which contains a version of the resurrection of Osiris from the cave.
The subject of all subjects in the religious mysteries of the Egyptians was the resurgence of the human soul from death and its transformation into an eternal spirit.
This is the foundation of the Book of the Dead or Ritual of the resurrection.
So far as we know, this resurrection was originally represented in the mysteries of Memphis, where Kheper-Ptah was the divinity that rose again in mummy-form from which the soul was seen to issue forth as a divine hawk.
On entering Amenta as a still living being, though but a soul in matter, the Osiris, late deceased, addresses the god in the character of those powers who effect the triumph of Osiris over all his adversaries, the chief of whom is Horus, in whose name he is magically assimilated to the Son of God, and thus is one with Horus in his resurrection from the dead.
It has now to be shown that the resurrection of Osiris in Annu has been partially reproduced as the raising of Lazarus in Bethany.
Osiris reposing in Annu is an image of the soul inert in matter or in decay and death.
Hence he was portrayed in the likeness of the mummy called 'the breathless one,' also the god with the non-beating heart, who is laid out in the burial-place as a corpse-like form lying extended at full length, awaiting his resurrection from the funeral couch, or the transfiguration into the risen sahu of the glorified.
...
In his first advent Horus is the son of Seb, God of earth.
In his second, he is the son of Ra, the Holy Spirit.
It is in this latter character that he enters Amenta to represent the resurrection of the Osiris in the earth of eternity.
The resurrection of the sun from out the grave of night;
the re-arising of vegetation from the grip of winter; and of
the waters returning periodically from their source;
that is the resurrection in external nature; it was, in short, the resurrection of new life from the old, in a variety of phenomena, mystically imaged by zootypes like
· the serpent of Rannut;
· the frog or beetle of Ptah;
· the shoot of papyrus, or
· the green branch of endless years.
The doctrine culminated in a resurrection of the soul of human life from the body of death that was imaged by the mummy-Osiris, the god who in his rising again united all phases of the doctrine under one type of the resurrection, viz., that of the risen mummy defecated to the consistency of a sahu, or a spiritual body.
...
It is as the reconstitutor of his father in Amenta that Horus raises Osiris from the tomb.
He calls the mummy to come forth and assume the likeness of Ra the later god.
Osiris is now glorified by Ra the Holy Spirit.
The mummy being an image of the earlier body-soul that was transubstantialized into spirit.
As it is said, Osiris is ‘renewed in an instant,’ and it is his son Horus who thus establishes him upon ‘the pedestal of Tum’ (Atum Ra) the god in spirit.
...
The resurrection of the human soul in the afterlife was the central fact of the Egyptian religion, and the transfigured, re-erected mummy, otherwise called the karast, was a supreme symbol.
The opening day of New Year, the day of ‘Come thou to me,’ was named from the resurrection, which was solar in the mythos and spiritual in the eschatology.
The mummy-type was divinized to preserve intact that bodily form which suffered dissolution after death.
This, as mummy of the god in matter, was a type inviolate and imperishable.
Osiris in his coffin does not see corruption.
In him was life for evermore.
And as with the divine exemplar, so was it postulated for all who died in Osiris.
He was terribly mutilated by the evil Sut, and his mummy had to be joined together again piecemeal, for as it is said to Osiris, ‘I come to embalm thee,’ thou hast existence ‘with thy members’ when these were put together.
And again, ‘I have come myself and delivered the god from that pain and suffering that were in trunk, in shoulder and in leg.’
‘I have come and healed the trunk, and fastened the shoulder and made firm the leg.’ This was in reconstituting the personality, which was performed in a mystery when the different parts of Osiris, the head, the vertebra, the thigh, the leg, the heel were collected at the coffin.
But the god in matter was also the god in spirit according to the mystery or modus operandi of the resurrection; or he became so by being blended with Ra in his resurrection.
...
In the Kamite mythos as in the totemic sociology, the son (of the mother) was earlier than the father.
When it is said in the texts ‘I am a son begotten of his father; I am a father begotten of his son,’ the sense of the expression turns on the son of the mother having been earlier than the father of the son.
Child-Horus, Har-si-Hesi, is the mother’s son.
Mother and son, as As-Ar; Isis and child, passed into the complex of Asar or Osiris, the one great god in whom all previous powers were merged and unified at last.
Isis had embodied a soul in matter or flesh, as her child, when there was as yet no God the Father, no God the Son, no Horus in spirit.
This fatherhood of the spirit was founded in Atum-Ra the father of spirits.
Thence followed the sonship in spirit of Horus in his second character as divine adult.
Ra in spirit represented the supreme type of deity whose symbol is the sun or solar hawk.
Osiris remained the god in matter as the mummy in Amenta; Ra is described as calling on Osiris in the resurrection and is also said to bid the mummy ‘come forth,’ when the deity in matter was to be united with the god in spirit.
But Horus, the Son of God, the beloved only begotten son, is now the representative of Ra and the chief agent in the raising of the mummy—Osiris from the dead.
He is the son who comes to the assistance, not only of the father, for the mummy-Asar is both Isis and Osiris in one body.
Hence it is said in the chapter by which the tomb is opened for the Osiris to come forth, ‘I am Horus the reconstituter of his father, who lifteth up his father, and who lifteth up his mother with his wand (rod or staff).’
As it is said in the Ritual, ‘it is Horus who hath reconstituted his father and restored him’—after the mutilation of his body by the murderer Sut.
He descends into the funeral land of darkness and the shadow of death.
He opens the Tuat to drive away the darkness so that he may look upon his father's face.
He says pathetically, ‘I am his beloved son. I have come to pierce the heart of Sut and to perform all duties to my father.’
Horus the prince in Sekhem also uplifts his father as Osiris-Tat with his two arms clasped behind him for support.
In this mythical character of the son who gives life, reconstitutes, restores and re-establishes his father, the Egyptians continued an inner African type of the ‘Son who makes his Father.’
Miss Kingsley called attention to a function of the Oil-river-Chief who has to observe the custom of ‘making his father’ once every year.
The custom is sacred and symbolical, as the deceased chief need not be his own real father, but must be his predecessor in the headmanship.
This custom of ‘making his father’ by the son survived and was perpetuated in the mythology of Egypt, in which Horus is the son who makes, or ‘reconstitutes,’ his father once a year, and describes it as one of his duties in the Book of the Dead.
This resurrection of the father as the soul of life in matter, i.e., the mummy-soul, by Horus the son, is the great mystery of the ten mysteries which are briefly described in the 18th chapter of the Ritual.
...
In a later scene there is another description of the resurrection of Osiris, in which the mummy-god is raised by his son Horus from the tomb.
As it is said, ‘Horus exalteth his father Osiris in every place, associating Isis the Great with her sister Nephthys’ as the two women at the tomb.
...
‘Rise up, Horus, son of Isis, and restore thy father Osiris’—that was Osiris in the inert and breathless condition of the mummy.
...
‘Ha, Osiris, I have come to thee.
I am Horus, and I restore thee unto life upon this day with the funeral offerings and all good things for Osiris.
...
‘Rise up, then, Osiris.
I have stricken down thine enemies for thee; I have delivered thee from them.’
...
Horus as son of Ra the Holy Spirit in the eschatology is now higher in status than the mummy-god, the father and mother in matter.
Hence he rises in Amenta as the resurrection and the life to his own father Osiris.
...
Horus as the divine heir had now been furnished with the double force.
The gods rejoice to meet him walking on the way to Annu, and the hail of the horizon or house in Annu where divine perfumes are awaiting him and mourning does not reach him, and where the guardians of the hall do not overthrow the mysterious of face who is in the sanctuary of Sekhem.
That is Osiris, who is not dead but sleeping in Annu, the place of his repose, awaiting the call that bids the mummy to ‘come forth to day.’
...
Horus, the deliverer of his father, reaches him in the train of Hathor, who is Meri, the beloved by name in the Ritual.
Thus Horus follows Meri to the place where Asar lies buried in the sepulchre, as Jesus follows Mary, who had come forth to meet him on the way to Bethany.
Jesus reaches the tomb of Lazarus in the train of Mary and Martha.
Horus makes the way for Osiris.
He repulses the attack of Apap, who represents negation or non-being = death.
...
The portrait of Horus in this scene is very grand.
His face is glorified and greatened by the diadem which he wears as the lord of strength.
His double force is imaged by two lions.
A loud voice is heard upon the horizon as Horus lifts the truth to Ra, and the way is made for Osiris to come forth at his rising from the cave.
So Jesus ‘cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth!’ and ‘he that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with grave-bands.’
In the original the mummy-Osiris comes forth as Amsu, with one arm only released from the bandages.
...
In the ‘discourse of Horus’ to his Father at his coming forth from the sanctuary in Sekhem to see Ra, Horus says,
‘I have given thee thy soul,
I have given thee thy strength,
I have given thee thy victory,
I have given thee thy two eyes (mertae),
I have given thee Isis and Nephthys,’
who are the two divine sisters, the Mary and Martha of Beth-Annu.
...
In showing that ‘mourning does not reach him,’ Jesus ‘abode at that time two days in the place where he was.’
After the sisters had sent to say that Lazarus was sick he waited until he was dead on purpose to perform the more effective miracle.
He was in Bethany, ‘the place where John was at the first baptizing,’ but it took him two more days to get there at this particular time.
So that Lazarus had been buried 4 days when Jesus arrived in the village.
...
The tomb of Osiris was localized in Annu, the solar birthplace.
Osiris, under one of his titles, is the great one in Annu.
Annu is the place of his repose.
‘I go to rest in Annu, my dwelling,’ says Osiris.
The deceased also goes to rest in Annu because it was the place of repose for Osiris the god.
Jesus goes to rest in Bethany.
The place of repose for Osiris was his sepulchre in Annu.
The place of repose for Lazarus is the cave in Bethany.
It was in Annu that the soul was united to its spiritual body.
Annu is termed the place ‘where thousands reunite themselves’ soul and body.
The speaker says, ‘Let my soul see her body. Let her unite herself to her sahu’—that is, to the glorified body which can neither be destroyed nor injured; the future body in which the soul would be incorporated to pass from out the tomb.
Annu is called the abode of ‘those who have found their faces.’
These are the mummy-forms, from whose faces the napkin had been removed.
The house or beth of Osiris, then, was in Annu.
‘He rests in Annu, which is his dwelling.’
...
It was the sanctuary of Osiris who was attended by the two Mertae or Merti, the pair of divine sisters better known by the names of Isis and Nephthys.
The household proper consists of Osiris and those two sisters who watch over him.
Mer denotes the eye, ti is two, and these are the two eyes or two watchers over Osiris in the abode that is the place of his burial and rebirth.
The two sisters as watchers are the two mer, one of whom becomes the Mary, the other Martha, as the two Merti in Bethany = Beth-Annu.
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The triumph of Osiris was effected over his adversaries by Horus in the house of the prince in Annu or Heliopolis, and his supreme triumph was in his resurrection when he was recalled to life and raised up from the sepulchre by Horus.
The raising up of Osiris the father by Horus the son is doctrinally based upon the father living over again in the son. ...
The mystery was deepened in the Osirian drama by super-adding a more spiritual form of the fatherhood in Ra the Holy Spirit.
The deceased Osiris is in possession of the funeral meals in Annu.
He sits beneath the trees of Annu in the train of Hathor-Meri.
...
Annu was also the place of the festivals of Osiris.
One of these was kept on the 6th day of the month.
‘I am with Horus,’ says the speaker on the day when the festivals of Osiris are celebrated, 'on the feast of the 6th day of the month.’
With this we may compare the following statement: ‘Jesus therefore 6 days before the Passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus raised from the dead. So they made him a supper there.’
The two sisters were present.
‘Martha served, and Mary anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped them with her hair.’
...
Annu is described as a green and pleasant place, an oasis in the desert of Amenta created for the suffering Osiris, and the two divine sisters were given him there for his comfort and delight.
The tree of life stood in Annu, as the sycamore, tamarisk, or persea tree, which was personified in Hathor-Meri or Isis.
The manes were feasted ‘under the foliage of the tamarisk,’ the branches of which are described as the beautiful arms of the goddess, and the foliage as her hair, when she herself was the tree beneath which the Osiris found refreshing shade.
It seems that not only the clouds of dawn, but also the foliage of the tamarisk tree may have imaged the hair of the goddess.
Osiris-Ani is found in Annu with the hair of Isis spread over him.
In another text the hair is assigned to Hathor—one of whose names is Meri.
And this is probably related to the story of Mary wiping the feet of Jesus with the hair of her head.
... Isis is frequently portrayed kneeling at the feet of Osiris in Annu.
It is she who says: ‘I who drop the hair which hath loosely fallen upon my brow—I am Isis, when she concealeth herself.’
Osiris in Annu, like Lazarus in Bethany, was not dead but sleeping.
...
In the text of Har-hetep the speaker who personates Horus is he who comes to awaken Asar out of his sleep.
Also, in one of the early funeral texts it is said of the sleeping Asar:
‘The Great One waketh, the Great One riseth;
Horus raises Osiris upon his feet.’
...
Jesus denies that Lazarus is dead.
‘Our friend Lazarus is fallen asleep. I go that I may awake him out of his sleep,’ which is genuine Egyptian doctrine.
The manes in Amenta were not looked upon as dead, but sleeping, breathless of body, motionless of heart.
The deity Osiris was not dead.
And in his likeness the Osiris lived.
Hence Horus comes to wake the sleepers in their coffins, or Osiris in his cave.
...
It was in Bethany that ‘Jesus wept.’
It is the place of weeping for the dead Lazarus.
Mary wept, the Jews wept, and ‘Jesus wept.’
No wonder.
This is the place of weeping by name in the Ritual, where the Osiris lay in his burial.
It was here he was inert and motionless.
The Osiris says: ‘I am motionless in the fields of those who are dumb in death. But I shall wake, and my soul will speak in the dwelling of Tum, the Lord of Annu.’
The abode of Tum in Annu being = Bethany.
...
Then he rises from the tomb and appears at the door, and says, ‘I arrive at the confines of earth. I tread the dwelling of the god Rem-Rem.’
Rem signifies weeping: and in the Litany of Ra this god is designated ‘Remi the Weeper.’
Thus Jesus is portrayed in the character of ‘Remi the Weeper’ in the place of weeping for the dead Osiris in Beth-Annu, who is here represented as the dead Lazarus in Bethany.
Jesus comes as ‘Remi the Weeper’ to weep for the inert Osiris, that is, as Horus who comes to the motionless Osiris on the day which is called ‘Come thou to me.’
...
Ra is said to make the mummy ‘come forth.’
Jesus cries with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ and ‘he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-bands: and his face was bound about with a napkin.’
The picture is completed in the Roman catacombs, where the risen Lazarus is an Egyptian mummy: the likeness of the mummy-Osiris, who is beckoned forth by Horus with his staff.
...
According to the dramatic representation in the mysteries, Osiris is slain by the adversary Sut, and is imaged in Amenta as a mummy.
The father lives again in the son; hence his son Horus descends into the netherworld to avenge, reconstitute and raise Osiris from his corpse-like state.
He comes as a living soul from Ra the Holy Spirit, who is the Father in heaven, ‘to raise up the hand which is motionless.’
In chapter 18, ‘he lifts inert Osiris with his two arms.’
He exclaims, ‘Ha! Osiris, I am come to thee: I am Horus, and I restore thee to life upon this day, with the funerary offerings and all good things for Osiris. Rise up, then, Osiris. Horus hath raised thee.’
...
In some texts it is Ra who bids the mummy come forth on the day of ‘Come thou to me’.
Taht says, ‘I give Ra to enter the mysterious cave in order that he may revive the heart of him whose heart is motionless.’
After the raising of Osiris, Taht says, ‘I have celebrated the festival of Eve’s provender,’ or supper, which came to be called the Last Supper.
The raising of Lazarus is likewise commemorated by a supper.
‘So they made him a supper there.’
...
Amongst other ceremonies performed in the Amenta at the raising of the mummy who is ‘called aloud’ from the sepulchre the Osiris is freed from the bandages with which the corpse was bound.
So when Lazarus was called in a loud voice to come forth, ‘He that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with grave-bands, and his face was bound about.’
