Did Osiris really die?

Byrd,

You said:
None of the material there was from the GHC.

My response:
They rewrote the history books after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire. The seat of the HRE had been moved to Germany, prior, and educational institutions flourished. Then the "Enlightenment" began, and the GHC went after the first ancient books, starting with the histories of the Greeks, who they claimed couldn't write. Their approach was that since the HRE was not telling the truth and had suggested as reading material, the Greeks and Romans, that any text related to a supernatural being in any way from the Greeks and Romans was false.

Eventually, all books that mentioned the supernatural (or what was deemed as supernatural), including the bible, the writings and pseudopigraphia of the Jews, the histories of the Greeks, the histories of the Romans, the ancient writings of the Hindu, the ancient histories of the Asians, the ancient histories of the Africans (south of Egypt), the ancient histories of the Aztec, Maya, Inca and Toltecs, and the ancient histories of the Nordic races such as the Vikings, were all fabrications and lies. That our ancient history was all a big joke, and that none of it actually happened, including Troy, which they claimed was a make believe city in a fable.

Armed with this information, they opted to make the ancient Egyptians the only viable ancient civ on which to base the passage of time. At this point, archaeology hadn't been developed and there was very scant information about the ancient past. It was then very easy to just up and rule out the legitimacy of hundreds of thousands of ancient histories as fantasy texts, disenfranchising billions of people down through the history of the planet. From here, various critiques on the reality of the ancient people such as Moses, Jesus, Buddha and so on, went to text. The only thing has rescued even the tiniest fragment of the ancient past from the GHC annals of fable, is preponderance of artifacts, found by people in those belief systems. At first the GHC tried to say these people were simply making up the finds, and ignored them, categorically, but as the past continued to be dug up from the earth, the only remaining resort was to refuse to make changes to GHC historical errors.

Today, you are reading texts and histories, and even archaeological treatise, based on the original mistakes of the GHC.

I'm still at a loss as to where this is going and how it relates to "is Osiris dead". However...

Originally posted by undo
They rewrote the history books after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire.

Actually, they are constantly rewriting history as new documents and monuments are discovered. History books have changed considerably in the past 50 years alone.

...the GHC went after the first ancient books, starting with the histories of the Greeks, who they claimed couldn't write.

Hadn't heard that, but it was very long ago. In any case, the original Latin texts (which everyone could read) and original Roman commentary on Greek texts (there's a rather classic one by Proclus (I believe, 2nd century) on Plato's Timaeus) were widely available to any scholar and historian. I don't see that they had any real impact on classic literature.

ANYone with a decent education of that time period could read the original texts for themselves. Heck, you can do it today.

Their approach was that since the HRE was not telling the truth and had suggested as reading material, the Greeks and Romans, that any text related to a supernatural being in any way from the Greeks and Romans was false.

Huh?

EVERY culture with its own set of deities disbelieves in other cultures' gods. So the Hindus don't believe in Yahweh/Jesus. Niether do the Buddhists, etc. Scholars today simply mention (neutrally) the belief. These beliefs are treated with respect because they give insight into how people thought.

Armed with this information, they opted to make the ancient Egyptians the only viable ancient civ on which to base the passage of time.

Uhm... how did we go from "yes, Egyptians believed Osiris really did die and everything we have about him says he's a god and that he was murdered and is still dead" to "the Germans forced a timeline on Egypt"? The points and concepts you're addressing are those held by scholars and archaeologists more than a hundred years ago.

Things have changed and attitudes have changed since then.

It doesn't matter what the Germans or anyone else thought. The *Egyptians* themselves believed he was dead and worshipped him in his dead aspect (as seen in the Book of the Dead, the Book of the Gates, etc, etc, etc.) You can read this for yourself... simply pick up a book on hieroglyphics (like I did) and go look at the many photos of hieroglyphic and demotic texts online (I've done this.)

Trying to make "Osiris really isn't dead" from the negative beliefs of scholars of a hundred years ago (and longer ago) is confusing to me, since the points I listed were corrections and improvements on that original thought of 100+ years ago.

Could you explain why you're making this connection? I'm really confused here.

Could you explain why you're making this connection? I'm really confused here

Its quite simple Byrd
Undo believes that the ancient world was populated by Aliens with advanced technology and who crossbred humans and themselves to create hybrids (Nephilim)
the reason why this isn't widely known today is because the mysterious GHC managed to rewrite all the details out of ancient texts that proved the Alien hypothesis

the fact that every ancient text that we use today is a recent translation of an ancient original and not a recent translation of a GHC text is one little detail that she decides to ignore because it doesnt fit in with her personal belief

seeing as she herself thinks that shes an expert on Sumerian texts when in reality shes never actually read one should show you the big flaw in her argument
because not a single text from Mesopotamia was known to the GHC and the culture itself was entirely unknown to the world much before 1900

these little details of course are irrelevant to someone suffering from fundementalism of any kind and to this day I have not heard one single credible explanation of how this fits in with her totally unproven hypothesis

Byrd,

you said:
Actually, they are constantly rewriting history as new documents and monuments are discovered. History books have changed considerably in the past 50 years alone.

my response:
okay, let me show you what i mean by analogy. let's say you were raised in a household who believed a certain religious creed. would you, or would you not, be influenced by that belief system? this has been proven repeatedly. this is what happened with the GHC. not only did they begin the enilghtenment movement, but they were professors, scientists and distinguished authors who wrote countless books, particularly critiques, that have since been used to disavow pretty much anything related to the super- or hyper-natural. out of this came theories such as the survival of the fittest, the theory of evolution, carbon-dating, and so on. these ideas further colored how everything, and i do mean everything, was viewed and written into text, including how to go about translating a text, how much faith to put into dating a strata, and etc.

here's another example - when dating an artifact from a particular geological strata, it is auto-assumed that any prior dating of that strata is sufficient and that any artifacts found in that strata that are inconsistent with the prior dating, are contaminated and summarily thrown away. this is because they've got countless papers, written by countless scientists, who based their approach to the topic not only on scientific findings but on accepted theories, which were themselves based on the critiques of the GHC. it all rolls down hill from that moment or rather, those moments in time. a cascade event, with no end in sight (atm).

the only modifications that are made are those that fit into or further elaborate on the ones before. this is because they can't rewrite the history books without changing hundreds of years of theory, hypotheses and critiques on everything related to the meaning of life, the universe and everything. this includes how archaeology was approached, and the complete annihilation of everything related to the super- or hyper-natural.

once upon a time, the histories of the ancients were viewed as real events. this is no longer true. instead, because of the GHC, we now regard our ancestors as a bunch of lunatics, drug addicts or power hungry priests, given to delusions, superstitions, manias or other psychological problems -- across the board and across the races. this colors how everything is handled. anyone who deviates from that, even when armed with evidences of various kinds, is considered a fringer and his/her professional career is mangled. at this point, i wonder why these bright and inquistive, pioneering people even want to be a part of an establishment that views history and science as their exclusive mandate.

[edit on 27-11-2006 by undo]

How this applies to Osiris is how it applies to everything else super- or hyper-natural. It was assumed that the gods of Egypt were not real, unless the god was also the king/pharaoh. The first reason for this was because they are depicted with beastly heads - part human/part hawk or part human/part dog, or a dead green guy wrapped in mummy bindings, etc, and there was simply no way that the gods could be part of something natural to the planet, such as a dog or green faced. Of course, there's any number of reasons for why they were depicted in this fashion, but the GHC latched onto the idea that the gods of Egypt were totally fictitious, from their perspective of that timeframe (which was severly limited due to lack of knowledge about the past). So rather than completely re-evaluating how we view the gods of Egypt once we had new data and relics, we approached the topic just like the GHC did. It isn't retro-actively changed, it's retro-actively applied.

This boils over into how new data is viewed. If the data threatens to disarrange their view of history, they either ignore it, or extrapolate on it to the point of the ludicrous in some cases, so that the text or artifact, can continue to be viewed from the prior assessment. The only changes made are those that have no bearing on the original assumptions as it applies to the reality or fantasy of the super- or hyper-natural.

An example of this particular thing gone completely out of control, to the nth degree, is Acharya S., who thinks every super- or hyper-natural event is easily explained as the end result of our ancestors worshipping the stars and planets as gods/goddesses. She completely ignores where these gods and goddesses are depicted in the stories of the ancients, as actually interacting with, impregnating and so on, the humans on the planet. If she can't ignore it, she just up and calls it the case of power hungry priests and nothing more. This leaks over into modern times, where we call those who have super- or hyper-natural experiences, delusional, lonely people who have sexual fantasies about being abducted by aliens and annally probed. I mean, this negative approach to the past and the present eyewitness accounts, has gone way way out of control. We've just decided in all our knowledge based on the mistakes of a bunch of prejudice men 400 years ago, that we know it all, and that's that.

We decide the fate of the accused defendants in a court of law based on eye witness accounts all the time, but don't let that eyewitness say anything like ... I just saw a ufo, or I was abducted by extra-terrestrials or God healed me miraculously, or I saw a guy float over the pews in the church building, and on and on and on. It's okay to put a guy in jail for the rest of his life, but not okay if it goes against accepted dogma.

As regards your contention that religions don't believe in each other's gods: It doesn't mean they don't or didn't exist. It just means they don't follow the example of or pray to, that particular "god" or super/hyper-natural figure. In some cases, yes, they completely disregard the reality of the other person's "god", but that certainly doesn't mean that person's god never existed.

[edit on 27-11-2006 by undo]

Originally posted by undo
Byrd,

you said:
Actually, they are constantly rewriting history as new documents and monuments are discovered. History books have changed considerably in the past 50 years alone.

my response:
okay, let me show you what i mean by analogy. let's say you were raised in a household who believed a certain religious creed. would you, or would you not, be influenced by that belief system?

Like many others, I rejected the faith of my ancestors (who were very strong in that faith). So I'd say "not necessarily."

And if you simply look at science news stories, you'll see that scientists are CONSTANTLY overturning old theories as new data comes in. Religion doesn't change its paradigms... science does.

And anyway, I'm talking translations.

It doesn't matter if you are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that Osiris is really a Purple Space Hamster. You will still translate "mnkh" as "efficient" and "mnt" as the word for "thigh." A translator could believe all Egyptians were psychotic mind freaks and would STILL translate "s nfr" as "the good man."

So it doesn't matter if the person doing the translation thinks that Ancient Egyptians smoked fried herring and traveled transdimensionally... it doesn't change the fact that translations of texts on temple walls and on papyri and on stele and on many other things showed that :
* * they wrote that Osiris died.
* * they always believed Osiris was a god (not a man.)
* * there are temples to his Ba in Mendes where his Ba was worshipped.
* * manuscripts say that the Ba is a part of a person that separates from the body at death.

here's another example - when dating an artifact from a particular geological strata, it is auto-assumed that any prior dating of that strata is sufficient and that any artifacts found in that strata that are inconsistent with the prior dating, are contaminated and summarily thrown away.

I've been on archaeological digs. I've been on paleontological tours. I work with paleontological material.

Whoever gave you that information has never been near a dig and has never done any dating or worked with any material older than whatever they bought at their local store. They certainly don't know how material is dated (I do; I've done some of it.)

I hope you'll take some time to volunteer in the work areas of your local museum and learn how things really are done. You've been given some misinformation and the best way to judge what is correct is just go volunteer and find out how things are done.

once upon a time, the histories of the ancients were viewed as real events. this is no longer true. instead, because of the GHC, we now regard our ancestors as a bunch of lunatics, drug addicts or power hungry priests, given to delusions, superstitions, manias or other psychological problems -- across the board and across the races.

I don't know where you got this belief. I can cite you several truckloads of material that show scientists thik otherwise. In any case, whether or not they thought someone was power hungry, it doesn't change the way they translate things.

[edit on 27-11-2006 by Byrd]

The individual scientist or historian may feel differently, but the bulk, at the group level, are told, "These are your parameters. Work within them or get out." And of course, the parameters are things like - The egyptian gods are fairy tales (except if they're pharaohs). The hebrew god is a fairy tale. the christian god is a fairy tale. the chinese gods are fairy tales. the hindu gods are fairy tales. this goes on and on. when you come to the table to determine a topic, with an already preset bias as regards the information, you aren't going to learn anything but what you want the text to say, because "These are your parameters. Work within them or get out."

Let me prove my point with this one salient piece of information: Osiris wasn't dead until he died. He was apparently, alive, before he died. He was married to Isis, before he died. He taught the people harvesting and other trappings of civilization, before he died. I've studied all the ancient myths of Egypt, and particularly the Osiris myth, in college, and know this to be true. These, however, are not myths. Or more specificially, Osiris isn't a myth. He was a real, historical person. The Osirieon was built in his honor while he was still alive. The new additions to it, were added later by Seti I, when he discovered it during the excavations for his own temple. He incorporated it into his Temple. Anybody that can look at the layout of Seti I's temple and still claim the Osirieon was built by him, have brought their bias to the table and will never EVER learn the truth of the matter, which is what this is all about. the truth.

The egyptian gods are fairy tales (except if they're pharaohs). The hebrew god is a fairy tale. the christian god is a fairy tale. the chinese gods are fairy tales. the hindu gods are fairy tales

this is incorrect
it should be
all gods from vanished cultures are fairy tales
and all contemporary gods are real
"and if you don't like it we'll stone, burn or hang or maybe eat you for being a wretched sinner"

I'm thinking really though that your choice of the word "fairy" is misguided but presuming you don't know any better because you've never studied Gaelic legends

Originally posted by undo

Let me prove my point with this one salient piece of information: Osiris wasn't dead until he died. He was apparently, alive, before he died. He was married to Isis, before he died.

Isis was the sister of Osiris who she married. They had a son, Horus.

Isis is Ishtar.............Ishtar is Semiramis who married her son and had another son Tammuz.

Horus is Tammuz.

Hercules is Tammuz.

Ishtar is Semiramis who married her son and had another son Tammuz

Semiramis is a fictional character
Tammuz is a babylonian version of the Sumerian Dumuzid
and although I'm really going to hate telling you this S M
Dumuzid is Osiris

none of them are Nimrod

[edit on 28-11-2006 by Marduk]

Originally posted by undo
The individual scientist or historian may feel differently, but the bulk, at the group level, are told, "These are your parameters. Work within them or get out."

I offer as counter proof all the many papers that challenge historical and scientific thought by other scientists. The difference between them and "fringe papers" is that the real ones have to build a case as carefully as if they were presenting the evidence to the Supreme Court. They don't build a case on translated texts unless they can confirm the translation.

Scholars overturn centuries of thought all the time. Josephine Tey did this when she found good evidence that Richard III didn't murder his royal cousins.

Let me prove my point with this one salient piece of information: Osiris wasn't dead until he died. He was apparently, alive, before he died. He was married to Isis, before he died. He taught the people harvesting and other trappings of civilization, before he died.

Actually, the "married Isis" is a fairly late development in his legend (he originally wasn't married to her), but yes, that's a summary of some of the material about him.

Or more specificially, Osiris isn't a myth. He was a real, historical person. The Osirieon was built in his honor while he was still alive.

Well, I had suggested that you learn some hieroglyphics and read original Egyptian texts (or as much as you could.)

The Osirieon itself overturns your statement there.
www.touregypt.net...

The material found inside the Osirieon itself is from the Book of Gates and the Book of the AmDuat. Nowhere inside or outside the Osirieon is any text that indicates Osiris lived and was a famous man.

How do we know? The hieroglyphics that indicate "this is the name of a real person" and "this is the name of a god" and "this is the name of someone who has died" are all very specific and all very different from each other. The style of writing the name of "pharoah who died and is now a god" is different from the way that the names of the original deities are written.

The name of Osiris is never written in the same way as that of a living man. It's only written in the style of the way gods' names are written. This is true for the Osirieon and for all other instances of the name of Osiris (more ancient and more recent than Seti I.)

I encourage you to pick up some books on how to read hieroglyphics at the library so you can verify this for yourself. You've been relying on English translations of varying quality and you since you intend to do serious research, you REALLY need to learn to read some hieroglyphics so you can see how well (or how badly) the translation has been done.

In many of the English versions of the Osiris tales, the writer has taken some literary conventions to make the tale "more readable" or "flow more smoothly." Sometimes they combine more than one version of a tale. You need to look at the original texts (including how the names are represented) rather than taking the word of the Translators Approved By English Lit Profs at face value.

[edit on 28-11-2006 by Byrd]

Originally posted by Sun Matrix
Isis was the sister of Osiris who she married. They had a son, Horus.

Only in the later myths. In the earlier funeral texts, she has four sons.

Isis is Ishtar

The Greek mystery schools tried this, incorporating Ishtar into the concept of Isis (not the other way around.) In the original, however, they're not very similar. Ishtar had no children, Isis had five sons, including Horus. Ishtar was married to a minor dying-and-resurrecting god. Osiris died and remained dead, ruling the underworld. Isis was a fertility goddess. Sometimes Isis was depticted as the daughter of Hathor and the wife of Horus (which sounds odd and confusing but is typical when the gods of one region combine with the gods of another region and everyone has to make sense of the new arrangement.)

Ishtar's twin sister was the goddess of the underworld (Isis had no twin). Ishtar had thousands of lovers; Isis had just the one (two, if you count her marriage to Horus.) Isis is associated with the constellation Virgo. Ishtar is associated with the planet, Venus. Ishtar goes to the underworld to free her husband, Isis doesn't.

No match there.

Ishtar is Semiramis who married her son and had another son Tammuz.

I'm afraid that's not a match, either:
womenshistory.about.com...

Horus is Tammuz.
Hercules is Tammuz.

Horus didn't die and go to the underworld to be reborn yearly. Tammuz didn't lose an eye avenging his murdered father. Herculese did none of the above.

...etcetera.

Isis is Inana, so the story is alot longer than egyptology has suggested. Inana's trek to the underworld is an attempt to save her beloved and is the same thing as Isis saving Osiris from "his water", where he had drowned in the "abyss" (which is really in the "abzu" known as the underworld), after which, he enters the portals of the Lords of Eternity (the abzu gate). The same thing you see happening in the story of Leander and Hero (with a single instance of gender reversal), where Leander swims the sea (the abyss, the abzu) to Abydos to reach Hero. One night, she doesn't light the lamp, and he drowns in the sea (the abyss, the abzu). She appears to have vanished in the story, because she normally shields the thing with her cloak so the wind can't blow it out. This is precisely what happens to Nimrod as Osiris. Isis is removed from the situation, Osiris' is drowned by his "evil brother" (which should really say "brothers"), his power is divided amongst the Divine Council (here depicted as his evil brothers) (after all, he was the god Emperor of the world in that timeframe). Then Isis attempts to save him, he enters the "portals of the Lords of Eternity" (otherwise known as the abzu gate). It's a bit jumbled up but is the same story as Inana's Journey to the Underworld.

[edit on 28-11-2006 by undo]

Seti I's temple at Abydos is oddly shaped like an "L". Why? Because he ran smack into the Osirieon where it lay hidden for a very long time, buried under the sand, while excavating for his own temple His temple had to make a turn, thusly the odd L shape. He then incorporated the Osirieion into his temple by adding 2 chambers to it, at each end, and refurbishng what he could of the Osirieion itself. His name is not found anywhere in the Osirieon proper, only in one of the newer end chambers he had built to incorporate it into his own temple. He didn't build the Osirieon. Only elaborated on it. Please review the shape and style of the Main chamber of the Osirieon. It isn't even architecturally similar to the added chambers or other structures of Seti I's timeframe.

Here's an overhead view of the Osirieon



Chambers A and B were added by Seti I, I believe.



[edit on 28-11-2006 by undo]

Originally posted by undo
Seti I's temple at Abydos is oddly shaped like an "L". Why? Because he ran smack into the Osirieon where it lay hidden for a very long time, buried under the sand, while excavating for his own temple His temple had to make a turn, thusly the odd L shape.

I was familar with the shape of the temple. I've seen discussions that this section was found and not built but haven't read enough of either argument to make my mind up on that.

I finally found some pictures that show the inscriptions on the interior! Here's the exterior with clickable pictures:
www.egyptarchive.co.uk...

A distant photo of the section of the wall with the Book of Caverns on it:
www.egyptarchive.co.uk...

And a photo of one of the interior walls with part of the Book of the Dead on it:
www.egyptarchive.co.uk...

You can just barely see where Osiris' name is written (over the third figure (and the fourth figure... those are two different "scenes" like pages in a comic book) from the right; the man in the mummy wrappings wearing the crown of Egypt). It's written in the god-form over the pictures of Osiris. The Pharaoh's name (in cartouche form) is written over the Pharaoh.

So...
* the name "Osireion" is not the name the Egytpians gave it.
* Osireion was a name invented Flinders Petrie. He called the building "Osireion" because it has pictures of Osiris all over it.
* the decorations were done by Seti I's grandson (nobody argues this.)
* all the inscriptions in the place show the god form of the name Osiris, and they're all placed over Osiris, so there's no doubt who they refer to.

I encourage you to grab some books on heiroglyphics and get some good images of the walls (check Amazon for books that would have good drawings and photos of them) and you can have the fun of reading the original material in the original Ancient Egyptian.

And it is fun (but a bit of work!)

A distant photo of the section of the wall with the Book of Caverns on it:
www.egyptarchive.co.uk...

That's the hallway extending from the main chamber (the Osirieon proper) from the Chamber A.

www.egyptarchive.co.uk...

That's the wall of Chamber B. Look at the floor, and the two stairways that go down into the water. Those are the visual cues, check it against the blueprint of the Osirieon. Not all the walls of the original survived after it was buried in the sand a second time, before it was rediscovered two more times, once by Strabo in the 1st century BC, and nearly two thousand years later by Flinders Petrie and Margaret Murray. For example, the cells on the back wall, by Chamber B, were pretty much gone by then but the telltale signs of their original construction on the site and the ruined blocks, were still visible, thusly why the piece is depicted as it would've originally looked with the cells intact in the overhead blueprint. But if you look you can see , the cells and back wall, by Chamber B are now missing.

For example, this one
www.egyptarchive.co.uk...
depicts what should be the back wall of the Osireion proper but isn't. The cells are missing. Instead, you are seeing the inside of Chamber B.

These are the blocks and style of the Osirieon proper (undecorated solid granite megaliths)
www.egyptarchive.co.uk...

These are the blocks and the style of the added Chambers: (highly decorated sandstone blocks of not quite megalithic proportions)
www.egyptarchive.co.uk...



[edit on 28-11-2006 by undo]

Originally posted by undo
. Inana's trek to the underworld is an attempt to save her beloved and is the same thing as Isis saving Osiris from "his water", where he had drowned in the "abyss" (which is really in the "abzu" known as the underworld), after which, he enters the portals of the Lords of Eternity (the abzu gate). The same thing you see happening in the story of Leander and Hero (with a single instance of gender reversal), where Leander swims the sea (the abyss, the abzu) to Abydos to reach Hero.

Underworld and water? Neptune.........Poseidon............Dagon.......all the same.

Isis is Inana, so the story is alot longer than egyptology has suggested

I agree...........and Diana and Madaonna and etc. .........etc.........etc. all being Semiramis.

[edit on 28-11-2006 by Sun Matrix]

It is the style of the building, the type of the masonry, the tooling of the stone, and not the name of a king, which date a building in Egypt. - Margaret Murray

Here's the overhead blueprint of the Osirieon as it actually appears today. Notice the cells at the northern end are completely missing and instead we are presented the wall and doorway of Chamber B:



Even the man (Frankfort) who claimed the Cenotaphs and such were proof that Seti I built the Osirieon, sketched it with the cells and back wall intact, rather than its current state of the missing wall and cells being replaced by the wall and door of Chamber B as the newer back wall:







[edit on 29-11-2006 by undo]

Originally posted by undo

A distant photo of the section of the wall with the Book of Caverns on it:
www.egyptarchive.co.uk...

That's the hallway extending from the main chamber (the Osirieon proper) from the Chamber A.

I stand corrected. The photo's orientation had me confused -- you're right about the location of the photo! The Book of Caverns is on the approach from the main chamber. But one of your drawings, then, is oriented in reverse (isn't it?) In any case, I do think I'm going to have to sit down and un-corn-fuse myself on this and see if I can match which photo to what cell.

Yargh!!

However... I will go back to my original point, that this structure doesn't prove Osiris was ever a derivitave of a human ruler/hero. There's no clue about what the original structure was designed for (temple to Osiris or whomever) and the only things left there are the various funerary texts.

And Petrie named it based on the multiple appearances of Osiris, assuming that this area was dedicated to him.

And in each of the texts there, the name Osiris is only written in the god-form, and all the texts refer to Osiris the deity.