Christianity: An Ancient Egyptian Religion

This is to review and respond to other reviewer’s comments on Ahmed Osman’s “Christianity: An Ancient Egyptian Religion”. Osman’s thesis is that there is no evidence for both the Old and New Testament and that Biblical stories and personalities are based on Egyptian, not Judaic, history that occurred 14 centuries before the Jesus of the New Testament. Osman makes a case that the story of Moses is based on Pharoah Akhenaten; Jesus that of King Tutankhamun who was Moses’ (Akhenaten’s) son; King David’s story that of Pharoah Tuthmosis III. The story of David and Goliath is taken from the Egyptian “Autobiography of Sinuhe” that took place 1,000 years earlier. The purported apocalypse by King David (Revelations 16:16) over the cities of Megiddo and Qadesh could not have occurred when indicated in scripture because both cities had already been destroyed long beforehand. Osman says the David/Bathsheba/Uriah story doesn’t exactly fit that of Tuthmosis III/Sarah/Abraham but it is remarkably similar. Unlike most other studies that rely only on Biblical scripture, Osman relies on a number of sources to support his thesis: New and Old Testament scripture, Egyptian records and folk tales, statues and pyramids, the writings of the Church Fathers, the Jewish Talmud, Roman historians, the Dead Sea Scrolls and archeological findings. To support his thesis Osman cites no less than the Apostle Paul himself from Galatians 1:15-17: “15 But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. 17 I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia” (aka Egypt). As modern historian Phillip Jenkins points out in his book “The Lost History of Christianity”, Christianity was an Egyptian-centered religion until the Roman Catholic church destroyed the library at Alexandria around 390 A.D. and moved the center to Rome. Following Friedrich Goethe, Christopher Marlowe and Sigmund Freud, Osman postulates a conspiracy theory that both Moses and his son King Tut were assassinated and that the crimes were covered up by writing their murders out of Hebrew history. Thus, the Bible allegedly portrays the founders of Judaism as not the descendants of the murderers but instead those who commanded “thou shalt not murder”. As to the charge that Osman’s book is “not definitive”, he nevertheless meets a legal standard of the “preponderance of the evidence”, as he relies on so much third-party evidence. Osman’s book would also meet the scientific test of “falsifying” and refuting the Biblical histories of Judaism and Christianity, again because there is almost no third-party evidence otherwise. But Osman’s assassination conspiracy theory would probably not meet the legal evidence standard for criminal cases of being “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Osman’s book does not reflect Biblical minimalism (“they made it all up”) but leans toward a Middle-of-the Road position (“there’s no contrary proof”) but the events happened in another era) rather than Maximalism (“there is definitive proof”). Osman’s does not advocate atheism or an anti-Judeo-Christian view in his book. As to the charge that Osman is “ambivalent” in asserting “there were two King David’s” and “Three Jesus’s” (Tut, Joshua and Jesus), what he obviously is pointing out is that the fictional Jesus, Joshua and David are similar figures to the real Egyptian characters (Akhenaten,Tut, Tuthmosis III). All were obviously not named “Jesus”. The charge that his method cherry picks evidence for his convenience is not accurate. He merely points out historical parallels to Egyptian history and asks why is there no report of the Biblical events in the concurrent Talmud and Dead Sea Scrolls. Yes, Egyptian Osman reclaims Judeo-Christian religion as Egyptian, not Roman, but that is where the non-scriptural evidence lies. This raises a problem in the sociology of knowledge: Egyptian scholars find evidence inferring Egyptian roots to Judeo-Christian religions (Osman, et. al.); American archeologists find evidence of the Biblical account (William Allbright); Germans find “proof” of the “Documentary Hypothesis” (Julius Wellhausen) that the Torah was invented by the Jews in forced Exile in Babylonia to reclaim and assert their bona fide religious heritage and credentials when King Nebuchadnezzar released them to return to Jerusalem. What is considered “knowledge” depends on the social location of the scholar and each school of thought competing for legitimacy and financial support. Osman is an independent researcher residing in Britain and, as far as I can see, his findings are supportable and credible if for no other reason than he relies on so many third-party sources (the Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.). Osman does “tell his own tales to make a living” but does not re-interpret scriptures “whole cloth”. Rather, he finds a coloring book template in Egyptian history that was enlarged and “colored” in later. Osman does not try to “refute a (fictional) Santa Claus” but actually confirms there was an actual Moses (Akhenaten) and Jesus (King Tut), but not in the same time period as the Judeo-Christian scriptures. However, even if Judaism and Christianity are allegedly fictional this does not necessarily rule out they may reflect divine providence. As historian Max Weber noted, humans are incapable of knowing all the outcomes of their actions (see Mohammed Cherkaoui, Good Intentions: Max Weber and the Paradox of Unintended Consequences). Thus, Christianity unintentionally became the religion of the Roman Empire despite that Christians were initially persecuted in Rome. One might even humorously say God had the last laugh! That Judeo-Christian religions may be an unintended outcome of history is, however, not addressed in Osman’s book. And there was so much book burning by the Romans, the possibility that all third-party evidence of Christianity was exterminated, just as Soviet leader Joseph Stalin erased photos of his political enemies, cannot be eliminated.

I have read 5 of Osman's books now . I am so impressed with his detailed research. He is unafraid to challenge the orthodoxy of the history of Christianity . He takes seemingly unrelated facts and shows the connections down through the centuries .He shows how dates and eras and historical figures were changed , and even fabricated , bearing no resemblance to what probably really happened . He uses a lot of archeological data, ( or lack of it ) to prove his points. He documents brilliantly how the unknown scribes and editors rewrote the scriptures and gospels to suit their political whims and how they crafted the Bible to suit their future desires for power and the enslavement and conquest of humanity . If you are open minded and not afraid to challenge your self with a very different take on 3 of the worlds largest religions , these books are for you . It's fascinating stuff.

Christianity: An Ancient Egyptian Religion In his highly provocative 1998 book, Christianity: An Ancient Egyptian Religion, Ahmed Osman makes many remarkable assertions. To open the volume, Osman writes that “...the stories in the Koran come from the same source as the books in the Bible,” and that the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus have survived into the present era “in the teachings of the Islamic Sufis, Jewish Qabbalah (sic) and Christian Rosicrucians and Freemasons.” He explains how Gnostic Christians of the 1st and 2nd centuries C.E. grew from the cult of Serapis, who he states “made no distinction between Christ and Serapis.” Osman writes of the importance of the archaeological discoveries of the Amarna Letters in 1887, the Ugaritic Texts beginning in 1929, the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1946, and the Nag Hammadi library in 1945, and quotes the Harvard professor who translated the Nag Hammadi Gospel of Thomas as stating that, as a result of these discoveries, it is the “conventional picture [of Christianity] itself that is called into question.” Osman’s scholarship revolves around several controversial but well-researched points. He makes the case that the historical Jesus lived many centuries earlier than the prevailing timeline permits, identifying Him as Joshua of the 15th century who succeeded Moses as the leader of the Israelites. He states that this was once the teaching of the early Christian Church, but that “an attempt has been made to explain away this identification” and presents evidence for his view in several canonical Old Testament texts. Osman explains that Abram allowed his wife Sarai to marry the Pharaoh who impregnated her with Isaac, but then expelled the entire family when he discovered the treachery. This research indicates that Moses, Aaron and Ishmael were descendants of Jacob, but not of Abraham. Osman provides compelling evidence for further claims that may upend traditional Biblical perspectives. He states that the Israelite David was actually the Egyptian Pharoah Thutmose III, and Thutmose IV (Tutankhamen) was actually Jesus, known in the Old Testament as Joshua. He identifies Solomon as Amenhotep III and Moses as Amenhotep IV, aka the monotheistic heretic Akhenaten. While students of religion may be tempted to dismiss Osman’s research because of its unorthodox conclusions, I hope they will delve into the evidence Osman supplies through his diligent scholarship before they make up their minds on the complex perspectives and theories he presents.

The author has done an outstanding job at collecting and presenting information and evidence that show how Judaism and Christianity have their roots in ancient Egyptian religion. The book is gripping and hard to put down as page after page melts away as though you were reading a thriller. And yet that's almost what it amounts to: an ancient crime scene whose principal actors tried very hard to cover their tracks in an attempt to fool posterity into believing in a divine origin of their religion. I also found The Syrian Goddess: De Dea Syria and The Life of Apollonius of Tyana very interesting.

Just finished this book. The middle, where the author was telling us that Tutankhamun was really Jesus AND Moses' Joseph, sagged badly because for the life of me, I couldn't determine where he was getting his information. The other parts of the book were much better documented. I'll go along with Thutmose III being King David. That makes perfect sense, and the histories match in all but year. Clearly later people cribbed off history to increase the value of their own. Thutmose IV being the guy who hired Joseph? Check. Joseph = Yuya, check. (Isn't it startling that we have contemporary PICTURES of everyone we can now refer to?) Everyone else up to King Tut, check; I can agree with that, except MAYBE Moses was one of Akhenaten's priests instead of Akhenaten himself, as some current scholars posit. King Tut being Jesus. Um, sorry, but I need to see the historical docs for that. Influence? Yep. The Jews changed over from having a local, physical god-family to a heavenly monotheism at some point (A book that talks about this, "When God Had a Wife," is really interesting until the last part, where it becomes confusing) and yeah, it does seem to have been greatly influenced by Egyptian thought about Aten. (Also note: Egypt was the first civilization to introduce the idea of life after death in its literature.) I've read a few books about the beginnings of Christianity (what a crazy, mixed-up time that was!), and this is the first that clearly points out that Peter's branch was preferred by Big Wigs because John's had everyone in the church being equals. Even the women. ! With Peter you got bishops and elders and regulations and eventually popes, all men, all with power over the "little people" to keep them under their thumbs. This kind of history makes me really MAD, because it points out SOME (a tiny bit) of the massive editing that was done on religious texts in order to mold them into something that gave TPTB more authority and power. I remember my family's preacher giving us a sermon and telling us outright that such-and-such New Testament letter was pure propaganda because the writer was trying to convert Jews. He then went on to say the whole "baby Jesus goes to Egypt" story was a fake because, again, the teller was trying to convert Jews and invoked Moses (whose story invoked Horus!) to do so. That was my first experience of hearing that part of the Bible was fake and/or heavily edited for dark purposes. The guy over at UNC who's written all those books about Jesus, the Bible, etc. Uh, Bart Ehrman, thanks Google. He goes into many other aspects of all this, pointing out the way things have been deliberately changed to fool people. He says this is taught in the first year at religious schools. Why isn't it being discussed in wider arenas? Other books have more examples to show. And there's never ANY historical evidence of a Jesus who lived around 30 CE. The guy with this book wanted to prove that Jesus/Tutankhamen/Joseph lived about 1500 (or was it 1300?) BCE, and it was the echo of his history then that came through the "prophecies" of Isaiah and down to 30 CE, where people didn't actually encounter a real person, but rather were influenced by ancient history (via Alexandrian learning and Egyptian tradition, as well as the ultra-popular Isis/Osiris/Serapis sects, which were very close to what Christianity was teaching), and that the actual person didn't exist in that time period... although the Christ Energy appeared to some people. Well. No way to prove or disprove personal spiritual experiences, is there? Anyway, interesting book, but the middle needed a good editor to point out the need for clear documentation.

Ahmed Osman's book fundamentally requires a revolutionary view of our traditional understanding of the Bible. He argues that Jesus lived during the time of Moses and that the life of Christ is a fabrication created by the 1st century evangelist and church. He draws his conclusions from an examination of Egyptian tombs and ancient documents. Resulting in one moving the center of Christianity out of a Jewish foundation to an African one. Although his research is extensive, it is certainly not definitive. If readers are to seriously reconstruct their traditional understanding of scripture, his assertions must be more than assumptions but definitive fact. However, I do believe that Osman has enough evidence to argue that Christianity certainly has African roots. His arugments about baptism, the cross symbol, and the concept of the resurrection emerging from Africa are plausible. I was intrigued by his idea that one must accept the resurrection in order to be saved came from an Egyptian religious movement. Many people struggle with the Christian tenet that Jesus is the only way for salvation. Yet, Osman asserts that the early Christian church assimilated that teaching from an Egyptian cult. As a Christian, I would not accept his efforts to distinguish the historical Jesus from the created Christ, for there are too many possibilities that could either affirm or undermine his premise. Yet, Osman's work is worth reading for scholars who appreciate a diverse view on traditionally established subjects. Readers should appreciate Osman's scholarship and use it where one feels it is applicable, but I would not drop my orthodox teachings about salvation through Christ as a result of his work. Christianity: An Ancient Egyptian Religion can be best studied with a fork and not a spoon. Pick out what you think if most reasonable but there is no need to swallow all of it.

I have always had a fascination with history. Ancient civilizations & religion are some of my favorites. For someone who was an Apostolic Penetecostal to Atheist, I had spent a few years off & on just researching. Recently I found a video that showed how Christianity is related to the Egyptian Astrology & have a sister-in-law who is studying & teaching Kemetic Yoga- so naturally it opened my mind to study again. This is my first study book in years & probably the best I have read. The detail of this book to explain both stories in the bible with actual historical Egyptian figures is pretty mind blowing. He explains the individual, what they know aboit their life. To the traditions of the time, locations. There is so much information that I will need to reread and take notes a few times. I love that this is written in a way that doesn't bash but to say this is the information we have, here are the studies & what we know. This is not a hard book to read, but if you are not familiar with certain terms or practices used, then there will need to be some research done. I also want to thank the seller for an "in excellent condition" used book.

This book is a stunning piece of scholarship and embracing a monumentally diverse number of resources, ancient and recent. As this book dates between his most recent volume and the earlier one published in 1998, the importance of this text and its images and illustrations are no less diminished. Before reading this book I had read Bauval's and Osman's book Breaking the Mirror of Heaven, a very different kind of book, but of equal importance to any sentient being. As a specialist in the early Italian Renaissance and as someone brought up in the Judeo-Christian traditions I was curious when I picked up this title. From the site at Nag Hamadi to the Arab Spring we are seeing a new Egypt emerge, deeply rooted in the prehistoric and historic worlds of which everyone on the planet is a part. We all live by cultural traditions, more intimate family traditions, many if not most of which are deliberate or unintentional delusions. Osman's book peals back the layers of deceit and delusion and brings us closer to what really happenend in our ancient past. Five stars and three cheers!

Christianity: An Ancient Egyptian Religion By MBPLee The impression I get with the Old and New Testaments is that it is too cosmetic, too clinical, and too comprehensive and too immediate. That is not how other religions have evolved like Hinduism, or Taoism or Buddhism, the other great ancient religions. Hence, I have always believed that the Bible has been too "expertly edited" to satisfy the inquiring mind and to close any possible loop-holes as far as the early theologians were able to foresee. But there was much that they were not able to foresee because of the nature of the revelations - modern science. Theologians too were guilty of creating new doctrines or of suppressing ideas or historical events to suit their doctrinal proselytising such as creating myths, and suppressing any associations to multi-theist Egyptian religions. It is only through the inquiry of Sigmund Freud of the roots of Moses, that has prompted others like Ahmed Osman to continue their own studies into this connection with the Egyptian culture. Christianity could not have emerged suddenly with the vision of Moses seeing the "Burning Bush" in 1314 BC but certainly must have evolved like all other religions from traditions, cultures, and the religious practices of primitive (theists) people of the region, the Egyptians. As Taoism evolved from shamanism and primitive spiritualisms, and as Hinduism also evolved from very ancient primitive traditions, so Christianity too must have evolved from the traditions and culture of the ancient cultures in Egypt and the surrounding areas. Here, Ahmed Osman's hypothesis of pointing to the influences of the Egyptian religious customs, their Pharaohs, and the Egyptian culture has provided the bridge between Egyptian religions and culture with early Christianity. No doubt this will spur other researchers to find additional evidence to either reinforce this hypothesis or to discredit it. Most of the evidence so far provided has shown the strong resemblances or coincidences of the history of Egypt, and Roman history, with that of Biblical history. What justification will be made to bridge historical Christianity with the spiritual Christianity to the satisfaction of modern public will depend on the findings in modern archaeology. (1) Egyptian Pharaohs were gods and kings but they were also considered reincarnations of god Horus., after death they reverted to true gods. This unique attribute was conferred to Jesus and is based of Egyptian cultural traditions. It was not a unique concept. (2) Long before the existence of Torah or the Bible, the polytheist Egyptians already believed in the "Living Spirit and resurrection," and that "Osiris was resurrected 3 days after death," hence the mummification of the Pharaohs as the Egyptians believed that the Pharaohs will be resurrected when the spirit returned to the body. This resurrection as the preserve of the Pharaohs. The resurrection of Jesus fitted this concept. (3) The Egyptians believed in Baptism with (pure, Holy) water. (4) The 10 Commandments is almost identical to the Egyptian "Book of the Dead." (5) The Egyptians accepted the Trinity i.e., Osiris, Isis, and Horus was the Egyptian Trinity. (6) Pharoah Akhenatem was the first monotheist who built temples for god, Atem. So many of the essential elements in Christianity come from the Egyptian religious culture that it is impossible to dismiss that the roots of Judiasm/Christianity/Islam did not originate from within the Egyptian religious culture. To dismiss Ahmed Osman's hypothesis as radical is as biased as to accept the Bible as the literal story of God. But Osman's hypothesis is certain to upset Christian and Jewish and Islamic Fundamentalists but leaves the door open to further researches into the authenticity of the myths in the Bible, the Torah and the Qur'an.

I enjoyed the alternative view on the subject.

Interesting read

Was very disappointed when I learned that this is the Autors book "Out of Egypt" issued in UK some years earlier.