Is Jesus based on Horus?

Most historians and Egyptologists say no. The idea that the story of Jesus was drawn from the Egyptian god Horus goes back, in large part, to Gerald Massey, who set out 270 pairs of Egyptian and Christian likenesses in his 1907 book Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World. Scholars do see broad themes shared by many ancient religions, such as a divine mother and child. But they do not accept that the Gospels were copied from Egypt, and many likenesses repeated online are not in Egyptian sources.

Where the idea comes from: Massey, a self-taught English writer on Egypt, made the case in lectures and books, most fully in Book XII of his last work, The Jesus-Legend Traced in Egypt for Ten Thousand Years. Later writers repeated and extended his list, and a short version of such a list spread widely through the 2007 online film Zeitgeist.
How Gerald Massey made his case: Massey reads the gospel story as an older Egyptian myth retold as history. He sets Egyptian figures beside Christian ones: Isis beside Mary, Anubis (his Anup) beside John the Baptist, Osiris raised from the tomb beside Lazarus. His evidence is of three kinds: Egyptian texts in the translations of his day; names matched by their sound, as when he takes Iusa for an Egyptian form of Jesus; and Christian-era material, such as Gnostic writings, later gospels of Jesus’s childhood and pictures in the Roman catacombs.
The claims repeated most often: A virgin birth: in the best-known Egyptian story, Isis conceives Horus by her husband Osiris after his death. Twelve disciples: no Egyptian text gives Horus twelve disciples; Massey reads the twelve as the signs of the zodiac, which reached Egypt only in the last centuries BCE. A crucifixion: Massey links Osiris and Horus with the djed pillar, which he reads as a cross; Egyptologists read it as a sign of stability. Egyptian spells do tell of the child Horus, stung by a scorpion and brought back to life, but no Egyptian source has Horus rise on the third day or be born on 25 December. Massey arrives at both by reckonings of his own.
What scholars say now: Egyptologists and historians of early Christianity do not accept that the Gospels were copied from the myth of Horus. The Gospels were written in Greek, in the first century or soon after, in a Jewish setting, and most historians, religious or not, hold that Jesus was a real teacher crucified under Pontius Pilate. Linguists derive his name from the Hebrew Yeshua. Texts such as the Gnostic Pistis Sophia were written long after the Gospels, so they cannot be their source. Shared themes, such as a divine mother and child, or death followed by new life, are real and widely discussed.
In Massey’s words: “A comparative list of some pre-existing and pre-Christian data which were christianized in the Canonical Gospels and the Book of Revelation.” (Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World (1907), Appendix · The Parallels, p. 907)
In the app: Library › The Parallels. In the app, The Parallels sets out all 270 of Massey’s pairs exactly as printed in 1907, under a note on where scholars stand, and Book XII gives his full argument.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

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