Claim:

The story of Jesus is said to be taken from a man named Heru from Egypt, said to be African and born of a virgin.   Heru is supposed to be a story before Jesus.   Who is Heru?

Response:

The claim you heard falls into a category of claims that the story of Jesus is a myth, borrowed from other god-man myths which were common in the Greek, Egyptian and Persian cultures.

First of all, let it be said that the thesis that there were a number of god-man myths in the Near East is certainly true.  Here are many such claims.  Such myths include Osiris, Horus, Empodocles, Krishna (actually from the Indian subcontinent), Peregrinus. Mithra and many more.    The problems with such claims are many.

For one, the claims of such parallels are massively overblown.  If we look at the myths about Osiris, Mithra, Krishna or, in the case you are asking about Heru (more commonly known as Horus) you will find perhaps a very small amount of overlap, but the description of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, on balance, is not even remotely similar to any of these myths.

Besides, Jesus was a real person.  We know where he was born.  We know where he died.  We know when and how he died.  We know the names of his mother, his father, and three of his brothers, as well as dozens of his close acquaintances.  He is mention in historical documents by those who knew him directly (John, Peter, Matthew, Mark and more) as well as Jews and Romans who did not know him personally, but who give us historical details of his life.  This is true of none of these others. Krishna was not a real person.  He is pure myth.   Osiris is not a real person.  We cannot find a date of his life or the names of his acquaintances, or the location of his birth, as he is not a real person.  The same can be said for Horus/Heru.  There was no such person, and the idea that the New Testament writers borrowed their historical account of the actual person Jesus Christ from a pagan Egyptian myth is ludicrous.  This claim is groundless on many levels.  Can any rational person actually believe that these Jewish monotheists would construct a conspiracy to create a messiah using an Egyptian pagan myth as their model?

Then there is the actual “information” we have on the Egyptian god Horus.   If you take a simple look at the description of Horus (who was not real, and who no one I know of believes was a real person) you will find the claim that the story of Jesus’ miracles, his teachings, his death on the cross and his resurrection were obviously not borrowed from Horus.   Here is some information on Horus which reveals how silly it is to think of the biblical story of Jesus of Nazareth having been borrowed from this pagan Greek myth.

Horus is pictured as a human with a falcon head.  Horus was born to the goddess Isis after she retrieved all the dismembered body parts of her murdered husband Osiris, except his penis which was thrown into the Nile and eaten by a catfish, or sometimes by a crab, and according to Plutarch’s account  used her magic powers to resurrect Osiris and fashion a golden phallus to conceive her son (older Egyptian accounts have the penis of Osiris surviving).  Once Isis knew she was pregnant with Horus, she fled to the Nile Delta marshlands to hide from her brother Set who jealously killed Osiris and who she knew would want to kill their son. There Isis bore a divine son, Horus.  Horus was told by his mother, Isis, to protect the people of Egypt from Set, the god of the desert, who had killed his father Osiris.  Horus had many battles with Set, not only to avenge his father, but to choose the rightful ruler of Egypt. In these battles, Horus came to be associated with Lower Egypt, and became its patron.   According to Papyrus Chester-Beatty I, Set is depicted as trying to prove his dominance by seducing Horus and then having intercourse with him. However, Horus places his hand between his thighs and catches Set’s semen, then subsequently throws it in the river, so that he may not be said to have been inseminated by Set. Horus then deliberately spreads his own semen on some lettuce, which was Set’s favorite food. After Set had eaten the lettuce, they went to the gods to try to settle the argument over the rule of Egypt. The gods first listened to Set’s claim of dominance over Horus, and call his semen forth, but it answered from the river, invalidating his claim. Then, the gods listened to Horus’ claim of having dominated Set, and call his semen forth, and it answered from inside Set.

I could go on here, but on the face of it, the claim that the early church borrowed their description of Jesus from the pagan god Horus is laughable.  In any case, this is no virgin birth here.  You should feel free to dismiss this claim for what it is—completely bogus.

John Oakes