A great many ignorant fools have watched the movie Zeitgeist and accepted the information presented in it as being factual and true. However, for anyone who actually does any research, they will find the information contained in the movie Zeitgeist to be entirely erroneous and falsified. In fact, the sources for the Zeitgeist movie are outdated, unreliable, non-academic, non-scholarly, speculative, and/or conspiracy-laden tomes written by folks who are not trained in biblical scholarship, historical Jesus studies, Egyptology (or related fields), and/or rely on other non-scholarly, outdated, pseudo-historical books, and are therefore filled with errors. Were these people not raised not to believe everything they read, hear, or see? If you do not want to look like a complete fool when debating with someone on these issues, make sure you do your homework and study the subject yourself from reputable sources. Do your own research rather than blindly relying on the falsified information of liars.
GILGAMESH:
It is claimed that the biblical flood account is based off the flood account contained in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is said to be dated around 2750-2500 B.C. However, this is faulty dating. This dating would put Gilgamesh before the flood, which is inaccurate since he was not born until after the flood. "This ancient Babylonian clay tablet was created more than four millennia ago and contains one of the most important inscriptions from the earliest days of humanity. The Deluge Tablet is the eleventh book of the Chaldean Epic of Gilgamesh (dated 2200 B.C.). The person known as Gilgamesh is called Nimrod, the builder of the original city of Babylon, as recorded in Genesis 11. The epic poem, Epic of Gilgamesh, recounts the story of the flood as given to Gilgamesh by an older relative, a man named Nuh-napishtim (also called Atrahasis), known as 'the very wise or pious.' This Nuh-napishtim is the Babylonian name for Noah."1 Ergo, Gilgamesh was the great grandson of Noah. So it makes sense that Gilgamesh would have heard about the flood from his great grandfather, seeing as how he went through it. As such, which is most likely to be the original flood account?
It is often attempted to be argued that because there exist over 400 different flood accounts from around the world, that the Bible stole its story from these sources, even going so far as to copy the names of Noah's sons. Anyone with an ounce of logical sense will see immediately the flaw in this argument. The fact that there are over 400 different flood accounts attests to the fact that the Bible is true in its record of a world-wide flood. The fact these records share the same names further lends credibility to the biblical account. The surviving descendants of the flood would have recorded it, which is why there are so many accounts from around the world. The difference of languages can be attributed to the confusing of language as recorded in Genesis 11. The existence of all these other flood accounts merely goes to prove that the biblical account is accurate and true.
"The biblical account alone has the factual ring of history rather than myth. It fits the rest of the Bible and agrees with what we know of mankind's history to the present time. Thus the biblical account stands on one side and all of the others, in spite of their similarities to the Genesis story, stand together in opposition to it. That distinction between the Bible and all other accounts is significant. It indicates that the biblical account was not borrowed from the others. Clearly, all non-biblical accounts originated from the same historical events, and their differences developed later. The pagan myths all vary from one another, so none can be trusted as authentic. They must have all become perverted in one way or another. Inasmuch as the biblical account is consistent with the rest of the Bible, it can claim the same infallibility of inspiration as all of God's Word. The pagan accounts are similar enough to confirm the biblical account, but different enough so that the later stands alone as the only authentic record. The biblical account does not originate from oral tradition handed down from generation to generation (and thus it escapes the inevitable error inherent in such a process); but it was given by inspiration of God."2
The Epic of Gilgamesh was not written by Gilgamesh himself, but was written about 450 years later by a man named Shin-eqi-unninni. It was written in Akkadian on 12 clay tablets, which were later found in the library of Ashurbanipal of Assyria (669-633 B.C.). Gilgamesh was a historical king of Uruk in Babylonia, which, as we have seen, is the same man called Nimrod in the Bible. Ergo, however inaccurate the details of the Gilgamesh account, it lends credibility to the truthfulness of the information contained in the Bible regarding the flood and Nimrod's life.
HORUS:
It is claimed that the life of Jesus was stolen directly from that of Horus. It is claimed that Horus' mother, Isis, had a virgin birth; that Horus had 12 disciples; walked on water and performed miracles; and was the son of Ra, the sun God. But none of this has been substantiated. With regard to the supposed virgin birth of Horus, here is what various Egyptian scholars have had to say:
- "...drawings on contemporary funerary papyri show her as a kite hovering above Osiris, who is revived enough to have an erection and impregnate his wife." (Lesko, Great Goddesses of Egypt, p. 162)
- "After having sexual intercourse, in the form of a bird, with the dead god she restored to life, she gave birth to a posthumous son, Horus." (Dunand / Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men in Egypt, p. 39)
- "Through her magic Isis revivified the sexual member of Osiris and became pregnant by him, eventually giving birth to their child, Horus." (Richard Wilkinson, Complete gods and goddesses of Ancient Egypt, p. 146)
- "Isis already knows that she is destined to bear a child who will be king. In order to bring this about, she has to revive the sexual powers of Osiris, just as the Hand Goddess aroused the penis of the creator to create the first life." (Pinch, Handbook of Egyptian Mythology, p. 80)
If one looks at the information contained on Wikipedia in regard to Osiris, Isis, Horus, and Ra, one notices that Ra is never connected with the story whatsoever. All the information presented on Wikipedia reveals the information contained in the Zeitgeist movie to be erroneous and falsified. The information states that Osiris and Isis were brother and sister and that they married and had a son whom they named Horus. The accounts of how Horus was conceived vary between them all, as seen above.
Evangelical biblical scholar Ben Witherington, in a critique of the Zeitgeist movie, writes on the sources used by the filmmakers: "What do we notice about this list of sources? Not a single one of these authors and sources are experts in the Bible, biblical history, the Ancient Near East, Egyptology, or any of the cognate fields. Many of these sources are quite old, and the arguments they present have long since been shown to be weak.... The point of my listing these sources is that they are not reliable sources of information about the origins of Christianity, Judaism, or much of anything else of relevance to this discussion." (from The Zeitgeist of the 'Zeitgeist Movie') Some of those sources are as follows:
- Acharya S, Suns of God and The Christ Conspiracy.
- Gerald Massey, The Historical Jesus and Mythical Christ (orig. c. 1900) and Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World (orig. 1907).
- Thomas Doane, Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions (orig. 1882).
- James Frazer, The Golden Bough (1st ed. 1890; 2nd ed. 1900; 3rd ed. in 12 volumes, 1906-1915).
- Freke and Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries.
A self-proclaimed atheist, writing a response to the claims of the Zeitgeist movie, concluded: "...I find the comparison between Horus and Jesus to consist of the following: they were of royal descent, they allegedly worked miracles and there were murder plots against them." Scholars agree; there are no similarities between Jesus and Horus such as those that the movie Zeitgeist claims. The supposed healing miracles of Horus are associated with Horus-the-Child. Horus never had 12 followers and he never walked on water.
There is much more that can be, and has been, said on this issue. Look into it for yourself and study the facts. Too often people repeat stupid information they have picked up from somewhere else without actually looking into the veracity of that information. It was once put to me that the Bible was written 400 years after Jesus by Constantine. That statement is utterly laughable, and I would laugh in the face of any person dumb enough to repeat it. A couple clicks of the mouse and you can find all sorts of information that proves that statement to be sheer stupidity. Come on, unbelievers! God gave you a brain for a reason, please try using it.
1 Grant R. Jeffreys, Unveiling Mysteries of the Bible, 47.
2 Dave Hunt, In Defense of the Faith, 121-122.