Of deities, avatars and incarnation

Question: How does the story of Mary giving birth to Jesus reflect the legend of the Goddess (Isis) giving birth to the Sun God?

Mary, mother of Jesus, has indeed been compared with the Egyptian goddess Isis, who, after his death and the subsequent restoration of his body parts, becomes pregnant by Osiris with their son Horus. Isis then flees to the marshlands of the Nile Delta in order to hide from her brother, the desert god Set, who had killed Osiris and who would want to kill their son. There, at the Winter Solstice, she gives birth to Horus, god of the sky (including the sun and the moon), of hunting, and of war, often represented as a falcon or a falcon-headed man. Isis' subsequent role seems to have been to assist her son in challenging Set for the kingdom, including, some sources say, protecting and healing him, although I have not found out in what way.

From the small amount of research I have done, it appears that it was also at the Winter Solstice that the Greek goddesses Leta and Demeter gave birth, respectively, to Apollo and to Dionysus; within Roman culture it was the birth day of Solis Invictus; and Mithra, Persian god of light, was also born on the shortest day. And both Horus' father Osiris, and Dionysus, were, like Jesus, hailed as dying and rising gods.

As a bit of an aside, it is perhaps even more interesting that in other cultures it is the Goddess herself who is represented by the Sun. From my reading, it seems that for pre-Islamic people the Great Mother/Sun was al-Lat, a title also used for the Semitic Mother Goddess Asherah and the Syrian goddess Athirat. The Hittite sun goddess was possibly Arinitti (who with her daughter and grand-daughter formed a triple deity), and in the Norse pantheon the Sun Goddess was Sol or Sunna, known also to the Celts as Sul or Sulis. I do wonder how she became 'translated' or perhaps transmogrified over the Christian ages, such that 'Sister Moon' became a mere reflection of 'Brother Sun'? And, as a corollary to this, how we have so much lost our sense of kinship that once encompassed the planets and stars?

The sun and moon at the North Pole

The birth of Jesus – the 'Sun of Righteousness', 'Light of the World', and 'Son of God' - eventually came to be celebrated just four days after the Winter Solstice. Some sources point out the nicety (albeit somewhat fancifully dependent on his birth having actually been at the Winter Solstice) that his conception would therefore have been at the Spring Equinox, 25th March in our current calendar, when day and night, darkness and light are equal.

In the stories of the birth of Jesus, his mother Mary, together with Joseph, flee from the jealous wrath of King Herod. And where does she go? To Egypt of course, land of Isis, Osiris, Horus, et al. But after Jesus' death, it is another Mary, Mary Magdalene, who weeps for him, seeking his body that she has previously anointed, and being the first witness of his resurrection... and possibly bearing his child during her subsequent travels, which brought her here to France.

The two stories of the births of Horus and of Jesus have apparent similarities – born of a woman, the absent procreative father (sorry, Joseph – such a neglected figure in the narratives to do with Jesus), the flight to Egypt/the Nile, the subsequent over-shadowing of the mother by the son. And both Isis and Mary were/are known as the Queen of Heaven and Mother of God.

It seems likely that in writing the accounts of Jesus' birth the authors, perhaps unconsciously, drew on cross-cultural themes, ideas, symbols and images. However, in the Isis story the characters are entirely non-human/divine; in the story of Jesus, the crucial fact is Incarnation. I am not convinced that Mary represents the Goddess per se, and therefore I think that the 'messages' are different. The 'message' of the Isis story/myth is a simple one – of conflicting deities and territorial conflict; the 'message' of the Jesus story/legend is that the divine/God is intimately involved in human life, to the extent of being born of a woman (not a goddess) and living a fully human life among us. 

If Mary was a Goddess then Jesus was neither human nor God Incarnate, but merely an avatar. What the Jesus story offers is thus far greater than that of the Isis story: that God affirms the value of human life, is involved in our here and now, opens to us true fullness of life, and yet needs our co-operation – the 'yes' of a young girl.