The image of a god, buried in a tomb, being withdrawn and said to live again, is thousands of years older than the Jesus stories. Of all the resurrected savior gods that were worshipped before and at the beginning of the Christian myth, none contributed so much to the mythology developing around Jesus as the Egyptian Osiris. Osiris was called "Lord of Lords," "King of Kings" and "the good Shepherd." He was called "the resurrection and the life," the god who made "men and women to be born again." He was the "god man" who suffered, died, rose again and lived eternally in heaven. They thought that by believing in Osiris they would share eternal life with him. Egyptian scripture reads: "As truly as Osiris lives, so truly shall his followers live also."

The coming of Osiris was announced by Three Wise Men. His flesh was eaten in the form of communion cakes of wheat. Only through Osiris could one obtain eternal life, they believed. The much loved 23rd Psalm of the Bible is a modified version of an Egyptian text appealing to Osiris, "the good shepherd," to lead the dead "to green pastures and still waters," "to restore the soul" to the body and to give protection in "the valley of the shadow of death."

The outstanding television series on religion for PBS and BBC a number of years ago documented religious experience. The Near East section was written by Dr. Grace Cairns, who holds a doctorate in religion from the University of Chicago. She wrote: "The resurrection myth of Osiris and Isis prepared the Greco-Roman world for the resurrection myth of Jesus in early Christianity." She goes on to write that the followers of Jesus, like the followers of Osiris, made him a part of themselves by eating him in communion cakes so as to participate in his resurrection. Gods of that period who were eaten in the form of bread, or cakes, included Adonis and Dionysus, among others. Other resurrected gods, before Jesus, were Attis and Mithra. Like Jesus, Attis was sacrificed at the Spring equinox, rose again from the dead on the third day, and ascended to heaven. Like Mithra and other gods, he celebrated his birthday nine months later at the winter solstice.

As Joseph Campbell often said in his lectures, "The vast majority of ministers do not even understand their own material." The same observation was made by the distinguished Lutheran Dr. Paul Scherer, professor of homiletics at Union and at Princeton University. He wrote that the typical Easter sermon, as heard in most churches in America, left him with exactly the same feeling as if he had just been fed a five-pound box of sweet chocolates all at one sitting. I cannot believe that intelligent, sensitive people want to be fed a box of sweet chocolates on Easter Sunday.

William Edelen is a newspaper columnist and radio talk show host on KPSL in Palm Springs.

---