Egyptian king/Osiris as logos.
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2019 1:04 pm
The ancient Egyptian king is often described in the same way as the logos is described by Philo and gJohn. Osiris was an Egyptian king and Plutarch describes him as the Logos.
The Logos according to Philo and Gjohn:
Divine Embodiment in Jewish Antiquity: Rediscovering the Jewishness of John’s Incarnate Christ, Deborah Forger
Temples of Ancient Egypt Edited by Byron E Shafer
Philo also says of the Logos:
From the Egyptian text called "King as solar priest":
Plutarch calls king Osiris the Logos:
The Gospel of Thomas and Plato : A Study of the Impact of Platonism on the Fifth Gospel By Ivan Miroshnikov
The Logos according to Philo and Gjohn:
Divine Embodiment in Jewish Antiquity: Rediscovering the Jewishness of John’s Incarnate Christ, Deborah Forger
Compare that to:Though sharing the divine identity with God, the logos is subordinate as indicated by being “the eldest of all created things” ((Leg. 3, 61, 173; Migr. 6), “the first-born of God” (Agr. 12, 51),, the “man of God” (Conf. 11, 41; cf. 14, 62; 28, 146), the “image of God” (Conf. 28), the “second God” (QE II, 62, Marcus, LCL)… Jesus as the logos is one with the Father but also subordinate to the Father. The Father “has given all things into his hand”, “has given him authority to judge” yet for all he does he needs the Father’s permission; also as an indicator of Jesus’ subordinate role, he always calls God his Father — even though he and the Father are one from the beginning of time.
Temples of Ancient Egypt Edited by Byron E Shafer
Becoming Divine: An Introduction to Deification in Western Culture By M. David LitwaThe royal ka was the immortal creative spirit of divine kingship, a form of the Creator’s collective ka. The ka of a particular king was but a specific instance, or fragment, of the royal ka... Only in retrospect could he be portrayed as predestined by the Creator to rule Egypt as truly perfect from the beginning, as divine seed, son of the Creator, the very flesh of god, one with the Father, god’s incarnation on earth, his sacred image.
In an inscription from western Thebes (modern Luxor), the god Amun-Re hails Pharaoh Amenhotep III as “my son of my body, my beloved Nebmaatra, my living image, my body’s creation.”
Philo also says of the Logos:
The Egyptian king is also "raised up" by his father. Osiris was a king who was also "raised up".For that man who is the eldest son, whom the father of all raised up, and elsewhere calls his fistborn
From the Egyptian text called "King as solar priest":
The king, identified with the rising sun god, is being "raised" by his father.As his father Osiris raises him up...
Plutarch calls king Osiris the Logos:
The Gospel of Thomas and Plato : A Study of the Impact of Platonism on the Fifth Gospel By Ivan Miroshnikov
This Logos concept seems to have originally been associated with the king. The concept is used by the Middle Platonists(Philo, Plutarch) and they most likely influenced GJohn and other parts of the NT. King Jesus is the Logos in GJohn and king Osiris is the Logos in Plutarch's writings.The double role of Plutarch's Osiris is determined by his intermediary status: in order to act as an intermediary between the transcendent God and the world, he needs to participate in both transcendence and immanence. The very same double role is ascribed to Logos in Philo: according to Mos. 2.127, the cosmic Logos deals with both "the incorporeal and paradigmatic forms" and the visible objects that imitate these forms. The fact that Philo's Logos and Plutarch's Osiris are functionally identical and that Osiris can also be called Logos demonstrates that Philo's philosophy of Logos was part of a larger Middle Platonist tradition and that this tradition as a whole should be recognized as a possible background for the Johannine Logos.