The Baptismal Raising of Lazarus: A New Interpretation of John 11, Bernhard Lang, Novum Testamentum 58 (2016) 301-317
https://www.academia.edu/33654784/The_B ... 16_301-317
Episodes that involve apparent death and an empty tomb are quite common in ancient Greek novels. In almost every ancient novel, the author has “his hero or heroine die and rise again.” Later, “one comes to realise that the dead person was only thought dead, or that a different but similar looking person died, or that the death was only apparent; nevertheless, the person found alive was greeted as someone who has returned from death"...
Stereotypical plots such as the one found in Callirhoë may bore the modern reader, because he fails to understand their twofold religious meaning. On the surface, they indicate that the novel’s heroes are accompanied by the gods; these protect the pious and guide them through their adventures to a happy ending. In the case of Callirhoë, the heroine’s singular devotion to, and protection by, the goddess Aphrodite is particularly striking. But this is not the end of it, for the ancient readers also pick up the deeper meaning of such scenes. For them, they imply a reference to the ritual movement from death to life in the context of the mystery initiations...
Unfortunately, our ancient sources on mystery religions tell us very little about how the “second birth” was ritually staged, for initiates were required to remain silent about it. Nevertheless, some hints found in ancient sources give an indication. The magic papyrus of Paris provides a good example. Around eleven o’clock in the morning and in the presence of the magician, the candidate is supposed to mount the roof of a house and spread out a piece of cloth. Naked he places himself upon it. His eyes are blindfolded, the entire body wrapped like a mummy. With closed eyes turning to the sun, he utters a spell that addresses the god Typhon, king of the gods. The spell is pronounced three times, anticipating a divine sign. When this occurs, possibly in the form of a draught of air felt by the candidate, the latter stands up. He dons a white garment, burns incense and again utters a spell. The rites completed, he descends from the roof. Now he knows that he has acquired immortality. Similar rites and symbolic representations of death and resurrection can be found in all ancient mystery cults. “When the candidate of the mysteries of Isis applies for initiation, he chooses the ritual death in order to gain true life,” explains Reinhold Merkelbach. In fact, according to the ancients, each initiation ritual involves the death of the old and the birth of a new person; there are no exceptions.
Early-Christian baptism divides the lives of those baptised in a sequence of three phases. In the first phase, the human being is enslaved to sin and the world. The second phase means death: the baptismal candidate is killed—symbolically, but not actually drowned by being forced under water. This “drowning” is the actual rite of baptism
And the other source:
Intolerance, Polemics, and Debate in Antiquity: Politico-Cultural, Philosophical, and Religious Forms of Critical Conversation(BRILL, 2019), George H. van Kooten, Jacques van Ruiten
This is by no means the only allusion to the Eleusinian mysteries in John's Gospel. Just before his death, at the beginning of the last festival that he attends in the Jerusalem temple, it is the very Greeks who wish to see Jesus whom he answers with a reference to his approaching death, cast in a hidden allusion to the Eleusinian mysteries, which revolve around the contemplation of an ear of wheat that was seen as the fruit of the resurrection of Aphrodite/Kore: "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit"(12:24)
I've always suspected that themes of initiation are to be found throughout the texts of the NT.
Notice that in one of the rituals that is described in the article by Bernhard Lang, the initiate is wrapped like a mummy. Some of the earliest initiation texts that we have are ancient Egyptian. The ritual resurrection of the deceased was considered to be an "initiation into the netherworld" according to Jan Assmann in Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt(Cornell University Press, 2003).
'The mysteries of the netherworld,
initiation into the mysteries of the realm of the dead'...
In any event, the Egyptian texts say one thing clearly enough: that all rituals, and especially those centered on Osiris and the sun god, were cloaked in mystery. And it is also clear that there is a relationship between initiation into these (ritual) mysteries and life in the next world. He who knew these things overcame the dangers of the realm of death and managed the passage into Elysium and the “going forth by day”...
There is good reason to think that ancient Egyptian burial customs lived on in the Hellenistic Isis mysteries, though in the latter case, they were enacted and interpreted not as a burial of the deceased but as an initiation of the living.
Notice Assmann says that the rituals centered on Osiris and the sun god Re were especially cloaked in "mystery". Those are the two Egyptian deities that died and resurrected or conquered death. You find constant ritual identification with those two deities throughout Egyptian texts.
The deceased being initiated is ritually identified with the death and resurrection of Osiris. Part of the initiation ritual was:
- The deceased in the role of Osiris
- Another person in the role of Horus resurrecting Osiris
- Two women in the role of the mourning sisters of Osiris, Isis and Nephthys
The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts(SBL Press; Second edition, 2015), James P. Allen:
Recitation 152: Isis, this Osiris here is your brother, whom you have made revive and live: he will live and this Unis will live, he will not die and this Unis will not die, he will not perish and this Unis will not perish; Nephthys, this Osiris here is your brother, whom you have made revive and live: he will live and this Unis will live, he will not die and this Unis will not die, he will not perish and this Unis will not perish; Horus, this Osiris here is your father, whom you have made revive and live: he will live and this Unis will live, he will not die and this Unis will not die, he will not perish and this Unis will not perish
Recitation 526: Raise yourself, clear away your dust, remove the shroud on your face. Loosen your ties...
So "Unis", or the deceased king who is ritually identified with Osiris, is told to raise himself and to remove his shroud and ties. Compare that to Jesus raising Lazarus in John 11:
Another aspect of the initiation ritual was the purification of the deceased by water. This water was said to be the water that came out of the wound of Osiris when he was killed. This water was also associated with the Nile waters and the primordial waters and it purified you of your sins and gave you a new life or rebirth. Just like baptism.
Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt(Cornell University Press, 2003), Jan Assmann
we live again anew,
after we enter the primeval water,
and it has rejuvenated us into one who is young for the first time.
The old man is shed, a new one is made ...
Compare that to what Paul says about baptism in Romans 6:
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
In the following quote Pharaoh is being baptized with the water that came out of the wounds of Osiris. He's also ritually identified with the Sun god Re who dies and resurrects every night/morning. Re is reborn/resurrected after entering the primordial waters, and so is Pharaoh during his baptism.
"Conceptions of Purity in Egyptian Religion", Joachim Friedrich Quack in * Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions in the Ancient Mediterranean World and Ancient Judaism*(BRILL, 2012), Christian Frevel, Christophe Nihan
O inundation, may you wash off his errant demons...
[Come] that you [erase] all evil in him.
Any taboo he did, [...] at the lake!...
Pharaoh is purified with this water which came out from Osiris...
Pharaoh is Re, arising in the primeval ocean,
[His] purity is [the purity of... in the] water,
With big flame...
In the Pyramid Texts the person being resurrected/deified is said to drink the bodily fluids of Osiris in the form of beer. This was all part of the deification process.
Compare the water that comes out of the wound of Osiris to what Craig R. Koester says about the water that comes from Jesus' wound in gJohn:
Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community(Fortress Press, 2003)
Notice in the article by Bernhard Lang that I linked to at the beginning of this post it says: "The second phase means death: the baptismal candidate is killed—symbolically, but not actually drowned by being forced under water. This “drowning” is the actual rite of baptism"
He refers to baptism as a symbolic "drowning".
For the Living and the Dead: The Funerary Laments of Upper Egypt, Ancient and Modern(I. B. Tauris, 2010), Elizabeth Wickett
"Baptism and initiation in the cult of Isis and Sarapis" by Brook Pearson, in Baptism, the New Testament and the Church: Historical and Contemporary Studies in Honour of R.E.O. White, edited by Stanley E. Porter, Anthony R. Cross
In ancient times, the Osiris myth was the basis for what are perhaps the first mysteries- the lawful succession of the pharaohs, their burial and eventual union with Osiris in the afterlife. This 'mystery' eventually became something in which not only kings but other Egyptians could partake, and, in time, spread across the known world, along with the worship of Isis and Sarapis. For our purposes here, both of these elements separately and in combination suggest that the Isis initiate did indeed go through a process of identification with the god Osiris, and that this fact would have been the assumption behind the entire initiation process. In the first place, the ancient form of the Isis-Osiris mysteries clearly has the kings, and later normal people, identifying with the god Osiris in the hope of unification with him in the afterlife (and even, possibly, in his resurrection). This is indisputable.
Corresponding Sense: Paul, Dialectic, and Gadamer(BRILL, 2001), Brook W. R. Pearson
So it seems very likely that this death/rebirth initiation ritual that was performed on the deceased in ancient Egypt eventually became an initiation ritual that was performed during one's lifetime when joining the mysteries. In ancient Egypt we already have an example of the Pharaoh performing a death and resurrection/rebirth ritual while he was alive.
Amenhotep III: Egypt's Radiant Pharaoh(Cambridge University Press, 1992-2012 ), Arielle P. Kozloff
Temples of Ancient Egypt(Cornell University Press, 1997), Dieter Arnold, Gerhard Haeny, Lanny Bell, Ragnhild Bjerre Finnestad
During the Sed-Festival, the living king, as part of his eternal cycle, underwent a ritual death and rejuvenation. In the rite's critical climax, the king experienced the nadir of his strength...
All throughout Egyptian texts you find ritual identification with a deity that dies and is resurrected/reborn. The person shares in the deities resurrection/rebirth just like in Christian baptism.
Becoming Divine: An Introduction to Deification in Western Culture(Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2013), M. David Litwa