Hello, my name is Glenn Scrivener and joined as ever I am here in person with Paul Feasy. Here he is. Hello. We've still got our Christmas on. So uh I've got my uh my Darth Vader. So uh I find your lack of cheer disturbing. Yep, I've gone for the diehard one today. Now I have a machine gun. And uh Ash, we've got Ash Cunningham joining us on the line from Cheltenham. What have you brought that's Christmasy?
SPEAKER_03Nothing in your hand you bring. TK Max zipper jumper. Okay. That's what Jesus was bought at the first Christmas, I think.
SPEAKER_02It's a rare gift. Absolutely. Very festive. Um brilliant. And uh we're talking to Ash about uh debunking Christmas Humbug. Um why why are we talking to you about debunking Christmas Humbug?
SPEAKER_03Yes, certainly not because of any massive expertise I have in mythology, um, which is what I tweeted about last week, um, and more than just a couple of my mates liked it, which is what I was expecting. And so slightly alarmingly, I then had Glenn appear in my inbox saying, Can we chat to you about this?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Describe the tweets or describe the meme that you were responding to.
SPEAKER_03So it's a meme I think probably a lot of people will have seen. It's uh basically got a slightly um caricaturish cartoon of Jesus on one column and Horus uh an Egyptian god on the other, and basically in columns describes how they were born of a virgin, born of a virgin, born on December 25th, born on December 25th, you know, both had left hands, etc. etc. Similarity that was stolen.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. So uh for those who don't know, and I I don't really know, Horus, who he.
SPEAKER_03Horus is an Egyptian god, um, the son of Osiris and Isis. So he's the son of God. Boom. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. Case closed. Yeah, it's it's not looking good, is it?
SPEAKER_02He'll turn it around. Wait for it. This will be amazing. Okay, so he's the son of Osiris. Okay. Like tell tell me tell me what you know about. I I know I know nothing. Okay, treat treat, I mean Paul, Paul, he's an Egyptologist in his spare time. Basically Indiana Jones, but treat me like a moron. Tell me tell me what you know about like Egyptian mythology.
SPEAKER_03So I I don't I haven't studied mythology, but I was brought up on it. So I was brought up reading myths and legends. And so I did most of the research after having seen the myth. The sorry, the the meme. But what what struck me was this meme was quoted to me when I was doing a QA a few years ago. Um, and said, and the one that they picked from the meme was that they were both born of a virgin. And this is gonna get a little not safe for work here. I remembered quite clearly, as a schoolboy would, the story of how Horus was conceived, which was that um Osiris, his dad, had been dismembered, all of his body parts torn away by Seth, his evil half-brother, and scattered across the globe. And so his sister then kind of runs around the world piecing him back together and gets it all back together. So he's kind of Frankenstein's monster kind of bloke, but she couldn't find um the necessary appendage to procreate. So she she she she made one out of gold. And then they slept together and and she wore Horus. And so I don't want to overstate the case. I I really want to acknowledge that that's not normally how children uh are born. So fair fair play to them there. It's not normal. That's not normal.
SPEAKER_01Okay, a gold member.
SPEAKER_05A gold member. So sorry, I just brought the tone down.
SPEAKER_02Like man wearing the diehard Christmas jumper comes up with that, of course. Of course. Yeah, yeah. So that that that is not the normal method of procreation, no.
SPEAKER_03Um yeah, so having seen that, I thought, well, let's you know, that's quite funny. Let's have a look at some of the others. We'll we'll get on probably later, I hope, to why I wasn't I wasn't particularly bothered by the suggestion that Christianity had similarities with Horus. Um, I was bothered by the flagrant lie. Um and by the fact that it was being put out there deliberately, it seemed, to discourage Christians. Uh and so that was my objection, not oh no, we can't have Christianity looking like anything else in the world.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. Because what whatever else the procreation of Horace was, it was not a virgin birth. This was yes, okay. Um and why do you think where do you think these memes come from? Because uh it's my it's my impression that they're not coming from Egyptologists. It's it's it's not coming from people who have a love for the ancient myths and and then notice the similarities with the Jesus story. Um people everything people everything the people who tweet these memes knows about uh Egyptology is contained within that meme, I would, I would hesitate to suggest.
SPEAKER_03Sure. If it if it originated with Egyptologists, it's been whispered through quite a lot of ears on its way to the meme.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03Um and I I think it's because people just enjoy a debunking. Yeah um and uh the evidence of that is the fact that you've asked me to come on here because I wasn't doing anything wildly dissimilar, except I did some research. And and certainly a lot of the people who who retweeted what I'd put down presumably hadn't then, and fair play to them, hadn't then gone and researched it themselves, but kind of took it on trust. Um so it's who's making it that's I think that's the interesting question. Why are they making them in the first place? Do they think that what they're saying is true, or do they have an agenda? Um, or is it a bit like what we see in kind of other areas of controversy? Brexit, American elections, where two sides have already decided their position and will clack cling to anything that kind of proves the other wrong or shames the other or humiliates the other. And truth truth is already established, truth is my position. So I don't need to worry about seeing if anything else is true.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes. We we we've done enough waggling on the two. We we need to get into this uh this tweet. And shall I share my screen? And I I'd like to hear it in your voice, Ash. A dramatic retelling. Yes, yes. And um, where whereabouts is it? Here we go. Can't be far off.
SPEAKER_03If I'd have known this it was gonna happen, I'd have worked harder on the syntax.
SPEAKER_02Here we go. Let's let's share screen and then then you can maybe read uh is it gonna be this one?
SPEAKER_03Are you wanting me to read the whole thing? Because that's gonna essentially be me filibustering your show.
SPEAKER_02I think it might be interesting to listen then to um reasons why you engage in the tone that you do. I very much enjoyed the tone that it was shared in, and I think it met snark with snark, or it it met kind of yeah, it fought fire with fire um in a quite interesting way. And I think that will that will come across um if I force you to read it now.
SPEAKER_05So yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_02So how's it going?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, okay. Um just making sure there's nothing scandalous on your tabs. Oh yes. Yeah. Um Dominic Dominic Crummings. Uh you're gonna have to do the scrolling for me. Uh well. I wait until I see this meme pop up and then I post my response. I love mythology and have done since I was a wee boy. Whoever made this has no love of mythology, only of lies. What I've written here is largely a repeat of things I've written before and tidied and reformatted for Twitter.
SPEAKER_02Right. And then there's the there's the meme with all the various um similarities, supposed similarities, and then you talk us through them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sure. So Jesus, story written down 2,000 years ago, Horus, story written down 5,000 years ago, and there's not much to dispute there. Uh I think it's generous of them to say 2000 when the actual accounts close to 1950, um, though Isaiah's accounts uh add nearly a millennium to that. Regardless, Egyptian mythology is older than both the Gospels and Isaiah. So far, so worrying. Emoji. Can you show us that emoji, Ash? I'd like to see No, I don't. I naturally have that colour cheeks anyway, so that's just Second point. Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, Horus, born of the Virgin Isis. And we've already gone through this, but I will happily concede that Horus' birth was not exactly ordinary. Isis's brother, Osiris, was murdered by their other brother, sometimes called their half-brother or stepbrother, Set. Set cut Osiris up and scattered the pieces across the world. Isis gathered up all of the pieces and reanimated him. The one thing, the one piece she couldn't find was his penis, so she made a substitute out of gold. Did they ever say why?
SPEAKER_02It's the classic story, really, isn't it? It just gives me that tingly Christmasy feel as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03My penis, where my penis, I don't know. That's the Facebook clip. Luke wrote that, didn't he? Um yeah, so then slept with a brother and bore Horace. Now, what I've said here is I don't think there's a prescribed term for that particular series of events. And if there is a word for it, it's eluded me. It didn't elude Paul though. No, it didn't. Um yeah, no one's reading that story and calling the nativity a rip-off, are they? No. Um indeed. Now this this third point I should say I've been challenged on. Uh Jesus born December 25th, Horace born December 25th. This is correct. And then I think not only are both incorrect, but it's a nonsense assertion. Let me interrupt myself here and say some people have written to me saying, oh, this is why Tertullian calculated it at December 25th. And it relies on a certain amount of interpretation. It's and it's and it can't be accurate to the day for sure. But sure, it it's entirely possible. But this is the reason it's a nonsense assertion that they share the date, is that as cute as it is to think that the ancient Egyptians would have had Roman calendars, they obviously didn't. They had they had Egyptian calendars.
SPEAKER_02Um the best adaptation calendars, those days are numbers. Anyway, that's terrible pun, sorry.
SPEAKER_03So just think back to every conversation I've ever had with Glenn. Um the best adaptation from the Egyptian calendar's celebration of Horace's birth is somewhere in the 20s of August. Okay. As far as I can make out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, and so this is the bit that's been challenged to me. Jesus' birth is celebrated on December 25th, most likely thanks to Constantine, who kind of established Tertullian's calculation. From the dates we have, smart people tell me it's probably March. So I did, I didn't I didn't look that up myself. I just thought, oh, I was born in March, zeitgeist. Conspiracy again. Um and then I put up a picture from the Ashmolean's gift shop of course. Showing us how it's done. Um okay, fourth. Uh Jesus for Jesus, the North Star led wise men to him when he was born. Um that's the men who came from the East followed the North Star. Um, Horus, the Eastern star, led three wise men to him when he was born. It's a bit of an odd one. Uh it's more likely that it was a different astrological event that led the wise men to Jesus because the North Star had been around for a while. Yeah, day four, I believe. Yeah. It just seems unlikely that some astrologers were like, wait, what about that one? Um possible. Um Horace is another story. Now, at times during this meme, I had to I had to make a kind of educated guess as to where they they got it from. Yes. Because either it's made up or it's super tenuous. So trying to be as generous as I could while also being sarcastic. That's the main thing. Yeah. It's the line with I found so I found this story uh the well, I found a story which accounted for the names of the three stars in Orion's belts, is what we call it, were Mintaka, Anilam, and Almatak. Uh that's the Egyptian's name for them. And they were referred to as wise or the wise ones. Okay. Um, but they were never referred to as men. They pointed to the star Sirius, which for them represented the harbinger of Osiris, who was Horace's father. So they weren't ever regarded as men in any story I could find, and I've asked people to point out if I'm wrong about that. Uh they didn't follow, they pointed, and it's about Osiris, but it's a crossover episode. Um replete with a gif. Yeah, the the gif is um when Jess from Newgirl appeared for a Brooklyn 9-9 episode. Wow. Um, and that is because, well, it says Jesus was taken to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod, Horus was taken to Egypt to escape the wrath of Typhon, who's who's from Greek mythology. Um so over four millennia after the horror story kind of first pops up, we start to see some syncretism in the mythologies, which we'll probably talk about later, that mythologies do interweave quite a lot. Uh, Typhon was associated with Osiris and Isis' enemy/slash brother set. I haven't been able to see any evidence of an authentic myth involving Horus escaping from Typhon. But if there were, what I've said is do you know what would be weird? Be weird if that story involved Horace escaping to Egypt. Because he's already there. That's where he lives.
SPEAKER_02But that's not how you put it. You put, you know, the place he's already at. This is why this tweet has blown up. You know, the place he's already at. You know, is what you know. So tell me tell me about your um your choice of of tone and style in in engaging with this.
SPEAKER_03Sure, so what I I wasn't replying to an individual. No. Uh which which I think is key. Yeah. Um, I certainly wouldn't have have been so kind of front foot forward if I was replying to someone, certainly someone that I didn't know. Um what I was doing was putting a m a meme up that I knew a lot of other people had seen. Yeah um and and I found it funny. And if something's ridiculous, the best way of showing it's ridiculous is is to treat it as being ridiculous. Right. Right. Um so uh essentially it's a way of calling a spade a spade.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_03So we treat serious things seriously, yes, and we treat silly things as if they're silly. Yes. Um and so I do take uh the humor in this very seriously. And so so it was it was deliberately sarcastic.
SPEAKER_02Um ridicule the ridiculous. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. There there are there are people who have read this and thought, oh, this really threatens my idea of the truth of the gospels. Right. And I know that from when myself and one of my old colleagues um used to do these QA sessions where theologians um from around the country, the theology undergrads that is, um, could just ask us any questions that they liked, and this this would come up. Yeah. And so I thought, well, let's, you know, the Harry Potter fans would say it's um like pointing at the boggot and saying ridiculous. You know, if it's threatening you, then let's just show it up for for the nonsense that it is. Right. So that's that's why I took that tone. Right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I I heartily, I heartily agree. I mean, there there is much script scriptural warrant, isn't there, for sarcasm, wouldn't you say?
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_03There better be.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I if you want to mine through my old tweets, I did uh a top ten sarcastic moments in the Bible um a while back. Um and I I I again went to great pains to clarify that I I'm not endorsing being cruel or unkind to people. Um but but there are moments of sarcasm all throughout the the scriptures. Yeah. Um just to show nonsense up for being nonsense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I I heartily agree. I mean, I mean you can't see the Elijah's response to the prophets of Baal in any other way. I mean, like how very how very cruel and rude. So you say, like, perhaps your God is on the toilet. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's and and then I mean the Lord in Job is just amazing because like everyone else has such sympathy for Job by the end of like all the sufferings of Job. And then the Lord's like, um, so where were you when I stretched out the stars? Tell me, you're you're very old. You must you must know. Come on, come on, Job. Like, wow.
SPEAKER_03And yeah, and and and I think we see it in Jesus as well. So both of those were on my list. I see it even Jesus when he's been quite genial. Um, and and you can fight with me on this one, but there's a bit in John's gospel um when Nathaniel is doubting who he is, and Jesus says, Oh, I saw you earlier when you're under the tree. And Nathaniel's like, Oh, you're the son of God. And Jesus goes, You're gonna see more amazing things than than me knowing you were under a tree. And I think John, I I suspect John was enjoying that as a kind of launch into, you know, then we're gonna see the wedding at Cana and all of these other miracles coming along. Yes. Um, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I mean, so you've talked about Horus, and another popular one is Mithras, um, comes up. Um what what are the parallels that people try to try to make with with Mithras?
SPEAKER_03Um yeah, they they claim virgin birth again, I think, there. And this time technically it's true. In most of the accounts of of Mithras, uh Mithras is born from a rock. Um, I suppose rocks are technically virgins. I think that's sarcasm. I detected I definitely detected sarcasm.
SPEAKER_02Um yeah, but I uh again. Should we have a look at an example? Because um because famously on QI, I think back in 2006, maybe like 14 years ago, Stephen Fry and the QI elves had a go at Christmas is a ripoff of Mithras. And it's fascinating. Let's have a look at it.
SPEAKER_00So let's just take a few moments then together and try to remember why is Christmas Day on December the 25th? Is that a very, very small fire or in those huge? It's a mid-winter solstice. It's a pagan festival that's been appropriated by Christianity. There is a great deal of truth in that. I get the points back. It was indeed the Teutonic, Celtic, and pagan view that if you've survived the winter solstice on the 21st of December, and you have a feast to celebrate. But also there was the Roman god. Was it Saturnalia? There was the Saturnalia was also that tunnelia, but there was Mithras.
SPEAKER_02What does it tell us, Ash, that that Stephen Fryer and the QI Elves concoct that on their Christmas special?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, firstly, it's brilliant, isn't it, that it was the elves that told him that story. The elves talk. Yeah, I mean it's not the first time that QI will have been kind of shown up on that regard of trying to debunk a popularly held thing. And it turns out it's popularly held because it was true. But they've yeah, they've mined the internet and found and found some some suggestions. Um I did let I did make a note of some of the the claims um that he was sent to earth to live as a mortal. Uh through him it's possible for sinners to be reborn. He died for sins, came back to life on Sunday, born of a virgin. I mean, there's there's so much going on. He had 12 disciples, was one of the things Stephen Fry said. And again, I I I'm afraid I didn't go to as as many pains as I did for Horus to look at this, but the only reference I could see to 12 disciples was there's um oh what you call it, it's not a sculpture, but it's a a a stone carving of Mithras, yeah. Um with 12 faces around him, I think, as he's slaying the bull, which is the Mithras story. Um what is the Mithras story? Um the Mithra the big Mithras story is of his slaying of the bull, um, which represents a huge variety of different things according to the so the story appears in in at least three different cultures. So you've got the old kind of Iranian Mithras cult, and then later on more more well-known within the Roman cult. Um but that would be the kind of salvation aspect, that's how Mithras is the saviour. Um, but again, it's just a standard hero narrative um of yeah, of the hero killing the monster. Yeah, yeah. But the 12 figures that are watching, if you look at the carving, are just quite clearly the signs of the zodiac, um, not you know, 12 adoring followers or Peter and James and John. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So it's such a stretch. And and again, why do they want to make such a stretch to find these these points of similarity?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and and again, I I probably say that Stephen Fry and the QILs probably believe it. But whoever's made whoever's kind of made this up is the person with the agenda. Um, and again, it comes back to that idea of truth has moved in our in our minds, I think, uh as a culture, that truth is just what my position is, and then I back it up by any means possible. Um and I mean when I was looking at the Mithras thing, I saw people operating under kind of Christian concerns saying, Oh, let me debunk this, and saying things that just weren't true. Um, so one thing I saw is so one of Stephen Fry's claims was um that they drank the blood and ate the body, I think, of Mithras, his his followers did. And one of the Christian reverse debunkings said, No, there's no sign of this. The very earliest we could date anything like this would be the Middle Ages. But Justin Martyr himself writes about the Mithras cultists copying them and doing this, right? Um but of course, then what you realized is that having traced it back, you realize that the chronologies switched. Because Justin Martyr's writing in kind of 150s AD. So that's after Jesus and after the Last Supper.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there's a difference between the Persian kind of Mithraic cult and what comes to be sort of worshipped in in Roman times. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And where do you think that Christian impulse comes from? Because obviously the the person who um wanted to say that the eating the bodies and the drinking the blood only came in middle the middle ages. They often they clearly felt threatened enough by the similarities to want to want to distance themselves from these myths. And I guess I guess that's one of the tactics that you can take. One of the tactics is no no no, Mithras, Horus, they're nothing like the Jesus story, and none of these other legends out there in the world have anything to do with the Christian Christianity is like totally and utterly unique. Um I guess that's one tactic, but it's not the only tactic, is it?
SPEAKER_03No, no, it's not. And so so to justify that kind of reaction is um 1 Corinthians 15, um, it's made absolutely clear that if this the story of the gospel and particularly the resurrection is not true, then Christianity's kaput. Um, so that's why, quite understandably, uh atheists who want to attack Christianity will attack the story of Jesus, and that's why Christians, when they see that under attack, will will defend against that and want to say, no, it is true. I guess one of the things that apologists have to learn is not to bind the presuppositions of what other people are saying. And the presupposition there is, if there are similarities, then Christianity must be false. Or if it is a myth, then it must be false. And so it it might be helpful for us just to kind of settle our terms slightly. Um so mythology, I mean, people do define myths differently. As I understand myths, they don't have to be untrue. Um, I jotted down a Northrop Fry quote. He um he describes myths as being stories that tell a society what is important for it to know, whether about its gods, its laws, or its structures. And so within that you have true and untrue. So you have, I guess at this time of year, a kind of Santa myth that's going on. A month ago we had the Guy Fawkes myth. Um, the Guy Fawkes myth tells us you know part of what's important about the structure of our society. It's not untrue, but but it's a myth nonetheless. Right. Right. Um perhaps a more faithful way of describing myths is to use the language of myth. Um and so if I could do that, in in Beowulf, you have these things called the Miaxtapper, um, or the mark steppers, the border stalkers. And they kind of patrol this line between light and dark, good and evil, truth and lies. Um, and they can cross into either side. They're not tame, they don't belong fully to either side, so you can't trust them, but their role in the storytelling, their role in in the storytelling society, rather, is to keep people on their side of that line. Um, so Picasso says, I paint lies to tell the truth, and so that the role of a myth is to be a story that keeps people on the right side ethically or in terms of truth, and yeah. So that's how I like to think of myths as being the Miyakstopper.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And and you get that with like Nathan, how does Nathan confront David with his sin? He he tells him a story, it's a made-up story. And fascinatingly, David thought he was living in reality, whereas actually he had constructed this fantasy world in which, because he's king, he can do whatever he wants with Vathsiva. He's actually living in fantasy. Um, and so how is he awoken to the fantasy um that he's been living out? Well, let's make up a story and and let's really embellish it, and there's the little you lamb, and it goes to sleep in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him, and he's really tugging at the heartstrings, and then you are the man. But it's just fascinating, isn't it? But it's it's the myth of that little lamb that wakes David up to actual truth. Um there's so there's a real place for myths then, right? Real place for storytelling and legend.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, and and we need them. Like you say, we can react to right and wrong it in a way that we don't necessarily when we're faced with the decisions ourselves, uh, as David shows. Yeah. Um it's a brilliant way of raising children, is you know, you read read them, read the Bible with them if you want to raise them in a Christian household, but read them, read them stories as well. Let their imaginations you know thrive and let them imagine themselves into stories and understand the the difference between you know right and wrong and good and evil. I I had a question that bugged me as a child. I used to ask my dad all the time when we saw a film do bad guys support bad guys when they're watching a film? Because uh it's not a particularly profound question, but for a child you're thinking, how could anyone not know that this is evil? Right while while I'm engaging in this story, right? And yet we look at the papers and people do these things. So how does that compute? Does does a murderer kind of support the murderers in a movie and then go out and kill? Or do you know do they support the good guys and then go out and kill? Right, right. It shows that the evil is dissonant.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yes. Um yeah. And to immerse someone in a story is to yeah, whether they are a murderer or not, to immerse them in a world in which of course the murderer, you know, justice must find its man and the murderer must go down for that murder. Um whereas, yeah, in in real life, he lives in the fantasy um in which he's a good person. Actually, it takes it takes a myth to wake him up to reality. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, one person who obviously um told a lot of um myths was C.S. Lewis, and uh you've you've named your firstborn after a character in in one of his books. I I take it it's from the The Horse and His Boy, you've named your firstborn Shaper. Yeah. That's right, yeah. So I mean he he famously, like in 1931, had a conversation with with Tolkien, in which he said the myths are lies breathed through silver. And Tolkien said, No, those ancient, you know, myths, they are not lies. Um what did what did Tolkien mean? That they're the because what what Lewis was referring to was the dying and rising gods, the the the Horuses of the of this world. Yes. Um the boulders and the Osirises, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So Tolkien said they are not lies, these these ancient myths. What does he mean?
SPEAKER_03Essentially he means what he he says, he's saying that these things are true. I believe uh in the dying and rising god. Um I uh what Tolkien understands as a as a creator with a small c is is that when you make something, you're putting yourself into it. And so for Tolkien, he says, well, if anything's true about God, we we shouldn't be surprised to find it in reality. Um I put I put up um a quote from his very long poem Mythopea, which which he wrote ostensibly for Lewis, um, in answer directly to that question, where essentially you can you can see written through it beliefs about nature that probably everyone believes, bits of Lord of the Rings mythology, and truths from the Bible, all kind of woven in together and all telling the same truth. And so what Lewis eventually went on to realize was that the Bible, the the gospel story was myth, which is potentially a dangerous thing to say. Yeah, but it is still myth. Um, in the same way that it's also John's gospel is biography as well as being gospel. Its primary function is gospel, it's good news, it's light into the world. But it's also a myth that tells us a story that was written into creation, that was written into the hearts of men as they suffered under the curse that was put upon mankind in Genesis 3, and have been longing for this story to be realized since. Of course, there are stories about that. Yes. It would be bizarre for there not to be. Becoming a Christian isn't kind of someone just surprising you with something that you've never heard before, just going, just come into a whole new reality. Becoming a Christian is more like kind of waking from a dream and realizing that you weren't dreaming after all. It's going, oh, right, and the kind of curtains are pulled back, and you understand, oh, so that's why the world is shaped in this way. That's why me, I'm who so who I'm so evil, want there to be justice. How does that work? Why would why would someone who does wrong want there to be a cosmic judge? Well, because written into the hearts of men and written all through throughout creation is this need for justice and mercy to to come together.
SPEAKER_02So with those lenses on, how how do you think, okay, if if Lewis or Tolkien saw that meme with Horace, um, I mean, both of them, let's let's say they just take for granted the silliness of the inventions that are there. Um what would be what would be something a Lewis or a Tolkien would say if someone said to them, oh, you know, it's just like Horace? What would they say?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I flatter myself that I wouldn't have been too far off their tone. I do think there would have been a uh I wouldn't have done it nearly so well um as they would, but um I think there would have still been that element of sarcasm because they they have the writer of the meme hasn't understood the relationship between myth and truth, and and nor have the recipients. Um if I could have got a copy of Miracles by C.S. Lewis here, this is essentially what what Lewis does say in response to memes like this. Um so he writes uh the corn king, which is another another myth, is derived through human imagination from the facts of nature, and the facts of nature derived from her creator. The death and rebirth pattern is in her because it was first in him. On the other hand, elements of nature religion are strikingly absent from the teachings of Jesus and from the Judaic preparation which led up to it, precisely because in them nature's original is manifesting itself. So that's that's Lewis saying, answering the question, well, how can there be these similarities to myths and yet no acknowledgement of them within the Christian myth? Because, well, actually, this is the original. This is this is the story that was told in the first place, from which those other stories were derived. Athanasius in On the Incarnation talks about um hum humanity's fallen nature being like a portrait. We're made in the image of God that that's kind of suffered the ruins of time, and something needs to be done. And so Jesus comes to resit for the portrait, um, which is a beautiful image. Yeah. And and that's essentially what's going on on with with the Jesus myth. Is that these stories of of creation, uh, of redemption, of fall, uh are are written all throughout creation and we'll find them all over the globe. Right, right. Is it true that's it? And then a real story is told. Yes. And it's told in history. Yes, yes. And it and it's observable and it's there, and it's true.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And Tolkien's got that that stuff. Just as the word became flesh at Christmas, so the myth became history. Um yeah, it got it got anchored into our world. Um Is it is it true that I I've heard that Lewis um would would have a practice on Christmas Eve of reading reading Virgil's fourth egglogue, which is this you know, poem written in sort of 50 BC, where Virgil's kind of saying, Begin to rule, O golden child, and you know, under your scepter all the nations will come, and that kind of thing. He certainly um actually seems to draw courage or um he certainly his vision of the universal light who is Christ was was broadened by like looking at something like Virgil and a poet writing in 50 BC about the golden child who's gonna be born. Um that probably I don't know, I don't know how that strikes modern evangelical Christians, but he did it, it seemed.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it probably will make some of us feel uncomfortable. And and that's okay. I think I think it makes us feel uncomfortable when we haven't, again, fully grasped the the relationship between truth and myth. I think it's okay it's okay not to not to have grasped that. And it's okay to think, well, actually, we we don't want truth to be threatened. But when you when you think about it, I mean you could explain it away in a kind of horus meme way and say, well, this is a long time after Isaiah 9 was written that Virgil's writing this, and certainly a long time after the promise buried in the curse in Genesis 3. Um but I don't think you even need to do that for it to be a really lovely practice to to read something like that and say you know, if Caiaphas can be right when he says one man has to die for all the people, why can't Virgil? Um why can't we look at these stories and say, you know what's beautiful about that is is that that has truth in it. Right. Because again, beauty and truth can only be divorced so much. Um when I'm when I'm teaching, I'm constantly going to myths, just in my mind, for for illustrations, and they'll either show kind of a dearth of the Christian um tradition, or they'll or they'll show a kind of echo or example of it. Yeah, an echo. Um not a couple of weeks ago when I was teaching on justice, I talked about uh the story of uh D. Astria, who was the goddess of justice, who at the Iron Age um hated blood. And so at the Iron Age, she was like, Oh, you're getting too good at killing one another, I'm running away, and went went away into a constellation. Of stars just retreated from the earth. And you just think, well, okay, there's something interesting there. There's something about a god of justice and their presence and something about the stars. But actually, you know, what good is a god of justice who's afraid of blood? Like, what if she'd have stuck around for like nuclear warheads and Twitter? Like she'd have she'd have run even further. But there's something in the cr in the Christmas story that says, well, actually, no, the God of justice came not only to see blood, but to be killed. He too was observed in the stars, but the stars represented his coming, not his going. And again, my favorite thing that I stumbled upon in the Horus research was they have that list of names for Jesus and Horus that were apparently all the same. And I couldn't find most of them for Horus. But there's a great note I found that Horus is called the distant one. Whereas Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. And so myths can show us lack as well as presence. Um but really show us the the reason that the goddess of justice retreated in in the Roman stories was to explain, it's essentially theodicy is to explain, well, why is there not justice here? It's looking at truths and saying, well, actually, no, we are in need of these things. And so it's it's pointing to the gospel all the time, these stories, because they're examining the desires and needs of humanity.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, very good. So if this kind of thing came up in a conversation with someone, maybe you know you you knew, or you know, maybe they're just you've met them at an event or something, what kind of angle would you take in actually discussing this kind of one-on-one with someone?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I this is gonna sound odd. I definitely wouldn't take the tone that I took. I've modelled for you. Sarcasm all the way. There was a moment um a few years ago at the um the White House. Oh, what's it called? The White Hassan? No. Oh the White House press the um I've lost the words. Conference? I don't know. Press basically where all the comedians get to rip. Yeah, essentially it's a roast. Right, okay. Not called that, I can't remember what it's called. Anyway, the Hassan Minaj, he was the kind of headliner when Donald Trump was first there for it, although he I think he was notably absent. And he said something along the lines of, I don't get why people are still following Trump. Every day we're telling jokes about how ridiculous it is to follow Trump. And I'm like, I'm watching this thinking, oh, you're mocking them every day, and they're still not on your side. There's there's obviously something that's that's off about doing evangelism in a mocking way, because victory in your mind then is not winning the person, it's winning the argument. And it can never be that. Um the famous apologist Ellis Potter tells the story of how he became a Christian when Francis Schaeffer told him, I don't know, is the answer to a question. He goes, Oh, that means he must have been really sure about the stuff that he has been telling me. So honesty just has to be right at the top of all of our conversations, even if you feel stumped by something, then yeah, that stumps me. Um and you so you don't have to be an Egyptologist in order, you know, to faithfully defend Christianity at this time. But what you want to do is you want to ask someone, well, why would it be a problem if these stories are similar? Why why why would that be such a stumbling block? And and you can then start start to kind of piece together what their actual objection is. Is it just that they think that this is a type of colonialism where big bad Christianity just kind of went around stomping on Roman culture? And again, if you look at history, it's probably a little bit more the other way around, was how things went. And Christianity was, in a sense, the the opposite of that. It it made a level playing field for all people. It wasn't overbearing on anything, it was saying, look, here is the truth of the universe, and kind of gathers these stories in, not in a syncretistic way, but in a no, you were right. You're right about that. Act 17 Paul on Mars Hill saying, Well, no, look, there's something true about what you thought. Let me fill the rest in for you. And that's what that's what needs to be going on in our evangelism, not let me beat up this stupid meme that you've posted. Um, but okay, let's let let's ask the question that you're really asking, which is, was Jesus real? Was he really who he said he was? Did he really do what you claim he did? And there are very solid and very comforting and life-giving answers to those questions.
SPEAKER_01And how do these things then help you with your own appreciation for Christmas itself?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think I think like I was just saying, they they help me understand what Christmas actually is, which isn't just oh the origin story of Jesus whom I worship. But actually, this is this is the moment that all the stories came true. Um Christmas is is is the moment that Sam Gamgee's kind of looking to in Lord of the Rings when he's when he's talking about the heroes and the the point of no return and all of that. Christmas is is the moment when God said, Well, actually, I'm here. I I I've come and I'm and I'm going to experience life as you've experienced it. I'm going to experience suffering as you've experienced it, and um far worse. And I'm going to experience judgment as you should experience.
SPEAKER_02Amazing.
SPEAKER_03And so you you cannot divorce all of these all of these stories from each other. Christmas has to be about Easter and Easter about Christmas at the same at the same time. And so when you hear, when you see these memes come up, I see it as an insult to myth, not an insult to my face.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Amen. Amen. And Christmas, the time when the word became flesh, when the myth became fact, when the author became the hero, and uh and we praise him for it. Uh Ash Cunningham, thank you so much for joining us on the live cast. Cheers, guys.