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The Fascinating Truth about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are symbolic figures that appear in the Book of Revelation, the last book in the New Testament canon. They seem like familiar figures to most of us. Even if you aren’t a Christian or weren’t raised as a Christian, you’ve probably been exposed to the idea of the “Four Horsemen” through popular culture. Popular culture’s portrayal of the Four Horsemen, though, isn’t very accurate. For instance, nearly all popular culture adaptations get the identity of the first horseman wrong.

Even if you have read the original descriptions of the Four Horsemen from the Book of Revelation, chances are you aren’t aware of the complex cultural background and symbolism that these descriptions draw on. For instance, original readers of the Book of Revelation may have imagined the first horseman as a Parthian archer and the fourth horseman, Death, as a naked young man with wings, since that’s how the personification of Death is usually portrayed in ancient Greek art.

When Was Jesus Really Born?

Most people assume that Jesus of Nazareth was born on 25 December 1 AD. Superficially speaking, this assumption makes a great deal of sense. After all, Christians today celebrate Jesus’s birth every year on December 25th and our modern Anno Domini dating system, which is ostensibly based on the year when Jesus was born, begins with the year 1 AD.

Unfortunately, things are never quite so simple. The truth is, we genuinely have very little idea when Jesus was born. There is no mention of the exact date of Jesus’s birth anywhere in any of the earliest surviving Christian writings and it was not until around the fourth century AD that December 25th was settled on as the day on which Christians would celebrate Jesus’s birth. Even the year of Jesus’s birth is uncertain; all we can say is that he was probably born sometime between c. 10 BC and c. 4 AD.

Was Jesus Copied Off the Egyptian God Horus?

Every year, around this time, you start seeing memes claiming that Jesus is “a copy of” some pre-Christian deity. One of the most popular deities for people to claim Jesus is “a copy of” is Horus, a god who was worshipped in ancient Egypt from prehistoric times until after the rise of Christianity in around the fourth century AD. Horus was believed to have been the son of the god Osiris and the goddess Isis. He was closely associated with the pharaoh and he is usually depicted in ancient Egyptian art with the head of a falcon.

The truth is, all the memes claiming that Jesus is “a copy of” such-and-such deity are wrong. Historians agree that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure who lived in Galilee in the early first century AD and who was crucified in Jerusalem in either 30 or 33 AD under the orders of the Roman governor of Judaea, Pontius Pilatus. The stories about Jesus’s life recorded in the gospels are certainly heavily embellished with legend and fiction, but, ultimately, there was a real man who stands behind the mythological tradition. While the stories about Jesus recorded in the gospels have probably been influenced to varying extents by stories of various pagan deities, it is entirely wrong for anyone to claim that the whole story of Jesus is copied directly from any single pagan deity.

Of all the deities Jesus is often claimed to have been copied off of, Horus is one of the most commonly mentioned, but also one of the most absurd. I actually included an extremely brief debunking of the claim that Jesus is based on Horus in this article I published on my website in March 2018, but I received some flak over the fact that I did not quote any specific claims from proponents of the Jesus-Horus connection and respond to them. I suppose, then, it is about time that I wrote a more complete response to the alleged connections between Jesus and Horus.

Was Pontius Pilate a Historical Figure? Yes.

I have now written several articles on this website in which I have presented the evidence that is currently available for the historicity of various figures from ancient times. For instance, I have written entire articles presenting the evidence for the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, Alexander the Great, and King David. I also presented the evidence for the historicity of Pythagoras in this article and the historicity of Socrates in this article, although in neither case was historicity the main subject of the article. In this article, I intend to present the evidence for the historical existence of Pontius Pilate.

Although we can never be absolutely, 100% certain about anything in history, we can be about as certain that Pontius Pilate was a real historical figure as we can about anything historical. Furthermore, contrary to the claims you frequently hear from evangelical apologists, no sane historian has ever disputed that Pontius Pilate was a real historical figure. There may have been some kooks at some point who disputed it, but the real historians have basically always agreed that Pontius Pilate existed, since the historical evidence for his existence is so overwhelming.

Greek Deities Mentioned in the New Testament

Many people are familiar with the Greek and Roman deities from reading about classical mythology as children. One thing many people are not aware of, however, is that there are actually quite a few direct references to a number of different Greek deities in the Book of Acts in the New Testament, which describes the apostles visiting Greek cities and encountering opposition from supporters of traditional Greek religion. The deities mentioned in the Book of Acts by name are Zeus, Hermes, Artemis, and the Dioskouroi.