In Egyptian mythology, who is Osiris?

Osiris is the ancient Egyptian god of resurrection, the underworld, the moon, the dead, and more. He was betrayed and murdered but resurrected by his wife, who then became pregnant with his son. Typically, he is represented with green skin, the beard of a pharaoh, and with legs partially mummy-wrapped. He holds the symbols of the pharaoh, a crook or shepherd’s staff, and a flail, which is used to thresh the husk from grain.

Osiris married his sister, Horus, who used a spell to bring him back to life after his brother, Set, along with a gang of helpers, tricked him into a box, sealed it, and threw it into the Nile River. Horus found the coffin and hid it. Set found it and, in a fit of rage, chopped Osiris into 14 pieces. Horus found all the pieces but the penis. She put him back together, crafted a golden penis for him, and became impregnated with it before he died for the last time.

He became judge of the afterlife and responsible for granting all life on Earth. He bore the titles of “Lord of Love”, “Lord of Life”, “He Who Is Permanently Benign and Youthful”, and “Lord of Silence”. His lives became the basis for the cycles of nature, the flooding of the Nile, and resurrection of humans. The Romanization of Christianity meant suppression of all Egyptian beliefs. Rome demanded the closing of all Egyptian temples to “pagan” gods in the late 300’s CE, but the cult of Isis and Osiris survived into the 450’s.