# Dionysus-Osiris

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Dionysus-Osiris, alternatively Osiris-Dionysus, is a deity arising from the syncretism of the Egyptian god Osiris and the Greek god Dionysus.

## Syncretism

The two deities had been identified with each other as early as the 5th century BC, as recounted in the Histories of Herodotus:
   For no gods are worshipped by all Egyptians in common except Isis and Osiris, who they say is Dionysus; these are worshipped by all alike. [...] Osiris is, in the Greek language, Dionysus.
Other syncretic deities arose from these Egyptian-Greek conflations, including Serapis and Hermanubis.
Dionysus-Osiris was particularly popular in Ptolemaic Egypt, as the Ptolemies claimed descent from Dionysus, and as pharaohs claimed the lineage of Osiris. This association was most notable during a deification ceremony where Mark Antony became Dionysus-Osiris, alongside Cleopatra as Isis-Aphrodite.
In the controversial book The Jesus Mysteries, Osiris-Dionysus is claimed to be the basis of Jesus as a syncretic dying-and-rising god, with early Christianity beginning as a Greco-Roman mystery. The book and its "Jesus Mysteries thesis" have not been accepted by mainstream scholarship, with Bart Ehrman stating that the work is unscholarly.