“the theory of Euhemerus that the mythologies of various gods arose out of the deification of dead heroes” and “interpretation of myths as traditional accounts of historical persons and events” = Yes. Heroes that didn’t exist but are “theorized” to (e.g. Zeus and Uranus in Euhemerus). That’s Euhemerism. Inventing fake past heroes to explain current gods. As opposed to just deification, which is actual past heroes who actually became worshiped as gods (e.g. Julius Caesar). So, you’re right; these sources just don’t explain further that that’s what they mean.

Dictionary.com: (often initial capital letter) the theory of
Euhemerus that the mythologies of various gods arose out of the deification of dead heroes.

Merriam-Webster: interpretation of myths as traditional accounts of historical persons and events

The definition should be more like:

The creation of a fictional human origin for a mythological character. The opposite of “Deification”.

Yes. People who want only atheists to make use of euhemerization are inexplicably annoyed by the fact that theists can euhemerize their gods, too. They are further annoyed (just as inexplicably) by the fact that euhemerization can be a ploy (to conceal a cosmic truth under a historicized allegory) rather than a sincere maneuver. I have no idea why they are annoyed by these things or so desperate to insist they can’t happen or don’t reflect adaptive uses of what Euhemerus did. But alas.

I would bear a strong counter-example against “atheistic” definition of euhemerism claimed by GakuseiDon, confuting it in support of your definition:
OSIRIS.

Because of the following two reasons:
1) the PRIESTS of Osiris historicized Osiris
2) but not to dismiss or to deny any his previous deity, but at contrary in order to reiterate implicitly his deity, making the “historical” Osiris basically a sacre allegory of the true celestial Osiris as didactic introduction for the initiates to the inner mistery. An ALLEGORY just like the allegorical simbolic Jesus of the first gospel.

As my logic goes, the GakuseiDon’s definition of euhemerism cannot include my counter-example, but your definition yes.

What do you think? Am I correct?

Very thanks,
Giuseppe.

Yes, “those advocating such a theory (including Richard) are not engaging in euhemerization”, they are either discussing euhemeriation, and particularly it’s application.

Thanks. He is making distinctions not relevant to the current question, though. But he collects a lot of useful data all the same.

a) and b).

Re: b) Acts is different from Luke (the Gospels) in the respects explained in Chapter 9.7. Acts is presumably based on real history. So on h there really was a James his brother who really did lead the church for a major period etc. And there really was a mother and father and other brothers who were involved and would have been causally entangled with the history of the early church. But on ~h there wasn’t.

Also, the children of Jesus don’t disappear in Acts. His brothers and mother (and sisters and father) do. That’s not an RR criterion.

a) Finally, the RR criterion only produces a factor in conjunction (e.g. if Jesus met that criterion and only five others, he would not be in the RR class in the first place). But more importantly, the data for the RR assessment extracted into b comes from the Gospels, not Acts. I have separated Acts and the Gospels in e.

Besides Osiris, other Egyptians gods were also euhemerized: Isis, and Serapis were.

The imagery of Serapis is similar to that of Jesus.

ie. giving that entity human attributes