GENEALOGY AND FAMILY RELATIONS OF BAST

Many sites available, unlike most reliable books, say Bast is the daughter of Isis
and Osiris. This is probably a fallacy, and traced back to Herodotus, a Greek
historian who in his The Histories reports among other things, a visit to
Bubastis, the city where the Temple of Bast stood. One must understand that
Herodotus was writing for people having a Greek culture. Thus he often gets
into sticky corners by trying to interpret the Egyptian culture into Greek culture.
Consider the following sentence:

"Apollo and Artemis were (they say) children of Dionysus and Isis, and
Leto was made their nurse and preserver; in Egyptian, Apollo is Horus,
Demeter Isis, Artemis Bubastis."

Herodotus "Histories"
Bk 2, Chp 156, v5

If this is not confusing, what is? Is this Greek or Egyptian mythology, where
Dionysius marries Isis, whose children are nursed by Leto? In this one sentence
Herodotus associates Osiris with Dionysius, Demeter with Isis, Apollo with
Horus and Artemis with Bast (which he calls Bubastis, in the Greek version of
the name). Well, one can just see what happens when trying to hammer square
pegs into round holes . . . loads of confusion! To a point one can see why
Herodotus applied those Greek names to the Egyptian gods, and since Bast is
often considered as the sister of Horus it is easy to call her daughter of Isis and
Osiris, but it is easier to understand that Bast is the daughter of Ra the Sun
God, possibly the twin sister of Sekhmet, the lion goddess. In addition, the
Encyclopedia Mythica, a very good online source recommended for all
mythology lovers, puts Bast as the wife of Ptah (a creator god) and the mother
of the lion-headed Mihos or Maahes as found in another book. Other versions
found on the net, but which are dubious is that Bast had a solar son, Nefer-tum
(supposedly associated with unguents, perfumes, aromatherapy, alchemy,
Lotus) by the Sun God Amen-Ra, and Khensu, the Moon God, by Ptah.
Maahes is Bast’s son by Ra, and appears as a lion-headed man wearing the
atef crown of Osiris, and was identified with Horus of Praises, a form of Horus
the Younger. The Nefer-tum attribution (by the way, he was actually a god of
the setting sun) is then easily explained by the fact that he was the son of
Sekhmet (often associated with Bast) and Ptah, and so Bast’s son Maahes was
actually often associated with (and confused with) Nefer-Tum, while no
explanation can be found to the Khensu attribution, except that maybe Mut was
mistaken for Bast, but that is a pretty gross mistake.

Pretty complex family this goddess has!?

The Pictures, from top to bottom: Isis the Lady of Spells,Osiris her dying and rising husband,
Horus the god of the sun and son of Isis and Osiris, and Sekhmet.