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Author Topic:   Monotheism Before Ikhnaton or the Pyramids
Wally
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posted 25 February 2005 12:50 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Wally     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
There are so many popular misconceptions about Ancient Egypt. One of the most insidious ones is the false notion that Egyptian monotheism originated during the 18th dynasty, during the reign of the king Ikhnaton. Nothing could be further from the truth. And as in many misconceptions, they are put forward by those who are either unaware of, or simply ignore critical and verifiable information already presented.

quote:

...in the Egyptian religion...two fundamental, indigenous beliefs stand out in it clearly, namely, the belief in God, the Creator of the world and all in it, and the belief in a resurrection and in immortality...it is an African product, and can only be rightly appreciated and understood when considered in connection with what we know of modern African religion...the (African) native believes in God as well as in the existence of a number of "gods" or "spirits", who practically rule the world for Him, and direct the affairs of men. And when we compare these facts with what is known about the God and "gods" of the Egyptians we find a resemblance which is too consistent and definitive to be the result of accident or coincidence. The African of Egypt and the Sudan has always believed in a God, almighty, omniscient, invisible, unknowable.
-- Osiris and The Egyptian Resurrection; E.A. Wallis Budge - Chapter XI: The African Belief in God and the Doctrine of Last Things - Dover, NY

This entire chapter (which often exhibits Budge's European chauvinism) also includes in depth analysis of several African religions from east, west, and central Africa. It also details the importance of the factor of Evil in African political thought, wherein the Devil is as powerful as God, and gives insight on the significance of the god Set.


P.S. What Ikhnaton essentially attempted to do during his reign was to return the state to its original form of monotheism, since the proliferation of sects and the increasing powers of these special interests became a threat to the established order of things...

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rasol
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posted 25 February 2005 12:56 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for rasol     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Set as the devil?
Set vs. Horus?

What would be the philosophical context of a Kemetian making a decision to worship Horus?

Would this have been seen as a 'blasphemy', or as a natural expression of Kemetic faith?

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Wally
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posted 25 February 2005 01:20 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Wally     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by rasol:
Set as the devil?
Set vs. Horus?

What would be the philosophical context of a Kemetian making a decision to worship Horus?

Would this have been seen as a 'blasphemy', or as a natural expression of Kemetic faith?


Everyone should read this chapter, Budge explains all of this far better than I could. In fact, his analysis of African religious concepts removes a lot of the religious "abstractions"; makes it more real, more concrete...
(This title is widely available. Check the library or Borders or Barnes & Noble. It's a short chapter, there's no need to buy the whole book )

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kingtut33
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posted 25 February 2005 01:37 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for kingtut33     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Amen

Amen

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rasol
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posted 25 February 2005 01:40 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for rasol     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Wally:
Everyone should read this chapter, Budge explains all of this far better than I could. In fact, his analysis of African religious concepts removes a lot of the religious "abstractions"; makes it more real, more concrete...
(This title is widely available. Check the library or Borders or Barnes & Noble. It's a short chapter, there's no need to buy the whole book )


I've read some of this before but will check it out again, and confer back.

'Still interested in everyone's ideas on Set, Horus etc..

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Horemheb
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posted 25 February 2005 01:48 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Horemheb     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Wally, is this another 'Black God over Egypt'? Guess that one ran out of steam.
Just what dynasty did this 'monotheism' exist under???

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ABAZA
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posted 25 February 2005 01:50 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ABAZA     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The Truth About Budge!!

Why are there no books by Budge here?

Sir E A Wallis Budge (1857-1934) published prolifically during his lifetime. The standard biographical study of Egyptologists summarises his achievements as follows:

'in his text editions, Budge was too prolific for careful work, and many of them are inaccurate by modern standards; he persisted in the use of an old system of transcription, and did not utilise many of the grammatical discoveries of the Berlin School; nevertheless without his phenomenal energy and devotion, many hieratic, Coptic, and other texts would not have become known and been made available until a much later date' (Who was who in Egyptology, 1995, p. 72).

The usefulness of books by Sir Wallis Budge has been controversial. Budge ignored major developments made in the fields of transcription, grammar and lexicography, and was neglectful in matters of archaeology and provenance. Although he was an active collector, his publications fell behind contemporaneous scholarly standards and are now extremely outdated. Today, University students are strongly advised not to use them, because of their basic errors of fact and methodology.

For this same reason the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan does not include any of Budge's books on its recommended reading list. Budge's works are still in print, but this is because they are out of copyright, and so the text can be cheaply reprinted. While they are well illustrated, full of information and extremely cheap, they are at best unreliable, and usually misleading.


quote:
Originally posted by Wally:
Everyone should read this chapter, Budge explains all of this far better than I could. In fact, his analysis of African religious concepts removes a lot of the religious "abstractions"; makes it more real, more concrete...
(This title is widely available. Check the library or Borders or Barnes & Noble. It's a short chapter, there's no need to buy the whole book )


[This message has been edited by ABAZA (edited 25 February 2005).]

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rasol
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posted 25 February 2005 01:52 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for rasol     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

KemWer.

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Horemheb
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posted 25 February 2005 02:00 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Horemheb     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
They don't care about that ABAZA. Remember their agenda, it's always political. You can be assured that facts will not get in the way of their point of view but they are the losers in the march of civilization.

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EGyPT2005
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posted 25 February 2005 02:10 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for EGyPT2005     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Horemheb:
They don't care about that ABAZA. Remember their agenda, it's always political. You can be assured that facts will not get in the way of their point of view but they are the losers in the march of civilization.

Oh, give it a rest Horemheb!

For once in your life, please stick to the parent topic at hand!

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Horemheb
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posted 25 February 2005 02:14 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Horemheb     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
2005, 90% of these topics are mumbo jumbo, you know that full well. The topic of the thread has wally trying to quote religion from an unreliable source and drawing conclusions that could apply to 3/4's of the religions of the world.

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Roy_2k5
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posted 25 February 2005 04:23 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Roy_2k5     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Horemheb:
2005, 90% of these topics are mumbo jumbo, you know that full well. The topic of the thread has wally trying to quote religion from an unreliable source and drawing conclusions that could apply to 3/4's of the religions of the world.

Atleast do what EuroEvil is doing and actually prove something. All you have been doing from day one is just rant. Don't give us, "Egypt is Caucasian, because my next door neighbour told me" BS.

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Wally
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posted 25 February 2005 05:23 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Wally     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
There are so many popular misconceptions about Ancient Egypt. One of the most insidious ones is the false notion that Egyptian monotheism originated during the 18th dynasty, during the reign of the king Ikhnaton. Nothing could be further from the truth. And as in many misconceptions, they are put forward by those who are either unaware of, or simply ignore critical and verifiable information already presented.

quote:

...in the Egyptian religion...two fundamental, indigenous beliefs stand out in it clearly, namely, the belief in God, the Creator of the world and all in it, and the belief in a resurrection and in immortality...it is an African product, and can only be rightly appreciated and understood when considered in connection with what we know of modern African religion...the (African) native believes in God as well as in the existence of a number of "gods" or "spirits", who practically rule the world for Him, and direct the affairs of men. And when we compare these facts with what is known about the God and "gods" of the Egyptians we find a resemblance which is too consistent and definitive to be the result of accident or coincidence. The African of Egypt and the Sudan has always believed in a God, almighty, omniscient, invisible, unknowable.
-- Osiris and The Egyptian Resurrection; E.A. Wallis Budge - Chapter XI: The African Belief in God and the Doctrine of Last Things - Dover, NY

This entire chapter (which often exhibits Budge's European chauvinism) also includes in depth analysis of several African religions from east, west, and central Africa. It also details the importance of the factor of Evil in African political thought, wherein the Devil is as powerful as God, and gives insight on the significance of the god Set.


P.S. What Ikhnaton essentially attempted to do during his reign was to return the state to its original form of monotheism, since the proliferation of sects and the increasing powers of these special interests became a threat to the established order of things...

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Super car
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posted 25 February 2005 05:27 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Super car     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I know the feeling. You can't start a meaningful thread without distracters derailing from the topic.

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Wally
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posted 25 February 2005 05:32 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Wally     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Super car:
I know the feeling. You can't start a meaningful thread without distracters derailing from the topic.

Kinda like the scene of watching adults sitting in the room and trying to hold a civil conversation, and there are undisciplined little brats running around, yelling and screaming all over the place...

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Super car
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posted 25 February 2005 06:36 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Super car     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Wally, have you already read the "Egyptian Religion" by Budge. I have just started reading it. This is also yet another of his work that emphasizes monotheism in Ancient Egyptian cosmology.

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ABAZA
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posted 25 February 2005 06:42 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ABAZA     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Why are you guys trying to promote academic sources that are discredited? Even the British Museum is not recommending using Budge as a source of reliable information!!

The Truth About Budge!!
Why are there no books by Budge here?

Sir E A Wallis Budge (1857-1934) published prolifically during his lifetime. The standard biographical study of Egyptologists summarises his achievements as follows:

'in his text editions, Budge was too prolific for careful work, and many of them are inaccurate by modern standards; he persisted in the use of an old system of transcription, and did not utilise many of the grammatical discoveries of the Berlin School; nevertheless without his phenomenal energy and devotion, many hieratic, Coptic, and other texts would not have become known and been made available until a much later date' (Who was who in Egyptology, 1995, p. 72).

The usefulness of books by Sir Wallis Budge has been controversial. Budge ignored major developments made in the fields of transcription, grammar and lexicography, and was neglectful in matters of archaeology and provenance. Although he was an active collector, his publications fell behind contemporaneous scholarly standards and are now extremely outdated. Today, University students are strongly advised not to use them, because of their basic errors of fact and methodology.

For this same reason the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan does not include any of Budge's books on its recommended reading list. Budge's works are still in print, but this is because they are out of copyright, and so the text can be cheaply reprinted. While they are well illustrated, full of information and extremely cheap, they are at best unreliable, and usually misleading.

quote:
Originally posted by Super car:
Wally, have you already read the "Egyptian Religion" by Budge. I have just started reading it. This is also yet another of his work that emphasizes monotheism in Ancient Egyptian cosmology.

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Wally
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posted 26 February 2005 01:35 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Wally     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by rasol:
Set as the devil?
Set vs. Horus?

What would be the philosophical context of a Kemetian making a decision to worship Horus?

Would this have been seen as a 'blasphemy', or as a natural expression of Kemetic faith?



Here is Budge's explanation of Set in the Egyptian religion:

quote:

The Egyptian god Set was in all respects the counterpart of the Devil of modern Africa. He was the personification of physical darkness and of moral wickedness, and he was the foe of physical and moral order of every kind. He waged war against the Sun-god Heru-ur, and was defeated, but not slain, by the god of Light. He was attacked by Horus, the son of Isis, who fought with him for three days, and though wounded he escaped with his life. He suffered sorely at the hands of Ra the Sun-god, but he was not slain. Though he daily attempted to prevent Ra from entering the sky, the Sun-god was content to cast a spell upon him, which made him powerless for evil, and to permit him to renew his evil actions on the following day. As Set was the everlasting foe of the gods, so was he the foe of every righteous man, and none could escape from him except by the help of Osiris and the gods who helped this god.
--Ibid p378


Some Names of Set
Osha - "the crier","the roarer"
Bu - demon, devil; the name Set assumed when he took the form of a hissing serpent
Wer Hekau - "the great magician"
Baal - a Syrian god of war and the chase and identified with Set
Set - the god of evil
Smi - "the slayer"
Duti - from "du" ; bad, evil, stinking

Also a name for Asia - Sett (in Hompt Sett; "Asiatic copper")

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rasol
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posted 26 February 2005 02:32 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for rasol     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Didn't RamsesII worship Set? How does one come to worship a demonic figure? I mean, even just as a political act.

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Super car
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posted 26 February 2005 03:32 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Super car     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Of interest is what Budge states about common misunderstanding of Egyptian belief:

quote:

...neteru, i.e., the beings or existences which in some way partake of the nature or character of God, and are usually called "gods". [notice the emphasis on capital letter used for the one being, and that the lower case letter for incarnations]

The early nations that came in contact with the Egyptians usually misundertood the nature of these beings, and several modern Western writers have done the same.

When we examine these "gods" closely, they are found to be nothing more nor less than forms, or manifestations, or phases, or attributes, of one god, the god being Ra the Sun-god, who, it must be remembered, was the type and *symbol* of *God*.

Nevertheless, the worship of the neteru by Egyptians has been made the base of the charge of "gross idolatry" which has been brought against them, and have been represented by some as being on the low intellectual level of savage tribes.

It is certain that from the earliest time one of the greatest tendencies of the Egyptian religion was towards monotheism, and this tendency may be observed in all important texts down to the last period; it is also certain that a kind of polytheism existed in Egypt side by side with monotheism from very early times.

Whether monotheism or polytheism be the older, it is useless in our present state of knowledge to attempt to enquire. According to Tiele, the religion of Egypt was at the beginning polytheistic, but developed in two opposite directions:


  • in the one direction gods were multiplied by the addition of local gods, and...

  • in the other the Egyptians drew nearer and nearer to monotheism.

Dr. Wiedemann takes the view that three main elements may be recognized in the Egyptian religion:


  1. A solar monotheism, that is to say one god, the creator of the universe, who manifests his power especially in the sun and its operations;

  2. A cult of the regenerating power of nature, which expresses itself in the adoration of ithyphallic gods, of fertile goddesses, and of a series of animals and of various dieties of vegetation;

  3. A perception of an anthropomorphic divinity, the life of whom in this world and in the world beyond this was typical of the ideal life of man -this last divinity being, of course, Osiris.

But here again, as Dr. Wiedemann says, it is an unfortunate fact that all the texts which we possess are, in respect of the period of the origin of the Egyptian religion, comparatively late, and therefore in them we find these three elements mixed together, along with a number of foreign matters, in such a way as to make it impossible to dicover which of them is the oldest....

...The epithets which the Egyptians applied to their gods also bear valuable testimony concerning the ideas which they held about God.

*We have already said that the "gods" are only forms, manifestations, and phases of Ra, the Sun-god, who was himself the type and symbol of God, and it is evident from the nature of these epithets that they were only applied to the "gods" because they represented some quality or attribute which they would have applied to God had it been their custom to address Him.



Source: Title: Egyptian Religion; chapter 1>The Belief in God Almighty; E.A Wallis Budge.

In reference to the above text, it should be noted that Ra, the Sun-god, is actually a symbol of invisible one Almighty God.

[This message has been edited by Super car (edited 26 February 2005).]

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Wally
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posted 26 February 2005 05:01 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Wally     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Great Post, Super car!!

[This message has been edited by Wally (edited 26 February 2005).]

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Djehuti
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posted 26 February 2005 09:37 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Djehuti     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Interesting!
That's been kind of the debate concerning Egyptian religion. There is one argument that suggests the religion was monolatry, in which a single divinity is manifested as many like in Hinduism, and there is just the basic polytheism argument which suggests many divinities. So which is it?

The Egyptian religion seems to follow the exact same principles as many other African religions, where there is a supreme deity, usually androgynous but sometimes of either sex, and then lesser divinities. The word neteru, seems to simply mean spirits, and can mean anything from the gods, to the pharaoh, to the spirits of the deseased.

What exact evidence do you have that suggests it was monolatry insead of plain polytheism?

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Super car
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posted 27 February 2005 01:40 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Super car     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Djehuti:

Interesting!
That's been kind of the debate concerning Egyptian religion. There is one argument that suggests the religion was monolatry, in which a single divinity is manifested as many like in Hinduism, and there is just the basic polytheism argument which suggests many divinities. So which is it?


If you re-exam the Budge text I provided earlier, he states that from the various Egyptian texts, it appeared that both monotheism and polytheism existed.

Most of the gods like Osiris, including Ra himself, are "manifestations, or phases, or attributes of one god", the invisible God. In other words, these aren't really separate gods, but incarnations. This in itself would be aligned to the monotheistic approach, however outwardly it might appear to a layperson, not familiar with the concept.

Texts that suggest that at one point a polytheistic approach was taken, in the very early social development stage of the Nile Valley communties, are exmeplified by the following:

quote:
Budge:

"Negative Confession" in the 125th chapter of the Book of the Dead. Here, in the oldest copies of the passages known, the deceased says "I have not cursed God" (1.38), and a few lines after (1.42) he adds, "I have not thought scorn of the god living in my city."

It seems that here we have indicated two different layers of belief, and that the older is represented by the allusion to the "god of the city," in which case it would go back to the time when the Egyptian lived in a primitive fashion.

If we assume that God (who is mention in line 38) is Osiris, it doesn't do away with the fact that he was regarded as a being entirely different from the "god of the city" and that he was of sufficient importance to have one line of the "Confession" devoted to him.


While it is hard to determine when the Egyptians started adopting the monotheistic approach, since "it existed there at a period so remote that it is useless to attempt to measure years the interval of time" (according to Budge), it appears that the monotheistic approach took steam throughout dynastic time. Nevertheless the periodic references like the example above, provide some indicators that at one point, at an earlier timefrme, a polytheistic approach was also in place.

BTW, the "god of th city", is described by Budge as the following:

god of the city in which a man lived was regarded as the *ruler of the city*, and the people of that city no more thought of neglecting to provide him with what they considered to be due to his rank and position than they thought of neglecting to supply their own wants.

...this would be a living person, as indicated by lower cases.

quote:
Djehuti:

The Egyptian religion seems to follow the exact same principles as many other African religions, where there is a supreme deity, usually androgynous but sometimes of either sex, and then lesser divinities. The word neteru, seems to simply mean spirits, and can mean anything from the gods, to the pharaoh, to the spirits of the deseased.


As stated above, neteru are just manifestations of the one invisible Almighty God, with Ra, the Sun-god, being the type and symbol of God.

quote:
Djehuti:

What exact evidence do you have that suggests it was monolatry insead of plain polytheism?



Sources of various Egyptian cosmology were found virtually everywhere from inscriptions on monuments to Papyri, some of which were rewritten by scribes or Priests from very early periods to the later ones. So we have religious texts dating to various periods , works of early sages of Egypt like “Precepts of Kaqemna” and “Precepts of Ptah-hetep” or "Maxims of Khensu-hetep" , Papyrus of Ani , Papyrus of Nekht, Papyrus of Hunefer, Text of Unas , Text of Teta, and the hymns found in places likes of the “Book of the Dead”, and more.

In many cases, the particular incarnation or being with god-like qualities to which a hymn is dedicated, is identified with Ra. As Budge put it, an example of this can be seen in a hymn to Hapi in which, he is called “One” , and is said to have created himself. Later on in the text, in order to identify him with Ra, the epithets which belong to the Sun-god are applied to him. The hymn in question was popular in the 18th & 19th dynasties.


According to Budge:

quote:

The late Dr. H. Brugsch collected a number of the epithets [published in “Religion” pages 99-101] which are applied to the gods, from texts of all periods; and from these we may see that the ideas and beliefs of the Egyptians concerning God were almost identical with those of the Hebrew and Muhammadans at later periods. When classified these epithets read thus [Budge provides more examples, I’ll just stick to a few] :-

“ God is One and alone, and none other existeth with Him; God is the One, the One Who hath made all things.”

“God is a spirit, a hidden spirit, the spirit of spirits, the great spirit of the Egyptians, the divine spirit.”

“God is from the beginning, and He hath been from the beginning; He hath existed from of old and was when nothing else had being. He existed when nothing else existed, and what existeth He created after He hand come into being. He is the father of beginnings.”

“God is the eternal One, He is eternal and infinite; and endureth for ever and aye; He hath endured for countless ages, and He shall endure to all eternity.”

“ God is the hidden Being, and no man hath known His form. No man hath been able to see out His likeness; He is hidden from gods and men, and He is a mystery unto His creatures”

“God is merciful unto those who reverence Him, and He heareth him that calleth upon Him. He protected the weak against the strong, and He heareth the cry of him that is bound in fetters; He judgeth between the mighty and the weak. God knoweth him that knoweth Him, and He protected him that followed Him.”

We have now to consider the visible emblem, and the type and symbol of God, namely the Sun-god Ra, who was worshipped in Egypt in prehistoric times. According to the writings of the Egyptians, there was a time when neither heaven nor earth existed, and when nothing had being except the boundless primeval water, which was, however, shrouded with thick darkness. In this condition the primeval water remained for a considerable time, notwithstanding that it contained within it the germs of the things which afterwards came into existence in this world itself.

At length the spirit of the primeval water felt the desire for creative activity, and having uttered the word, the world sprang straightway into being in the form which had already been depicted in the mind of the spirit before he spake the word which resulted in its creation. The next act of creation was the form of a germ, or egg, from which sprang Ra, the Sun-god, within whose shining form was embodied the almighty power of the divine spirit.

Such was the outline of creation as described by the late Dr. H. Brugsch, and it is curious to see how closely his views coincide with a chapter in the Papyrus of Nesi Amsu preserved in the British Museum. In the third section of this papyrus we find a work which was written with the sole object of overthrowing Apep, the great enemy of Ra, and in the composition itself we find two versions of the chapter which describes the creation of the earth and all things therein.


It is essential to actually read books by these various Egyptologists, including the book from which this was taken “Egyptian Religion” by Budge. You will have to become familiar with the whole concept of Ra, and the Neteru to get a clearer picture. Reference of Ra appears quite frequently in association with the Neteru. The various inscriptions containing hymns and epithets of Ra and the Neteru are available in these works, and in many cases, the sources of the inscriptions are provided.

[This message has been edited by Super car (edited 27 February 2005).]

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ausar
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posted 27 February 2005 02:23 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for ausar     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
My suggestion would to be learn mdu ntr yourself without depending upon second hand sources like Budge,Faulkner,Hornung or any other Egyptologist.


Most Egyptologist are depending on second hand sources instead of literal translations. This is important to know when translating texts and understanding them.

In the meanwhile, I would suggest you read Erik Hornung's book about ancient Egyptian religion.

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Super car
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posted 27 February 2005 02:49 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Super car     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by ausar:

In the meanwhile, I would suggest you read Erik Hornung's book about ancient Egyptian religion.


Point taken, but would he not be considered a secondary source? Seriously, how do you learn the "mdu ntr" without resorting to a variety of sources to see where the consistencies lie?

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ausar
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posted 27 February 2005 03:10 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for ausar     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Well, as a layman you have to look at secondary sources. You only other alternative would be to learn Coptic[perferably Sahidic] or learn any other Afro-Asiatic language.


We have Middle Egypt dictionaries and flash cards that are meant to teach a person more about mdu ntr. Gardnier and James P. Allen both wrote guides.


You can also get Mdu Ntr texts untranslated from Chicago Oriental Insitute. A while back I posted a link to a listserv that specialized in translating Mdu ntr texts.

You should join this list and post questions to the people.


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Roy_2k5
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posted 27 February 2005 07:13 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Roy_2k5     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
Interesting!
That's been kind of the debate concerning Egyptian religion. There is one argument that suggests the religion was monolatry, in which a single divinity is manifested as many like in Hinduism, and there is just the basic polytheism argument which suggests many divinities. So which is it?

The Egyptian religion seems to follow the exact same principles as many other African religions, where there is a supreme deity, usually androgynous but sometimes of either sex, and then lesser divinities. The word neteru, seems to simply mean spirits, and can mean anything from the gods, to the pharaoh, to the spirits of the deseased.

What exact evidence do you have that suggests it was monolatry insead of plain polytheism?


Djehuti, even Hinduism has a supreme divinity and the other dieties just represent the supreme one. It is pretty obvious that Western 'experts' in the past did not want to label the AE religion as monotheistic because of racist reasons. This is the same reason why Hinduism is also labelled as such. Now I wonder whetger the Native Indian religion was polytheistic? What about the Nordic religions?

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Super car
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posted 27 February 2005 01:45 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Super car     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
It must be noted that despite the monotheistic base of Egyptian belief, the neteru appeared to have added to the confusion felt by outsiders or foreigners in Egypt.

Akhenaten's rejection of the neteru is what made him stand out, because it revealed the true monotheistic base of Egyptian belief. Akhenaten simply just stuck to Ra, the Sun-god, whom as Budge and many sources have made clear time and again, was the type and symbol of Almighty God. The Almighty God here, is the one and eternal spirit.

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Wally
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posted 27 February 2005 04:06 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Wally     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by ausar:
My suggestion would to be learn mdu ntr yourself without depending upon second hand sources like Budge,Faulkner,Hornung or any other Egyptologist.


Most Egyptologist are depending on second hand sources instead of literal translations. This is important to know when translating texts and understanding them.

In the meanwhile, I would suggest you read Erik Hornung's book about ancient Egyptian religion.


Amen
Amon
Amun...

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Djehuti
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posted 27 February 2005 04:27 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Djehuti     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
This could explain why even though local cults througout Egypt had different deities and cosmogonies, they were all complementary to each other and never conflicted with one another.

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Wally
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posted 27 February 2005 04:43 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Wally     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Roy_2k5:
Djehuti, even Hinduism has a supreme divinity and the other dieties just represent the supreme one. It is pretty obvious that Western 'experts' in the past did not want to label the AE religion as monotheistic because of racist reasons. This is the same reason why Hinduism is also labelled as such. Now I wonder whetger the Native Indian religion was polytheistic? What about the Nordic religions?

First of all, we have to disabuse ourselves of the notion of modern organized religion as being more 'sophisticated' than that of Ancient Egypt.

In my opinion, modern religions are merely a gross simplification of an extremely complex and sophisticated African philosophical system.
A good example is that of the many confessions of examples of having lived a moral life one has to recite to the nter Osiris, and modern religions reducing them to a mere 10! It's a "Readers Digest" philosophy.
Or take the Egyptian philosophical concept of a human being which consisted of a Ka, Ba, Khu, Sekhem, Khaibit, Soh, etc., all being reduced to "Soul"!

Also, the simplistic notion that monotheism and polytheism cannot co-exist; there can be no God and gods. It betrays an ignorance of a complex Egyptian philosophy, which Egyptologists recognize this as being the reason for the debate - monotheism vs. polytheism - in the first place.

In the Mdu Ntr:

Ntr - Nuter: (Nute in Coptic; the 'r' in Coptic was dropped) means God
ntr - ntair;nter means gods, who are often the "Ikhu" or ancestors or the more venerated ancestors such as Isis and Osiris, who became gods - the Catholics call such individuals Saints... (Ancestor worship is not unique to Africa, as witness the Native American (Mexico) celebration of "Las Dias de la Muerte"/The Day of the Dead which honors the ancestors.)

Budge is an excellent source, especially when he says that the only way to understand this religious philosophy is to consult its living practitioners, starting with those who still practice it in Egypt today in some form (the Egyptian Fellah), and the other forms of it in the rest of Africa.

Budge would certainly agree that you can probably learn more about the Ancient Egyptian religion from a discussion with a Yoruba individual who practices the traditional Yoruba religion than you could from him...

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rasol
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posted 27 February 2005 06:21 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for rasol     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
One of the most insidious ones is the false notion that Egyptian monotheism originated during the 18th dynasty, during the reign of the king Ikhnaton.

What then can we say about the substance of of the Akhenaten revolution.

Would you say he was trying to return Kemet to monothesim, under Aten?

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Super car
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posted 27 February 2005 07:14 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Super car     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by rasol:

What then can we say about the substance of of the Akhenaten revolution.

Would you say he was trying to return Kemet to monothesim, under Aten?


Egyptians never left the monotheistic base, in so far as the neteru were treated as manifestations of Ra, who in turn is the visible symbol of the invisible God Almighty. This is what needs to be understood.

Earlier I wrote, with regards to the Akhenaten:

quote:
It must be noted that despite the monotheistic base of Egyptian belief, the neteru appeared to have added to the confusion felt by outsiders or foreigners in Egypt.

Akhenaten's rejection of the neteru is what made him stand out, because it revealed the true monotheistic base of Egyptian belief. Akhenaten simply just stuck to Ra, the Sun-god, whom as Budge and many sources have made clear time and again, was the type and symbol of Almighty God. The Almighty God here, is the one and eternal spirit.


The 'gods' who were manifestations of the one God, convey a polythiestic outlook to an otherwise truly monotheistic concept.

Take note of the three elements recognized in ancient Egyptian belief (identified by Dr. Wiedemann), that was mentioned in the first Budge text I quoted.

Some scholars are of the opinion that Egyptian belief, in their lesser social development state in Pre-historic times, may have started out being polytheistic, before the adoption of the monotheistic approach. Of course, there is no evidence that determines when the Egyptians first started adopting the monotheistic concept, since it goes back to a remote period.

Akhenaten did away with these manifestations!


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sunstorm2004
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posted 27 February 2005 08:59 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for sunstorm2004     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
If AE religion can be labeled polytheistic, "modern" religions can be considered polytheistic in the same way, with their pantheons of angels and patron saints and such, essentially taken as manifestations of the greatness of the one god.

Seems quite parallel to:

quote:
...neteru, i.e., the beings or existences which in some way partake of the nature or character of God,

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Thought2
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posted 27 February 2005 11:32 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Thought2     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
A Conversation with Christopher Ehret
Christopher Ehret, UCLA
Interviewed by WHC Co-editor Tom Laichas


WHC: How would you reconstruct the religious beliefs from linguistic evidence?

Ehret: The case of this oldest word for God in Niger-Congo is instructive. This word for God was nyambe. The ­amb was the verb. The ­e was a suffix you needed in order to make the verb into a noun. The category of noun, the singular/plural marker, was the ny-. In the Ashanti kingdom, it was nyame. In the kingdom of Kongo, it was zambe. These were sound changes, but it was the same word. Now, ny- signified a category for animals and things that don't fit into any other category. So we have here is a word that means "the beginner of things." Literally, God is the origin of things. The verb it comes from tells us these people already had the creator god concept.
Other terms for God come later. You get a term which means "the one who arranges and puts everything in order" in eastern Africa. In some languages, the word for God is the same word as for "potter"; the idea is of someone who molds human beings out of clay. It sounds like the Biblical story, though there's no historical connection.
Something that we don't have as well pinned down linguistically, but it seems to be across the area, is a second level of spirit, a spirit who had a territorial region of authority: some sort of lesser spirit, but not God. That particular spirit may originally have been associated with a particular watershed or with the source of a particular stream. Sometimes, though not always, this idea exists in an area where there aren't so many streams.
The third and most important level was the level of the ancestors. They were the people you had to show respect for. They were the people you might go to for help. God is distant. When Catholicism comes in, the ancestors may be viewed as saints. They were, in some sense, intermediaries. But they weren't only intermediaries. They had their own power. You had to pay respect to them and conduct rites to them, both communally and individually.

WHC: You describe two other groups. One of them is the Afrasans. Can you talk about them for a moment?

Ehret: These are people who have been called Afro-Asiatic and also Afrasian. I'm saying "Afrasan" because I'm trying to get "Asia" out. There is still this idea that the Afro-Asiatic family had to come out of Asia. Once you realize that it's an African family with one little Asian offshoot, well, that itself is a very important lesson for world historians.
We actually have DNA evidence which fits very well with an intrusion of people from northwestern African into southwestern Asia. The Y-chromosome markers, associated with the male, fade out as you go deeper into the Middle East.
Another thing about the Afrasans: their religious beliefs. Anciently, each local group had its own supreme deity. This is called "henotheism." In this kind of religion, you have your own god to whom you show your allegiance. But you realize that other groups have their own deities. The fact that they have deities different from yours doesn't mean their deities don't exist.
This kind of belief still exists. It's fading, maybe on its last legs, in southeastern Ethiopia, among people of the Omati group. They descend from the earliest split in the Semitic family. Way up in the mountains, they have this henotheism. They have a deity of their clan, or their small group of closely related clans. They have their priest-chief who has to see to the rites of that deity.
We see the same kind of thing in ancient Egypt. If we go to there, we discover that the Egyptian gods began as local gods. With Egyptian unification, we move from this henotheism to polytheism. To unify Egypt, after all, you have to co-opt the loyalty of local groups and recognize their gods. We have no direct evidence, but it's certainly implied by the things we learn about the gods in the written records we do have.

WHC: You seem to be suggesting that the Semitic monotheism ­ Jewish, Christian and Islamic monotheism ­ descends from African models. Is that fair?

Ehret: Yeah, actually it is. Look at the first commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." It's not like the Muslim creed, which is "There is no God but God." It's doesn't say "there is no god but Yahweh, and Moses is his prophet." It is an admittance that there are other gods. It is an example of henotheism. And the Hebrew tribes are like the Omati clan groups. The tribes are clans writ larger. Like the Omati clans, they track their ancestry back ten or fifteen generations to a common ancestor. And these common ancestors were twelve brothers. (Actually, there are thirteen. They have to turn two of them, Ephraim and Manasseh, into half tribes, because thirteen wasn't a good number. I always loved that. There are really thirteen tribes, but you have to combine two of them).
The Canaanite cities have an alternative Semitic structure: polytheism. There's Astarte and Baal and the various gods that you'll find in South Arabia. So it looks like in the early Semitic world, you have two coexisting religions. You have polytheism among the ones who are really more urbanized. Then you have henotheistic groups.
What I see here is that earlier Middle Eastern polytheism is influencing Semitic religion. After all, the early Semites were just a few Africans arriving to find a lot of other people already in the area. So they're going to have to accommodate. Some groups, maybe ones who live in peripheries, in areas with lower population densities, may be able to impose the henotheistic religion they arrived with.

WHC: How does a small group of Semites coming in from Africa transform the language of a region in which they are a minority?

Ehret: One of the archaeological possibilities is a group called the Mushabaeans. This group moves in on another group that's Middle Eastern. Out of this, you get the Natufian people. Now, we can see in the archaeology that people were using wild grains the Middle East very early, back into the late glacial age, about 18,000 years ago. But they were just using these seeds as they were. At the same time, in this northeastern corner of Africa, another people ­ the Mushabaeans? ­ are using grindstones along the Nile, grinding the tubers of sedges. Somewhere along the way, they began to grind grain as well. Now, it's in the Mushabian period that grindstones come into the Middle East.
Conceivably, with a fuller utilization of grains, they're making bread. We can reconstruct a word for "flatbread," like Ethiopian injira. This is before proto-Semitic divided into Ethiopian and ancient Egyptian languages. So, maybe, the grindstone increases how fully you use the land. This is the kind of thing we need to see more evidence for. We need to get people arguing about this.
And by the way: we can reconstruct the word for "grindstone" back to the earliest stage of Afrasan. Even the Omati have it. And there are a lot of common words for using grasses and seeds.

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Wally
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posted 28 February 2005 01:28 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Wally     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by rasol:
What then can we say about the substance of of the Akhenaten revolution.

Would you say he was trying to return Kemet to monothesim, under Aten?


I think the answer to your question can be found in the realms of "real politiks" rather than in religion. It's involved and convoluted but you should look into the power of the Amon priesthood, its power and influence over the state, and a possible effort by the Pharaoh Ikhnaton to curb it. It isn't a coincidence that with his overthrow, TutAnkhAten would become TutAnkhAmon...

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Wally
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posted 28 February 2005 01:54 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Wally     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Posted by Thought2
A Conversation with Christopher Ehret
WHC: How would you reconstruct the religious beliefs from linguistic evidence?
Ehret: The case of this oldest word for God in Niger-Congo is instructive. This word for God was nyambe. The ­amb was the verb. The ­e was a suffix you needed in order to make the verb into a noun. The category of noun, the singular/plural marker, was the ny-. In the Ashanti kingdom, it was nyame. In the kingdom of Kongo, it was zambe. These were sound changes, but it was the same word. Now, ny- signified a category for animals and things that don't fit into any other category. So we have here is a word that means "the beginner of things." Literally, God is the origin of things. The verb it comes from tells us these people already had the creator god concept.
Other terms for God come later. You get a term which means "the one who arranges and puts everything in order" in eastern Africa. In some languages, the word for God is the same word as for "potter"; the idea is of someone who molds human beings out of clay. It sounds like the Biblical story, though there's no historical connection.
Something that we don't have as well pinned down linguistically, but it seems to be across the area, is a second level of spirit, a spirit who had a territorial region of authority: some sort of lesser spirit, but not God. That particular spirit may originally have been associated with a particular watershed or with the source of a particular stream. Sometimes, though not always, this idea exists in an area where there aren't so many streams.
The third and most important level was the level of the ancestors. They were the people you had to show respect for. They were the people you might go to for help. God is distant. When Catholicism comes in, the ancestors may be viewed as saints. They were, in some sense, intermediaries. But they weren't only intermediaries. They had their own power. You had to pay respect to them and conduct rites to them, both communally and individually.

...which is a long, though insightful way of saying:

According to the Mdu Ntr

Ntr > Nuter:God
ntr(w) > ntair(u);nter(u) god / gods; very often the "Ikhu" ("shining ones/spirits") or ancestors or oftentimes the more venerated ancestors such as Isis and Osiris, who became gods in the formal sense.
----
Question: has anyone here read "Conversations with Ogotomeli" by Marcel Griaule? About his researches with the Dogon people of West Africa who knew of the existence of the Dog Star and who (Ogotomeli)told Griaule that the great god of Africa was named "Amma"? Griaule was amazed to find such a highly complex and sophisticated philosophy where he did...
I highly recommend this book.

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Super car
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posted 28 February 2005 04:41 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Super car     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Thought2:
A Conversation with Christopher Ehret
Christopher Ehret, UCLA
Interviewed by WHC Co-editor Tom Laichas

WHC: You describe two other groups. One of them is the Afrasans. Can you talk about them for a moment?

Ehret: These are people who have been called Afro-Asiatic and also Afrasian. I'm saying "Afrasan" because I'm trying to get "Asia" out. There is still this idea that the Afro-Asiatic family had to come out of Asia. Once you realize that it's an African family with one little Asian offshoot, well, that itself is a very important lesson for world historians.
We actually have DNA evidence which fits very well with an intrusion of people from northwestern African into southwestern Asia. The Y-chromosome markers, associated with the male, fade out as you go deeper into the Middle East.
Another thing about the Afrasans: their religious beliefs.

Anciently, each local group had its own supreme deity. This is called "henotheism." In this kind of religion, you have your own god to whom you show your allegiance. But you realize that other groups have their own deities. The fact that they have deities different from yours doesn't mean their deities don't exist.

This kind of belief still exists. It's fading, maybe on its last legs, in southeastern Ethiopia, among people of the Omati group. They descend from the earliest split in the Semitic family. Way up in the mountains, they have this henotheism. They have a deity of their clan, or their small group of closely related clans. They have their priest-chief who has to see to the rites of that deity.

We see the same kind of thing in ancient Egypt. If we go to there, we discover that the Egyptian gods began as local gods. With Egyptian unification, we move from this henotheism to polytheism. To unify Egypt, after all, you have to co-opt the loyalty of local groups and recognize their gods. We have no direct evidence, but it's certainly implied by the things we learn about the gods in the written records we do have.


Ehret has a point here. It is consistent with the conclusion of various scholars, that pre-historic Egyptian beliefs was "polytheistic". This developed into what would be, as Ehret put it, "henotheism".

If one thinks about it, pre-dynastic Egypt was made up of Lower and Upper Egyptian kingdoms, which means each had their own local gods and beliefs. This is consistent with what Budges says about the "god in the city":

quote:

In prehistoric times every little village or town, every district and province, and every great city, had its own particular god...

The god of the village, although he was a more important being, might be led into captivity along with people of the village, but the victory of his followers in a raid or fight caused the honours paid to him be magnified and enhanced his renown. [kind of like what we see in the Rainmaker King concept]

The gods of provinces or of great cities were, of course, greater than those of villages and private farmilies, and in the large houses dedicated to them, i.e., temples, a considerable number of them, represented by statues, would be found...

whenever and wherever the Egyptian attempted to set up a system of gods they always found that the old local gods had to be taken into consideration, and a place had to be found fo them in the system. This might be done by making them members of triads, or of groups of nine gods, now commonly called "enneads"; but in one form or other they had to appear.

The researches made during the last few years have shown that there must have been several large schools of theological though in Egypt, and each of these the priests did their utmost to proclaim the superiority of their gods...we see that the great god of Heliopolis was Temu or Atmu, the setting sun, and to him the priests of that place ascribed the attributes which rightly belong to Ra, the Sun-god of the day-time. For some reason or other, they formulated the idea of a company of gods, nine in number, which was called the "great company (paut) of gods", and at the head of this company they placed the god Temu...

The priests of Heliopolis in setting Temu at the head of their company of the gods thus gave Ra, and Nu also, a place of high honour; they cleverly succeeded in making their own local god chief of the company, but at the same time they provided the older gods with positions of importance. In this way worshippers of Ra, who had regarded their god as the oldest of the gods, would have little cause to complain of the introduction of Temu into the company of the gods, and the local vanity of Heliopolis would be gratified.


Despite the above, it is restated, from the same source:

quote:
It is quite true that the Egyptians paid honour to a number of gods, a number so large that the list of their mere names would fill a volume, but it is equally true that the educated classes in Egypt at all times never placed the "gods" on the same high level as God, and they never imagined that their views on this point could be mistaken.

Upon unification of Lower and Upper Egypt, apparently all the local gods had to be brought under a system, with the important and surviving ones included. Despite the numerous local gods before unification, it appears that there were some common elements found in the beliefs of different kingdoms, cities, or villages. This would have made it easier to bring them together under one system, for lack of a better word. The belief in one Supreme being and a creation story is an example of this.

Earlier reference to "enneads" was made in the Budge text, appears to have been a Greek reference to nine gods of Heliopolis, and the Egyptians used the term "pesdjet" to denote a collection of deities in any temple. Examples of this can be, the aforementioned 9 deities of Heliopolis, the 7 deities of the Abydos temple, or the 15 deities of the Karnak temple complex.(courtesy of philae.nu)

Courtesy of www.philae.nu, we have:

quote:

Heliopolis

The ruins of Lunu lies under the suburbs of north-east Cairo. It was known to Herodotus ca 450 B.C. as Heliopolis. But already about 3000 B.C. this was where one of the most important and influential myths of creation was formulated. The earliest written source of this are the Pyramid Texts of 5th and 6th dynasties, the largest single collection of religious writings. They were probably composed mostly by priesthood. They held their position and developed through time, until Amun became the state god at Thebes.

Nun or The Primeval Waters

Before the structured cosmos was created there was only darkness which held a limitless water, the primeval Nun, also called the Father of Gods. There were no temples built to Nun, but this deity is made present in many shrines as the sacred lake which *symbolizes* the non-existence before creation. The concept of the Primeval waters are common to all Egyptian creation myths. Even if their details differ, they are all explanations of how light and order was formed in the unordered, unstructured chaos of darkness and timelessness.


Source: http://www.philae.nu/akhet/ennead1.html

"The growth of the Egyptian religion is one of the reasons why Egypt ended up with such a complex and polytheistic religious system. When a town grew in prominence, so did the god. When the town was deserted, the god disappeared. Only a few of the many deities ended up in the Egyptian pantheon, and even then their popularity waxed and waned through the thousands of years of Egyptian history. Another reason for complexity was when people moved, their god did, too. This meant that at the new town, there was sometimes a battle between the old and new gods - but the Egyptian gods were easily merged, with other gods taking over that god's attributes and abilities! So it is that some of the ancient gods of Neolithic and Predynastic Egypt came to national prominence are considered to be some of the main gods in the Egyptian pantheon today: Amun of Thebes, Ptah of Hikuptah (Memphis), Horus (the Elder) of Nekhem, Set of Tukh (Ombos), Ra of Iunu (Heliopolis), Min of Gebtu (Koptos), Hathor of Dendra and Osiris of Abydos." http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/predynastic.htm

This is perhaps a gist of the reasons behind the complexity of Egyptian cosmology, but it appears that idea of the invisible God is a very old one, for which I doubt any evidence has been uncovered indicating when the idea came about in the Nile Valley.

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sokarya_686@hotmail.com
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posted 02 March 2005 06:14 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for sokarya_686@hotmail.com     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The first false notion is that Akhenaton was a monotheist, the second false notion is to believe it.

Akhenaton believed in the Aten, he believed in Re, and since he created himself the Adama, he must have believed in Atum.

People have had many ideas about why Akhenaton had himself depicted as an asexual being. For example there is a statue of himself with an asexual body, without genitals, and coloured red. The most logical conclusion as to why he would have wished to depict himself in this way was because he was the father and mother in the one person of himself, self-created from the red earth - Atum or Adam(with Eve)

Since Atum is the patron of the sun, he then had to bring Re into the picture, so as not to confuse that doctrine with the Aten, which had nothing to do with the sun except in a symbolic way. Charlie

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Super car
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posted 02 March 2005 07:45 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Super car     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by sokarya_686@hotmail.com:
The first false notion is that Akhenaton was a monotheist, the second false notion is to believe it.

Akhenaton believed in the Aten, he believed in Re, and since he created himself the Adama, he must have believed in Atum.

People have had many ideas about why Akhenaton had himself depicted as an asexual being. For example there is a statue of himself with an asexual body, without genitals, and coloured red. The most logical conclusion as to why he would have wished to depict himself in this way was because he was the father and mother in the one person of himself, self-created from the red earth - Atum or Adam(with Eve)

Since Atum is the patron of the sun, he then had to bring Re into the picture, so as not to confuse that doctrine with the Aten, which had nothing to do with the sun except in a symbolic way. Charlie


Aten was the representation of Re or Ra, the Sun-God. I don't know how that becomes non-monotheistic?

"The new religion could be summed up as "there is no god but Aten, and Akhenaten is his prophet" - touregypt.net

That sums it up.

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sokarya_686@hotmail.com
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posted 03 March 2005 08:14 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for sokarya_686@hotmail.com     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I can only reply that the Atenists were no more worshipping the sun than the Christians worship a piece of wood called a crucifix.

Even if I were to go along with your suggestion here, Ra or Re is only "representative" of the risen sun. He originally manifested himself at Heliopolis in the form of the ben ben stone nurtured in the bosom of Nun from which by an effort of self will he arose from the Abyss as Atum, and appeared in the sun as resplendent light. He then gave birth to Shu (the holy breath) seen in the rays from the Aten disc, and Tefnut, who without the assistance of a mate in turn gave birth to Geb and Nut who then produced Isis, Osiris, Set and Nephthys. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that Akhenaton worshipped just the symbol of Aten and Re without the theology. For example why would the Anke appear at the end of the suns rays unless there were a whole theology and doctrines involving all the natures of Ra. The Book of the Dead actually refers to Ra and Osiris as the same being!

Theres only one God in the Bible represented by a Cross on the binding cover, but God has many characters. With Akhenaton it was decided not to physically represent those facets literally as idols.
They were there nevertheless, and your point of view is over simplified and unrealistic for intelligent people of the Egyptian l8th dynasty.

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swam
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posted 04 March 2005 04:21 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for swam     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

Akheniten, ha
yes, the priests of Isis seth sekhmet horus amon and expensive offerings,....

kill the ntrws, let the good ones survive, under the one and only, nb maat, shou, nout.......

Itn has more to do with the light concept then with the sun, imo

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Super car
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posted 04 March 2005 06:50 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Super car     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by sokarya_686@hotmail.com:
I can only reply that the Atenists were no more worshipping the sun than the Christians worship a piece of wood called a crucifix.

Even if I were to go along with your suggestion here, Ra or Re is only "representative" of the risen sun. He originally manifested himself at Heliopolis in the form of the ben ben stone nurtured in the bosom of Nun from which by an effort of self will he arose from the Abyss as Atum, and appeared in the sun as resplendent light. He then gave birth to Shu (the holy breath) seen in the rays from the Aten disc, and Tefnut, who without the assistance of a mate in turn gave birth to Geb and Nut who then produced Isis, Osiris, Set and Nephthys. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that Akhenaton worshipped just the symbol of Aten and Re without the theology. For example why would the Anke appear at the end of the suns rays unless there were a whole theology and doctrines involving all the natures of Ra. The Book of the Dead actually refers to Ra and Osiris as the same being!

Theres only one God in the Bible represented by a Cross on the binding cover, but God has many characters. With Akhenaton it was decided not to physically represent those facets literally as idols.
They were there nevertheless, and your point of view is over simplified and unrealistic for intelligent people of the Egyptian l8th dynasty.



The act of making suggestions and over-simplifications comes from your end; I gather available information known from the work of various Egyptologists.

In your theorey, you fail to comprehend that Atum came from Primeval Waters, which actually if one fully grasps it, has no form. So Atum was created from himself, and then rose out of the Primeval darkness or water to form the Primeval Mound. This Primeval Mound became the dwelling place for the sun-god. The Sun-god, is the manifestation of God's power through the sun. The power can perhaps be expressed as:

" symbolic of life, warmth, light and day. It dispels the darkness and cold. It calls the unseen seed-life from out of the dark soil. It brings forth the light from the darkness of the night, as well as life from out of the underworld. It symbolizes the Creator's power to enliven, nourish and enlighten. " - courtesy of John Van Auken

So Ra himself came to represent the sun. Re or Ra, originally meant the heavenly body, joined Herakhty (a recorgnized sun god) to represent the morning sun, and adopted the falcon head. Later he joined Atum, to become Re-Atum, manifestation of the setting sun.

Now the Aten was the sun disc itself, again a heavenly body, that became personified as Re or Ra. "aten" in itself is simply meant a disc, and could represent any round body. Its association with divinity first appears in the Tale of Sinhueat about 2000 B.C., which claims that Amenemhat I rose into the sky in unification with Aten, his creator. It was just a matter of time, for the 'aten' to be elevated into a deity in its own right from being a mere symbol.

Akhenaten accepted Aten as the only representation of the formless God.

quote:
…Before Akhenaten, the placing of one god in a privileged position never threatened the existence of the remaining gods. The one and the many had been treated as complementary throughout Egyptian history and gods were not mutually exclusive. Now they were and we witness the formulation of a new logic. Although his qualities are not absolute, the Aten becomes a monotheistic God by virtue of this. He becomes a jealous god, who will tolerate no other gods before him.

Essentially, anything that does not fit into the nature of the Aten was no longer divine. The main difference between the hymns of Akhenaten, though using similar working to earlier works, is what they omit. For example, now, the difference between night and day is simply that during the night, the Aten is not present. No longer do other gods rule the dark. Furthermore, several thousand years of myths can no longer exist. The Aten's nature is not revealed but is only accessible through intellectual effort and insight only to Akenaten and those whom he teaches. Akenaten tells us that "there is no one else who knows you (the Aten)", and he is constantly given the epithet Waenre "the unique one of Re".


Hence, the Aten is so far removed that an intermediary is required in order to be accessible to mankind, and that intermediary is the king. During the New Kingdom, the use of intermediaries had been increasingly important to access the gods. However, worshipers had been able to turn to a variety of these, including sacred animals, statues, dead men who had been deified who functioned in this capacity. Now, there only recourse was the king, who becomes the sole prophet of their god. Hence, the faithful of the Amarna period pray at home in front of an altar that contains a picture of the king and his family. The new religion could be summed up as "there is no god but Aten, and Akhenaten is his prophet".


Hence, the transformation becomes visibly apparent because of the unparalleled persecution of traditional gods, above all, Amun. Akhenaten's stonemasons swarm the country and even abroad to remove the name of Amun from all accessible monuments, including even the tips of obelisks, under the gilding on columns and in the letters of the achieves. In fact, Egyptologists use these erasures and later restorations of the name of Amun in order to date monuments to the period before Amarna. Though Amun felt the worst of Akhenaten's revolution, other gods were also eliminated…

He may have eradicated the names of other gods, but he could not extinguish several thousand years of mythological traditions, particularly at a time when Egyptian religion was increasingly democratized.



Source: http://touregypt.net/featurestories/amarnaperiod.htm

Earlier I posted:

"Heliopolis
The ruins of Lunu lies under the suburbs of north-east Cairo. It was known to Herodotus ca 450 B.C. as Heliopolis. But already about 3000 B.C. this was where one of the most important and influential myths of creation was formulated. The earliest written source of this are the Pyramid Texts of 5th and 6th dynasties, the largest single collection of religious writings. They were probably composed mostly by priesthood. They held their position and developed through time, until Amun became the state god at Thebes."

"Nun or The Primeval Waters

Before the structured cosmos was created there was only darkness which held a limitless water, the primeval Nun, also called the Father of Gods. There were no temples built to Nun, but this deity is made present in many shrines as the sacred lake which *symbolizes* the non-existence before creation. The concept of the Primeval waters are common to all Egyptian creation myths. Even if their details differ, they are all explanations of how light and order was formed in the unordered, unstructured chaos of darkness and timelessness."

Now add this...

"Atum
Out of Nun rose the creator of the world Atum or the Primeval Mound, "lord to the limit of the sky" and "lord of Heliopolis", who self-developed into a being, standing on a raised mound, i.e., which became the Benben, a pyramid shaped stonde, regarded as the dwelling place of the sun god.

Atum is therefore the creator god who created the universe, he is the supreme being and master of the forces and elements of the universe. Utterance 600 in the Pyramid Texts:

O Atum! When you came into being you rose up as a High Hill, You shone as the Benben Stone in the Temple of the Benu in Heliopolis.

...Here Atum is the Primeval Mound itself. This is understable when we think of how the ground and banks along the Nile rose from the receding waters each year, soon sprouting new weeds and greenery, and animals and insects would inhabit them again. Life seemed to come out of the ground itself. This is the idea behind Atum, the Primeval Mound, the Creator, god who within him contains the possibilities of every life form.

Then Atum created Shu and Tefnut, an extract from Papyrus Brehmer-Rhind states:

All manifestations came into being after I developed...no sky existed no earth existed...I created on my own every being...my fist became my spouse....I copulated with my hand...I sneezed out Shu...I spat out Tefnut...Next Shu and Tefnut produced Geb and Nut...Geb and Nut gave birth to Osiris...Seth, Isis and Nephtys...ultimately they produced the population of this land."
- courtesy of philae.nu

Next we have:

"Prior to Akhenaten, the sun disk could be a symbol in which major gods appear and so we find such phrases as "Atum who is in his disk ('aten'). However, from there it is only a small leap for the disk itself to become a god.

It was Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) who first initiated the appearance of the true god, Aten, by formulating a didactic name for him. Hence, in the early years of Amenhotep IV's reign, the sun god Re-Horakhty, traditionally depicted with a hawk's head, became identical to Aten, who was now worshipped as a god, rather than as an object associated with the sun god. Hence, prior to Akhenaten, we speak of The Aten, while afterwards it is the god Aten. Initially, Aten's relationship with other gods was very complex and it should even be mentioned that some Egyptologists have suggested that Amenhotep IV may have equated Aten to his own father, Amenhotep III. Others have suggested that, rather than true monotheism, the cult of Aten was a form of henotheism, in which one god was effectively elevated above many others, though this certainly does not seem to be the case later during the Amarna period...

Amenhotep IV, who would change his name to Akhenaten to reflect Aten's importance, first replaced the state god Amun with his newly interpreted god. The hawk-headed figure of Re-Horakhty-Aten was then abandoned in favor of the iconography of the solar disk, which was now depicted as an orb with a uraeus at its base emitting rays that ended in human hands either left open or holding ankh signs that gave "life" to the nose of both the king and the Great Royal Wife, Nefertiti. It should however be noted that this iconography actually predates Amenhotep IV with some examples from the reign of Amenhotep II, though now it became the sole manner in which Aten was depicted.

Aten was now considered the sole, ruling deity and thus received a royal titulary, inscribed like royal names in two oval cartouches. As such, Aten now celebrated its own royal jubilees (Sed-festivals). Thus, the ideology of kingship and the realm of religious cult were blurred.

The Aten's didactic name became "the living One, Re-Harakhty who rejoices on the horizon, in his name (identity) which is Illumination ('Shu, god of the space between earth and sky and of the light that fills that space') which is from the solar orb."

This designation changes everything theologically in Egypt. The traditions Egyptians had adopted since the earliest times no longer applied. According to Akhenaten, Re and the sun gods Khepri, Horakhty and Atum could no longer be accepted as manifestations of the sun. The concept of the new god was not so much the sun disk, but rather the life giving illumination of the sun. To make this distinction, his name would be more correctly pronounced, "Yati(n)".

Aten was now the king of kings, needing no goddess as a companion and having no enemies who could threaten him. In effect, this worship of Aten was not a sudden innovation on the part of one king, but the climax of a religious quest among Egyptians for a benign god limitless in power and manifest in all countries and natural phenomena.

After Aten ascended to the top of the pantheon, most of the old gods retained their positions at first, though that would soon change as well. Gods of the dead such as Osiris and Soker were several of the first to vanish from the Egyptian religious front...

Aten took on many characteristics alien to Re. Re did not function in a vacuum of gods and goddesses. Yet there remained cloudy associations with Re even as Akhenaten moved into his new capital." - touregypt.net

Needless to say, the above runs contrary to your ideology of affairs.


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swam
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posted 06 March 2005 12:20 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for swam     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Itn,

Is it that terrible to imagine Akhenaton, could have been at the base of the concept “none other then Thee?” But then taboos are disregarded in collective blackout and one shrieks to blasphemy.
.
In Africa and through the "animist" ...."naturist" hierarchy, the ntr "superviser" was not claimed “official faith” to me this difference is enough to attribute a seal to Akh n Itn's monotheism.

Can we be sure these beliefs are misconceptions?, we have the partisans and non partisans.
Akhenaton believed in direct connection to the Akh spirit, thus the bird in his name, and the will to be useful

Aton Faith was put into focus in an obvious way, the hymns are explicit about the benefits of this energy (or whatever one names it), the temple was in the open air…, the man was secluded onto his space, kept away from the dark priests of Amun like plague. Did these see danger in those changes, a diminution in the distribution of offerings, and a threat to their power?
Amun then, an Evil connotation.

Akh n Itn intransigent? I recall seeing in one of the tombs (Pentu?) a Shw deity, personified. Traces of other Gods /Goddesses were found in Tel Amarna, Isis, Shou, Maat, probably more.
To me its an simplification to imagine Itn was about the sun only.
See in the title of the Hymns: In the name of Sw who is in the Itn
Sw mentioned in the cartouche.
How can shou primordial air concept be in the sun?

Light can only travel through air

Au contraire of many, I feel Akh en iten is a satanized simplified character, discredited and betrayed, slain in the back, call these my miss conceptions.

In Horemheb’s tomb the dw3 to Re Horackhty, the heil is increased, i.e
How do we exactly know it was Akhenaton giving the order to erase the flags?
hitting light circles at the Luxor temple, nit took him lots of guts to try and start anew.

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sokarya_686@hotmail.com
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posted 06 March 2005 11:13 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for sokarya_686@hotmail.com     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
If anyone really wants to try and understand the relationship of the Aten and Re and what Akhenaton was trying to achieve, they only need to read the beginning of Genesis in the Bible. There they will find the beginnings of creation, which is exactly according to Memphite theology. That is to say that Ptah was the initiator of the whole process of creation, the oceans (Nun) came first, and the air (shu), The Sun (Aten) then the dry land (benben) appears out of chaos, then Atum is self-created as man the Adama.

Akhenaton an his priests had no doubt worked out for themselves that to merely worship a sun disc, or an alien god, through only one person, Akhenaton, was not going to work after Akhenaton died. Memphite theology provides the answer for a link between the superior invisible God, and man. People have often wondered why akhenaton depicted himself, his family and his followers in an asexual guise suggesting medical reasons, artistic reasons, and poetic licence.

The reason in my view that he depicted himself thus was he wanted to be seen as the Self-created Atum (Adam) As Atum he would be both father and mother in the one priest-king - The Adama. As the Adama he had the ability to then pass on his special relationship with god to his priesthood, and all those he chose as his descendents.

There is a very famous unfinished statue of akhenaton depicted as the Adama, with male and female attributes, both mother and father of his new race of people. This statue has no genitalia because we are not talking about human matters, but spiritual matters. This statue was painted red to signify the red earth.

It was only some time later, after creating the Adama, that God created Eve. Initially Adam was both father and mother. The bible is quite clear that Eve was introduced into the doctrine some time later. At the point that Akhenaton commissioned his statue, this was the precise point Wherein Adam was running about naked in the Garden of Aten(Eden) After Eve was introduced, they all ran about naked, until the serpent got involved. Of course the serpent was Aye,and he was the one who put them all to shame.

The Akhenaton era is so clearly defined in the Genesis and Exodus stories in the Bible, I really cant understand why people dont take more notice of it. All the Egyptian mythology that anyone could wish to know is all there, condensed into just two books.

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