EXCERPTS
SECTION I – CHAPTER IV
EGYPT AND THE PHARAOH
By this time the bride to be was embarrassed by her seducers. Surly they could have made a more appealing offer. Even if she didn’t accept their advance, it would be a wonderful step toward oblivion. And what if her prince failed to tend to her escape? Would she return for the rescuer who resolved to come for her? Yet she knew He would indeed come, and she would resolve to know why.
Myth accounts, when properly understood, not only provide a creation account and what the ancients thought of God and man, but they tell of a wonderful romantic story as well. It is a story of romance between men and the Divine that has continued through the ages ever sense the beginning. All ancient civilizations have this sentiment and Egypt is no exception to the sentimental rule. She too has a creation account with a Divine story. Only, the Pharaoh alone sought to be her king and the people his seduced bride.
Ancient Egyptian writings record several different myth accounts for creation. Most of them involve natural forces. Each year, the Nile Valley flooded in late summer, and each year the fields emerged from the floodwaters later in the autumn coated with blackened silt left by the floods. This repeated experience provided the principal motifs for expressing the mystery of creation. These include that of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt respectively.
When the Nile River formed a substance that they considered life giving, it was representative of the acts of the gods in creation and therefore used as an example for the creation account within Her myth. Egypt’s surroundings were Her example. At least it was what they believed from what they saw. This was Her original story and the myths formed within her well-rounded womb.
The myth most known in the Egyptian pantheon is that of Ptah. Ptah is held as the people of Memphis, who believed he brought everything into existence by thought and word alone. Ptah’s acts as the creator god are contemplative. For Ptah created the world through intellectual effort alone, simply by thinking things into existence. He did this with the ideas that emanated from within his heart and “made them” by names that issued from his lips. What Ptah spoke had become real:
“For the Egyptians, the heart was the seat of intellect and the source of any thought, which the tongue then spoke to make real. By uttering a litany of names Ptah was able to produce the gods of all Egypt, including the cities, shrines, and temples…” (Egyptian Mythology).
What Ptah spoke, what he uttered, came into being by willing it so. Consider this statement concerning one of Egypt’s creation myths in the following depiction taken from Her sacred book, “The Secret Power Of Ra”:
“Ra the Shining One rose out of the mists that covered the waters. Nun, the spirit of the waters, floated above him. Ra was all-powerful and his power came from his Secret Name. This gave him the power to create a thing just by calling its name (by speaking it into existence). He said ‘I am Khepera at the dawn, Ra at noon and Tum in the evening.’ And the sun rose in the east and traveled across the sky to set in the west. Thus he created the first day. He then named Shu the keeper of the wind, and Tefnut the spitter of rain. “Geb” he spoke, and the earth rose up from the sea. Nut was named and she stretched her body across the sky from one horizon to the other to form the arch that held the stars and path for the sun and moon. Hapi he named last and the River Nile flowed through Egypt, bringing life to the land. He named all things on earth and lastly named Man and Woman, and they multiplied to live in prosperity on the banks of the Nile” (The Secret Power Of Ra).
One relevant idea communicated here is the importance of names. In the Hebrew concept, names represented what attributes they revealed. This was well known to the Hebrew, the Jews, for generations. The Old Testament is filled with stories naming a child, a place, or an event that captured their personality, significance, or a place to remember.
In the Creation account of Genesis 1, Adam names his counterpart, woman, “for you came from man”, meaning mankind. She was man, in female form. This depiction of calling an object into being and naming it accordingly is significant. For it relates to the thought and will of the Creator, and the speaking of a word, in order to manifest creation, thus, all of life through what was spoken. The name was what the “form” represented.
EGYPTIAN SEDUCTION
In another creation myth, the story of ‘Egyptian Beginnings’ by the US Bible on Creation Myths, observed the following:
“The first act of creation began when the egg hatched the sun. It was the form of the sun in which the god, Ra, made his presence known. All other ‘gods and goddess’ were forms of him. Creation was said to be formed according to a divine intelligence called, Maa (pronounced ‘may’). It proceeded according to the word of another divine intelligence, called Thoth. Thoth is considered the god of – wisdom – in the Egyptian pantheon” (US Bible on Creation Myths).
That it proceeded from “intelligence”, is what gives this account its pertinence. A going forth of the uttered word to create life is again reminiscent of the Hebrew account, and vital to the comparison made earlier of the Hebrew myth of creation. All the creation myths apply to the same principle in the same compelling way. Calling, speaking, or uttering creation is the result of a superior Mind that willed the world into being.
Further reading of this version of Egypt’s creation accounts suggests that their everyday surroundings gave them more than enough evidence to build myths. As seen in the Nile Valley account stated above.
The primeval mound myth starts with a dark, watery abyss called the Nun, whose chaotic energies contained the potential forms of all living things (similar to the water/mist of heaven in Genesis 1). The spirit of the creator was present in these primeval waters but had no place in which to take shape. A slightly altered account, yet uniform in the interpretation of Genesis 1 where God ordered the universe, not only by overcoming the forces of chaos, but by creating them out of nothing. Consider this quote from the same source:
“The event that marked the beginning of time was the rising of the first land out of the waters of the Nun. This primeval mound provided a place in which the first deity could come into existence. When he became conscious of being alone, he used his divine powers to create order out of chaos, gods and men in his own image, and a world for them to inhabit. The first deity is represented by the sun god, who brought the first light into the darkness of chaos” (US Bible/creation myths).
Indeed, what we see here are the similarities spoken of in the myths of the sacred Egyptian texts to that of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures. Combining this with the rest of Egypt’s myths, the themes remain the same. Out of nothing, or from bedlam, comes creation by “the speaking of words”, with the final creation act of man made in God’s image.
MONOTHEISM/POLYTHEISM
What is further evident from Egypt’s creation accounts, from its myth, is a developing polytheism and a latter desire for monotheism with a supreme ruler. They were polytheists yet they sought a unifying principle of the divine. For although the ancient Egyptians had many gods, they were drawn to a monotheism that would, to their hope, bind them together.
This unification was made possible by the implementation of a supreme ruler – one ultimate god of human origins. As it was established, the Egyptian king had the authority to govern and rule a people who desired a unifying system of belief. The result was one of a religious mythos that was ever present and all-powerful – the dwelling of “the gods” among men.
As Egypt grew in her mythology so did Her civilization and politics, as did the kingdom with the king who was made divine within her:
“The kings of ancient Egypt were an integral part of religion. They formed a bridge over the chasm dividing the people and the gods. In pre-dynastic the kings were considered to be gods. In later times, around the third dynasty, the kings became transformed into” gods. This was a crucial part of governing the people”. In order for the “transformation” to take place, a ritual was performed that merged the king (to be) with the gods. The “belief was that all future kings had two aspects of his being, his physical and his “ka”. The ka was his spiritual counterpart – a part of the king at birth and remained with him throughout his life”. Before assuming the throne a ritual was performed that united the king’s ka and his person. The king and his priests would wait outside to witness the miracle of the transformation when the king re-emerged from the temple. In this way was the new king made as a god and his word accepted as law” (Egyptian Mythology – Encyclopedia).
The king was the ultimate authority with god-like words and deeds, but not only so. The king was to establish a kingdom of hierarchical servants who gave their support to the king and his supreme deity.
Directly under the king was the priest who confirmed the king’s divine rule. And with kingly rule, a religious pragmatism that governed Her kingdom. All the royal subjects were participants to a religious practice and served under the leadership of a powerful ruler who was directly “inspired” by the gods. In later dynasties the king’s priests were the sacred “voices” of spoken and written oracles. Oracles were considered the pinnacle of the decision of the gods – referred to as the noble counsel (i.e., the nobles). Fittingly so, the priests were in charge of the sacred texts that were given to them by the gods who were well acquainted with the practice of secret wisdom and divine words. Most likely, their sons were the fathers of the Magi who worshiped at the birth of Christ – the king of the Jews….
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