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Structurally, Genesis 1-11 presents a fascinating insight into how the Bible evolved from a collection of polytheistic myths and legends from various cultures into a mostly coherent monotheistic account of Israelite history. One thing needs to be said about these Christian defined "polytheistic myths".
Answer for yourself: And what it that? Laying aside Christian "bias" and "exclusiveism" we ironically find in the worlds Creation accounts in nation after nation the same archetypal patterns of thought. It appears that the worlds creation myths all tell the same story in similar fashion. So to call them "polytheistic" while yet calling the Judeo-Christian account "monotheistic" is wrong.
With the popularization of the documentary hypothesis by Julius Wellhausen and the publication of the Babylonian creation and flood stories by George Smith in the late 19th century, many critical scholars hold to a Babylonian background of the Genesis creation accounts. This fits well, of course, with their classification of Gen 1:1-2:3 as “P” and their dating of it to the exilic/post-exilic periods. However, several more recent scholars suggest that Genesis 1-2 reflects an Egyptian background instead: A. S. Yahuda, A. H. Sayce, Cyrus Gordon, and James Hoffmeier. Their approach better respects the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and the Egyptian background of Moses and his original audience as it should.
In 1887, Sayce first noted the parallels between Genesis 1 and the Egyptian cosmogony of Hermopolis: “the chaotic deep; the ‘breath’ moving on the waters; the creation of light; the emergence of the hill ‘in the middle of the waters.’” Unfortunately, his work was largely ignored (A. H. Sayce, “The Egyptian Background of Genesis I,” in Studies Presented to F. Ll. Griffith (London: 1932) 421).
Thus it appears that behind these Hebrew writings is a much older Egyptian account of God and His creation. This makes us need to know how these Hebrew writings came about and to that we turn to the Documentary Hypothesis. Briefly stated, the Documentary Hypothesis sees the Torah as having been composed by a series of editors out of four major strands of literary traditions. These traditions are known as J, E, D, and P.
At its core are two separate biblical source documents, P and J, each presenting contradictory accounts of events and very different points of view about deity. Unbeknownst to the biblical editors who tried to integrate the two sources into a single seamless narrative, the P and J accounts of Creation and the flood originally developed independently of each other from two separate Egyptian mythological traditions.
Answer for yourself: Why is Heilopolis so important for us to take note when considering these Biblical accounts?
Joseph, heir to the covenant between God and Jacob, was married to the daughter of the chief priest of Heliopolis, and his half-Egyptian son, Ephraim, educated in the Heliopolitan traditions, was appointed by Jacob to be Joseph's heir and would later reign as one of the Hebrew Pharaohs of 18th Dynasty of Egypt. Also, Heliopolis, at a time not much before Israel's Exodus from Egypt, was the center of a monotheistic religious cult that challenged traditional Egyptian religious beliefs and stirred up much passion and political turmoil.
The following is taken from 3 Joseph 2:
1. Now these are the generations of Joseph in the land of Egypt: 2. Joseph, who is called Iouiya by the Egyptians, took unto wife Asenath, who is called Touiyou, or Zelekha, or the King's Ornament, by the Egyptians. 3. And Joseph begat two sons, Manasseh, and Ephraim, and a daughter, Tiye. 4. Now it came to pass that Tiya was given in marriage unto Pharaoh Amenhotep (Solomon) in her eighth year, for they grew up together in the Royal palace; and they loved each other. 5. Now Amenhotep (Solomon...Amenhotep III) was the son of Tuthmosis (King David), the Pharaoh who uncovered the sphinx, because of the vision at Harmakhis. 6. And it came to pass that Tiya became the sister-wife of Sitamun, the sister and wife of Pharaoh Amenhotep (Solomon), the daughter of Tuthmosis and Hatshepsut. 7. And, behold, Amenhotep married his infant sister in her third year, according to the Egyptian custom, that he might retain the title of Pharaoh in his family. 8. Now on account of the marriage of Tiya unto the Pharaoh Amenhotep did Asenath obtain of Pharaoh the title, "Royal Handmaid, the Favoured One of Hathor, the Favoured One of Horus in the House of the King", for she waited upon her daughter Tiya in the Palace of Pharaoh. 9. Therefore did Tiya, the daughter of Joseph, become the Great Royal Wife, or Queen, of Pharaoh; and Asenath waited upon her, and also her sister-wife Sitamun, and was a mother unto them both. 10. Now Tiya begat Amenhotep (IV), who is also called Akhenaten (Moses), who destroyed the gods of the Egyptians and closed the temples and caused that the whole land of Egypt should worship the One True God, even the God of Joseph. 11. And Akhenaten ruled together with Semenkhkare as coregent; but Semenkhkare died in his twentieth year, and thereafter Akhenaten ruled alone. 12. And Akhenaten was taken unto his fathers in the fifteenth year of his sister-wife Sitamun, having been obedient unto the statutes of the One and True God of Heaven; and there were no more images of the gods left in the land of Egypt. 13. Now Akhenaten (Moses) begat Tutankhamun who ruled for nine years until he was taken unto his fathers in his nineteenth year. 14. Now Tutankhamun did not follow in the ways of his father Akhenaten but compromised his religion by allowing the old gods of Egypt to be worshipped alongside the One True God of Heaven. 15. It was he who restored the false temples, taking his court from Amarna and unto Thebes, and lavished gifts upon the priests of Amun that he might win their favour. 16. Now the priests conspired with Horemheb, Captain of the Egyptian Army, who murdered Tutankhamun and his wife Nefertiti, and agreed that he should become Pharaoh. 17. These were the times of sorrow in the land of Egypt, for the statutes of the One and True High God were no longer obeyed, and Egypt returned unto darkness once again. 18. Now it came to pass that Ephraim, the son of Joseph, who was known as Aye amongst the Egyptians, and had served the Pharaohs Akhenaten, Semenkhkare and Tutankhamun as vizier, became Pharaoh; and he was eighty nine years old.
Answer for yourself: Does this above Egyptian chronology put the Old Testament in a whole different light regarding Egypt and the Egyptian influence upon the later emerging Hebrew peoples and their writings? Why is the above so important? First it give us the true Egyptian chronology of the Hebrew Pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty and now we can better understand the influence of Ephriam and Egypt upon the emerging Hebrew peoples and their religion and their sacred writings; Ephriam, if we remember, is the name given for the ten northern tribes of the nation of Israel.
For the most part, as you can begin to see it was from the Egyptians, who shared certain common ideas about Creation with other nations, that Israel will get their traditions that will be the foundation for their later book entitled today "Genesis".
As is the case with most ancient mythologies, the Egyptians created myths to try to explain their place in the cosmos. Their understanding of the cosmic order was from direct observation of two realms:
Therefore their creation myths concern themselves with the operation of these cycles, patterns, forces, powers and operative energies of the Cosmos which common man referred to as "gods of nature; the earth, the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, and of course, the Nile river". But it is imperative that we take time to note that these forces, powers and energies of the Cosmos and its interworkings in Heaven above and in Nature (earth) below were never believed to be really "gods" but rather operative principles in this closed system of "life" given by the Creator as Egypt understood it.
We must stop right now and deal with the issue of the use of the word "god" and "goddesses" which we read of so often in Egyptian studies.
In a previous articles I have introduced the reader to a new concept: the Neteru as the "Attributes of God" as understood by the Ancient Egyptians. This concept is very important and must be correctly understood if one hopes to ever come to an accurate understanding of our God and Creator. In these earlier articles I shared a little about the neteru as the personifications of universal principles, functions, powers and interrelated energies and "attributes" of the one great and supreme God in which all things consist. The neteru is not really a new concept to a Christian for those entities of which we read and recognize by the name "gods" and "goddesses" are in reality endorsed and incorporated into Christianity under a new name common to all.
Answer for yourself: And what is that name of which today we are so intimately familiar? Angels!
The ancient Egyptian word "neter," and its feminine form "netert," have been wrongly, and possible intentionally, translated as "god" and "goddess," by almost all scholars. There is no equivalent word in meaning, to the word "neter," in the English language. Honest translation should use the native word, if they cannot find its equivalent in their language. "Neteru" (plural of "neter/netert") are the Divine Principles and Functions that operate the Universe. They are all aspects and functions of the One Supreme God. The words "god" and "goddess" leave the impression that ancient Egyptians had a multitude of gods, which is absolutely untrue.
As such, an Egyptian neter/netert was not a god/goddess but the personification of a function/attribute of the One God. With this understanding comes likewise the understanding that the labeling of Egyptian religion as "pagan" or "idolatrous" betrays the complete lack of understanding of the Egyptian religion by the writer or would be scholar.
Origen, one of the early Church Fathers, tells us that the Egyptians had a most noble and secret wisdom concerning the nature of the Divine (God), contained symbolically in the mythic accounts of their "gods" which he termed fables and allegories -- not in a demeaning sense but to indicate that profound inner truths about the cosmos were imbedded in them. The Egyptian Neters were impersonal principles operating throughout the cosmos, not "gods" as we understand the term. The Neter Maat, for instance, referred not to a goddess but to the intelligence, the principle, we call Order, Balance, Truth, Duty, etc.
It would be from these Egyptians and their "neter" that the later Israelites will learn of this God of the Cosmos on a higher level than tribal experiences. The Song of Moses in Deuteronomy (32:43), as found in a cave at Qumran, near the Dead Sea, mentions the word "gods" in the plural:
"Rejoice, 0 heavens, with him; and do obeisance to him, ye gods."
Answer for yourself: Is Moses speaking of these "neteru"? Is this the concept implied in Genesis when we read "Let us"?
Gen 1:26 26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. (KJV)
Answer for yourself: Does this reference by Moses to "gods" by one motivated by Monotheism seem strange? Does this principle possible indicate that the Essenes, who would find their home in Alexandria, Egypt, later were influenced not only by Egyptian religion but by the evolution and paganization of it in their day? The Essene answer will come much later in time for we have not gotten that far yet in our studies but the answer you will find upon examination is "yes." I have devoted a whole website to this problem which you need to see for yourself if you want to know how these ancient Divine Revelation and truths and personifications of universal principles, functions and attributes of the one great and supreme God were later corrupted by these Essenes in Alexandria and Qumran where these concepts once expressed as "attributes" of the One True God were later personified as if "real people" and later applied to an assumed historical Jesus; thereby making him God.
The passage we find in the New Testament (Hebrews, 1:6),
Heb 1:6 6 And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. (KJV)
reveals to us the transformation of the idea of the neteru. The the word "gods" as understood by Moses in the Song of Songs pointed about above has been modified in the above text from Hebrews 1:6. These attributes of the One True God now have a life of their own and they become "angels." The word for "gods" is substituted with "angels of God". Again this concept of the "neteru" shows the hidden influence of Egyptian religion not only among Judaism but even the movement later termed Christianity and because of this fact it is imperative to understand Egyptian religion in its earliest form as well as the corruption of it down through recorded history if one wants to correctly understand the truths first held by Egypt and Judaism and the later corruption of this rather simple Divine Revelation under Christian hands and Gentile Christianity. The term "angels", according to the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary, refers to those who "guard and guide and direct the natural forces of mind and body, which have in them the future of the whole man."
Angels, or neteru, are living energies. In the wisdom teaching of various cultures, these Causal Powers are called by many names including Agents, Angels, Conscious Thought Forms, Creative Energies, Devas, Fathers, Fountains, Gates, Governors, Hands of God, Lords, and Shining Ones.
Edwin C. Steinbrecher, an astrologer, metaphysician, and author of, The Inner Guide Meditation, says that angels are, "living energies that contain ideas and information, specific patterns of instinctual behavior and thought. They are the energies which somehow attach themselves, without our conscious awareness, to everything we meet in the world we call real. [They] are the life energies that pour out of each of us unceasingly night and day. . . influencing everyone in our lives and causing us to be influenced in return."
Just like the Egyptian's neteru, each "angel" has been given a name and specific function(s). And just as each neter of Egypt did not always take the same form and shape, so is the case for each angel. As your projection of them changes, so will their appearance. Sometimes, they are so blocked by the ego that you can only see their dim, hazy outlines. Many have seen angels change from a shining light to a form resembling a human being, then into a symbol (cube, triangle, etc.), and back to human features. Upon careful examination, the concept of the Egyptian neteru was accepted by ancient and modern societies, who merely chose new names to express Egyptian ideas. The neteru became angels in Christianity but again these are but emanations of living-energies from the One Divine we call "God".
Let us look at a couple of examples if we can.
A key to understanding what is involved here when discussing these Cosmic Energies that comprise our God lies in looking at the Egyptian land itself, saturated with the sun and solar influences generally:
It is as if here, in this unique physical environment, one comes closer than anywhere else in the world to an experience of the universal forces of life and death, playing out their mutually antagonistic yet complementary roles. They vie with each other, they contend with each other, but there is also a kind of harmony in this perpetual tension and conflict of each within the other. Neither can drive the other one out, and so they exist in a state of dynamic equilibrium (J. Naylor, The Temple of the Cosmos, p. 3).
This process is illustrated in the myth of the eternal see-sawing of the neteru (Divine energies/Divine entities) Set and Osiris. In many translations of the texts, the Egyptian word neter (plural neteru) has been translated as "god" or "gods" in the Western sense. They were, however, the divine "principles" or intelligent expressions of the energies of divine entities. Set was symbolized by the seeming sterility of the desert, while Osiris, greenfaced to represent fecund vegetation, was identified with the Nile as "maker" of the country and terrestrial counterpart of the Milky Way. This duality was held to be universal, so that man and cosmos both conformed to some basic design, with considerable variations possible in details derived from the inherent qualities lying dormant in each being.
Another such "cycle, pattern, or energy" from this One God was the annual flooding of the Nile River. For centuries, the Nile River flooded the valley, enriching the land with a thick layer of alluvial soil. Flooding occurred from July to September as the result of the tropical rains in the Ethiopian tableland. The river attained its highest level in October, then began to recede to its lowest point sometime between April and June. The flooding of the Nile rendered the narrow strip of land on either side of the river extremely fertile. Intensive agriculture was practised by the majority of the peasant population. Since rainfall is almost non-existent in Egypt, the floods provided the only source of moisture needed to sustain crops. When the Egyptians saw Sirius rising just before the Sun they knew it would soon be time for the flooding - inundation - of the Nile River, around which, all Egyptian life was woven. They depended upon the flooding of the Nile for the fertility of their lands. Thus the Nile river, with its annual floods played a critical role in this cosmic order. It should come as no surprise to find water the fundamental element in the Egyptians ideas of creation. For the Egyptians to watch the inundation of their land would have been like watching a earthly model of their ideas of a watery creation. Allow me to explain this more fully in the next article in this series.
Before we go there, to the study of the Creation accounts as taught by Egypt however, I would like to share with the readers a very important concept concerning our God; that being "Emanation" of Himself otherwise described in the Hebrew Scriptures as "attributes" or "angels". Please have the patience to read through these next coming articles to grasp this idea in its fullness.
Answer for yourself: Why? Because these "attributes" or "job descriptions of God" are first called the "neteru" in Egypt and are depicted in symbolic and human-like form all through their history on monuments, inside Pyramids, and in Temples. This was Egypt's idea to conveying to the common man Divine Ideas that were often indescribable. Egypt understood this One God not to be flesh like mankind but to be a multiple diversification of "powers, functions, forces, and Energies" that operate in the Cosmos that are responsible for bringing life, sustaining life, ending life, and recycling life on all levels (invisible and visible). We are speaking of deepest Physics and Science here and all that it implies. When we read the Genesis Creation accounts we are reading only a short Hebrew summary of what Egypt explained in great detail and explained through the medium of their "neteru".
But there is one big, big reason why we must look at Egypt and these "neteru" and understand this concept and this will grab your attention I promise.
It is in the Egyptian "neteru" we find the principle of the "Karest" as an "attribute" of God which later becomes "the Christ" of Christianity. Yes we find references to "Jesus Christ" in Egypt as early as 10,000 B.C.E. Instead of being taught the Divine Concept of "the Christ" correctly today we are taught an assumed "historical Jesus Christ" instead of the concept of "the Karest/Christ" as it has been taught for thousands and thousands of years. I don't expect you to believe this just because I "said it" but it becomes evident the more you read and study as you see these "parallels" between our Christian "historical Jesus Christ" and the personifications of ancient Sungods (the neteru of the nations) for yourself. If you find the courage to do such a study, and it took me a good year before I found the courage as an Ordained Pastor to seriously look into this issue, you will find what I found. You will find upon serious examination of the evidence hundreds and hundreds of parallels between the personified lives of the "neteru", God expressed in "Energies of the Cosmos", like Egypt's depiction of these personified Powers of God in the form of Osiris and Horus, with the events and sayings of the supposed "historical Jesus Christ" of the New Testament.
There are hundreds and hundreds of these unbelievable parallels. Here is but a short list:
"The Jesus-story, it will now be seen, has a greater number of correspondences with the stories of former Sungods and with the actual career of the Sun through the heavens - so many indeed that they cannot well be attributed to mere coincidence or even to the blasphemous wiles of the Devil! Let us enumerate some of these. There are (1) birth from a Virgin mother; (2) the birth in a stable (cave or underground chamber); and (3) on the 25th December (just after the winter solstice). There is (4) the Star in the East (Sirius) and (5) the arrival of the Magi (the 'Three King's); there is (6) the threatened Massacre of the Innocents, and the consequent flight into a distant country (told also of Krishna and other Sungods). There are the Church festivals of (7) Candlemas (2nd February), with processions of candles to symbolize the growing light; of (8) Lent, or the arrival of Spring; of (9) Easter Day (normally on 25th March) to celebrate the crossing of the Equator by the Sun; and (10) simultaneously the outburst of lights at the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. There is (11) [61] the Crucifixion and death of the Lamb-God, on Good Friday, three days before Easter; there are (12) the nailing to a tree, (13) the empty grave, (14) the glad Resurrection (as in the cases of Osiris, Attis and others); there are (15) the twelve disciples (the Zodiacal signs); and (16) the betrayal by one of the twelve. Then later there is (17) Mid-summer Day, the 24th June, dedicated to the birth of the beloved disciple John, and corresponding to Christmas Day; there are the festivals of (18) the Assumption of the Virgin (15th August) and of (19) the Nativity of the Virgin (8th September), corresponding to the movement of the god through Virgo; there is the conflict of Christ and his disciples with the autumnal asterisms, (20) the Serpent and the Scorpion; and finally there is the curious fact that the Church (21) dedicates the very day of the winter solstice (when any one may very naturally doubt the rebirth of the Sun) to St. Thomas, who doubted the truth of the Resurrection!" - Pagan and Christian Creeds, by Edward Carpenter, p. 50.
Almost ever nation understood these "neteru" and called them by different names; that is why we read of the same Energies of God mediating the physical realm as depicted in the nation's Dionysus, Tammuz, Attis, Mithra, Chrishna, etc. That is why these "Sungods" were but pictures of higher Divine Concepts and until you come to understand these "neteru" and the role they not only played in Creation but in our lives today then you are hampered in ever seeing the Divine Truths that lie behind our inherited "historical Jesus Story". This is so important because Rome tied to our "very salvation" the "belief in this historical Jesus" long, long ago. But if this is not true then we must seek while we can the truth about God's method for our Salvation. I found that this Salvation is not taught by Rome, in fact just the opposite it taught by Rome and their counterfeit religion that hated all Law (Rom 10:4 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth). (KJV) All roads do not lead to Rome regardless of the saying, they lead to Jerusalem and beyond that to Heliopolis, Memphis, Hermopolis, and Thebes in Egypt where the Laws of God were taught as the "pattern for the development of man's Soul" and its ultimate reconciliation and return to God. By this I speak of the Egyptian Torah and the 42 Negative Confessions which today lies chiseled in the dusty stones of Egypt but also to its legacy which Moses gave to the departing Egyptians and Hebrews in their Torah where these same Divine Concepts were taught and are taught today in the Synagogues of the children of Egypt, the Jewish people who have paid the ultimate price to preserve these precious words of Love from our God for all mankind today. Praise the Lord above. So to the neteru we look before we resume our study of the Creation accounts in detail in hopes of coming to the truth about "the Christ" and the real message of these "neteru" as they taught harmony, ma'at, order, and Divine Love through obedience to the Laws of God "Above and Below".
Blessings...Craig Lyons M.Div.
On to the next study as we look into the "neteru" more fully.
Bennoah1@airmail.net