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It will be disconcerting for some to learn that behind many of our Biblical stories and accounts in traditional Scripture lay Egyptian myths that attempt to relate and explain metaphysical realities to the finite minds of people. One only has to begin a serious attempt to study the origins of many Old and New Testament accounts to find that behind them lay a mythological nature.
First a little must be said about "myths". Let us define the word.
Answer for yourself: Have you ever heard of Plato's teaching on "the Cave"? It explains quite well this concept of archetypes which we find behind our religious symbols, icons, and the "Jesus Story". This understanding helps us understand why almost every nation since the beginning of time has had their own "Jesus Story" in one way or the other and why the lives of the Sungods read not only like the "Jesus Story" but are identical parallels in so many places. Divine ideas are being shared by the Invisible God with mankind which he expresses as best he can in his symbolic represenatations of such Divine Truth which took the form of his Sungods and other stories of "the Karest/Christ" like our "Jesus Story".
We should be tipped off to the fact that the Bible is a book of "myths" if we are alert in reading the Bible when we notice contradictory accounts in the Bible of the "same" event. This fact alone should make us want to know "what is behind the story" we are reading at the time. Truth always lies behind "myth". Inquiring minds "want to know". Well that is me and I hope it is the readers as well.
Behind some of these contradictory accounts and inconsistencies we find ongoing propaganda wars between the kingdoms of Judah and Israel as they wrestled among themselves for supremacy. On other occasions, an early version of a story can be shown to be chronologically replaced by a later version. This was particularly true in the Creation and flood accounts, where early Egyptian influences on Israel came into conflict with later Babylonian sources. The later Babylonian "interpretations" would eventually replace the earlier Egyptian "interpretations" of the events in question.
As one studies increase he can be on the look-out for Biblical stories that closely parallel these earlier myths and legends from neighboring cultures like Egypt and Babylon. Truly there is "nothing new under the Sun" when it comes to religion because basically all world religions have come from but one; namely, Egyptian religion. If you come to understand Egyptian religion and religious ideas you can trace them along with their "reinterpretations" down through history; even into our Christianity today. While in some cases the influences were obvious, as with the Babylonian flood myth, in many cases the task will be quite difficult and will require the deciphering and correct interpretation of Egyptian myths which is not always easy given our limited knowledge of Egypt up until the last 150 years with the discover of the Rosetta Stone and the recovery of the ability to read the Egyptian heiroglyphics. Even more important because of the biblical emphasis on monotheism, the keen reader will notice how the authors of these later Scriptures tried to eliminate references to or symbols of deities other than the Hebrew god.
Answer for yourself: How was this done? These changes were made by transforming foreign deities into human characters whereby they were given a pseudo-historical existence as well as sometimes changing the locale of the story. Let me give you some examples. The Egyptian "Hathor" becomes the Greek "Aphrodite" and the later Roman "Venus", the Egyptian "Amon" becomes the Greek "Zeus" and the later Roman "Jupiter" and so on. The same things were done to the earliest principles and theological dogmas that were first understood by the Egyptians who studied the Cosmos and Nature for thousands of years and in so doing extrapolated these Divine Truths in the first place. Over time all things "change" and that is where we are today in Christianity.
You may recall being taught in school that Western (white) civilization is founded upon the ancient Greek civilization which seemed to suddenly appear. What European historians are trying to diffuse, hide, or deny is that the Greek civilization was primarily the offspring of the advanced Black African Civilization of ancient Africa's Nile Valley, which preceded it by thousands and thousands of years. Even Greek legends related that Egyptian and Phonecian conquerors ruled all or part of Greece until the 14th or 15th century B.C. Thus we find that the Nile Valley civilization of Egypt and Nubia was already old before Europe was born. The pyramids of Africa's Nile Valley were hoary with age when the tribes of norther and central Europe were making their first stone hammers. Nile valley civilization also existed before the Western Asian civilization of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.
Answer for yourself: What should this say to us?
Kamite or Egyptian civilization originated from Ethiopia and Diodorus said the Egyptians were the earliest of civilized men, and that they not only colonized Egypt but it was from there that they diffused Ethiopian culture throughout the whole world. Albert Churchward, in his The Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man states that "Thus we can see that African colonies went forth and settled in all parts of the world, leaving the proofs in language, myth, and the hieroglyphics, in religious rites. The symbolical customs and ceremonies in far off lands are still extant among races by whom they are no longer read or understood, but which can be read in Egypt (p. 284).
Think of what you just read. Religious rites and ceremonies from Egypt were taken into all the world and over time the "keys" to their proper interpretation were "lost, no longer read or understood correctly"!
Answer for yourself: Could that have happened to us who are reared as Christians today with traditional Christian dogmas and doctrines and we not know that? Could it be that what we read and study and recite and cherish in our Christians Churches we have got "all wrong" a lot of the time? Could we be wrong on such doctrines as "atonement, salvation, forgiveness, eternal life, messiah and this Jesus Christ"? Well the thought of this was so frightening to me that I had to know for sure so I dedicated my life some twenty years ago to make sure I was "right" as a Christian and the years of my repentance and finally my resignation as a Pastor of a large Christian Church is the result of such an eye-opening scrutiny of my faith. Dears ones, we are so far off from the truth as Christians it is almost beyond belief. And you study of Egypt and their religion and its "reinterpretations" down through history from nation to nation will be proof positive of what I say. The "story" of God as understood by these Spiritual Masters in Egypt change over thousands of years and we never know of this because we never possessed the knowledge of what the "real" was before the "counterfeit".
As you might expect, the versions of the later stories usually disguised the true nature of the truth or the Biblical story, making it difficult to identify the earlier mythological source. Of course this was the agenda of the writers and some accomplished this agenda better than others. Nevertheless, in many instances the editors overlooked some of the telltale signs of these earlier sources and, even in disguised form, it is often possible for the knowledgeable reader to strip off the disguises and see what mythological elements the biblical authors attempted to mask and keep hidden from the reader in order to make it look as if their "god" is the real "god" and their story the "original" when in fact it but a retelling of the original with some "changes".
And lest we forget there are also stories in the Bible that simply are not true. We know this today for certain because we have in our possession today archaeological data that indicates without a doubt that events described in the Bible as happening within a particular time frame couldn't have occurred at the time indicated. Several of these stories describe Israel's destruction of enemy cities during the campaigns into the Transjordan and Canaan. The archaeological evidence shows that many of those cities didn't exist in the time of Biblical lives of the characters identified Biblically as "Moses" and "Joshua".
What should concern the "truth seeker" and reader of Bet Emet Ministries is how Egyptian mythology and literature strongly influenced much of the early biblical history, especially with regard to Creation and the flood as well as the patriarchal narratives, a subject that has been irresponsibly ignored. The lack of attention to Egyptian influences on the Bible by both biblical scholars and Christian or Muslim Egyptologists is unfortunate. A conscious and deliberate effort exists to keep the two spheres separate in spite of the fact that the Bible shows a long and continuous relationship between ancient Israel and Egypt. This has been ignored long enough and the insightful reader will begin to look to Egypt to find the true origin for much that is presented in the Bible as "Jewish". Let us not forget that this Bible places Israel's formative years in Egypt, living an Egyptian life-style, educated in Egyptian ideas, and dwelling there for centuries before the Exodus. It describes Joseph as prime minister of the nation and married to the daughter of the chief priest of Heliopolis (biblical On), one of the most influential Egyptian cult and educational centers. His two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, were half-Egyptian and educated as Egyptians. Ephraim not only became heir to Joseph and founded the kingdom of Israel but is listed as one of the Hebrew Pharaohs; Manasseh had the largest territorial base of all the tribes.
Moses, according to the biblical account, was raised and educated in the Egyptian royal court, and many members of his tribe, Levi, have Egyptian names. King Solomon married a pharaoh's daughter and built an Egyptian temple in Jerusalem for her. Common sense dictates that she had a large entourage of Egyptian priests and servants to administer to the temple's needs. Jeroboam, when he fled from Israel to escape Solomon's wrath, dwelled in Egypt before leading Israel away from Judah.
And historically, Egypt had a powerful cultural influence on Canaan from well before the Exodus to late in the first millennium B.C. An eighth-century seal of a Hebrew official from the court of King Hoshea of Israel (c. 730 B.C.), for example, shows the official dressed in typical Egyptian garb and standing over an Egyptian winged-disk icon, indicating that Egyptian ideas heavily influenced the royal court of the kingdom of Israel.
As we go through the Creation and patriarchal stories, the educated reader easily sees how Egyptian mythology significantly influenced Hebrew interpretation of and beliefs about its earliest history. These influences bring us to the question of the origin of Hebrew monotheism.
Answer for yourself: How, when, and where did Hebrew monotheism originate?
Biblical monotheism appears to have gone through an evolution that finds its origins in Egypt. In the earliest stages of Israel and its evolving monotheism, the Hebrews imagined an all-powerful Creator deity, but evidence of belief in other deities remains buried in the stories, most obviously in the form of "Emanations" from this One Absolute Creator; we call them "angels" today. The Gnostics called them "aeons". I never cease to be amazed that we can accept as true "angels" but when we read the same things expressed by the Gnostics as "aeons" then they are labeled as "heretics". This ideas of "Emanationism" appears to be the primary form in which Hebrew monotheism originated and the form in which it has fundamentally survived even into present times. The three major monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, still believe in a host of supernatural beings, particularly angels and the devil. They are beings created by the one all-powerful Creator just as the Egyptian deities were the product of the one all-powerful Egyptian Creator. The similarities of these various "Emanations" are endless and no less startling are the similarities between the Egyptian "Karast" and the Christian "Christ" as again but "Emanations" or attributes of Deity that come from this One Absolute whom we call God.
The idea of an all-powerful Creator who brought forth other supernatural beings or other "Emanations" from Himself has its roots in ancient Egypt. There it was a central belief in most religious cults that a single Creator was responsible for all of existence, including the appearance of other deities. The other nations of the Near East had no similar theology. It is the Egyptian views that initially influenced Hebrew understanding of the first times, and we will see that many of these Egyptian Creation myths are replicated in biblical history.
Over time, however, the nature of the theology changed. Whereas Egyptians also worshipped the many other deities created by the prime Creator as "Emanations" of Himself, by the time of Moses, there is a new emphasis in which this Creator deity is deemed to be the only god to be worshipped. As we study we find the reason for this is the over-emphasis of Osiris worship in the days of Moses. This is understood also as "Godman" worship similar to the "Jesus worship" in Christianity today. It always humors me to understand that in response to this unbalanced worship of the "Godman" (instead of the One Absolute God) which Moses encountered during his rulership as Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty in Egypt that he chose to respond by closing down all the Temples in Egypt and enforced mandatory worship of the One Absolute Invisible God called Aten; thus the parallel is that if Moses were alive today and President of the United States that he would close down all the Churches that worship this "Jesus" today (THINK).
No one, for instance, ever worships God's angels. This view is reflected in the biblical command, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." The idea that only one deity among many should be worshipped is known as henotheism rather than monotheism. But there is no difference worshipping "angel" than "Jesus" because in the last analysis we find them both to be but " manifestations" or "Energies/Powers /Forces/Neteru" of the ONE God since all have "manifested" from this ONE. Now you better understand the statement made above about Moses closing down all churches that "worship this Jesus".
Fora brief time in the mid-fourteenth century B.C., Egypt experienced a form of authoritarian monotheism under a pharaoh named Akhenaten whom many believe to be the Biblical Moses. A full understanding of Akhenaten's theology has yet to be developed, but its existence in a time when Israel was likely still in Egypt raises questions about what influence his ideas had on the educated Hebrew people in his realm. Biblical and Christian Egyptological scholars go out of their way to build an unbreachable wall between Akhenaten and Moses, but it does not rest on solid factual foundations. The result of such religious prohibitions by Akhenaten/Moses eventually produced eventually the Exodus which resulted from a volatile religious feud between Akhenaten's successors, who reinstated the traditional beliefs, and his followers, who lost control of Egypt after his death.
History records for us that the Hebrews depicted in the Bible never embraced a pure monotheism, nor was there a single universal religion as we find in Egypt. It would take the Babylonian captivity to produce a pure monotheism in the Israelites. Many important biblical characters in post-Exodus times, for instance had names ending in "Baal," who was a major Canaanite deity. Gideon, one of the most famous of the early Judges, also was known as Jerub-baal, and Saul, first King of Israel, had a son named Esh-baal and this son succeeded him on the throne. These Baal names became an embarrassment to the final redactors of the early Bible books and they either added fictional glosses to the text to explain the apparent inconsistency or they changed the Baal name to "Bosheth," a Hebrew word meaning shame.
Belief in other deities goes farther than naming conventions. For example, Solomon had many non-Hebrew wives and he built many religious shrines for them so they could worship their own non-Hebrew deities. Later scribes attributed the breakup of Solomon's empire to a punishment by God for his apostasy. And Jeroboam, first king of Israel after the break from Judah, not only set up golden calves at cult sites, but established rival temples to the one in Jerusalem. And, throughout the period of the monarchy, biblical writers tell us that the Hebrews constantly succumbed to the religious influences of the Canaanites and Philistines.
Under King Josiah (640-609 B.C.), many severe religious reforms were instituted and strong opposition to idol worship emerged. Whether pure monotheism became part of Hebrew religion at this time we can't know for sure. But, by this time, the earlier beliefs had become embedded in Hebrew traditions and writings. Ultimately, a single redactor or, most likely, a school of redactors sometime after the fifth century B.C. gathered the main sources and traditions together and produced the first version of biblical history in its present form, editing as best they could to eliminate inconsistencies between monotheism and earlier religious beliefs. From this we get the Documentary Hypothesis (JEDP) which shows us the multiple source thesis which explains this Hebrew collection of stories and traditions that later become the Hebrew Scriptures.
It is in these Biblical stories that we find a long and continuous relationship between Ancient Israel and Egypt which directly links Egyptian mythology to Hebrew interpretation of and beliefs about its earliest history as a people and a nation as well as their God.
With this as a small introduction let this information settle and then let us continue our search for the truth which we can find in Egypt and their religion like no other place in the known world.