Ancient Egypt
1) Mythology, religion, and philosophy try to answer nonempirical questions-the "big" ones that science can't answer.
i) Is there life after death?
(1) Everyone wonders
(2) All try to answer it
ii) How did the universe begin (before the Big Bang)?
iii) Is there a God?
2) Mythology contains stories that are not to be taken literally but answer basic questions about the nature of the universe. Myths have a message, then, but can't be taken literally. Unlike religion, mythology takes place in primordial time, outside of chronology or calendar time.
a) Can hear the message if there is life after death – but its not to be taken literally
b) Primordial time – time before time began
i) Don’t ask historical questions
ii) Bible is religion – not myth
(1) Intended to be taken as history
(2) Moses was a real character
iii) Mythology is not to be taken as history
(1) Cannot answer when Zeus’s birthday is
c) Many myths
i) The basic Egyptian myth begins in water described the primordial eight gods-the Ogdoad-in the primordial waters. These gods came in pairs: husband and wife
(a) Hok and Hoket represent formlessness.
(i) Female always ends in t
(ii) Every Egyptian feminine word ends in a t
(b) Kuk and Kuket are darkness.
(c) Amun and Amunet are hiddenness.
(i) Amun becomes important god in ancient
(ii) Thousands of years in the future
(d) Nun and Nunet are the primordial waters.
ii) Together, the eight gods represent Chaos and are often depicted with the heads of frogs.
(a) Attributes
(i) In the beginning was chaos
(ii) Not postive attributes – negative
(iii) Beginning of the universe
(iv) Do not have gods that interact with people
(b) The primordial hill rises out of these waters.
(i) Mound of earth
(ii) Built temples all over
(c) Atom, a god, stood on that hill. He created himself, then generated the other gods.
(i) Special god
(ii) Begins other gods
(iii) He is the self created
(iv) Atom has two children by himself
(v) Leads to eight gods
1. Aneid – nine gods
a. Shoe
i. He is the air
b. Tephnet
i. He is moisture
(d) Similar with Genesis 1 creation account
(i)
(ii) People agree beginning was a scarey time
(e) Shoe and Tephnet have two children
(i) Geb is earth
(ii) Neut is sky goddess
1. Shown on ceiling of tombs
2. Stars are on her belly
3. Swallows son in the evening and gives birth to it in the morning
(f) Similar to Greek four basic elements
(i) Fire
1. Special element
2. Only one animals do not live in
(ii) Air
(iii) Water
(iv) Earth
(g)
iii) The Ennead added an additional nine elemental Egyptian gods. This is quite different from Genesis and the four basic elements of the Greeks.
(a) Atom's children were Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture).
(b) Shu and Tefnut begat Geb (earth) and Nut (sky).
(c) Geb and Nut give birth to two pairs, each of them sister and brothel and wife and husband: Isis and Osiris and Seth and Nephthys. Although Seth is evil, the three others are elementally good.
(i) Isis and Osiris become husband and wife
1.
2.
3. Justify Pharaoh marrying sisters
4. Good gods
(ii) Seth and Nephthys(greek version) husband and wife
1. Crucial myths involve four children: Isis, Osiris, Seth and Nephthys
2. Seth is evil
a. Only tries to do harm
3. Nephthys is good
iv) Isis and Osiris were central to the Egyptian belief in life after death.
(a) Isis and Osiris descend to earth to civilize
(i) Origin of civilization comes from
(ii) Isis and Osiris do so well civilizating that Osiris goes away to teach the world how to do this
(iii) While Osiris is away, Seth tries to do evil
1.
a. Knows all names
b. Egyptian kids had real name which mother knew and name that everyone else knew
i. Keeps spells from being used
c.
i. Nothing bad happsn
2. Osiris returns
(iv) Seth builds a chest to Osiris that fits his brother
1. Anyone who fits will receive the chest
2. Seth nails the chest shut with Osiris inside and covers with lead and throws it in the
3. Osiris dies
(b) Seth tricks Osiris into climbing into what will become his coffin, nails the coffin shut, then throws it in the
(i) Chest washes ashore in modern Lebonan
(ii) Chest is blown in branch of tree
(iii) Encompasses chest and trucj
(iv) King of Byblos needs large trees for palace pillars
1. Tree is cut down and becomes Pillars
2. Osiris is inside
3.
4. Finds out where he is
5. Talks to queen of
6. Chest is found
7. Brings body back to
(c) Seth finds the body of Osiris and hacks it into thirteen pieces, scattering them over the
(i)
(ii) One piece was devoured by fish
1. Fish are mildly electric
2.
3. Said magical words and takes form of bird
4. Osiris is resurrected
5. Crucial to bury in Egyptian soil
a. Why
b. No one wanted to die away from
c. Have to be buried in Egyptian soil
d. Missing one part
e. Creates artificial thyrice
f. Have to have complete body
g. Creat artificial limbs for people that died missing one
h. Exact measurements chest becomes the container for the body
(d) Osiris becomes the God of the Dead; his story is the original lesson in the importance of staying at home and remaining whole. Henceforth, it will be important to be buried on Egyptian soil and to be buried complete, both prerequisites for resurrection.
(e)
(i) Good triumphs
(ii) Horace defeats but doesn’t kill Seth
(iii) Evil will always be with us
(f) Seth, however, doesn't die: evil will always be with us.
(i) Does not mean literally
(ii) Did not really happen but it teaches truths
(iii) Wanted to be associated with Osiris
(iv) From the waters of chaos, peopled with gods, good wins in the end
(v) Behave properly, and will be resurrected in the end
3) In religion, by contrast, the concept of belief is essential. Religion includes stories believed to be historical, such as the account of Moses in the Bible, that take place in chronological time.
a) Life after death?
i) Christianity says yes
ii) Judaism remains silent
b) Believe religious stories in a historical sense
i) Moses leading Israelites out of
ii) What was Moses’ birthday?
iii) In religion, belief that person really existed
iv) One man’s religion may be another’s mythology
4) Philosophy deals with the same questions as religion does.
i) How did universe begin? Life after death
ii) Unlike religion, however, philosophy requires a proof based on logic.
(1) Can’t say that’s what I believe
(2) How do you prove life after death?
(a) Try to prove logically that life exists after death
(b) There is a right and wrong answer
(c) Different from not knowing
(d) It is answerable
(e) There is either life after death or there is not
(i) There is an answer!
(ii) We just don’t know it!
iii) The answers to the great philosophical questions are not matters of opinion but facts that are unknown. It's not that the great questions are relative, but that we don't, given our limited perspective, have answers to them.
iv) Did the universe have no beginning, or did it begin from nothing?
(a) Science says Big Bang
(i) Follows the laws of physics
(ii) What was there before the golf ball
(b) Two possibilities
(i) It has no beginning
1. There was always something
(ii) Begins at a time out of nothing
1. Poof something appeared
(c) Such philosophical questions are important, but whether the Egyptians "did" philosophy per se is not revealed to us in their documents.
(i) Could civilication such as
(ii) Maybe so special did not want to commit to it in writing
(d) Could such an advanced civilization have been ignorant of philosophy? Perhaps they simply refused to commit it to papyrus.