I noticed in the library the other day a book called Christianity: An Ancient Egyptian Religion. I took it out and have spent the last few days reading it.
As a religious studies major, I have a fascination with how religions originate and evolve, why people find comfort in a religious belief, and why these beliefs should be blamed for so much warfare. I don't know of any answers. I just like reading theories about them.
Ancient Egyptian Religion caught my attention because I remember Gwendolyn MacEwen, a Canadian author who was a colleague of Margaret Atwood and who with her then husband, opened the Trojan Horse on the Danforth, wrote a book called King of Egypt, King of Dreams. The book was about King Akhenton who tried to introduce monotheism in Egypt. I know MacEwen had researched her book well and I remember thinking, Isn't this interesting that the notion of one god should have surfaced in Egypt, a land renowned for its many gods and goddesses and the practice of preserving the body for resurrection.
Later, when I took Religion courses in university, I came across a reference to Sigmund Freud having written a controversial book called Moses and Monotheism, in which he claimed Moses was Egyptian. That stuck in my mind.
So here is this title that simply states Christianity is an ancient Egyptian religion. The author, Ahmed Osman, makes a compelling case. He takes apart the names of the main characters from the Old Testament to show how they evolved from Egyptian names, and draws parallels of accomplishments attributed to these characters to accomplishments documented in the Royal House of Egypt. In short, he argues that the main characters in the bible are based on characters in Egyptian history. David (who fought Galiath), Joseph (of the coat of many colours), Solomon (consort to the Queen of Sheba) and Moses (of the Ten Commandments) were all Egyptian. The Romans had changed their roots to Judaea to eradicate Egyptian ties and to hold on to power. Not unlike China trying to rewrite Tibetan history.
Not being a scholar of either the bible or Egyptian history, I can't agree or disagree with Osman. But I can't put his book down, his story is so compelling.
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3 comments:
I'm not a religious person myself, but I too find the trivia fasinating. Today I will plant a Judas tree, also known as a redbud Cercis siliquastrum. Originating from the Mediterranean region,it is often called after the betrayer of Christ because Judas is said to have hung himself from such a tree, after which the white flowers turned red with his blood and/or shame.
Akhenton was the husband of Queen Nefertiti. I understand their move to create a monotheistic cult really pissed off the regular priests.
Anon of the Judas tree - Did you read the piece a few weeks ago that the National Geographic studied a "new" Coptic script and determined Judas was a hero? The script says Jesus asked Judas to betray him. The National Geographic Channel aired The Gospel of Judas April 22, and will repeat the program April 24 at 1 pm. See a preview of the show here:
http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/channel/gospelofjudas/preview.html
Anon of the pissed off priests - That was one of the reasons the priests tried to deny Akhenton's right to the throne. If Akhenton was Moses, the priests tried to turf him and his one god, hence Moses' exodus from Egypt with his followers - to pursue religious freedom.
So fascinating how history repeats itself over and over again.
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