In Sumerian writings, Anu (also An; from Sumerian *An 𒀭 = sky, heaven) was a sky-god, the god ofheaven, lord of constellations, king of gods, spirits and demons, and dwelt in the highest heavenly regions. It was believed that he had the power to judge those who had committed crimes, and that he had created the stars as soldiers to destroy the wicked. His attribute was the royal tiara. His attendant and minister of state was the god Ilabrat.

He was one of the oldest gods in the Sumerian pantheon and part of a triad including Enlil (god of the air) and Enki (god of water). He was called Anu by the later Akkadians in Babylonian culture. By virtue of being the first figure in a triad consisting of Anu, Enlil, and Enki (also known as Ea), Anu came to be regarded as the father and at first, king of the gods. Anu is so prominently associated with the E-anna temple in the city of Uruk (biblical Erech) in southern Babylonia that there are good reasons for believing this place to be the original seat of the Anu cult. If this is correct, then the goddess Inanna (or Ishtar) of Uruk may at one time have been his consort.

NOTE: I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT THE READER PURCHASE ALL THE BOOKS WRITTEN BY ZECHARIAH TO GET THE WHOLE STORY.  IT IS NOT MYTHOLOGY.  THEY WERE THE ALIENS BY NAME OF ANUNNAKI.  THEY WERE SAID TO HAVE COME FROM NIBIRU.  THEY WERE BEAUTIFUL HUMAN LOOKING BEINGS - GIANT SIZED.

WHEN THE ANUNNAKI'S CAME TO THIS WORLD, OTHER ALIENS CAME WITH THEM -INCLUDING REPTILIANS, GREYS, AND THE ONES WE CALL THE HOMEWORLDERS WHO LOOK JUST LIKE YOU AND ME.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ANUNNAKI AND THE HOMEWORLDERS WERE THAT THE ANUNNAKI WERE HAIRY, AND THE HOMEWORLDERS ONLY HAD HAIR ON THEIR HEADS AND NOWHERE ELSE ON THEIR BODIES. 

THOSE PEOPLE IN THE BIBLE WHO WERE CALLED THE NEPHILIM WERE RED AND HAIRY AND GIANT SIZED.

THE HOMEWORLDERS HAD A TOUGH TIME REPRODUCING THEMSELVES, AND WERE USED AS SLAVES, SO THERE WERE FEWER OF THEM OVER TIME.

THEY ALSO HAD NO SHIPS TO TRAVEL  IN BY THEMSELVES, SO AFTER THEY GOT HERE, THEY WERE ACTUALLY LIKE SLAVES TO THE ANUNNAKI AND AT THEIR MERCY

Anu had several consorts, the foremost being Ki (earth), Nammu, and Uras. By Ki he was the father of, among others, theAnunnaki gods. By Uras he was the father of Nin'insinna. According to legends, heaven and earth were once inseparable until An and Ki bore Enlil, god of the air, who cleaved heaven and earth in two. An and Ki were, in some texts, identified as brother and sister being the children of Anshar and Kishar. Ki later developed into the Akkadian goddess Antu (also known as "Keffen Anu", "Kef", and "Keffenk Anum").

Anu existed in Sumerian cosmogony as a dome that covered the flat earth; Outside of this dome was the primordial body of water known as Tiamat (not to be confused with the subterranean Abzu).^[1]

In Sumerian, the designation "An" was used interchangeably with "the heavens" so that in some cases it is doubtful whether, under the term, the god An or the heavens is being denoted. The Akkadians inherited An as the god of heavens from the Sumerian as Anu-, and in Akkadian cuneiform, the DINGIR character may refer either to Anum or to the Akkadian word for god, ilu-, and consequently had two phonetic values an and il. Hittite cuneiform as adapted from the Old Assyrian kept the anvalue but abandoned il.

Assyro-Babylonian religion

The doctrine once established remained an inherent part of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion and led to the more or less complete disassociation of the three gods constituting the triad from their original local limitations. An intermediate step between Anu viewed as the local deity of Uruk, Enlil as the god of Nippur, and Ea - aka ENKI as the god of Eridu is represented by the prominence which each one of the centres associated with the three deities in question must have acquired, and which led to each one absorbing the qualities of other gods so as to give them a controlling position in an organized pantheon. For Nippur we have the direct evidence that its chief deity, En-lil, was once regarded as the head of the Sumerian pantheon. The sanctity and, therefore, the importance of Eridu remained a fixed tradition in the minds of the people to the latest days, and analogy therefore justifies the conclusion that Anu was likewise worshipped in a centre which had acquired great prominence.

The summing-up of divine powers manifested in the universe in a threefold division represents an outcome of speculation in the schools attached to the temples of Babylonia, but the selection of Anu, Enlil (and later Marduk), and Ea for the three representatives of the three spheres recognized, is due to the importance which, for one reason or the other, the centres in which Anu, Enlil, and Ea were worshipped had acquired in the popular mind. Each of the three must have been regarded in his centre as the most important member in a larger or smaller group, so that their union in a triad marks also the combination of the three distinctive pantheons into a harmonious whole.

In the astral theology of Babylonia and Assyria, Anu, Enlil, and Ea became the three zones of the ecliptic, the northern, middle and southern zone respectively. The purely theoretical character of Anu is thus still further emphasized, and in the annals and votive inscriptions as well as in the incantations and hymns, he is rarely introduced as an active force to whom a personal appeal can be made. His name becomes little more than a synonym for the heavens in general and even his title as king or father of the gods has little of the personal element in it. A consort Antum (or as some scholars prefer to read, Anatum) is assigned to him, on the theory that every deity must have a female associate. But Anu spent so much time on the ground protecting the Sumerians he left her in Heaven and then met Innin, whom he renamed Innan, or, "Queen of Heaven". She was later known as Ishtar. Anu resided in her temple the most, and rarely went back up to Heaven. He is also included in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and is a major character in the clay tablets.

Elohim (אֱלֹהִ֔ים) is a grammatically singular or plural noun for "god" or "gods" in both modern and ancient Hebrew language.

When used with singular verbs and adjectives elohim is usually singular, "god" or especially, the God. When used with plural verbs and adjectives elohim is usually plural, "gods" or "powers".^[1][2] It is generally thought that Elohim is a formation from eloah, the latter being an expanded form of the Northwest Semitic noun il (אֵל,ʾēl^[3]). It is usually translated as "God" in the Hebrew Bible, referring with singular verbs both to the one God of Israel, and also in a few examples to other singular pagan deities. With plural verbs the word is also used as a true plural with the meaning "gods".^[3] The related nouns eloah (אלוה) and el (אֵל) are used as proper names or as generics, in which case they are interchangeable with elohim.^[3]

Mark S. Smith said that the notion of divinity underwent radical changes throughout the period of early Israeliteidentity. Smith said that the ambiguity of the term Elohim is the result of such changes, cast in terms of "vertical translatability" by Smith (2008); i.e. the re-interpretation of the gods of the earliest recalled period as the national god of the monolatrism as it emerged in the 7th to 6th century BCE in the Kingdom of Judah and during the Babylonian captivity, and further in terms of monotheism by the emergence of Rabbinical Judaism in the 2nd century CE.^[4] A different version was produced by Morton Smith. Despite the -im ending common to many plural masculine nouns in Hebrew, the word when referring to the Name of God is grammatically singular, and takes a singular verb in the Hebrew Bible.

The word is identical to the usual plural of el meaning gods or magistrates, and is cognate to the 'l-h-m found in Ugaritic, where it is used for the pantheon of Canaanite gods, the children of El and conventionally vocalized as "Elohim". Most use of the term Elohim in the later Hebrew text imply a view that is at least monolatrist at the time of writing, and such usage (in the singular), as a proper title for the supreme deity, is generally not considered to be synonymous with the term elohim, "gods" (plural, simple noun). Hebrew grammar allows for this nominally-plural form to mean "He is the Power (singular) over powers (plural)", or roughly, "God of gods". Rabbinic scholar Maimonides wrote that the various other usages are commonly understood to be homonyms.^[5] The plural form ending in -im can also be understood as denoting abstraction, as in the Hebrew words chayyim ("life") or betulim ("virginity"). If understood this way, Elohim means "divinity" or "deity".

CANAANITE GODS

Etymology

The Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible defines "elohim" as a plural of eloah, an expanded form of the common Semitic noun "'il" (ʾēl).^[3] It contains an added heh as third radical to the biconsonantal root. Discussions of the etymology of elohim essentially concern this expansion. An exact cognate outside of Hebrew is found in Ugaritic ʾlhm, the family of El, the creator god and chief deity of the Canaanite pantheon, in Biblical AramaicʼĔlāhā and later Syriac Alaha "God", and in Arabic ʾilāh "god, deity" (or Allah as " The [single] God").

"El" (the basis for the extended root ʾlh) is usually derived from a root meaning "to be strong" and/or "to be in front".^[3]

Canaanite religion

The word el (singular) is a standard term for "god" in other related Semitic languages including Ugaritic.

In the Ugaritic Baal cycle we read of "seventy sons of Asherah" (KTU2 1.4.VI.46).^[6]

Elohist

Elohim occurs frequently throughout the received text of the Torah. In some cases (e.g. Exodus 3:4, "... Elohim called unto him out of the midst of the bush ..."), it acts as a singular noun in Hebrew grammar, and is then generally understood to denote the single God of Israel. In other cases, Elohim acts as an ordinary plural of the word Eloah, and refers to the polytheistic notion of multiple gods (for example, Exodus 20:3, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me.").

The choice of word or words for God varies in the Hebrew Bible. According to the documentary hypothesis these variations are evidence of different source texts: Elohim is used as the name of God in the Elohist and the Priestly source, while Yahweh is used in the Jahwist source. The difference in names results from the theological point being made in the Elohist and Priestly sources that God did not reveal his name, Yahweh, to any man before the time of Moses.

While the Jahwist presented an anthropomorphic God who could walk through the Garden of Eden looking for Adam and Eve, the Elohist frequently involves angels. For example, it is the Elohist version of the tale of Jacob's ladder in which there is a ladder of angels with God at the top, whereas in the Jahwist tale, it is just a dream in which God is simply above the location, without the ladder or angels. Likewise, the Elohist describes Jacobactually wrestling with God.{Genesis 32:28}

The classical documentary hypothesis as developed in the late 19th century assumed that the Elohist portions of the Torah were composed in the 9th century BCE (i.e. during the early period of the Kingdom of Judah). This is far from universally accepted today, as there is evidence of a later "Elohist redaction" (post-exilic) during the 5th century BCE which makes it difficult to determine whether a given passage is "Elohist" in origin, or only as a result of late redaction.

Hebrew Bible

The word Elohim occurs more than 2500 times in the Hebrew Bible, with meanings ranging from "god" in a general sense (as in Exodus 12:12, where it describes "the gods of Egypt"), to a specific god (e.g., 1 Kings 11:33, where it describes Chemosh "the god of Moab", or the frequent references toYahweh as the "elohim" of Israel), to demons, seraphim, and other supernatural beings, to the spirits of the dead brought up at the behest of King Saul in 1 Samuel 28:13, and even to kings and prophets (e.g., Exodus 4:16).^[3] The phrase bene elohim, usually translated "sons of God", has an exact parallel in Ugaritic and Phoenician texts, referring to the council of the gods.^[3]

Elohim occupy the seventh rank of ten in the famous medieval Rabbinic scholar Maimonides' Jewish angelic hierarchy. Maimonides said: "I must premise that every Hebrew knows that the term Elohim is a homonym, and denotes God, angels, judges, and the rulers of countries, ...^[5]

Grammar – singular or plural

In Hebrew the ending -im mainly indicates a masculine plural. However with Elohim the construction is grammatically singular (i.e. it governs a singular verb or adjective) when referring to the Hebrew God, but grammatically plural elohim (i.e. taking a plural verb or adjective) when used of pagan divinities (Psalms 96:5; 97:7).^{[citation needed]}. Similarly, the Quran uses alīha as the plural of īlah for pagan divinities, and occasionally uses "Allahuma" (O God! - plural) for the sole god (as opposed to "Allah"). The exact equivalent of Elohim would be Īlahīn (إلاهين), although it is rarely used in Arabic parlance. Note that human beings can also have names with plural endings, such as Ephraim, the son of Joseph.

Plural "gods", with plural verb

The noun elohim is used with a plural verb in 1 Samuel 28:13. The witch of Endor told Saul that she saw "gods" (elohim) ascending (olim עֹלִים, plural verb) out of the earth.^[7]

God of Israel, with singular verb

In the Hebrew Bible Elohim, when meaning the God of Israel, is mostly grammatically singular. Even in Genesis 1:26 "Then God said (singular verb), 'Let us make (plural verb) man in our image, after our likeness'", Elohim is singular. Wilhelm Gesenius and other Hebrew grammarians traditionally described this as the pluralis excellentiae (plural of excellence), which is similar to the pluralis majestatis (plural of majesty, or "Royal we").^[8]

Gesenius comments that Elohim singular is to be distinguished from elohim plural gods and remarks that:

the supposition that elohim is to be regarded as merely a remnant of earlier polytheistic views (i.e. as originally only a numerical plural) is at least highly improbable, and, moreover, would not explain the analogous plurals (below). To the same class (and probably formed on the analogy of elohim) belong the plurals kadoshim, meaning "the Most Holy" (only of Yahweh, Hosea 12:1, Proverbs 9:10, 30:3 (cf. El hiym kadoshim in Joshua 24:19 and the singular Aramaic "the Most High", Daniel 7:18, 22, 25); and probably teraphim (usually taken in the sense of penates) the image of a god, used especially for obtaining oracles. Certainly in 1 Samuel 19:13, 16 only one image is intended; in most other places a single image may be intended; in Zechariah 10:2 alone is it most naturally taken as a numerical plural.

There are a number of notable exceptions to the rule that Elohim is treated as singular when referring to the God of Israel, including Gen. 20:13, 35:7, 2 Sam. 7:23 and Ps. 58:11, and notably the epithet of the "Living God" (Deuteronomy 5:26 etc.), which is constructed with the plural adjective, Elohim Hayiym אלהים חיים but still takes singular verbs.

In the Septuagint and New Testament translations Elohim has the singular ὁ θεὸς even in these cases, and modern translations follow suit in giving "God" in the singular. The Samaritan Torah has edited out some of these exceptions.^[9]

Abraham's "the gods caused me"

In Gen 20:13 Abraham, before the polytheistic Philistine king Abimelech, says that "the gods (elohim) caused (plural verb) me to wander".^[10][11][12]The Greek Septuagint (LXX) and most English versions usually translate this "God caused", possibly to avoid the implication of Abraham deferring to Abimelech's polytheistic beliefs.^[13]

Angels and judges

In a few cases in the Greek Septuagint (LXX), Hebrew elohim with a plural verb, or with implied plural context, was rendered either angeloi ("angels") orpros to kriterion tou Theou ("before the judgment of God").^[14] These passages then entered first the Latin Vulgate, then the English King James Version (KJV) as "angels" and "judges", respectively. From this came the result that James Strong, for example, listed "angels" and "judges" as possible meanings for elohim with a plural verb in his Strong's Concordance, and the same is true of many other 17th-20th century reference works. Both Gesenius' Hebrew Lexicon and the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon list both angels and judges as possible alternative meanings of elohim with plural verbs and adjectives.

The reliability of the Septuagint translation in this matter has been questioned by Gesenius and Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg. In the case of Gesenius, he lists the meaning without agreeing with it.^[15] Hengstenberg stated that the Hebrew Bible text never uses elohim to refer to "angels", but that the Septuagint translators refused the references to "gods" in the verses they amended to "angels."^[16]

The Greek New Testament (NT) quotes Psalm 8:4-6 in Hebrews 2:6b-8a, where the Greek NT has "ἀγγέλους" (angelos) in vs. 7,^[17] quoting Ps. 8:5 (8:6 in the LXX), which also has "ἀγγέλους" in a version of the Greek Septuagint.^[18] In the KJV, elohim (Strong's number H430) is translated as "angels" only^[19] in Psalm 8:5.

The KJV has elohim translated as "judges" in Exodus 21:6; Exodus 22:8; and twice in Exodus 22:9.^[20]

Ambiguous readings

Sometimes when elohim occurs as the referent or object (i.e. not subject) of a sentence, and without any accompanying verb or adjective to indicate plurality, it may be grammatically unclear whether gods plural or God singular is intended. An example is Psalm 8:5 where "Yet you have made him a little lower than the elohim" is ambiguous as to whether "lower than the gods" or "lower than God" is intended. The Septuagint read this as "gods" and then "corrected" the translation to "angels",^{[citation needed]} which reading is taken up by the New Testament in Hebrews 2:9 "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man." (full quote and compare)

Other plural-singulars in biblical Hebrew

The Hebrew language has several nouns with -im (masculine plural) and -oth (feminine plural) endings which nevertheless take singular verbs, adjectives and pronouns. For example Ba'alim "owner": "He is lord (singular) even over any of those things that he owns that are lordly (plural).

Jacob's ladder "gods were revealed" (plural)

In the following verses Elohim was translated as God singular in the King James Version even though it was accompanied by plural verbs and other plural grammatical terms.

And there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed [plural verb] himself to him when he fled from his brother.

Here the Hebrew verb "revealed" is plural, hence: "the-gods were revealed". A NET Bible note claims that the Authorized Version wrongly translates: "God appeared unto him".^[21] This is one of several instances where the Bible uses plural verbs with the name elohim.^[22][23]

The Divine Council of Elohim

AV Psalm 82:1 God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods. [...]

I have said, Ye [are] gods; and all of you [are] children of the most High.

But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.

—Psalm 82:1, 6-7 (AV)

Marti Steussy, in Chalice Introduction to the Old Testament, discusses: “The first verse of Psalm 82: ‘Elohim has taken his place in the divine council.’ Here elohim has a singular verb and clearly refers to God. But in verse 6 of the Psalm, God says to the other members of the council, ‘You [plural] are elohim.’ Here elohim has to mean gods.”^[24]

Mark Smith, referring to this same Psalm, states in God in Translation “This psalm presents a scene of the gods meeting together in divine council...Elohim stands in the council of El. Among the elohim he pronounces judgment:...”^[25]

In Hulsean Lectures for..., H. M. Stephenson discussed Jesus’ argument in John 10:34–36 concerning Psalm 82. (In answer to the charge of blasphemy Jesus replied:) "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods. If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" – "Now what is the force of this quotation 'I said ye are gods.' It is from the Asaph Psalm which begins 'Elohim hath taken His place in the mighty assembly. In the midst of the Elohim He is judging.'"^[26]

Sons of God

The Hebrew word for a son is ben; plural is benim (with the construct state form being "benei"). The Hebrew term benei elohim ("sons of God" or "sons of the gods") in Genesis 6:2^[27] compares to the use of "sons of gods" (Ugaritic b'n il) sons of El in Ugaritic mythology.^[28] Karel van der Toorn states that gods can be referred to collectively as bene elim, bene elyon, or bene elohim.^[3]

In Jewish tradition, the Torah verse, that was the battle-cry of the Maccabees (Hebrew: מקבים‎ Machabi, מקבים), "Mi chamocha ba'elim YHWH" ("Who is like You among the heavenly powers, Hashem!"^[29]),^[30] is an acronym for "Machabi" as well as an acronym for "Matityahu Kohen benYochanan".^[31] The correlating Torah verse, The song of Moses and the Children of Israel by the Sea, makes a reference to elim, but more with a mundane notion of natural forces, might, war and governmental powers.

English Bible translations

Hebrew elohim in English translations of the Bible is usually rendered as gods when occurring with a plural verb and referring to pagan deities, and asGod when occurring with a singular verb and referring to the God of Israel. In doing so the English translations generally follow the use of theos (θεος) in the Greek Septuagint and New Testament citations of the Old Testament.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• El (deity)
• Elohist
• Elyon
• Genesis creation narrative
• Ilah
• Names of God
• Names of God in Judaism

References

• Horst Dietrich Preuss, Old Testament theology, vol. 1, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1995, ISBN 978-0-567-09735-4, 147-149.

Notes

External links[edit]

• Hebrew word #430 in Strong's
•  "Elohim". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.

Ancient Egyptian religion

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Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals which were an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. It centered on the Egyptians' interaction with many deities who were believed to be present in, and in control of, the forces and elements of nature. The practices of Egyptian religion were efforts to provide for the gods and gain their favor. Formal religious practice centered on the pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Although a human, the Pharaoh was believed to be descended from the gods. He acted as the intermediary between his people and the gods, and was obligated to sustain the gods through rituals and offerings so that they could maintain order in the universe. The state dedicated enormous resources to Egyptian rituals and to the construction of thetemples.

Individuals could interact with the gods for their own purposes, appealing for their help through prayer or compelling them to act through magic. These practices were distinct from, but closely linked with, the formal rituals and institutions. The popular religious tradition grew more prominent in the course of Egyptian history as the status of the Pharaoh declined. Another important aspect was the belief in the afterlife and funerary practices. The Egyptians made great efforts to ensure the survival of their souls after death, providing tombs, grave goods, and offerings to preserve the bodies and spirits of the deceased.

The religion had its roots in Egypt's prehistory and lasted for more than 3,000 years. The details of religious belief changed over time as the importance of particular gods rose and declined, and their intricate relationships shifted. At various times, certain gods became preeminent over the others, including the sun god Ra, the creator god Amun, and the mother goddess Isis. For a brief period, in the aberrant theology promulgated by the Pharaoh Akhenaten, a single god, the Aten, replaced the traditional pantheon. Ancient Egyptian religion and mythology left behind many writings and monuments, along with significant influences on ancient and modern cultures.

 

Theology

The beliefs and rituals now referred to as "Ancient Egyptian religion" existed within every aspect of Egyptian culture. Their language possessed no single term corresponding to the modern European concept of religion. Ancient Egyptian religion was not a monolithic institution, but consisted of a vast and varying set of beliefs and practices, linked by their common focus on the interaction between the world of humans and the world of the divine. The characteristics of the gods who populated the divine realm were inextricably linked to the Egyptians' understanding of the properties of the world in which they lived.^[1]

Deities

Main article: Ancient Egyptian deities

The gods Osiris, Anubis, and Horus,
in order from left to right

The Egyptians believed that the phenomena of nature were divine forces in and of themselves.[2] 

These deified forces included the elements, animal characteristics, or abstract forces. The Egyptians believed in a pantheon of gods, which were involved in all aspects of nature and human society. Their religious practices were efforts to sustain and placate these phenomena and turn them to human advantage.^[3] This polytheistic system was very complex, as some deities were believed to exist in many different manifestations, and some had multiple mythological roles. Conversely, many natural forces, such as the sun, were associated with multiple deities. The diverse pantheon ranged from gods with vital roles in the universe to minor deities or "demons" with very limited or localized functions.^[4] It could include gods adopted from foreign cultures, and sometimes even humans: deceased Pharaohs were believed to be divine, and occasionally, distinguished commoners such as Imhotep also became deified.^[5]

The depictions of the gods in art were not meant as literal representations of how the gods might appear if they were visible, as the gods' true natures were believed to be mysterious. Instead, these depictions gave recognizable forms to the abstract deities by using symbolic imagery to indicate each god's role in nature.^[6] 

Thus, for example, the funerary god Anubis was portrayed as a jackal, a creature whose scavenging habits threatened the preservation of the body, in an effort to counter this threat and employ it for protection. His black skin was symbolic of the color of mummified flesh and the fertile black soil that Egyptians saw as a symbol of resurrection. However, this iconography was not fixed, and many of the gods could be depicted in more than one form.^[7]

Many gods were associated with particular regions in Egypt where their cults were most important. However, these associations changed over time, and they did not necessarily mean that the god associated with a place had originated there. For instance, the god Monthu was the original patron of the city of Thebes. Over the course of the Middle Kingdom, however, he was displaced in that role by Amun, who may have arisen elsewhere. The national popularity and importance of individual gods fluctuated in a similar way.^[8]

Amun-Ra kamutef,
wearing the plumed headdress of Amun and the sun disk representing Ra

Associations between deities

The Egyptian gods had complex interrelationships, which partly reflected the interaction of the forces they represented. The Egyptians often grouped gods together to reflect these relationships. Some groups of deities were of indeterminate size, and were linked by their similar functions. These often consisted of minor deities with little individual identity. Other combinations linked independent deities based on the symbolic meaning of numbers in Egyptian mythology; for instance, pairs of deities usually represent the duality of opposite phenomena. One of the more common combinations was a family triad consisting of a father, mother, and child, who were worshipped together. Some groups had wide-ranging importance. One such group, the Ennead, assembled nine deities into a theological system that was involved in the mythological areas of creation, kingship, and the afterlife.^[9]

The relationships between deities could also be expressed in the process of syncretism, in which two or more different gods were linked to form a composite deity. This process was a recognition of the presence of one god "in" another when the second god took on a role belonging to the first. These links between deities were fluid, and did not represent the permanent merging of two gods into one; therefore, some gods could develop multiple syncretic connections.^[10]

Sometimes syncretism combined deities with very similar characteristics. At other times it joined gods with very different natures, as when Amun, the god of hidden power, was linked with Ra, the god of the sun. The resulting god, Amun-Ra, thus united the power that lay behind all things with the greatest and most visible force in nature.^[11]

Unifying tendencies

Many deities could be given epithets that seem to indicate that they were greater than any other god, suggesting some kind of unity beyond the multitude of natural forces. In particular, this is true of a few gods who, at various times in history, rose to supreme importance in Egyptian religion. These included the royal patron Horus, the sun god Ra, and the mother goddess Isis.^[12] During the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC), Amun held this position.

The theology of the period described in particular detail Amun's presence in and rule over all things, so that he, more than any other deity, embodied the all-encompassing power of the divine.^[13]

Because of theological statements like this, many past Egyptologists, such as Siegfried Morenz, believed that beneath the polytheistic traditions of Egyptian religion there was an increasing belief in a unity of the divine, moving toward monotheism. Instances in Egyptian literature where "god" is mentioned without reference to any specific deity would seem to give this view added weight.

However, in 1971 Erik Hornung pointed out that the traits of an apparently supreme being could be attributed to many different gods, even in periods when other gods were preeminent, and further argued that references to an unspecified "god" are meant to refer flexibly to any deity. He therefore argued that, while some individuals may have henotheisticallychosen one god to worship, Egyptian religion as a whole had no notion of a divine being beyond the immediate multitude of deities.

Yet the debate did not end there; Jan Assmann and James P. Allen have since asserted that the Egyptians did to some degree recognize a single divine force. In Allen's view, the notion of an underlying unity of the divine coexisted inclusively with the polytheistic tradition. It is possible that only the Egyptian theologians fully recognized this underlying unity, but it is also possible that ordinary Egyptians identified the single divine force with a single god in particular situations.^[14][15]

Atenism

Main article: Atenism

The Egyptians did have an aberrant period of some form of monotheism during the New Kingdom, in which the pharaoh Akhenaten abolished the official worship of other gods in favor of the sun-disk Aten. This is often seen as the first instance of true monotheism in history, although the details of Atenist theology are still unclear. The exclusion of all but one god was a radical departure from Egyptian tradition and some see Akhenaten as a practitioner ofmonolatry rather than monotheism,^[16][17] as he did not actively deny the existence of other gods; he simply refrained from worshipping any but the Aten. Under Akhenaten's successors Egypt reverted to its traditional religion, and Akhenaten himself came to be reviled as a heretic.^[18][19]

Other important concept

Cosmology

The air god Shu, assisted by other gods, holds up Nut, the sky, as Geb, the earth, lies beneath.

The Egyptian conception of the universe centered on Ma'at, a word that encompasses several concepts in English, including "truth," "justice," and "order." It was the fixed, eternal order of the universe, both in the cosmos and in human society. It had existed since the creation of the world, and without it the world would lose its cohesion. In Egyptian belief, Ma'at was constantly under threat from the forces of disorder, so all of society was required to maintain it. On the human level this meant that all members of society should cooperate and coexist; on the cosmic level it meant that all of the forces of nature—the gods—should continue to function in balance.^[20] This latter goal was central to Egyptian religion. The Egyptians sought to maintain Ma'at in the cosmos by sustaining the gods through offerings and by performing rituals which staved off disorder and perpetuated the cycles of nature.^[21][22]

The most important part of the Egyptian view of the cosmos was the conception of time, which was greatly concerned with the maintenance of Ma'at. Throughout the linear passage of time, a cyclical pattern recurred, in which Ma'at was renewed by periodic events which echoed the original creation. Among these events were the annual Nile flood and the succession from one king to another, but the most important was the daily journey of the sun god Ra.^[23][24]

When envisioning the shape of the cosmos, the Egyptians saw the earth as a flat expanse of land, personified by the god Geb, over which arched the sky goddess Nut. The two were separated by Shu, the god of air. Beneath the earth lay a parallel underworld and undersky, and beyond the skies lay the infinite expanse of Nu, the chaos that had existed before creation.^[25][26] The Egyptians also believed in a place called the Duat, a mysterious region associated with death and rebirth, that may have lain in the underworld or in the sky. Each day, Ra traveled over the earth across the underside of the sky, and at night he passed through the Duat to be reborn at dawn.^[27]

In Egyptian belief, this cosmos was inhabited by three types of sentient beings. One was the gods; another was the spirits of deceased humans, who existed in the divine realm and possessed many of the gods' abilities. Living humans were the third category, and the most important among them was the pharaoh, who bridged the human and divine realms.^[28]

Colossal statue of the Pharaoh 
Ramesses II

Divine pharaoh

Egyptologists have long debated the degree to which the Pharaoh was considered a god. It seems most likely that the Egyptians viewed royal authority itself as a divine force. Therefore, although the Egyptians recognized that the Pharaoh was human and subject to human weakness, they simultaneously viewed him as a god, because the divine power of kingship was incarnated in him. He therefore acted as intermediary between Egypt's people and the gods.^[29] He was key to upholding Ma'at, both by maintaining justice and harmony in human society and by sustaining the gods with temples and offerings. For these reasons, he oversaw all state religious activity.^[30] However, the Pharaoh’s real-life influence and prestige could differ from that depicted in official writings and depictions, and beginning in the late New Kingdom his religious importance declined drastically.^[31][32]

The king was also associated with many specific deities. He was identified directly with Horus, who represented kingship itself, and he was seen as the son of Ra, who ruled and regulated nature as the Pharaoh ruled and regulated society. By the New Kingdom he was also associated with Amun, the supreme force in the cosmos.^[33] Upon his death, the king became fully deified. In this state, he was directly identified with Ra, and was also associated with Osiris, god of death and rebirth and the mythological father of Horus.^[34]Many mortuary temples were dedicated to the worship of deceased pharaohs as gods.^[22]

Afterlife

The Egyptians had elaborate beliefs about death and the afterlife. They believed that humans possessed a ka, or life-force, which left the body at the point of death. In life, the ka received its sustenance from food and drink, so it was believed that, to endure after death, the ka must continue to receive offerings of food, whose spiritual essence it could still consume. Each person also had a ba, the set of spiritual characteristics unique to each individual.^[35] Unlike the ka, the ba remained attached to the body after death. Egyptian funeral rituals were intended to release the ba from the body so that it could move freely, and to rejoin it with the ka so that it could live on as an akh. However, it was also important that the body of the deceased be preserved, as the Egyptians believed that the ba returned to its body each night to receive new life, before emerging in the morning as an akh.^[36]

Originally, however, the Egyptians believed that only the pharaoh had a ba,^[37] and only he could become one with the gods; dead commoners passed into a dark, bleak realm that represented the opposite of life.^[38] The nobles received tombs and the resources for their upkeep as gifts from the king, and their ability to enter the afterlife was believed to be dependent on these royal favors.^[39] In early times the deceased pharaoh was believed to ascend to the sky and dwell among the stars.^[40] Over the course of the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC), however, he came to be more closely associated with the daily rebirth of the sun god Ra and with the underworld ruler Osiris as those deities grew more important.^[41]

During the late Old Kingdom and the First Intermediate Period (c. 2181–2055 BC), the Egyptians gradually came to believe that possession of a baand the possibility of a paradisiacal afterlife extended to everyone.^[37][42] In the fully developed afterlife beliefs of the New Kingdom, the soul had to avoid a variety of supernatural dangers in the Duat, before undergoing a final judgment known as the "Weighing of the Heart". In this judgment, the gods compared the actions of the deceased while alive (symbolized by the heart) to Ma'at, to determine whether he or she had behaved in accordance with Ma'at. If the deceased was judged worthy, his or her ka and ba were united into an akh.^[43] Several beliefs coexisted about the akh's destination. Often the dead were said to dwell in the realm of Osiris, a lush and pleasant land in the underworld.^[44] The solar vision of the afterlife, in which the deceased soul traveled with Ra on his daily journey, was still primarily associated with royalty, but could extend to other people as well. Over the course of the Middle and New Kingdoms, the notion that the akh could also travel in the world of the living, and to some degree magically affect events there, became increasingly prevalent.^[45]

Writings

While the Egyptians had no unified religious scripture, they produced many religious writings of various types. Together the disparate texts provide a very extensive, but still incomplete, understanding of Egyptian religious practices and beliefs.^[46]

Mythology

Ra (at center) travels through the underworld in his barque, accompanied by other gods^[47]

Egyptian myths were metaphorical stories intended to illustrate and explain the gods' actions and roles in nature. The details of the events they recounted could change to convey different symbolic perspectives on the mysterious divine events they described, so many myths exist in different and conflicting versions.^[48] Mythical narratives were rarely written in full, and more often texts only contain episodes from or allusions to a larger myth.^[49] Knowledge of Egyptian mythology, therefore, is derived mostly from hymns that detail the roles of specific deities, from ritual and magical texts which describe actions related to mythic events, and from funerary texts which mention the roles of many deities in the afterlife. Some information is also provided by allusions in secular texts.^[46] Finally, Greeks and Romans such asPlutarch recorded some of the extant myths late in Egyptian history.^[50]

Among the significant Egyptian myths were the creation myths. According to these stories, the world emerged as a dry space in the primordial ocean of chaos. Because the sun is essential to life on earth, the first rising of Ra marked the moment of this emergence. Different forms of the myth describe the process of creation in various ways: a transformation of the primordial god Atum into the elements that form the world, as the creative speech of the intellectual god Ptah, and as an act of the hidden power of Amun.^[51] Regardless of these variations, the act of creation represented the initial establishment of maat and the pattern for the subsequent cycles of time.^[22]

The most important of all Egyptian myths was the myth of Osiris and Isis.^[52] It tells of the divine ruler Osiris, who was murdered by his jealous brotherSet, a god often associated with chaos.^[53] Osiris' sister and wife Isis resurrected him so that he could conceive an heir, Horus. Osiris then entered the underworld and became the ruler of the dead. Once grown, Horus fought and defeated Set to become king himself.^[54] Set's association with chaos, and the identification of Osiris and Horus as the rightful rulers, provided a rationale for Pharaonic succession and portrayed the Pharaohs as the upholders of order. At the same time, Osiris' death and rebirth were related to the Egyptian agricultural cycle, in which crops grew in the wake of the Nile inundation, and provided a template for the resurrection of human souls after death.^[55]

Another important mythic motif was the journey of Ra through the Duat each night. In the course of this journey, Ra met with Osiris, who again acted as an agent of regeneration, so that his life was renewed. He also fought each night with Apep, a serpentine god representing chaos. The defeat of Apep and the meeting with Osiris ensured the rising of the sun the next morning, an event that represented rebirth and the victory of order over chaos.^[56]

Ritual and magical texts

The procedures for religious rituals were frequently written on papyri, which were used as instructions for those performing the ritual. These ritual texts were kept mainly in the temple libraries. Temples themselves are also inscribed with such texts, often accompanied by illustrations. Unlike the ritual papyri, these inscriptions were not intended as instructions, but were meant to symbolically perpetuate the rituals even if, in reality, people ceased to perform them.^[57] Magical texts likewise describe rituals, although these rituals were part of the spells used for specific goals in everyday life. Despite their mundane purpose, many of these texts also originated in temple libraries and later became disseminated among the general populace.^[58]

Hymns and prayers

The Egyptians produced numerous prayers and hymns, written in the form of poetry. Hymns and prayers follow a similar structure and are distinguished mainly by the purposes they serve. Hymns were written to praise particular deities.^[59] Like ritual texts, they were written on papyri and on temple walls, and they were probably recited as part of the rituals they accompany in temple inscriptions.^[60] Most are structured according to a set literary formula, designed to expound on the nature, aspects, and mythological functions of a given deity.^[59] They tend to speak more explicitly about fundamental theology than other Egyptian religious writings, and became particularly important in the New Kingdom, a period of particularly active theological discourse.^[61] Prayers follow the same general pattern as hymns, but address the relevant god in a more personal way, asking for blessings, help, or forgiveness for wrongdoing. Such prayers are rare before the New Kingdom, indicating that in earlier periods such direct personal interaction with a deity was not believed possible, or at least was less likely to be expressed in writing. They are known mainly from inscriptions on statues and stelae left in sacred sites as votive offerings.^[62]

Funerary texts

Section of the Book of the Dead for the scribeHunefer, depicting the Weighing of the Heart.

Among the most significant and extensively preserved Egyptian writings are funerary texts designed to ensure that deceased souls reached a pleasant afterlife.^[63] The earliest of these are the Pyramid Texts. They are a loose collection of hundreds of spells inscribed on the walls of royal pyramids during the Old Kingdom, intended to magically provide the king with the means to join the company of the gods in the afterlife.^[64] The spells appear in differing arrangements and combinations, and few of them appear in all of the pyramids.^[65]

At the end of the Old Kingdom a new body of funerary spells, which included material from the Pyramid Texts, began appearing in tombs, inscribed primarily on coffins. This collection of writings is known as the Coffin Texts, and was not reserved for royalty, but appeared in the tombs of non-royal officials.^[66] In the New Kingdom, several new funerary texts emerged, of which the best-known is theBook of the Dead. Unlike the earlier books, it often contains extensive illustrations, or vignettes.^[67]The book was copied on papyrus and sold to commoners to be placed in their tombs.^[68]

The Coffin Texts included sections with detailed descriptions of the underworld and instructions on how to overcome its hazards. In the New Kingdom, this material gave rise to several "books of the netherworld", including the Book of Gates, the Book of Caverns, and the Amduat.^[69] Unlike the loose collections of spells, these netherworld books are structured depictions of Ra's passage through the Duat, and by analogy, the journey of the deceased person's soul through the realm of the dead. They were originally restricted to pharaonic tombs, but in the Third Intermediate Period they came to be used more widely.^[70]

Practices

First pylon and colonnade of the Temple of Isis at Philae.

Temples

Temples existed from the beginning of Egyptian history, and at the height of the civilization they were present in most of its towns. They included both mortuary 

temples to serve the spirits of deceased pharaohs and temples dedicated to patron gods, although the distinction was blurred because divinity and kingship were so closely intertwined.^[22] The temples were not primarily intended as places for worship by the general populace, and the common people had a complex set of religious practices of their own. Instead, the state-run temples served as houses for the gods, in which physical images which served as their intermediaries were cared for and provided with offerings. This service was believed to be necessary to sustain the gods, so that they could in turn maintain the universe itself.^[71] Thus, temples were central to Egyptian society, and vast resources were devoted to their upkeep, including both donations from the monarchy and large estates of their own. Pharaohs often expanded them as part of their obligation to honor the gods, so that many temples grew to enormous size.^[72] However, not all gods had temples dedicated to them, as many gods who were important in official theology received only minimal worship, and many household gods were the focus of popular veneration rather than temple ritual.^[73]

The earliest Egyptian temples were small, impermanent structures, but through the Old and Middle Kingdoms their designs grew more elaborate, and they were increasingly built out of stone. In the New Kingdom, a basic temple layout emerged, which had evolved from common elements in Old and Middle Kingdom temples. With variations, this plan was used for most of the temples built from then on, and most of those that survive today adhere to it. In this standard plan, the temple was built along a central processional way that led through a series of courts and halls to the sanctuary, which held a statue of the temple's god. Access to this most sacred part of the temple was restricted to the pharaoh and the highest-ranking priests. The journey from the temple entrance to the sanctuary was seen as a journey from the human world to the divine realm, a point emphasized by the complex mythological symbolism present in temple architecture.^[74] Well beyond the temple building proper was the outermost wall. In the space between the two lay many subsidiary buildings, including workshops and storage areas to supply the temple's needs, and the library where the temple's sacred writings and mundane records were kept, and which also served as a center of learning on a multitude of subjects.^[75]

Theoretically it was the duty of the pharaoh to carry out temple rituals, as he was Egypt's official representative to the gods. In reality, ritual duties were almost always carried out by priests. During the Old and Middle Kingdoms, there was no separate class of priests; instead, many government officials served in this capacity for several months out of the year before returning to their secular duties. Only in the New Kingdom did professional priesthood become widespread, although most lower-ranking priests were still part-time. All were still employed by the state, and the pharaoh had final say in their appointments.^[76] However, as the wealth of the temples grew, the influence of their priesthoods increased, until it rivaled that of the pharaoh. In the political fragmentation of the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1070–664 BC), the high priests of Amun at Karnak even became the effective rulers of Upper Egypt.^[77] The temple staff also included many people other than priests, such as musicians and chanters in temple ceremonies. Outside the temple were artisans and other laborers who helped supply the temple's needs, as well as farmers who worked on temple estates. All were paid with portions of the temple's income. Large temples were therefore very important centers of economic activity, sometimes employing thousands of people.^[78]

Official rituals and festivals

State religious practice included both temple rituals involved in the cult of a deity, and ceremonies related to divine kingship. Among the latter werecoronation ceremonies and the sed festival, a ritual renewal of the pharaoh's strength that took place periodically during his reign.^[79] There were numerous temple rituals, including rites that took place across the country and rites limited to single temples or to the temples of a single god. Some were performed daily, while others took place annually or on rarer occasions.^[80] The most common temple ritual was the morning offering ceremony, performed daily in temples across Egypt. In it, a high-ranking priest, or occasionally the pharaoh, washed, anointed, and elaborately dressed the god's statue before presenting it with offerings. Afterward, when the god had consumed the spiritual essence of the offerings, the items themselves were taken to be distributed among the priests.^[79]

The less frequent temple rituals, or festivals, were still numerous, with dozens occurring every year. These festivals often entailed actions beyond simple offerings to the gods, such as reenactments of particular myths or the symbolic destruction of the forces of disorder.^[81] Most of these events were probably celebrated only by the priests and took place only inside the temple.^[80] However, the most important temple festivals, like the Opet Festival celebrated at Karnak, usually involved a procession carrying the god's image out of the sanctuary in a model barque to visit other significant sites, such as the temple of a related deity. Commoners gathered to watch the procession and sometimes received portions of the unusually large offerings given to the gods on these occasions.^[82]

Animal cults

The Apis bull

At many sacred sites, the Egyptians worshipped individual animals which they believed to be manifestations of particular deities. These animals were selected based on specific sacred markings which were believed to indicate their fitness for the role. Some of these cult animals retained their positions for the rest of their lives, as with the Apis bullworshipped in Memphis as a manifestation of Ptah. Other animals were selected for much shorter periods. These cults grew more popular in later times, and many temples began raising stocks of such animals from which to choose a new divine manifestation.^[83] A separate practice developed in the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, when people began mummifying any member of a particular animal species as an offering to the god whom the species represented. Millions of mummified cats, birds, and other creatures were buried at temples honoring Egyptian deities.^[84][85] Worshippers paid the priests of a particular deity to obtain and mummify an animal associated with that deity, and the mummy was placed in a cemetery near the god's cult center.

Oracles

The Egyptians used oracles to ask the gods for knowledge or guidance. Egyptian oracles are known mainly from the New Kingdom and afterward, though they probably appeared much earlier. People of all classes, including the king, asked questions of oracles, and, especially in the late New Kingdom their answers could be used to settle legal disputes or inform royal decisions.^[86] The most common means of consulting an oracle was to pose a question to the divine image while it was being carried in a festival procession, and interpret an answer from the barque's movements. Other methods included interpreting the behavior of cult animals, drawing lots, or consulting statues through which a priest apparently spoke. The means of discerning the god's will gave great influence to the priests who spoke and interpreted the god's message.^[87]

Popular religion

While the state cults were meant to preserve the stability of the Egyptian world, lay individuals had their own religious practices that related more directly to daily life.^[88] This popular religion left less evidence than the official cults, and because this evidence was mostly produced by the wealthiest portion of the Egyptian population, it is uncertain to what degree it reflects the practices of the populace as a whole.^[89]

Popular religious practice included ceremonies marking important transitions in life. These included birth, because of the danger involved in the process, and naming, because the name was held to be a crucial part of a person's identity. The most important of these ceremonies were those surrounding death (see "Funerary practices" below), because they ensured the soul's survival beyond it.^[90] Other religious practices sought to discern the gods' will or seek their knowledge. These included the interpretation of dreams, which could be seen as messages from the divine realm, and the consultation of oracles. People also sought to affect the gods' behavior to their own benefit through magical rituals (see "Magic" below).^[91]

Individual Egyptians also prayed to gods and gave them private offerings. Evidence of this type of personal piety is sparse before the New Kingdom. This is probably due to cultural restrictions on depiction of nonroyal religious activity, which relaxed during the Middle and New Kingdoms. Personal piety became still more prominent in the late New Kingdom, when it was believed that the gods intervened directly in individual lives, punishing wrongdoers and saving the pious from disaster.^[62] Official temples were important venues for private prayer and offering, even though their central activities were closed to laypeople. Egyptians frequently donated goods to be offered to the temple deity and objects inscribed with prayers to be placed in temple courts. Often they prayed in person before temple statues or in shrines set aside for their use.^[89] Yet in addition to temples, the populace also used separate local chapels, smaller but more accessible than the formal temples. These chapels were very numerous, and probably staffed by members of the community.^[92] Households, too, often had their own small shrines for offering to gods or deceased relatives.^[93]

The deities invoked in these situations differed somewhat from those at the center of state cults. Many of the important popular deities, such as the fertility goddess Taweret and the household protector Bes, had no temples of their own. However, many other gods, including Amun and Osiris, were very important in both popular and official religion.^[94] Some individuals might be particularly devoted to a single god. Often they favored deities affiliated with their own region, or with their role in life. The god Ptah, for instance, was particularly important in his cult center of Memphis, but as the patron of craftsmen he received the nationwide veneration of many in that occupation.^[95]

Magic

Main article: Heka

The word "magic" is used to translate the Egyptian term heka, which meant, as James P. Allen puts it, "the ability to make things happen by indirect means".^[96] Heka was believed to be a natural phenomenon, the force which was used to create the universe and which the gods employed to work their will. Humans could also use it, however, and magical practices were closely intertwined with religion. In fact, even the regular rituals performed in temples were counted as magic.^[97] Individuals also frequently employed magical techniques for personal purposes. Although these ends could be harmful to other people, no form of magic was considered inimical in itself. Instead, magic was seen primarily as a way for humans to prevent or overcome negative events.^[98]

Amulet in the shape of the Eye of Horus, a common magical symbol

Magic was closely associated with the priesthood. Because temple libraries contained numerous magical texts, great magical knowledge was ascribed to the lector priests who studied these texts. These priests often worked outside their temples, hiring out their magical services to laymen. Other professions also commonly employed magic as part of their work, including doctors, scorpion-charmers, and makers of magical amulets. It is also likely that the peasantry used simple magic for their own purposes, but because this magical knowledge would have been passed down orally, there is limited evidence of it.^[99]

Language was closely linked with heka, to such a degree that Thoth, the god of writing, was sometimes said to be the inventor of heka.^[100] Therefore, magic frequently involved written or spoken incantations, although these were usually accompanied by ritual actions. Often these rituals invoked the power of an appropriate deity to perform the desired action, using the power of heka to compel it to act. Sometimes this entailed casting the practitioner or subject of a ritual in the role of a character in mythology, thus inducing the god to act toward that person as it had in the myth. Rituals also employed sympathetic magic, using objects believed to have a magically significant resemblance to the subject of the rite. The Egyptians also commonly used objects believed to be imbued with heka of their own, such as the magically protective amulets worn in great numbers by ordinary Egyptians.^[101]

Funerary practices

Main article: Ancient Egyptian burial customs

Because it was considered necessary for the survival of the soul, preservation of the body was a central part of Egyptian funerary practices. Originally the Egyptians buried their dead in the desert, where the arid conditions mummified the body naturally. In the Early Dynastic Period, however, they began using tombs for greater protection, and the body was insulated from the desiccating effect of the sand and was subject to natural decay. Thus the Egyptians developed their elaborate embalming practices, in which the corpse was artificially desiccated and wrapped to be placed in its coffin.^[102]The quality of the process varied according to cost, however, and those who could not afford it were still buried in desert graves.^[103]

The Opening of the Mouth ceremony being performed before the tomb

Once the mummification process was complete, the mummy was carried from the deceased person's house to the tomb in a funeral procession that included his or her friends and relatives, along with a variety of priests. Before the burial, these priests performed several rituals, including the Opening of the mouth ceremony intended to restore the dead person's senses and give him or her the ability to receive offerings. Then the mummy was buried and the tomb sealed.^[104] Afterward, relatives or hired priests gave food offerings to the deceased in a nearby mortuary chapel at regular intervals. Over time, families inevitably neglected offerings to long-dead relatives, so most mortuary cults only lasted one or two generations.^[105] However, while the cult lasted, the living sometimes wrote letters asking deceased relatives for help, in the belief that the dead could affect the world of the living as the gods did.^[106]

The first Egyptian tombs were mastabas, rectangular brick structures where kings and nobles were entombed. Each of them contained a subterranean burial chamber and a separate, aboveground chapel for mortuary rituals. In the Old Kingdom the mastaba developed into the pyramid, which symbolized the primeval mound of Egyptian myth. Pyramids were reserved for royalty, and were accompanied by large mortuary temples sitting at their base. Middle Kingdom pharaohs continued to build pyramids, but the popularity of mastabas waned. Increasingly, commoners with sufficient means were buried in rock-cut tombs with separate mortuary chapels nearby, an approach which was less vulnerable to tomb robbery. By the beginning of the New Kingdom even the pharaohs were buried in such tombs, and they continued to be used until the decline of the religion itself.^[107]

Tombs could contain a great variety of other items, including statues of the deceased to serve as substitutes for the body in case it was damaged.^[108]Because it was believed that the deceased would have to do work in the afterlife, just as in life, burials often included small models of humans to do work in place of the deceased.^[109] The tombs of wealthier individuals could also contain furniture, clothing, and other everyday objects intended for use in the afterlife, along with amulets and other items intended to provide magical protection against the hazards of the spirit world.^[110] Further protection was provided by funerary texts included in the burial. The tomb walls also bore artwork, including images of the deceased eating food which were believed to allow him or her to magically receive sustenance even after the mortuary offerings had ceased.^[111]

History

Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods

Narmer, a Predynastic ruler, accompanied by men carrying the standards of various local gods

The beginnings of Egyptian religion extend into prehistory, and evidence for them comes only from the sparse and ambiguous archaeological record. Careful burials during the Predynastic period imply that the people of this time believed in some form of an afterlife. At the same time, animals were ritually buried, a practice which may reflect the development of zoomorphic deities like those found in the later religion.^[112]The evidence is less clear for gods in human form, and this type of deity may have emerged more slowly than those in animal shape. Each region of Egypt originally had its own patron deity, but it is likely that as these small communities conquered or absorbed each other, the god of the defeated area was either incorporated into the other god's mythology or entirely subsumed by it. This resulted in a complex pantheon in which some deities remained only locally important while others developed more universal significance.^[113][114] As the time changed and the shifting of the empires changed like the middle kingdom, new kingdom, and old kingdom, usually the religion followed stayed within the border of that territory.

The Early Dynastic period began with the unification of Egypt around 3000 BC. This event transformed Egyptian religion, as some deities rose to national importance and the cult of the divine pharaoh became the central focus of religious activity.^[115] Horus was identified with the king, and his cult center in the Upper Egyptian city of Nekhen was among the most important religious sites of the period. Another important center was Abydos, where the early rulers built large funerary complexes.^[116]

Old and Middle Kingdoms[edit]

During the Old Kingdom, the priesthoods of the major deities attempted to organize the complicated national pantheon into groups linked by their mythology and worshipped in a single cult center, such as the Ennead of Heliopolis which linked important deities such as Atum, Ra, Osiris, and Setin a single creation myth.^[117] Meanwhile, pyramids, accompanied by large mortuary temple complexes, replaced mastabas as the tombs of pharaohs. In contrast with the great size of the pyramid complexes, temples to gods remained comparatively small, suggesting that official religion in this period emphasized the cult of the divine king more than the direct worship of deities. The funerary rituals and architecture of this time greatly influenced the more elaborate temples and rituals used in worshipping the gods in later periods.^[118]

The pyramid complex of Djedkare Isesi

Early in the Old Kingdom, Ra grew in influence, and his cult center at Heliopolis became the nation's most important religious site.^[119] By the Fifth Dynasty, Ra was the most prominent god in Egypt, and had developed the close links with kingship and the afterlife that he retained for the rest of Egyptian history.^[120]Around the same time, Osiris became an important afterlife deity. The Pyramid Texts, first written at this time, reflect the prominence of the solar and Osirian concepts of the afterlife, although they also contain remnants of much older traditions.^[121] Therefore the texts are an extremely important source for understanding early Egyptian theology.^[122]

In the 22nd century BC, the Old Kingdom collapsed into the disorder of the First Intermediate Period, with important consequences for Egyptian religion. Old Kingdom officials had already begun to adopt the funerary rites originally reserved for royalty,^[42] but now, less rigid barriers between social classes meant that these practices and the accompanying beliefs gradually extended to all Egyptians, a process called the "democratization of the afterlife".^[123] The Osirian view of the afterlife had the greatest appeal to commoners, and thus Osiris became one of the most important gods.^[124]

Eventually rulers from Thebes reunified the Egyptian nation in the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BC). These Theban pharaohs initially promoted their patron god Monthu to national importance, but during the Middle Kingdom he was eclipsed by the rising popularity of Amun.^[125] In this new Egyptian state, personal piety grew more important and was expressed more freely in writing, a trend which continued in the New Kingdom.^[37]

New Kingdom[edit]

The Middle Kingdom crumbled in the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1650–1550 BC), but the country was again reunited by Theban rulers, who became the first pharaohs of the New Kingdom. Under the new regime, Amun became the supreme state god. He was syncretized with Ra, the long-established patron of kingship, and his temple at Karnak in Thebes became Egypt's most important religious center. Amun's elevation was partly due to the great importance of Thebes, but it was also due to the increasingly professional priesthood. Their sophisticated theological discussion produced detailed descriptions of Amun's universal power.^[126][127]

Increased contact with outside peoples in this period led to the adoption of many Near Eastern deities into the pantheon. At the same time, the subjugated Nubians absorbed Egyptian religious beliefs, and in particular, adopted Amun as their own.^[128]

Akhenaten and his family worshipping the Aten

The New Kingdom religious order was disrupted when Akhenaten acceded, and replaced Amun with the Aten as the state god. Eventually he eliminated the official worship of most other gods, and moved Egypt's capital to a new city at Amarna, for which this part of Egyptian history, the Amarna period, is named. In doing so Akhenaten claimed unprecedented status for himself: only he could worship the Aten, and the populace directed their worship toward him. The Atenist system lacked well-developed mythology and afterlife beliefs, and the Aten itself seemed distant and impersonal, so the new order did not appeal to ordinary Egyptians.^[129] Thus, many of them probably continued to worship the traditional gods in private. Nevertheless, the withdrawal of state support for the other deities severely disrupted Egyptian society.^[130]Akhenaten's successors therefore restored the traditional religious system, and eventually they dismantled all Atenist monuments.^[131]

Before the Amarna period, popular religion had trended toward more personal relationships between the gods and their worshippers. Akhenaten's changes had reversed this trend, but once the traditional religion was restored, there was a backlash. The populace began to believe that the gods were much more directly involved in daily life. Amun, the supreme god, was increasingly seen as the final arbiter of human destiny, the true ruler of Egypt. The pharaoh was correspondingly more human and less divine. The importance of oracles as a means of decision-making grew, as did the wealth and influence of the oracles' interpreters, the priesthood. These trends undermined the traditional structure of society and contributed to the breakdown of the New Kingdom.^[132][133]

Later periods[edit]

In the 1st millennium BC, Egypt was significantly weaker than in earlier times, and in several periods foreigners seized the country and assumed the position of pharaoh. The importance of the pharaoh continued to decline, and the emphasis on popular piety continued to increase. Animal cults, a characteristically Egyptian form of worship, became increasingly popular in this period, possibly as a response to the uncertainty and foreign influence of the time.^[134] Isis grew more popular as a goddess of protection, magic, and personal salvation, and became the most important goddess in Egypt.^[135]

Serapis

In the 4th century BC, Egypt became a Hellenistic kingdom under the Ptolemaic dynasty (305–30 BC), which assumed the pharaonic role, maintaining the traditional religion and building or rebuilding many temples. The kingdom's Greek ruling class identified the Egyptian deities with their own.^[136] From this cross-cultural syncretism emerged Serapis, a god who combined Osiris and Apis with characteristics of Greek deities, and who became very popular among the Greek population. Nevertheless, for the most part the two belief systems remained separate, and the Egyptian deities remained Egyptian.^[137]

Ptolemaic-era beliefs changed little after Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire in 30 BC, with the Ptolemaic kings replaced by distant emperors.^[136] The cult of Isis appealed even to Greeks and Romans outside Egypt, and in Hellenized form it spread across the empire.^[138] In Egypt itself, as the empire weakened, official temples fell into decay, and without their centralizing influence religious practice became fragmented and localized. Meanwhile, Christianity spread across Egypt, and in the third and fourth centuries AD, edicts by Christian emperors and iconoclasm by local Christians eroded traditional beliefs. While it persisted among the populace for some time, Egyptian religion slowly faded away.^[139]

Legacy[edit]

Altar to Thoth of a Kemetic follower.

Egyptian religion produced the temples and tombs which are ancient Egypt's most enduring monuments, but it also left many influences on other cultures. In pharaonic times many of its symbols, such as the sphinx andwinged solar disk, spread widely across the Mediterranean and Near East, as did some of its deities, such asBes. Some of these connections are difficult to trace. The Greek concept of Elysium may have derived from the Egyptian vision of the afterlife.^[140] In late antiquity, the Christian conception of Hell was most likely influenced by some of the imagery of the Duat, and the iconography of Mary may have been influenced by that of Isis. Egyptian beliefs also influenced or gave rise to several esoteric belief systems developed by Greeks and Romans who saw Egypt as a source of mystic wisdom. Hermeticism, for instance, derived from the tradition of secret magical knowledge associated with Thoth.^[141]

Traces of ancient beliefs remained in Egyptian folk traditions into modern times, but its impact on modern societies greatly increased with the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria in 1798. As a result of it, Westerners began to study Egyptian beliefs firsthand, and Egyptian religious motifs were adopted into Western art.^[142][143] Egyptian religion has since had a significant impact on popular culture. Due to continued interest in Egyptian belief, in the late 20th century several new religious groups formed based on different reconstructions of ancient Egyptian religion.^[144]

See also[edit]

• List of Egyptian mythology topics
• Egyptian pantheon
• Kemetism
• Prehistoric religion
• Religions of the Ancient Near East
• Traditional African religion

References[edit]

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Bibliography[edit]

• Allen, James P (2000). Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-77483-7.
• Assmann, Jan (2001) [1984]. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt. Lorton, David transl. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8729-3.
• ——— (2005) [2001]. Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt. Lorton, David transl. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-4241-9.
• David, Rosalie (2002). Religion and Magic in Ancient Egypt. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-026252-0.
• Dunand, Françoise; Zivie-Coche, Christiane (2005). Gods and Men in Egypt: 3000 BCE to 395 CE. Lorton, David transl. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8853-2.
• Fleming, Fergus; Lothian, Alan (1997). The Way to Eternity: Egyptian Myth. Amsterdam: Duncan Baird. ISBN 0-7054-3503-2.
• Foster, John L (2001), Lyric in Redford 2001, vol. II, pp. 312–17.
• Frankfurter, David (1998). Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-07054-7.
• Hornung, Erik (1999). The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife. Lorton, David transl. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8515-0.
• ——— (2001). The Secret Lore of Egypt: Its Impact on the West. Lorton, David transl. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-3847-0.
• Lesko, Leonard H (1991), Ancient Egyptian Cosmogonies and Cosmology in Shafer & 1991 pp. 117–21.
• Malek, Jaromir (2000), The Old Kingdom, in Shaw 2000, pp. 92–93, 108–9.
• Melton, J. Gordon (2009). Encyclopedia of American Religions (8th ed.). Gale Cengage Learning. ISBN 0-7876-9696-X.
• Peacock, David (2000), The Roman Period, in Shaw 2000, pp. 437–38.
• Pinch, Geraldine (1995). Magic in Ancient Egypt. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-76559-2.
• Quirke, Stephen; Spencer, Jeffrey (1992). The British Museum Book of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27902-0.
• Redford, Donald B, ed. (2001). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-510234-7.
• Sadek, Ashraf Iskander (1988). Popular Religion in Egypt during the New Kingdom. Hildesheim. ISBN 3-8067-8107-9.
• Shafer, Byron E, ed. (1991). Religion in Ancient Egypt: Gods, Myths, and Personal Practice. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-9786-8.
• Shafer, Byron E, ed. (1997). Temples of Ancient Egypt. IB Tauris. ISBN 1-85043-945-1.
• Shaw, Ian, ed. (2000). The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-815034-2.
• Silverman, David P (1991), Divinity and Deities in Ancient Egypt in Shafer 1991, pp. 55–58.
• Simpson, William Kelly, ed. (1989). Religion and Philosophy in Ancient Egypt. Yale Egyptological Seminar. ISBN 0-912532-18-1.
• Taylor, John (2001). Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-79164-5.
• Teeter, Emily (2001), Cults: Divine Cults in Redford 2001, vol. I, pp. 340–44.
• Tobin, Vincent Arieh, Myths: An Overview, in Redford 2001, vol. II, pp. 464–68.
• Traunecker, Claude (2001) [1992]. The Gods of Egypt. Lorton, David transl. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-3834-9.
• Van Dijk, Jacobus (2000), The Amarna Period and the Later New Kingdom in Shaw 2000, pp. 311–12.
• Wilkinson, Richard H (2000). The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05100-3.
• ——— (2003). The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05120-8.

Further reading[edit]

• Budge, EA Wallis (August 1, 1991), Egyptian Religion: Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life, Library of the Mystic Arts, Citadel, ISBN 0-8065-1229-6.
• Clarysse, Willy; Schoors, Antoon; Willems, Harco; Quaegebeur, Jan (1998), Egyptian Religion: The Last Thousand Years: Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Jan Quaegebeur, Peeters, ISBN 90-429-0669-3.
• Harris, Geraldine; Sibbick, John; O'Connor, David (1992), Gods and Pharaohs from Egyptian Mythology, Bedrick, ISBN 0-87226-907-8.
• Hart, George (1997), Egyptian Myths, Legendary Past, University of Texas Press, ISBN 0-292-72076-9.
• Bilolo, Mubabinge (2004) [Kinshasa-Munich 1987], Les cosmo-théologies philosophiques d'Héliopolis et d'Hermopolis. Essai de thématisation et de systématisation, Academy of African Thought (in French) 2, Munich-Paris, sec I.
• ——— (2003) [Kinshasa-Munich, 1986], Les cosmo-théologies philosophiques de l’Égypte Antique. Problématique, prémisses herméneutiques et problèmes majeurs, Academy of African Thought (in French) 1, Munich-Paris, sec I.
• ——— (2003) [Kinshasa-Munich 1995], Métaphysique Pharaonique IIIème millénaire av. J.-C., Academy of African Thought (in French) 4, Munich-Paris: C.A. Diop-Center for Egyptological Studies-INADEP, sec I.
• ——— (2004) [Kinshasa-Munich 1988], Le Créateur et la Création dans la pensée memphite et amarnienne. Approche synoptique du Document Philosophique de Memphis et du Grand Hymne Théologique d'Echnaton, Academy of African Thought (in French) 2, Munich-Paris, sec I.
• Pinch, Geraldine (2004), Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-517024-5.
• Schulz, R; Seidel, M (1998), Egypt: The World of the Pharaohs, Cologne: Könemann, ISBN 3-89508-913-3.

External links[edit]

• Budge, EA Wallis, Legends of the Gods: readable HTML book with images and footnotes
• Egyptian Gods.
• "Ideology and Belief in Ancient Egypt", Digital Egypt, UK: UCL.
• "Ancient Egypt", The Internet Sacred Text Archive.
• Religion in the Lives of the Ancient Egyptians, U Chicago.

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v  t  e Religion Major groups Abrahamic Bahá'í Faith  Christianity  Anglicanism  Catholicism  Old Catholicism  Independent Catholicism  Church of the East Eastern Orthodoxy  Oriental Orthodoxy  Protestantism    Druze  Islam  Sunni  Shia  Sufi  Ahmadiyya  Quraniyoon  NOI  Judaism  Conservative  Ethiopian  Karaite  Orthodoxy  Reformist    Mandaeism  Rastafari  Samaritanism Indian Buddhism  Theravada  Mahayana  Vajrayana    Hinduism  Ayyavazhi  Brahmoism  Ganapatya  Kaumaram Ravidassia religion  Shaktism  Shaivism  Lingayatism    Smartism  Vaishnavism  Gaudiya Vaishnavism      Jainism Digambara  Śvētāmbara    Sikhism Indo-European Asia: Armenian Hetanism  Ætsæg Din (Ossetian)  Zoroastrian  Parsi  Irani  Yazidi    Europe: Hellenic reconstructionism Roman reconstructionism  Celtic reconstructionism  Druidry  Wicca  Germanic Heathenism  Odinism Baltic reconstructionism  Dievturība  Druwi  Romuva    Slavic reconstructionism (Rodnovery)  Slavic Vedism  Zalmoxianism East Asian Confucianism  Shinto  Taoism  Zen  Hòa Hảo  Cao Đài  Muism  Mo Recent Cheondoism  Discordianism  Druidry  Eckankar  I-Kuan Tao  Moralism  Mormonism  Neopaganism  New Age New Thought  Raëlism  Scientology  Seicho-no-Ie  Stregheria  Tenrikyo  Thelema  Unitarian Universalism Indigenous African  Afro-American  Indigenous Australian  Chinese  Finnish-Estonian  Gurung  Javanese  Lepcha (Mun) Native American  Philippine  Tibetan (Bön)  Polynesian Ancient religions Prehistoric Paleolithic Near East Egyptian  Mesopotamian  Semitic Indo-European Asia: Proto-Indo-Iranian  Armenian  Ossetian  Zoroastrianism  Mazdak  Mithraism  Zurvanism    Europe: Celtic  Germanic Anglo-Saxon  Continental  Norse    Greek  Gnosticism  Neoplatonism    Manichaeism  Paleo-Balkan  Roman  Slavic  Vedic Aspects Apostasy / Disaffiliation  Behaviour  Beliefs  Clergy  Conversion  Deities  Entheogens  Denomination  Faith  Fire  God  Meditation  Monasticism monk  nun    Mysticism  Mythology  Nature  Ordination  Orthodoxy  Orthopraxy  Prayer  Ritual  liturgy  sacrifice    Spirituality  Supernatural Symbols  Truth  Water  Worship Theism Animism  Deism  Monotheism  Nontheism  Panentheism  Pantheism  Polytheism  Transtheism Religious studies Anthropology  Comparative  Development  Evolutionary origin  Evolutionary psychology  History  History of Religion  Philosophy  Neurotheology Psychology  Sociology  Theology  Theories  Women Religion and society Agriculture  Business  Clergy  Monasticism  Ordination    Conversion  Evangelism  Missionary  Proselytism    Education  Fanaticism  Freedom Pluralism  Syncretism  Toleration  Universalism    Fundamentalism  Growth  Happiness  Homosexuality  Minorities  National church National religiosity levels  Political science  Populations  Schism  Science  State  Theocracy  Vegetarianism  Violence  Persecution  Terrorism War    Wealth Secularism and irreligion Antireligion  Deism  Agnosticism  Atheism  Criticism  LaVeyan Satanism  Deconstruction  Humanistic Judaism  Irreligion by country  Objectivism Secular humanism  Secular theology  Secularization  Separation of church and state  Unaffiliated Lists Index  Outline  Timeline  Abrahamic prophets  Deification  Deities  Founders  Mass gatherings  New religious movements  Organizations Religions and spiritual traditions  Scholars Category  Portal

v  t  e Paganism (Historical polytheism and Modern paganism) Main concepts Animism  Pantheism  Polytheism  Shamanism Historical polytheism Altaic: Japanese  Korean  Tungusic  Turko-Mongol  Ancient Near Eastern: Assyro-Babylonian  Egyptian  Semitic Indo-European: Armenian  Celtic  Chechen-Ingush  Germanic  West Germanic paganism  Anglo-Saxon paganism  Norse paganism  Greek  Hero cult  Eleusinian Mysteries    Roman  Scythian  Slavic  Vedic  Finno-Ugric (Uralic): Finnish-Estonian Mesoamerican: Aztec  Maya  Olmec Folk religion Chinese  Christian  Eurasian Shamanism  Hindu  Folk Islam  Japanese  Native American  Pacific Myth and ritual Ancestor reverence  Animal worship  Ethos  Folklore  Magic and religion  Myth and ritual  Mythology  Orthopraxy Religion and mythology  Ritual  Sacrifice  Animal  Human    Sorcery  Totem  Virtue  Witchcraft Christianization Christianity and Paganism  Christianisation of saints and feasts  Constantinian shift  Hellenistic religion  Iconoclasm  Neoplatonism Religio licita  Roman imperial cult  Virtuous pagan Modern Pagan movements Ethnic/Reconstructionist: Armenian  Baltic  Dievturi  Druwi  Romuva    Canarian  Caucasian  Abkhaz  Circassian    Celtic  Chuvash Germanic  Hellenic  Hungarian  Italo-Roman  Kemetic  Ossetian  Romanian  Semitic  Slavic  Uralic  Estonian  Finnish  Mari  Mordvin Udmurt    Contemporary Witchcraft: Cochranianism  Feri  Stregheria  Wicca  Neo-Druidism European Congress of Ethnic Religions  Goddess movement