Scope: In this lecture, we will try to understand how the ancient Egyptians thought. We will use three concepts to delineate different kinds of thinking: mythology, religion, and philosophy. By the end of this lecture, the student should understand the differences among these concepts and see how they played a role in the life of the ancient Egyptians.
Outline
I. Mythology, religion, and philosophy try to answer nonempirical questions—the “big” ones that science can’t answer.
A. Is there life after death?
B. How did the universe begin (before the Big Bang)?
C. Is there a God?
II. 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. The basic Egyptian myth described the primordial eight gods—the Ogdoad—in the primordial waters. These gods came in pairs.
1. Hok and Hoket represent formlessness.
2. Kuk and Kuket are darkness.
3. Amun and Amunet are hiddenness.
4. Nun and Nunet are the primordial waters.
5. Together, the eight gods represent Chaos and are often depicted with the heads of frogs.
6. The primordial hill rises out of these waters.
7. Atum, a god, stood on that hill. He created himself, then generated the other gods.
B. The Ennead added an additional nine elemental Egyptian gods. This is quite different from Genesis and the four basic elements of the Greeks.
1. Atum’s children were Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture).
2. Shu and Tefnut begat Geb (earth) and Nut (sky).
3. Geb and Nut give birth to two pairs, each of them sister and brother and wife and husband: Isis and Osiris and Seth and Nephthys. Although Seth is evil, the three others are elementally good.
C. Isis and Osiris were central to the Egyptian belief in life after death.
1. Isis and Osiris descend to earth to civilize Egypt. While Osiris goes to teach the rest of the world how to be civilized, Isis keeps her evil brother Seth in check.
2. Seth tricks Osiris into climbing into what will become his coffin, nails the coffin shut, then throws it in the Nile. After Osiris dies, Isis journeys to Byblos to recover her husband’s body and returns to Egypt to bury it properly.
3. Seth finds the body of Osiris and hacks it into thirteen pieces, scattering them over the Nile. Isis and Nephthys find all the pieces except the phallus and reassemble Osiris. Isis breathes life into her husband, and he is resurrected—the first person to resurrect, the first “mummy.”
4. 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.
5. Isis gives birth to Horus, who defeats his Uncle Seth in battle. Horus loses his eye in the struggle, which is magically regenerated.
6. Seth, however, doesn’t die: evil will always be with us.
III. 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.
IV. Philosophy deals with the same questions as religion does.
A. Unlike religion, however, philosophy requires a proof based on logic.
B. 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.
C. Did the universe have no beginning, or did it begin from nothing?
1. Such philosophical questions are important, but whether the Egyptians “did” philosophy per se is not revealed to us in their documents.
2. Could such an advanced civilization have been ignorant of philosophy? Perhaps they simply refused to commit it to papyrus.
Essential Reading:
Erik Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt.
Supplementary Reading:
Sigfried Morenz, Egyptian Religion.
Questions to Consider:
1. How do religion, mythology, and philosophy differ?
2. Did the Egyptians do “philosophy”