Author: John Baines
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801497865
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Lectures given at a symposium held in 1987, sponsored by Fordham University.

Author: Rosalie David
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141941383
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
The ancient Egyptians believed that the Nile - their life source - was a divine gift. Religion and magic permeated their civilization, and this book provides a unique insight into their religious beliefs and practices, from 5000 BC to the 4th century AD, when Egyptian Christianity replaced the earlier customs. Arranged chronologically, this book provides a fascinating introduction to the world of half-human/ half-animal gods and goddesses; death rituals, the afterlife and mummification; the cult of sacred animals, pyramids, magic and medicine. An appendix contains translations of Ancient Eygtian spells.

Author: Stephen Quirke
Publisher: Dover Publications
ISBN: 9780486274270
Category : Egypt
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description

Author: W.M. flinders Petrie
Publisher: DTTV PUBLICATIONS
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 76

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Book Description
Before dealing with the special varieties of the Egyptians' belief in gods, it is best to try to avoid a misunderstanding of their whole conception of the supernatural. The term god has come to tacitly imply to our minds such a highly specialized group of attributes, that we can hardly throw our ideas back into the more remote conceptions to which we also attach the same name. It is unfortunate that every other word for supernatural intelligence has become debased so that we cannot well speak of demons, devils, ghosts, or fairies without implying a noxious or a trifling meaning, quite unsuited to the ancient deities that were so beneficent and powerful. If then we use the word god for such conceptions, it must always be with the reservation that the word has now a vastly different meaning from what it had to ancient minds.To the Egyptians the gods might be mortal; even Ra, the sun-god, is said to have grown old and feeble, Osiris was slain, and Orion, the great hunter of the heavens, killed and ate the gods. The mortality of gods has been dwelt on by Dr. Frazer (Golden Bough), and the many instances of tombs of gods, and of the slaying of the deified man who was worshipped, all show that immortality was not a divine attribute. Nor was there any doubt that they might suffer while alive; one myth tells how Ra, as he walked on earth, was bitten by a magic serpent and suffered torments. The gods were also supposed to share in a life like that of man, not only in Egypt but in most ancient lands. Offerings of food and drink were constantly supplied to them, in Egypt laid upon the altars, in other lands burnt for a sweet savor. At Thebes, the divine wife of the god, or high priestess, was the head of the harem of concubines of the god; and similarly, in Babylonia, the chamber of the god with the golden couch could only be visited by the priestess who slept there for oracular responses. The Egyptian gods could not be cognisant of what passed on earth without being informed, nor could they reveal their will at a distant place except by sending a messenger; they were as limited as the Greek gods who required the aid of Iris to communicate one with another or with mankind. The gods, therefore, have no divine superiority to the man in conditions or limitations; they can only be described as pre-existent, acting intelligence, with scarcely greater powers than a man might hope to gain by magic or witchcraft of his own. This conception explains how easily the divine merged into the human in Greek theology, and how frequently divine ancestors occurred in family histories. (By the word 'theology' is designated the knowledge about gods.)

Author: Emily Teeter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521848555
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
This book is a vivid reconstruction of ancient Egyptian religious rituals that were enacted in temples, tombs, and private homes.

Author: Stephen Quirke
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118610520
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Exploring Religion in Ancient Egypt offers a stimulatingoverview of the study of ancient Egyptian religion by examiningresearch drawn from beyond the customary boundaries of Egyptologyand shedding new light on entrenched assumptions. Discusses the evolution of religion in ancient Egypt – abelief system that endured for 3,000 years Dispels several modern preconceptions about ancient Egyptianreligious practices Reveals how people in ancient Egypt struggled to securewell-being in the present life and the afterlife

Author: Leslie C. Kaplan
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
ISBN: 9780823989324
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 28

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Book Description
Looks at the different gods the Egyptians worshiped, how their changing political systems impacted religion, and how Egyptians' idea of the afterlife is reflected in their art.

Author: Georg Steindorff
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Egypt
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description

Author: Alfred Wiedemann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Egypt
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description

Author: Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1613106092
Category : Egypt
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
A study of ancient Egyptian religious texts will convince the reader that the Egyptians believed in One God, who was self-existent, immortal, invisible, eternal, omniscient, almighty, and inscrutable; the maker of the heavens, earth, and underworld; the creator of the sky and the sea, men and women, animals and birds, fish and creeping things, trees and plants, and the incorporeal beings who were the messengers that fulfilled his wish and word. It is necessary to place this definition of the first part of the belief of the Egyptian at the beginning of the first chapter of this brief account of the principal religious ideas which he held, for the whole of his theology and religion was based upon it; and it is also necessary to add that, however far back we follow his literature, we never seem to approach a time when he was without this remarkable belief. It is true that he also developed polytheistic ideas and beliefs, and that he cultivated them at certain periods of his history with diligence, and to such a degree that the nations around, and even the stranger in his country, were misled by his actions, and described him as a polytheistic idolater. But notwithstanding all such departures from observances, the keeping of which befitted those who believed in God and his unity, this sublime idea was never lost sight of; on the contrary, it is reproduced in the religious literature of all periods. Whence came this remarkable characteristic of the Egyptian religion no man can say, and there is no evidence whatsoever to guide us in formulating the theory that it was brought into Egypt by immigrants from the East, as some have said, or that it was a natural product of the indigenous peoples who formed the population of the valley of the Nile some ten thousand years ago, according to the opinion of others. All that is known is that it existed there at a period so remote that it is useless to attempt to measure by years the interval of time which has elapsed since it grew up and established itself in the minds of men, and that it is exceedingly doubtful if we shall ever have any very definite knowledge on this interesting point.