Climate and Geography as Basis for Religion
Akhenaten, first believer in One God
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The Egyptian had a sense of cosmic order, a sense of the changelessness of the universe. "For them changelessness was the only real and unchangeable truth. The periodicity of the sun in its ride across the sky each day and the faithfulness of the Nile in its annual flood gave the Egyptian feeling of cosmic inevitability. What gives Egypt more archaeological importance than another ancient civilization is the massive solidity and indestructibility of its pyramids and tombs . . . Egyptians exalted in the physical life and the individual personality, both in the present world and in the next"(Bratton 20).
Religion was practical -- a reverence for the two natural forces that made their life possible: the sun and the river. There was the dualism of light and darkness, aridity and fertility, night and day, life and death.
Old Kingdom (C. 2658-2150 B. C., Dynasties Three, Four, Five, and Six) Dynasties sun god: Re or Ra. Re was sometimes associated with Horus to produce the hybrid, Re-Horakhty, a man with Horus's falcon head.
New Kingdom (c. 1550-1295 B. C., Dynasties Eighteen, Nineteen, and Twenty), also worshipped Amun or Amen, an originally obscure local god of Upper Egypt . He is usually depicted with a kilt and a head-dress of two tall plumes. He became linked with Re: Amen-Re
Atum, the creator who spit or masturbated and propagated with his seed
Shu, god of air and supporter of the heavens and
Tefnut, wife/sister of Shu. Together they propagated all other gods, their son
Geb, earth god, and his wife/sister,
Nut, goddess of the sky. These two created
Osiris, Seth, Isis, and Nephthys
Osiris "was usually shown in the form of a mummy, arms crossed over his chest, holding the crook and flail, symbols of Egyptian kingship" (Weeks 258). He could have been a god imported from Western Asia. "From [his] ancestors, Osiris had inherited the title of king of Egypt, and he taught the foundations of civilization to his subjects" (258). Osiris had a brother, Seth, who was his opposite. Seth murdered his brother, Osiris, out of jealousy, hacked up his body and scattered the pieces throughout Egypt. Isis, Osiris's sister/wife, gathered up the parts and briefly restored him to life, long enough to have sexual intercourse. Nine months later Isis had Horus.
Osiris traveled to the Afterlife and became ruler. "Isis enabled Osiris to complete a cycle of life, death, and rebirth -- the same cycle of life, death, and resurrection that Osiris symbolically offered to human beings" (Weeks 259).
Thus, "the annual cycle of death and birth in nature was personified in the death and resurrection of Osiris. To celebrate the resurrection of Osiris, an annual Passion Play was held at Abydos. Here the burial of the god was reenacted and his death was mourned with great drama. Then the stones were removed from the tomb and the people shouted, 'The Lord is risen!' In this rebirth of Osiris the people saw their own triumph over death. The risen Osiris entered his realm as the king and judge of the dead" (Bratton).
Horus succeeds his father as king of Egypt. Every pharaoh believed himself to be the living manifestation of Horus. Then, at death, pharaohs journey to the underworld to become Osiris (Weeks 259).
At the beginnings of Egyptian history -- Old Kingdom, First Dynasty, Menes, the first king (c. 3110-3056 BCE) -- was associated with the god Horus, a principal element in the myth of divine kingship. Since all but one king of Egypt is known to have been identified with the title 'Horus,' this myth is early and may have contributed to the stability of Egypt (Encylopedia of Religion).
In the third and fourth dynasties the great pyramids are the symbols of royal power as well as divine power, either of the Horus-king or of his new father, the sun god, Re. The pyramid shape is associated with the sun's rays and point to a developing solar cult. In the second half of the Old kingdom, the firth and sixth dynasties, the importance of the cult of Re is well documented. The Pyramid Texts are first recorded in the interior burial rooms of the pyramid of Unas, the last king of the fifth dynasty. They have the king ascending on the wings or backs of birds, on the incense wafting upward, on reed rafts, or on the outstretched arms of gods forming a ladder for him. On entering the tomb the king is till addressed as Horus; on ascension to the sky he is called Osiris. In the so-called cannibal hymn, he devours gods to acquire their attributes. He protests his guiltlessness and claims his divinity. In these texts the kings genealogy is traced back to the gods of the Ennead. In the form this geneaolgy survives the Ennead is subordinated to Re, placed before Atum as his creator, so Re is also the father of Horus just as surely as Osiris and Isis. (Encylopedia of Religion)
In the fifth dynasty society became more open and non-royal members of an elite class were buried (in tombs not pyramids) with some Pyramid Texts, so apparently the afterlife was extended to more people and was not just reserved for the king. (Encylopedia of Religion)
The Pyramid Texts, later became the Coffin Texts, and finally in the New Kingdom The Book of the Coming Forth by Day or "The Book of the Dead. The Book of the Dead has 189 different magic spells that guide the dead safely to the afterlife. The last spell was for preventing a man from going upside down and from eating faeces. "It was the guidebook for the deceased and contained the requirements for entrance into the realm of Osiris together with magic formulae that would assist the soul in its passage. Upon entering the Hall of Truth, the deceased must testify that he has consciously done no wrong. If he satisfied the God of Truth on moral grounds, he enters the judgment hall where his heart is weighted on a scale over against a feather, the symbol of righteousness. If they balance, he is received into the kingdom of Osiris. It is important that these judgment scenes exhibit a distinct moral quality. The idea that each individual bears a definite moral responsibility exerted a profound influence upon the common people as the Osirian faith became the religion of the masses. A man had to prove his worthiness of eternal life by the way he lived on earth. Through the worship of Osiris, moral goodness became a paramount consideration."(Bratton 27-28)
"The worship of Ra,[or Re] the sun-god, was more aristocratic since it had originally been the religion of kings. . . . Some of the early Pyramid Texts refer to the pyramid as 'a staircase to heaven' and 'a place of ascension'. There can be no doubt that the pyramid, whose apex was the first object in all the land to catch the sun's rays each morning, was associated with the solar faith.
Amenhotep III became interested in an obscure god, the Aten, whose name means 'the disc, and who since the middle Kingdom had been recognized as a physical manifestation of the sun god Re and as a symbol of divinity closely affiliated with the king. The Aten or Aton was respresented either by a winged sun disc or by a hawk-headed god. Amenhotep's son, Amenhotep IV, renamed himself Akhenaton and set up a new capital at Amarna dedicated to the worship of Aton. Akenaton tried to stamp out the religion of Amun. (Tyldesley 69)
"For a period of twenty-five or thirty years there was an interruption in the traditional priestly religion of Egypt. . . It was the religious revolution of Amunhotep IV who , in order to symbolize his worship of a new god, called himself [Akhenaton]. . . . . [Akhenaton] instituted a monotheistic religion. . . . He recognized the vast creative force of the sun as a symbol of deity. Aton was the source of all energy, the primal power behind all things, a formless essence, an intelligence permeating the universe. This was man's first attempt to define God in intangible terms and idealistic qualities." (Bratton 28-29)
The object of Akhenaton's worship was the light of the sun, rather than the sun itself (Tyldesley 73)
Bratton, F. Gladstone. A History of Egyptian Archaeology. London: Robert Hale, 1967.
The Encylopedia of Religion. "Egyptian Religion." ed. Mircea Eliade. 16 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1987.
Tyldesley, Joyce. Nefertiti. London: Penguin, 1999.
Weeks, Kent R. The Lost Tomb. New York: William Morrow, 1998.
