Egyptian religion

This paper argues that the reception of the cult of Isis in Rome from the Late Republic to the Flavian dynasty was strongly dependent on the changing nature of Roman government which was in transition from a senatorial to an imperial model. Despite the Senate’s hostility toward the clearly popular cult of Isis it was able to successfully maintain its foothold within Rome for over a century until the accession of a sympathetic rulership, facilitated the formation of a symbiotic relationship which was to the benefit of both the imperial family and the cult.

The 2018 US State Department Ministerial on International Religious Freedom sponsored by the United States Government put forth the thesis that religious minorities benefit the majority population, and  therefore, religious pluralism is a benefit to all countries and societies.  The Valuable Girl Project proves that thesis.  From the garbage slums of Cairo to into Upper Egypt, Valuable Girl Project provides evidence of the measurable impact of Religious Freedom and the work of religious minorities for the benefit of all.  The Valuable Girl Project is a program via the NGO, Coptic Orphans that equally benefits Muslim and Coptic young women and girls in Egypt.  Thereby, enabling the possibility of a better and stronger future for Egypt.

Prologue;
Amen is the name of the one true God, the Pantocrator

"I am the one, only Deity,
I Begot myself by my will,
Like me there is no other." Divinity pronounced, Tomb of Unas (5th dynasty),
Translated by Prof. Wasim Al-Sissy

Amen in the Oxford/Cambridge New English Bible translation, 1970
"Whoever invokes a blessing (on himself) in the land    
  shall do so by the name of the  faithful God (whose name is Amen);
whoever takes an oath in the land    
  will swear by of the faithful God  (of Amen).
For the past troubles will be forgot ten    
  and hidden from my eyes (sight)." - Isaiah 65:16, OxCam NEB
https://www.academia.edu/10198847/Joining_in_Invocation_of_eternal_Blessings_by_the_God_whose_name_is_Amen_the_Lord_of_truth_Who_comes_at_the_voice_of_the_poor_in_distress

Hymn to Amen
“The Hymn to Amun decreed that ‘No god came into being before him (Amun)’ and that ‘All gods are three: Amun, Re and Ptah, and there is no second to them. Hidden is his name as Amon, he is Re in face, and his body is Ptah.’ . . . This is a statement of trinity, the three chief gods of Egypt subsumed into one of them, Amon. Clearly, the concept of organic unity within plurality got an extraordinary boost with this formulation. Theologically, in a crude form it came strikingly close to the later Christian form of plural Trinitarian monotheism” -- Simson Najovits, Egypt, Trunk of the Tree, 
(Vol. 2, 2004, pp. 83-84). 
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Prologue
While the majority of the Christian world agree with Jaroslav Pelikan’s thesis that to be a part of the universal church in its broadest sense one has to believe in the Holy Trinity, as many Bible scholars agree that the Trinity in Christianity owes more to Ancient Egyptian religion, that is anchored on the firm core of eternal life where there is no death but a passing into eternity.  Many Christians, who believe in the Trinity are surprised, some are shocked, to discover that the Concept of divine Triads, Osiris, Isis and Horus well predated Christianity. Blatant evidence in ancient Egypt is available ! 

Historical Background
Records of early Mediterranean civilizations show a poly-theistic religion, though some religion scholars, excluding Belah, think that earliest man was monotheistic. Alexander Hislop (1807-1865) devotes several chapters of his book 'The two Babylons to showing how this original belief in one God was replaced by the triads of Ancient Egyptians, and were eventually adopted by Origen into  dogmas of Alexandrian Church. Further, it is observed that, in some mystical way, the triad of three persons is one. In fact, they are each other, one and the same Personal being. 

Erick Hornung, An Egyptologist, refutes the original monotheism of Egypt: "Monotheism is . . . a phenomenon restricted to the wisdom texts," dated between 2600 and 2530 BC. Yet, there is no question that ancient man believed in a "sole and omnipotent Deity who created all things" (Hislop, 14) at one time; and in a multitude of gods at a later point. Nor is there any doubt that the most common grouping of gods was a triad; usually Father, Mother, and Child. Egyptologist Arthur Weigall, while himself a Trinitarian, summed up the influence of ancient beliefs on the adoption of the Trinity doctrine by the Universal Church.

In his Egyptian Myths, George Hart says how Egypt also believed in a "transcendental, above creation, and preexisting" one, the god Amun. Amun was really three gods in one. Re was his face; Ptah his body; and Amun his hidden identity. The well-known historian Will Durant concurs: "In later days Ra [sic], Amon [sic], and Ptah were combined as three embodiments or aspects of one supreme and triune deity." (Our Oriental Heritage, 201) A hymn to Amun written in the 14th century BC distinguishes the Egyptian trinity: "All Gods are three: Amun, Re, Ptah: they have no equal. His name is hidden as Amun, he is Re before [men], and his body is Ptah." -- Hornung, 219

Trinity in Christianity
Jesus Christ never pronounced the Trinity, and nowhere in the New Testament does the word ‘Trinity’ appear. Meanwhile, Jesus mentioned the three Persons of the trinity and their relation to the Father, saying he is one with the father, and that the Son in the father's bosom has The idea was only adopted by the Church three hundred years after the death of our Lord; and the origin of the conception is entirely pagan . . .“The ancient Egyptians, whose influence on early religious thought was profound, usually arranged their gods or goddesses in trinities: there was the trinity of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, the trinity of Amen, Mut, and Khonsu,  and so forth …

“The early Christians, however, did not at first meditate the concept to their own faith. They paid their devotions to God the Father and to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and they recognized the mysterious and undefined existence of the Holy Spirit; but there was no thought of these three being an actual Trinity, co-equal and united in One . . .“The application of this old pagan conception of a Trinity to Christian theology was made possible by the recognition of the Holy Spirit as the required third ‘Person,’ co-equal with the other ‘Persons’ . . .

“The idea of the Spirit being co-equal with the Father was not recognized until the second half of the Fourth Century A.D. In the year 381 the Council of Constantinople added to the earlier Nicene Creed a description of the Holy Spirit as ‘the Lord, and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and Son is worshipped and glorified. “Thus, the Athanasian creed, which is a later composition but reflects the general conceptions of Athanasius, ( 4th-century Trinitarian whose view eventually became official doctrine] and his school) formulated the conception of a co-equal Trinity wherein the Holy Spirit was the third ‘Person’

Accordingly,  it was made a dogma of the faith, and belief in "the Three in One and One in Three" became a paramount doctrine of Christianity, though not without no consent, debates and riots. “Today some Christians are not clear, and has no wish to be precise about it, more especially since the Trinitarian definition was not adopted by the Church until nearly three hundred years after Christ” (pp. 197-203).James Bonwick summar-ized the story well in his 1878 work Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought: “It is an undoubted fact that more or less all over the world the deities are in triads."

In Conclusion
Is this a  proof that the Christian trinity was adopted from the ancient Egyptian triads? No. However, Durant submits that "from Egypt came the idea of a divine trinity," this only shows that ancient Egyptians, who believed firmly that bodily death is passing to a spiritual life, their faithful belief of an eternal life is the rock foundation of the Abrahamic religions. One meets the Divine secret in the following theological theology;
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The Trinitarian Mystery of God: A “Theological Theology”
Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, John P. Galvin

Prelude:
The Limits and Task of Trinitarian Theology The drama of the revelation of the Trinity bursts the bounds of any metaphor or rational schema. The Trinity, as the great fifth- or sixth-century mystical theologian Pseudo-Dionysius ecstatically proclaims, is “higher than any being, any divinity, any goodness!” For the theologian, whose task is classically defined as “faith seeking understanding,” nothing is more resistant to the categories of understanding than the incomprehensible mystery of the triune God; nothing is more excessive. The revelation of the Father’s salvific love in the life, death, and resurrection of his Son and the perdurance (enduring forever) of the Son’s redemptive power through the ongoing activity of the Spirit - contemplating this dramatic activity of divine life in our history led Gregory of Nazianzus to concede that “to tell of God is not possible  . . . but to know him is even less possible.”

Whatever we can affirm of the triune God (kataphatic theology) is constantly shadowed by the ignorance and limitations that God’s incomprehensibility forces upon us (apophatic theology). This is because revelation is the interplay of presence and absence; our experience of the triune God conceals at the same time it reveals. Perhaps, then, the more adequate means to express this drama of love and its salvific effects should indeed be aesthetic: Andrei Rublev’s famous gentle icon of the Trinity, or the spectacular and inspiring Gnadenstuhl (Throne of Grace) sculpture that hangs high above the altar of the long, narrow Church of St. John Nepomuk (the Asam-Kirche) in Munich, or Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s motet “O beata et benedicta et gloriosa Trinitas,” whose vocal lines float down from the heights and then rise ecstatically, all the while intertwining in the most delicious harmonies.

Catalogue of a travelling exhibition of objects from the Museo Egizio in Turin. After a brief introduction, it is divided into sections on "Daily life", "Religion", and "Funerary beliefs". Entries give the period of each object, height (or another appropriate dimension), provenance, and one or two paragraphs of description.

Starting from the analysis of the general context of quarries and mines, the present research aims to investigate and reconstruct the well-defined setting of the Egyptian pantheon: the deities linked to the mining sites and peripheral areas. The mineral world, closely connected with the divine world, played a role of primary importance in the Pharaonic civilization since its origin. Quarries and mineral deposits constitute a fertile ground for the study of this peculiar field of Egyptian culture and religion. The mining activity took place in the Eastern and Western Deserts, Sinai, Nubia and also in the Upper Nile Valley. These are marginal areas characterized by innumerable and heterogeneous evidence. Until now, the studies have focused their attention on the analysis of epigraphic and iconographic sources, outlining a mostly static and reductive image of these particular gods. On the contrary, the interaction between this type of sources and the material culture that emerged from the most recent archaeological research would allow us to provide not only a precise and detailed religious framework of the mining deities, but also to reconstruct the contexts in which these cults developed and took place, through the analysis of the social structures operating in the mining expeditions, of the influences deriving from the various neighboring local cults and of the repercussions they had in the Nile Valley. Moreover, this comparison between written and archaeological findings will allow to verify the truthfulness of text sources, reconstructing a little part of the Egyptian popular religion.

Il tema dell'intervento riguarda le divinità venerate nei templi rupestri egiziani della XVIII e XIX dinastia, con un'attenzione particolare al contesto in cui tali monumenti si inseriscono, nonché alla sua influenza sulle caratteristiche delle divinità stesse. Si riscontra, infatti, il passaggio da una prima fase in cui è evidente il legame architettonico e religioso con l'ambito minerario, ad un'altra (coincidente con la XIX dinasta) in cui tale legame si affievolisce per lasciar spazio a nuove forme strutturali e cultuali.

The intent of this paper is to discuss the Amarna style of artwork which arose during King Akhenaten’s rule over Egypt as a conscious choice intended to signal the socio-political and religious shift commensurate with his rule. It is worth mentioning that there is a large debate amongst scholars as to whether or not Akhenaten may have had a congenital disease or some physical deformities which are represented through Amarna style. While the evidence is unclear as to his physical appearance, representing those possible deformities does not necessitate an alteration in overall style of representation in all works stretching beyond portraiture of the king himself. I concede that some of the physical exaggerations present in representations of Akhenaten may be related to his physical appearance however the features are yet further exaggerated, and applied to other figures, as a component of this style. That is to say, any possible deformities in Akhenaten’s appearance may have been real but do not clearly explain this stylistic shift. Art is a strong tool of propaganda through which leaders may create a perceived boundary designating their period of control; this is precisely how Akhenaten must have employed it. I believe that these changes in artistic style, were not simply aesthetic or purely related to Akhenaten’s physical appearance, but used as a tool to signify and emphasize Akhenaten’s rule and to differentiate himself from his predecessors.

Egyptian rituals and liturgical accessories
This brief look at certain aspects of Ancient Egyptian religious practises shows not only the benefits, but also the importance of putting into perspective the two archæological collections (held by the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire and the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art) destined to be soon united. Without leaving the domain of beliefs and their various expressions, a similar exercise could reveal an identical complementarity concerning, for example, testimonials of individual piety in Antiquity, magic, or the iconography of the great or the more discreet figures of the Pharaonic pantheon. Not to mention historical, archæological or simply æsthetic contributions.

Very summarily published in an exhibition catalogue about the writing at São Paulo (Brazil) in 2004, the false door of an ancient Egyptian dignitary called Ptahshepses Impy and currently under the responsability of the São Paulo University was never properly studied. In spite of a number of injuries on its surface like cracks and sawn marks, the monument is a remarkable piece of the Old Kingdom funerary architecture that still brings traces of original pigments on its decoration. Based on a comparative study of sources dated from Old and Middle Kingdoms, and the analysis of the object's style, we propose in this paper to date the present monument in the 6th Dynasty and a possible origin from the Saqqara necropolis.

In addition to depicting Seth as the so-called Seth-animal, which most scholars consider to be a fabulous beast, the ancient Egyptians could also associate or identify him with animals such as the pig, donkey, hippopotamus, turtle, oryx, and crocodile, as well as with the famous winged falcon-headed figure shown at the Hibis temple. However, there is a creature whose association with Seth, to my knowledge, has never been substantiated in Egyptological literature, namely, the camel.

If one wants to summarize in one brief sentence three centuries of Egyptian radiation throughout the Middle East and Northeastern Africa, the following is quite sufficient:

A permanent strife between two priesthoods for prevalence and authenticity.

The two opposite priesthoods permeated the temples' personnel, the court, the administration, the army and the society. They viewed their rightful rejection of one another in terms of human authenticity and orientation. Their views were diametrically opposed, and each of them considered their perception of the world as the only reflecting the purpose of the Creation, and of the existence of the Mankind.

This spiritual – religious – intellectual – ideological clash did characterize other countries as well; Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Canaan and other parts of the Middle East and the world have become the theater of similar debates and strives. In Egypt and Kush / Ethiopia, we identify the beginning of the opposition in the 4th millennium BCE.

It all reflects an opposition between a monotheistic approach to the perception and description of the Divine and a polytheistic system that highly personalizes the aspects of the Divine, and favours the use of pictorial representation of the Divine. The monotheists are virtually aniconic, which means they reject / oppose the use of icons, idols, statues and bas-reliefs. Polytheism and idolatry are identical.
First published on 19th March 2010 in AfroArticles, Buzzle and American Chronicle
Republished in the portal of Oromo parliamentarians:
https://www.oromoparliamentarians.org/English/Facts%20about%20Oromo/Oromo%20Kushatic%20nation-Egypt.htm

The love poetry of Ramesside Period Thebes presents human love against a backdrop of frequently bucolic and marshy environments, with the trappings of festivals and religious imagery present in some of the poems. Precursors for the corpus appear in the form of festival songs recorded in Eighteenth Dynasty Theban tombs, presenting the festival activities of the gods against a backdrop of mortal love, performed in the setting of banquets involving ritual drunkenness. The Ramesside love poetry may reflect events of a romantic and even or-giastic nature that accompanied certain New Kingdom Theban celebrations. The common festival background for parallel corpora of texts celebrating divine love and human love in Egypt may provide a template for the performance setting of the Song of Songs, and help explain why that text is both so descriptive of the interactions of two human beings, and a text ultimately accepted as part of the Old Testament.