Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism (George L. Mosse Series) <\/a> ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=leithartcom-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0299225542\")
), it involved participation in the whole religio-political system of ancient Egypt. <\/p>\n Much of Egyptian religion involved identification with a city or town, each of which, like the Greek city-states, had a resident patron deity. This was both a religious and a political identification: \u201cThe foci of social and political identification were the temple and its lord, a specific deity . . . . Being a citizen of a town meant to be a follower of its ruling deity. Residence determined religious belonging.\u201d Yet Egypt also had a sense of imperial identity, which again was both religious and political: \u201cThe gods Horus and Seth represented Lower and Upper Egypt, respectively, and, later, Egypt and the foreign countries. The sun god Re (later Amun-Re) represented the unified empire.\u201d That not only gave coherence to Egypt as a whole, but also provided a structure in Egyptian political life that mirrored the structure of the divine pantheon. <\/p>\n
For the Egyptians, the gods were remote from the earth, \u201chaving withdrawn from earth and made themselves invisible.\u201d In their place, \u201cthey installed the state on earth to present them in the forms of kings, images, and sacred animals. The most important task of the state was to ensure divine presence under the condition of divine absence and to maintain a symbiotic relationship between man, society, and the cosmos.\u201d According to Egyptian political theology, \u201cthe king acts as representative of the creator, installed on earth \u2018for ever and ever\u2019 in order to establish \u2018Ma\u2019at\u2019 (true order and justice) and to expel disorder. The king depends on god, whom he imitates and represents, and god depends on the king for maintaining the order of creation on earth among the living. God created the king \u2018in his image,\u2019 so to speak,\u2019 and \u2018image of God,\u2019 is, in fact, one of the most common royal epithets.\u201d <\/p>\n
At the center of the political religion of ancient Egypt was the temple, the structure of which \u201creveals much about the nature of an Egyptian deity.\u201d Egyptian gods were never lonely. They typically shared a temple with other gods. Theoi synnaoi <\/em> [gods sharing temples] usually gathered \u201cin the form of a family with father, mother, and child.\u201d <\/p>\n Egyptian temples were arranged along a central access, \u201cstressing and mediating the distance between inner and outer, darkness and light, narrowness and breadth, closure and openness.\u201d Most rites were performed \u201cin extreme seclusion \u2013 in camera <\/em> , so to speak.\u201d Gods \u201cnormally dwelt in complete darkness and seclusion inside the sanctuaries of their temples, inaccessible to all save the officiating priest . . . . The Egyptian concept of the holy is connected with the secret, the hidden, the inaccessible. Contact and communication did, of course, take place in the temple, but this contact was of a very symbolic, indirect, and complex nature. Secular people knew they were somehow distantly represented and involved in the sacred communication \u2013 which went on constantly inside the impenetrable temple walls, inside the endless sequence of courtyards, pylons, halls, and chapels \u2013 but there was not possibility for them to play an active role in this sacred game. The cult, by its very complexity, makes the gulf between the spheres of the holy and of everday life, which it is meant to bridge, all the more palpable.\u201d <\/p>\n There were occasions when the common people of Egypt did get to see the god. Egyptians feast days celebrated the parousia or the adventus of the god, ritually embodied in a procession from the temple, through the city, and back. Processions are dangerous because they involve the coming of the god: \u201cWhile in the temple, he is passive and attended by the priest. However, during the feast he is active, the motion of the procession symbolizing his living activity and real presence.\u201d <\/p>\n
This is the very definition of a city: \u201cThe city is the place on earth where, during the main processional feast, the divine presence can be sensed by everyone. The more important the feast, the more important the city. People from all parts of the country assemble there during the festival period to participate in the event and to \u2018see the god.\u2019 The latter phrase, in Egyptian language, has the precise meaning of participating in a feast.\u201d Citizens are those who share in the sight of the god: \u201cThe inhabitants of a city form a festive community ( Festgemeinschaft <\/em> ) and conceive of themselves as \u2018followers\u2019 of their particular city-god. It is the feast that establishes and secures their identity as \u2018Thebans\u2019 or \u2018Memphites\u2019 . . . It is the focus of civic identity.\u201d <\/p>\n The festival marking the rebirth of Osiris after his murder at the hands of Seth gives an idea of the political meaning of processions. \u201cEgypt was the body of Osiris, dismembered and scattered across the land. The fourteen, sixteen, or forty-two limbs of the dismembered body \u2013 the various traditions differ in this respect \u2013 were equated with the forty-two nomes of Egypt. The central rite of the mysteries consisted of a procession of forty-two priests. Each represented a nome of Egypt, carrying a canopic jar containing the limb specific to that nome (because it was believed to be buried there) and contributed it to the reintegration of the body. This was done by mixing sand, barley, several aromatic substances, and the water from the canopic jars in a golden or wooden bold in the form of a mummy. After a period of eight days, the barley would sprout and the mummiform body would be covered with green. The whole procedure was accompanied by the recitation of liturgies containing lamentations sung by priestesses representing Isis and Nephthys, by transfiguration spells, by rituals of execration directed against Seth and his cohorts, and by long litanies mentioning the forty-two nomes of Egypt and their specific sacred traditions. One of these rituals of fashioning Osiris is explicitly called \u2018the ritual of conserving life in Egypt,\u2019 and it is carried out in the \u2018house of life.\u2019\u201d Every temple had a house of life in which Egyptians \u201ccelebrated the mysteries of Abydos, the rituals or re-membering Osiris.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Israel worshiped the gods of Egypt while in Egypt (Joshua 24:14). What did that involve? As explained by Jan Assmann ( Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism (George L. Mosse Series) ), it involved participation in the whole religio-political system of ancient Egypt. Much of Egyptian religion involved identification with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-ot-exodus"],"yoast_head":"\n
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