Messiah In The Old Testament Episode 6
Egyptian Creation Story
Welcome to Messiah In The Old Testament. We’re continuing our journey today through the creation stories throughout the earth. And we’re going to travel to the ancient country of Egypt. Now, Egypt has history that goes back easily 5000 years. The first settlers in Egypt were about 8000 years ago. Egypt has always had a special place in my heart because when I was a young man,
I was very interested in Egyptology, interested in hieroglyphics. In fact, I owned a copy of the Book of the Dead and was very interested in the whole Egyptian mythology. And this knowledge has come in handy when I started looking at the creation story from Egypt.
Now it turns out that the Egyptian [creation] stories pretty much all come from inscriptions that are found in pyramids, the so-called pyramid inscriptions. The Pyramid Inscriptions, of course, deal with dead pharaohs. There’s inscriptions within the Book of the Dead, which is the handbook for the afterlife for the people who can afford to be embalmed and go to the afterlife. And then there are inscriptions from coffins and different burial funerary inscriptions. It all deals with dead people. It seems that the Egyptians felt that somehow the rebirth and the afterlife was connected to the original creation story and the gods that were involved in this whole process would be involved in their trip to the afterlife. In fact, the pyramid that the pharaohs built for their tombs plays into the original story of creation and it is just not at all surprising to find this association. Now the story has huge regional variation. You'll find different gods that are put forth as the creator god depending on which temple you went to.
There were four major religious centers in ancient Egypt and each of these had their own variation on the creation story. So, these are all located along the Nile. If you start at the upper part of the Nile,
Thebes was the farthest away from the center of government. And then the next one downriver would be Hermopolis and then the next one downriver would be Memphis and that was located just south of presentday Cairo near where the Giza Plateau and the pyramids are located. And then the final one is down in the Nile River Delta which was Heliopolis and this would be in in the region where the Israelites lived in the land of Goshen. So, when Moses was there in the house of Pharaoh and the Israelites were living in the land of Goshen, they would have been probably more intimately associated with the temples in Heliopolis and in Memphis and not so much for Hermopolis and Thebes.
So, each of these centers had their own patron god. For example, in Heliopolis the god was Atum. That makes sense, because Heliopolis
literally means city of the sun. The god Atum, is the name of the sun god. Ra was his other name. The name Ra applies to the sun when it's riding the sky and once the sun sets and the disc goes below the earth and is carried back to the East, the god is known Atum. So, Atum was the creator god. In the Temple at Memphis, Ptah was the patron god and Ptah was lifted up as the creator god. Now it's interesting that the name, the old name of Memphis, was literally the house of the soul of Ptah. In fact, that's where the word Egypt comes from. It's the Greek pronunciation of the later Egyptian pronunciation for Memphis. And in Greek it was Aegyptus. And the PT is from the Ptah. Aegyptus or Ptah. So further up at the temple in Hermopolis the god was Thoth. And then finally in Thebes, the god was Amun. So, it varied quite a bit. Now the story we are going to tell is primarily the Heliopolis version or the more northern version which would be where the pharaohs and the children of Israel were. Now, it's very interesting when you look at the creation story and how these are depicted in hieroglyphics. Because it is not only the gods, the heads that they have on the gods and the color of the gods. It is very pictorial and there are certain hieroglyphic reliefs that just tell the story in one single image. I will tell you more about that [later]. Going to Hermopolis, they tell the very early part of the creation story and then Heliopolis and Memphis they tell the later part of the story. So, we’re going to start out with the story that comes out of Hermopolis. Now, in the beginning, the Egyptians universally believed that there was a vast expanse of water, endless water, a vast nothingness of water. And in the water there lived primordial gods. Sounds kind of familiar to some other stories that we told in our previous episodes. These primordial gods actually lived in the water. Now they came in male-female pairs and there were four [pairs] of them. Some theorize it was for the four directions: north, east, south and west.
Regardless, there were eight deities total four female and four male. Now, the name of the first set of deities, the male was Nu and the female was Naunet. Now they stood for the actual [primordial] waters themselves. The next pair was Huh and Hauhet. And they stood for the infiniteness, the infinite expanse of water. They stood for that infinite quality. The next set was Kek and Kaukek. And they stood for the darkness that was within this great expanse of waters. And then the fourth set was that of Amun and Amaunet. And they stood for the hidden and unseeable nature of this great expanse of water. In other words, it wasn't visible like the world, it was invisible like the heavens or the spiritual world. Now, the story goes that these four sets of gods were kept apart at first, the male and female parts, but eventually they got together. And when they got together, they created a disturbance in the waters.
And it was this great upheaval of water and underneath this upheaval of water this great pyramid shaped soil mound came up out of the water. And that was given a name and the name was Ben-Ben. Its pyramid shaped and again we talked about how the pharaohs built these great pyramids for their tombs to prepare them for the afterlife.
Now all the male deities were depicted as frogs and the females [deities] were depicted as snakes. In fact, you'll see hieroglyphic reliefs that show all these gods with the frog heads and the snake heads. Now the story goes then that the sun god Ra, Atum or Ptah or Thoth or Amun depending on where you lived.
The son god lived in the waters along with these primordial gods and at some point, Ra climbed up out of the water and climbed up on Ben-Ben and stood on Ben-Ben. So, the very top of this pyramid became symbolic of Ra and the all-seeing eye of Ra.
And hence the pyramid on the back of our dollar bill that has the allseeing eye within the pyramidion. So, Ra was standing there overseeing all of this expanse of water. Standing up on his dry ground. And he realized suddenly that he was alone and there was nobody there with him. All the gods were out in the waters doing their thing. So, Atum got very lonely, so he decided that he would mate with his shadow. So, he enlisted the help of Heket, which is the goddess of magic, and she came and assisted him.
And he procreated with his own shadow and he became pregnant with two gods: the god Shu and the god Tefnut. Now, Shu is the god, male deity, of air and it's like breath of life that we heard in other stories. They actually believed that Shu had the breath of life. Shu was symbolic of all the vital living forces present on the earth. In fact, in some stories Shu holds this giant ladder that goes up to heaven and the souls, when they leave the earth, they climb up this giant ladder and enter the land of light. So, Shu is associated with that ascendancy into the land of light. Now, Tefnut is the goddess of like moist air like moisture with what is called corrosive air. Tefnut was symbolic of law and order and stability. In fact, it was Tefnut that brought order out of chaos. It is said that when these two gods were birthed that Ra sneezed the god Shu out of his nose which makes sense as air coming out of his nose. And then Tefnut, he actually vomited or spit her out of his mouth, which is course, the moister air, the corrosive air. So, these two gods, Shu and Tefnut, decided they would go out and begin to order and structure the world that they knew.
So, they set off on their journey and Ra is still standing there alone. And Ra was waiting and waiting and waiting for his children to come back. They did not come back and after a long, long time Ra finally sent out his all-seeing eye. And the eye looked over all the expanse, the North, the South, East and West.
Finally, the eye of Ra the all-seeing eye found the two twins and brought them back home to their father. On seeing his twins, Ra was so overjoyed that he began to weep these gigantic tears which fell to the ground. And when they hit the earth on Ben-Ben, the water and the soil and mixed together and this is how humans were created, from the tears of Ra.
Now, Shu and Tefnut saw these humans that were now residing on BenBen and there was not a lot of room for them. So, they decided they needed some more space for man to live. So, they decided they would, mate, so Shu and Tefnut mated and created two gods. The god Geb, who was a male deity, who was the earth. And the goddess Nut, who was a female deity, who was the goddess of the air or the heavens. Now, those two fell madly in love with each other and Atum was not very happy about that.
So, he took Nut and pushed her into the sky and he pinned Geb down to the earth. And this is that hieroglyphic relief that I was talking about where it shows the pictures of these gods and then there are the hieroglyphic words of the side. But it shows Nut who is being draped across the heaven. Her body is blue and there are stars dotting her whole body. And then here's Geb down on the earth, being pinned down by the feet of Atum and Geb is all green. So, these two gods were madly in love with each other. They were always seeing each other but never being able to touch each other. And it's a sad story of the star-crossed lovers. Now it turns out that's Nut was already pregnant when they were separated and she gave birth to four gods.
And the four gods that she gave birth to were: Osiris, Isis, Set and Nepthys. And these were the four major gods that then dealt with the day-to-day issues of man and many other gods then sprang out of this original story. So, Atum then was very happy that everything was put in order. So, he went off to take care of his own business and left the earth and the heavens then for man to inhabit. Now, I hope you enjoyed this story. It is a very, very colorful and vivid story, and of course, I really like it because I enjoy Egyptology. And if you would go online and look up some of these pictures that are associated with this story, they are very dramatic, especially that one with Nut and Geb being separated by Atum. So, Keep watching. Our next episode is going to be a very interesting episode. We’re going to look at the modern, the conventional story now that is being taught in the schools for the creation of earth and the creation of man and the origin of the universe. So, join me next time and we will dive into that very technical story. So, keep watching.
Thank you for watching our show today. We hope that you enjoyed watching it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Now, after watching this episode you might be saying to yourself, “Who is this Messiah that Dr. Smith is talking about?
Is he talking about the Christian Messiah? Is he talking about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was born of the Virgin Mary. And then lived a blameless and holy life on the earth, And then was tortured and crucified. And after he died he then was resurrected from the dead after three days. Then after people witnessed this, he was then taken up bodily by Elohim into heaven from the Mount of Olives.
Or is Dr. Smith talking about the Muslim prophet Isa. Isa Ibn Maryam, the messenger, who was sent by Allah to bring a message to the people. The Quran says he that lived a holy and blameless life, was born of the virgin Mary. He fulfilled all the Jewish prophecies in exact accordance. But one difference, instead of being crucified, he then was taken up by Allah into heaven before the Romans laid hands on him. And he awaits there now in the fourth heaven where at the end of days at the day of judgment he will be revealed to all.
Or is Dr. Smith talking about the Jewish Messiah? The Messiah who has not yet been revealed, that the entire Jewish world is waiting for his revelation. Now, the beautiful thing is that you can hold to any of these beliefs. And we can all still learn together about Messiah. We can learn about our Christian Messiah. We can learn about our Jewish Messiah. We can learn about our Muslim prophet Isa who will be revealed. It doesn’t matter what you believe. You can even be an atheist or agnostic and still learn from this program about Messiah. Now, I have to admit I am a Christian so I approach things, obviously, from a Christian point of view. And I promise you, as we reveal these prophecies, which I believe have all been fulfilled through Jesus Christ. Or will be fulfilled when he comes back, returning in the clouds in the same way he was taken up. I believe that all of this is true, but I promise you I will do my very best to present these prophecies from a neutral point of view. And try to keep my Christian bias to a minimum. Obviously, it will pop up from time to time but I will try to stay only in the Tanakh and try not to get into the New Testament very often. Now, if you want more information about Messiah, we have resources for you.
We have a website which is findingmessiah.org. Now, on that website you are going to find several resources. You will find links to all the videos, all the episodes that we have created so far. You will find links to download the transcripts of any of these episodes. And then you will find a section where you can get more information about Messiah through frequently asked questions. And then there is a section for donation. If you want to come alongside our ministry at Finding Messiah.
Now, there’s going to come a time in this series where you are going to be confronted with the question: What are you going to do with Messiah? Who do you believe Messiah is? Which of these Messiahs do you believe Dr. Smith is talking about? And Messiah will become real to you if you look at all the information presented and come to your conclusions. So, join us as we continue our journey through the Old Testament Scriptures looking for all the Messianic Prophecies. And join us next time as we reveal those to you.
