The Story Behind the Biblical Accounts

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THE STORY BEHIND THE BIBLICALACCOUNTS: EGYPTIAN MYTHS ASARCHETYPES

It will be disconcerting for some to learn that behind many of our Biblical storiesand accounts in traditional Scripture lay Egyptian myths that attempt to relate andexplain metaphysical realities to the finite minds of people. One only has to begin aserious attempt to study the origins of many Old and New Testament accounts tofind that behind them lay a mythological nature.First a little must be said about "myths". Let us define the word.

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Myth is a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning somesuperhuman being or some alleged person or event, with or without adeterminable basis of fact or a natural explanation, especially a traditional orlegendary story that is concerned with deities or demigods and the creationof the world and its inhabitants. This traditional story is of unknownauthorship, ostensibly with a historical basis, but serves usually to explainsome phenomenon of nature, the origin of [humanity], or the customs,institutions, religious rites, etc. of a people; myths usually involve the exploitsof gods and heroes.

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Myths (both old and new) are heroic stories considered by most people ashaving never occurred. Yet this does not mean that myths are "false," butonly that to understand them we must

separate their metaphysical truthfrom literal reality

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Myths the world over tend to express certain common themes: those relatingto cosmogony, the creation of the universe or the earth with its solar system,humanity, plants, and animals, other aspects of nature, and the theory of their origin, as well as myths of a second creation following a disaster,frequently a flood; to theogony, the origin of the [deities] and their genealogy,especially the Great Mother, pairs of deities (often brother-sister/husband-wife), and triads with the addition of a child; to etiology, the study of causesand beginnings in general; and to the struggle between or among opposingforces, especially dualistic elements as good-evil, light-dark, or heaven-underworld. Myths are also shaped by

personification

, that is, theendowment of aspects of nature, inanimate objects, or qualities andabstractions with human form, attributes, and characteristics. This is closelyrelated to

anthropomorphism

, the assigning of human shape, qualities, andconcepts to a deity, animal, plant, or other object. By means of deification,humans and personifications were elevated to the position of a deity.

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Other myths explain social traditions, customs, religious beliefs andpractices, and the mysteries of life and death. Myths and legends pass fromgeneration to generation, enriching the lives of all who listen, giving them

value and a sense of security, and linking them with their ancestors beforethem, and wisdom heroic and divine.

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Many scholars believe that myths of the ancients represent one of the mostprofound achievements of the human spirit, the inspired creation of giftedand unspoiled minds, uncontaminated by the current scientific approach andanalytic mentality, and therefore open and prone to profound cosmic insightswhich are veiled to modern thinking man with his inhibiting definitions andimpassive soulless logic.

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There are whole schools of modern mythologists who argue that ancientmyth is closely bound to rite and ritual; that myth was, as it were, nothingother than the "rite spoken"; and that myth and ritual were practically twosides of the same cultic coin. On the other hand, there are historians of religion who claim that the ancient myths were primarily etiological incharacter - fictitious tales evolved for the purpose of explaining the nature of the universe, the destiny of humanity, and the customs, beliefs, and practicescurrent in their days, as well as the names of holy places and out standingindividuals.

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On a deeper level there are psychologists who see in the ancient mythsdepositories of primordial

archetype motifs

which reveal and

illuminateman's collective subconscious

(Most beliefs surrounding death showfundamental similarities in that the dead went to an afterworld, which mightbe an underworld beneath the earth, an island paradise, a [hall of heroes], orthe moon, and a number of mythologies linked death to a cycle of rebirth,somewhat parallel to that occurring in the Heavens and in Nature andvegetation). Imagination, superstition, and embellishment mingle freely withobservation when we look at myth. Some myths are used to teach; some are'just' for entertainment and storytelling.

We should be tipped off to the fact that the Bible is a book of "myths" if we are alertin reading the Bible when we notice contradictory accounts in the Bible of the"same" event. This fact alone should make us want to know "what is behind thestory" we are reading at the time. Truth always lies behind "myth". Inquiringminds "want to know". Well that is me and I hope it is the readers as well.

Behind some of these contradictory accounts and inconsistencies we find ongoingpropaganda wars between the kingdoms of Judah and Israel as they wrestled amongthemselves for supremacy. On other occasions, an early version of a story can beshown to be chronologically replaced by a later version. This was particularly truein the Creation and flood accounts, where early Egyptian influences on Israel cameinto conflict with later Babylonian sources. The later Babylonian "interpretations"would eventually replace the earlier Egyptian "interpretations" of the events inquestion.As one studies increase he can be on the look-out for Biblical stories that closelyparallel these earlier myths and legends from neighboring cultures like Egypt andBabylon. Truly there is "nothing new under the Sun" when it comes to religion

because basically all world religions have come from but one; namely, Egyptianreligion.

If you come to understand Egyptian religion and religious ideasyou can trace them along with their "reinterpretations" down throughhistory; even into our Christianity today.

While in some cases the influenceswere obvious, as with the Babylonian flood myth, in many cases the task will bequite difficult and will require the deciphering and correct interpretation of Egyptian myths which is not always easy given our limited knowledge of Egypt upuntil the last 150 years with the discover of the Rosetta Stone and the recovery of theability to read the Egyptian heiroglyphics. Even more important because of thebiblical emphasis on monotheism, the keen reader will notice how the authors of these later Scriptures tried to eliminate references to or symbols of deities other thanthe Hebrew god.Answer for yourself:How was this done? These changes were made by transformingforeign deities into human characters whereby they were given a pseudo-historicalexistence as well as sometimes changing the locale of the story. Let me give you someexamples. The Egyptian "Hathor" becomes the Greek "Aphrodite" and the laterRoman "Venus", the Egyptian "Amon" becomes the Greek "Zeus" and the laterRoman "Jupiter" and so on. The same things were done to the earliest principlesand theological dogmas that were first understood by the Egyptians who studied theCosmos and Nature for thousands of years and in so doing extrapolated these DivineTruths in the first place. Over time all things "change" and that is where we aretoday in Christianity.You may recall being taught in school that Western (white) civilization is foundedupon the ancient Greek civilization which seemed to suddenly appear.

WhatEuropean historians are trying to diffuse, hide, or deny is that the Greekcivilization was primarily the offspring of the advanced Black AfricanCivilization of ancient Africa's Nile Valley, which preceded it by thousandsand thousands of years.

Even Greek legends related that Egyptian andPhonecian conquerors ruled all or part of Greece until the 14th or 15th century B.C.Thus we find that the Nile Valley civilization of Egypt and Nubia was already oldbefore Europe was born. The pyramids of Africa's Nile Valley were hoary with agewhen the tribes of norther and central Europe were making their first stonehammers. Nile valley civilization also existed before the Western Asian civilization of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.Answer for yourself:What should this say to us?Kamite or Egyptian civilization originated from Ethiopia and Diodorus said theEgyptians were the earliest of civilized men, and that they not only colonized Egyptbut it was from there that they diffused Ethiopian culture throughout the wholeworld. Albert Churchward, in his The Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man statesthat "Thus we can see that African colonies went forth and settled in all parts of theworld, leaving the proofs in language, myth, and the hieroglyphics, in religious rites.The symbolical customs and ceremonies in far off lands are still extant among races

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