The Egyptian Origin of Western Religions

This is an assignment I had for my "Western Civilization" class last semester.

1. What were the accomplishments of the civilizations in the Near East (Mesopotamia and Egypt)? What elements of Near Eastern civilizations were passed on to modern Western civilization?

Just reading this question made me shake my head. Check the essay I wrote for that class.

The idiom “near east” is a relatively new term that has absolutely no scholarly significance and thus no place in any history class. Contemporary historians however have coined the term to mean a small area north of the Arabian Peninsula and north east of the present day, continental boundaries of Africa. The countries that presently occupy this artificial boundary are Turkey, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and some of the Caucasus states. Egypt is separated from the “near east” by the Suez Canal, and on an entire separate continent. Several geographers group Egypt with the “Middle East” which is an equally doltish title, also with very little scholarly utility.

Egypt, is thought by some to have risen somewhere around the third millennium BCE. Many of the ideals, and schools of thought that the world runs on today are heavily borrowed from the ancient people of Kemet(Egypt). According to BBC Science, the Greek alpha numeric system that we in the west treasure so much was copied from the written language used by the Egyptians. Libraries of books can (and have) be written on what else the world has “borrowed” from Egypt, but the focus today is on her influence, through the religions centered around the high Goddess Isis.

Many of the religions that find their origins around the Mediterranean, Tigress and Euphrates have been found to have many links to the spiritual customs of Egypt. Specifically, the Kemetic deities have been known to show up in other societies. A Roman philosopher, Lucius Apuleius wrote of Isis in his classic work, The Golden Ass: "Phrygians(Turks) call me the mother of the Gods: the Athenians call me Minerva: the Cyprians call me Venus, the Candians call me Diana, the Sicilians call me Proserpina, the Eleusians call me Ceres: some Juno, other Bellona, other Hecate: and principally the Aethiopians which dwell in the Orient, and the Aegyptians which are excellent in all kind of ancient doctrine, and by their proper ceremonies accustome to worship mee, doe call me Queene Isis.”² She was so loved by her adherents, that over the many millenia that she was worshiped, her religion spread far and wide. According to British historian, William MacQuitty, the cult of Isis continued well into the Common Era(A.D.) when most other gods and goddesses had long been forgotten. There were temples to her all the way from ancient Abyssinia, and Babylon, to “classic” Greece, Germany and Italy.³⁴ Its been discovered that even in the British Isles, she had devotees and great temples.

The Christian church, even today, has many rituals, prayers, idols, customs and beliefs that seem to be almost identical to those of pre-Islamic Egypt⁶. An example is the belief in resurrection of Christ. The pre-dynastic Kemetic people believed the Nile was created with the tears that flowed from Isis as she mourned her slain husband Osiris. They also believed that with great hard work she resurrected him, and thus, according to Eloise McKinney-Johnson⁷ “Initiated the whole concept of resurrection.” While on the subject of Christianity, many historians have found that early Christians truly equated of Isis with the virgin Mary. E. A. Wallis Budge, an Egyptologist who worked for the British Museum published many works dealing with the correlation of Isis and Mary. He said of them in the book, The Gods of the Egyptians “…and the pictures and sculptures wherein she is represented in the act of suckling Horus formed the foundation of the Christian paintings of the Madonna and Child” he also says “…many of the attributes of Isis, the God-mother, the mother of Horus(Isis’ son)...are identical with those of Mary the mother of Christ.” On the final page, I placed a picture of an old Polish Madonna and Child next to the original Madonna (Isis) suckling Horus. I also placed a 17^th century Greek Madonna. Notice the location of Isis’ hand, similar to Mary’s, the location of the baby, and finally the similar halo above each Madonna.

With this paper I attempted to give a brief correlation between some of the diets of the ancient world with those of the modern world, and subsequently, show a few of the elements that survived the sands of time to affect the world in which we live. I could go on for many pages about the relationship between the Christian, the old pagan religions of Rome and Greece (Heru-Hercules, Appolo-Horus, etc) and how they are just reflections of what those Europeans picked up in Egypt. That however, would take much more than a small essay to explain. So for now, we’ll leave it at the “Mother of the Nile”, and the Mother of the new god, Christ.