The Egyptian Pharaoh identifies with a dying and rising god while being baptized

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nightshadetwine
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The Egyptian Pharaoh identifies with a dying and rising god while being baptized

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Romans 6:3–7
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For whoever has died is freed from sin.
The Egyptian Pharaoh identifies with the dying and rising sun god Re during his baptism.

Conceptions Of Purity In Egyptian Religion Joachim Friedrich Quack
The person of the king was strongly connected to purity concerns in Egypt.46 Indeed, there exists a detailed royal ritual focused on purification rites...

Spell for the water
O Water, may you abolish all bad defilement of the pharaoh,
O inundation, may you wash off his errant demons...

Spell for water, speaking words [by...]
[O you Gods...,
Come] that you [erase] all evil in him.
Any taboo he did, [...] at the lake!...

Another spell for purification, speaking words:
Pharaoh has [purified himself] with the great waters
Which come forth from Elephantine, which originate from the [primeval
ocean]...

Pharaoh is purified with this water which came out from Osiris...

Another spell for purification, words to be spoken.
PHARAOH IS RE, ARISING IN THE PRIMEVAL OCEAN,
[His] purity is [the purity of... in the] water,
With big flame...
Great illuminator when he shows himself in the flood in the morning,
Who abolishes all evil, as he arises in his purity from the flood.
May pharaoh arise in the flood(?)—
...shine... pharaoh...
May he be divine in the earth!
Those who are in the primeval ocean shall not upset him...

The royal ritual has links to the ideal of the sun god, in which, according to the Egyptian conception, the morning purification precedes the
sunrise.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day edited by Eva Von Dassow
Every evening the aged sun entered the underworld and travelled through it, immersed in Nun, only to emerge at dawn as Khepri, the newborn sun. Thus, the waters of Nun had a rejuvenating, baptismal quality essential to rebirth.
The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, Richard H. Wilkinson
The great sun god Re was thought to grow old each day and to 'die' each night... and then to be born or resurrected
each day at dawn.
Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt, Jan Assmann
Regeneration did not mean traveling a reversed path from death to birth, but rather, being born anew through death...

Every morning, the sun god emerged from the primeval waters, and the annual Nile inundation that renewed the fertility of the land also fed on these netherworldly primeval waters...

"we live again anew,
after we enter the primeval water,
and it has rejuvenated us into one who is young for the first time.
The old man is shed, a new one is made."
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GakuseiDon
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Re: The Egyptian Pharaoh identifies with a dying and rising god while being baptized

Post by GakuseiDon »

One of my big criticisms of these kinds of posts on analyses between Christianity and other early religions is that, for the Christian texts we get very specific references to the source material (e.g. "Romans 6:3–7"), while for the pagan texts, we get very vague references to the source material, if references to the source material are provided at all.

Things like:
"Jesus was born of a virgin (source: KJV, Matthew 1:18-25). And Horus was born of a virgin (source: Egyptian Book of the Dead)"

I remember trying to hunt down pagan sources used by Acharya S for her "Christ Conspiracy" book, and many of the sources either didn't exist, or the translation she was using was by someone from the 19th C with their own agenda.

I'd love to know where the source for the pagan text references you gave above come from, to understand what influences might have made up early Christianity. I'm interested in the background ideas informing our ancestors' beliefs for its own sake, not related to the HJ/MJ debate.

Could I ask you to provide references to the ACTUAL source material being used on the pagan side, please? Otherwise, all we have are people's translations of what they think some text might be. (There's already enough arguments on translations of Biblical passages for the Christian text side, even with the specific reference known!)
It is really important, in life, to concentrate our minds on our enthusiasms, not on our dislikes. -- Roger Pearse
Secret Alias
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Re: The Egyptian Pharaoh identifies with a dying and rising god while being baptized

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“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: The Egyptian Pharaoh identifies with a dying and rising god while being baptized

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I've always mused that an anti-Jewish or antinomian Christianity might have understood baptism to have arisen out the drowning of the Egyptians in Exodus FWIW. The major logical 'piece' would be the Israelites crossed on the 'goings out of the Sabbath' - i.e. when the seventh day 'went out' into the eighth. By that logic the Egyptians were drowned on the eighth, hence the interest in Sunday. Just saying, I've mused about many things. Little of it productive.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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MrMacSon
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Re: The Egyptian Pharaoh identifies with a dying and rising god while being baptized

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GakuseiDon wrote: Tue Sep 24, 2019 3:00 pm I'd love to know where the source for the pagan text references you gave above come from ...

underlining mine, -

.
the Pyramid Texts
...inscribed on the interior walls of the pyramid-tombs of certain pharaohs of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties (c. 2425-2300 B.C.), for the purpose of facilitating the passage of the dead kings to the next world. In these texts Osiris appears as the focal figure in a complex mortuary ritual designed to save the deceased from the physical disintegration of death and to raise them to a new life. This salvation was achieved by a technique of ritual assimilation whereby the dead kings were identified with Osiris in terms of a mythos which told of the death and resurrection of Osiris at some undefined time in the past. The origin of this mythos has been the subject of much scholarly discussion, which is likely to remain inconclusive in view of the nature of the extant evidence. But what is certain is that Osiris was believed to provide, by virtue of his own resurrection, the means or opportunity for others to obtain immunity from the dread consequences of death and enjoy immortal life. In this ritual process of vicarious salvation Osiris appears to play a passive role. …

This ritual technique of salvation was an amalgam of two processes: a process of chemical embalmment designed to prevent or arrest the physical decomposition of the corpse; and a ritual process based on the principle of sympathetic magic, reinforced by invocations for divine assistance. The rationale of this complex of practical and ritual action was the mythos of Osiris, which both authorized and explained the faith and practice involved …

Further on in the liturgy, although he remains a passive agent in the achievement of the pharaoh’s resurrection, Osiris is requested to direct his attention to Unas—the request appears as a kind of afterthought, suddenly felt to be necessary since Osiris, though passive, is the pivotal agent of the transaction. Then, as if to leave nothing uncertain, Osiris is reminded of the implication of the assimilation of the dead Unas to himself …

In the royal mortuary ritual, preserved on the Pyramid Texts, Osiris thus appears as the focal figure in a soteriological scheme calculated to save the dead king from the consequences of death, and to endow him with immortality. Osiris may, accordingly, be described as a passive Saviour. His death and resurrection invested him, as it were, with the power to communicate a like resurrection to one ritually assimilated to him

Osiris gradually became the savior of all who could afford to be buried with at least the minimum requirements of the Osirian obsequies. The original pattern of ritual assimilation of the deceased to Osiris continued, becoming so fundamental a concept that in the funerary literature the dead person was automatically designated ‘Osiris so-and-so’ [as Antinoüs/Antinoös was so designated] …

In the extant literature Osiris appears suddenly to acquire the role of the awful post-mortem judge, and he exercises it while still remaining the savior he had originally been, through assimilation with whom the dead are resurrected to a new eternal life. …

There are no references to Osiris as the post-mortem judge; but in the Pyramid Texts he does appear to play the passive role of the prototype of the innocent one, unjustly accused, who is vindicated after death by a divine tribunal, after the manner of his passive role of prototype of the resurrected dead. Once more the rationale is provided by the Osirian mythos.

Dr. Samuel G.F. Brandon, “Saviour and Judge: Two Examples of Divine Ambivalence”, in Liber Amicorum: Studies in Honour of Professor Dr. C.J. Bleeker (Leiden: E.J. Brill), 1969; pp.44-45.


.
... the salvation which Osiris afforded to his devotees was salvation from death and its consequences, and this situation has to be taken quite literally. // ... the mythos of Osiris told how the physical decomposition of his corpse had been reversed and he had been revivified physically, so was a like restoration looked for by his devotees.

Dr. Samuel G.F. Brandon, “Redemption in Ancient Egypt”, in Types of Redemption: Contributions to the Theme of the Study-Conference Held at Jerusalem 14th to 19th of July 1968, eds. R.J. Zwi Werblowsky, C.J. Bleeker (Leiden: E.J. Brill), 1970; p. 39.

nightshadetwine
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Re: The Egyptian Pharaoh identifies with a dying and rising god while being baptized

Post by nightshadetwine »

GakuseiDon wrote: Tue Sep 24, 2019 3:00 pm Could I ask you to provide references to the ACTUAL source material being used on the pagan side, please? Otherwise, all we have are people's translations of what they think some text might be. (There's already enough arguments on translations of Biblical passages for the Christian text side, even with the specific reference known!)
I quoted it from http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/prop ... y_2013.pdf It's from the book Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions in the Ancient Mediterranean World and Ancient Judaism(BRILL November 1, 2012)

https://www.amazon.com/Religious-Tradit ... 9004232109

Also see:

Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, Margaret Bunson https://books.google.com/books/about/En ... EJ0G-4jyoC
sacred lake- It was an architectural feature of the larger temples of Egypt, reproductions of the primordial water on NUN that existed before the moment of creation. Rectangular in design normally, the lakes were reserved for certain rituals and used as well for cleansing. The larger sacred lakes served as receptacles for the barks of the gods at festivals. Karnak and other major temples contained such lakes, all man-made. When the pharaoh was in residence, the water from the local sacred lake was used to baptize him in the morning rising rituals. The sacred lakes were in use throughout all of the historical periods of Egypt. Also called she netjeri, the divine pool, the lakes were stone lined and at times were fashioned with elaborate staircases.
The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt, Richard H. Wilkinson https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Temples ... 0500051003
Normally termed shi-netjer, 'divine lake', but also given specific names, the purpose of the sacred lake was both functional and symbolic. Functionally, the lake provided a reservoir for the water used in offerings and rituals of purification, and it was there the priests bathed at dawn to begin their service. Symbolically the sacred lake played an important role in representing various aspects of the Egyptians' cosmogonic myths of origin. Because creation was believed to have occured when the sun god emerged from the primeval waters at the beginning of time the sacred lake represented in a tangible manner the same underlying forces of life and creation; and in this way creation was symbolically renewed each morning as the sun rose above the sacred waters. The sacred lake at Karnak also had a specific feature which allowed geese held in connected pens to emerge through a narrow tunnel on to the surface of the lake- symbolizing the role of the goose as a manifestation of Amun in original creation. Certain mystery rituals, such as those of the resurrection of Osiris at Sais, were also performed on the shores of the temple's sacred lake.
Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, James P Allen https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Egyptian ... 1628371145
God’s Canal, God’s Lake. Body of water attached to a temple,
usually known as a “sacred lake,” used for ritual purification. May also
refer specifically to the one at Osiris’s temple in Abydos.
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GakuseiDon
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Re: The Egyptian Pharaoh identifies with a dying and rising god while being baptized

Post by GakuseiDon »

nightshadetwine wrote: Tue Sep 24, 2019 8:07 pm
GakuseiDon wrote: Tue Sep 24, 2019 3:00 pm Could I ask you to provide references to the ACTUAL source material being used on the pagan side, please? Otherwise, all we have are people's translations of what they think some text might be. (There's already enough arguments on translations of Biblical passages for the Christian text side, even with the specific reference known!)
I quoted it from http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/prop ... y_2013.pdf It's from the book Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions in the Ancient Mediterranean World and Ancient Judaism(BRILL November 1, 2012)

https://www.amazon.com/Religious-Tradit ... 9004232109
Thanks, but I mean the reference to the pagan source material, like "Pyramid Texts, Vol 3, Spell 11", at least when quoting that material directly. Otherwise it's like quoting a passage from Paul, but then giving a reference to a modern scholar's book using that quote rather than to where the passage can be found in the New Testament. This is particularly important for fragmented ancient works, where there is a lot of badly translated or even blatantly false information out there. Just a suggestion, anyway!
It is really important, in life, to concentrate our minds on our enthusiasms, not on our dislikes. -- Roger Pearse
nightshadetwine
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Re: The Egyptian Pharaoh identifies with a dying and rising god while being baptized

Post by nightshadetwine »

GakuseiDon wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 2:29 am Thanks, but I mean the reference to the pagan source material, like "Pyramid Texts, Vol 3, Spell 11", at least when quoting that material directly.
If you read the link I gave you he goes into where the translation is coming from. It's from different papyrus texts. There's also temple inscriptions and other evidence of this practice. It's not like the bible, where all the different Egyptian texts are compiled into one book.
GakuseiDon wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 2:29 am Otherwise it's like quoting a passage from Paul, but then giving a reference to a modern scholar's book using that quote rather than to where the passage can be found in the New Testament. This is particularly important for fragmented ancient works, where there is a lot of badly translated or even blatantly false information out there. Just a suggestion, anyway!
I only use current sources by scholars. Nothing from the 19th century or not academic. If you were disappointed with Acharya S and her work, I recommend you check out this website https://mythodoxy.wordpress.com/ where you can also find a free e-book if you're interested in this subject. The author isn't a scholar but he uses current scholarly sources to back up what he's saying.

Free e-book
https://mythodoxy.wordpress.com/2014/04/14/gospel/
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