Egyptian Mythology
To try to get into the minds and experiences of the Israelites as they lived in Egypt and exited Egypt, I have read recently a book by Geraldine Pinch, Egyptologist at the Oriental Institute of Oxford University. The book’s title is: Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt.
Pinch begins by giving an overview of Egyptian history because in the minds of the Egyptians, their history is intricately interwoven with their theology. Her second chapter deals with the Egyptian view of time and creation while the third chapter, the longest, gives brief definitions and historical views of many of the gods, goddesses, and personified objects (such as the sun) that were dominant in Egyptian theology. She presents them in alphabetical order, which makes future references much easier.
Skeptics of the Bible like to say that Israelite religion is one among many religions. It might have been a little different, but they were all fundamentally the same. They were all created by a largely illiterate people trying to explain the origin and workings of the world around them.
But when a serious student of the Bible takes a look at Ancient Near Eastern religions, such as we have in Egyptian mythology, the contrasts jump out in stark clarity. Egyptian mythology, for example, has no official “holy book.” Their myths tended to evolve and develop over the course of 3,000 years and often their myths contradicted each other.
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In so many ways, Egyptian mythology stands in bold contrast to Israelite theology. Israelite theology began with a written source, the Law, with God’s demand that it not be changed. Because of that, from the time Moses wrote until the time Jesus came, there were no changes made to Israelite theology. There were no books added to the canon of Scripture that were not consistent in their teaching and doctrine with the Law of Moses. It is because Israel had a written source that her theology stayed consistent. Similarly, there is a remarkable unity in the Bible that cries out to us: “Divine authorship!” Egyptian myths changed, and changed again. But the remarkable unity of the Bible illustrates that there was only one source behind it: the Holy Spirit.
Additionally, the gods of the Egyptians were not holy by any definition of the word. They were selfish, rude, violent, and sexually oriented. Some of the drawings from Egyptian mythology, particularly relative to their creation myth(s!) are offensive to look at. That shows that their gods were made in humans’ image and, subsequently, they had no higher spiritual level to which to aspire.
One final contrast that caught my attention was how illogical and unscientific much of Egyptian mythology was, such as a god who impregnated himself by swallowing his own semen. So many of their myths contradict what we know in our world and what we understand from science, even as they were written in a pre-scientific age. But although the Bible was also written in a pre-scientific age, there is nothing illogical, ahistorical, or unscientific about anything found within the Bible.
The evidences for the Bible’s inspiration are shown even more vividly when set beside the myths of ancient near eastern cultures!
Paul Holland
