The post about Horus and the 12, made me curious about the views held by official academic environment in my country. Scandinavia and its "heathen" influenced society give reason to expect a more open minded view. I think official Norwegian academic view have been set close to the borderline of reactions from the "christian world".
Texts regarding permanent exhibition at Cultural and Historical museum in Oslo
( Faculty composed by University of Oslo and University of Stavanger )
In connection with death/resurrection and the sun"The Myth of the Sun is a continuation of the creation myth, and tells how the sun recreates the creation miracle every morning. It was believed that the sun god–or Ra, which became a more common name for him–sails over the sky in a great ship called the Sun Barque. When he sails behind the mountains in the western horizon, he ascends in the underworld, where he provides light and life to the dead. Since the underworld is the realm of the dead, this myth implies that the sun god also dies every night, to rise again in the morning."
"The creation myth was used more actively in Ancient Egypt than what we are used to from Jewish, Christian, or Islamic tradition. The creation was not an event that was considered long since over, but was rather the prototype of the creation that takes place every day. Each morning when the sun rises and touches the earth with its life-bringing rays, the cycle of creation is repeated. Just as the sun once miraculously arose from the dark waters of chaos Nun, the sun rises every morning from the darkness of night and brings light, order, and renewed life. The world is born again each time the god of creation rises to the heavens. It can be said that the existence of the world was seen as an eternal repetition of the creation."
"And it is precisely these themes, birth and creation, or rather recreation and regeneration, of people, animals, and plants that were the realm of Osiris, god of the underworld. He was the god of everything that was recreated in the great cycle of life, precisely because he himself had risen from the dead."
In connection to similarities some refuseThe image of him seated on the lap of his mother
echoes a religious image familiar to our own culture —namely, Mary and the baby Jesus. The image expressed the Egyptians’ desire to bear a healthy and legitimate son who would carry on the father’s trade.
On another level, he is the sun god as a child—that is, the sunrise.
Isis with the miracle child Horus (C47109)
The Myth of the King, which in many aspects resembles what we today call ideology of the state, describes the pharaoh’s divinity and legitimizes his place, exalted over all other people on earth. The pharaoh is Horus, the living manifestation of the sun god Ra on earth. As bearer of the name Horus, he is also the
miracle child conceived when the breath of Isis brought life to Osiris. (Horus, Ra, Osiris - trinity/father and the son)
Ra is life, and Osiris is death. But one cannot exist without the other. The two are one.
Egypt and Astrotheology?The gods often represent natural phenomena–such as the sun, moon, sky, earth, or the Nile–but also man-made phenomena such as royal power, the art of writing, mummification, and medicine. They could also represent abstract concepts, such as time, love, justice, or magic. The same god could embody many of these aspects, and different gods could have aspects that overlap. Most of the gods were associated with a specific location, and the same god could be found in many different places under different names.
It was thought that the god lived in the city’s temple, where he or she formed a family with two other gods (usually mother, father, and son) in a so-called triad. A triad represented all of the divine powers in the cosmos, and functioned at the same time as a social model. With his authority and strength, the god complemented the goddess’s tenderness, beauty, and wisdom, and the union of these two cosmic forces created new life, represented by the divine son, who ensured the continuation of the world and creation.
The myths have probably never been entirely separate, but they seem to become more enmeshed over time. Starting in the period of the New Kingdom they are interwoven at so many levels it becomes impossible to
speak of them as separate myths.
The ancient Egyptian religion was more than a political ideology.
Through meticulous studies of nature’s various creatures, heavenly bodies, and the cyclical repetitions in nature, the ancient Egyptians developed highly advanced ideas about life—and not least about death. A large number of myths about death and the afterlife, often based on studies of the night sky and other natural phenomena, were woven together to a powerful and intricate world of ideas. These ideas were just as real to the ancient Egyptians as the theory of evolution and the Big Bang theory are to us today.http://www.khm.uio.no/
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