Menu
Home
What's new
Latest activity
New posts
New media
New media comments
New profile posts
Forums
Media
Awards
Agora Gangtags
Games
Oregon Trail
Pepsiman
After Burner 1987
Orb Farm
Webring
Log in
Register
What's new
Agora Road's Macintosh Cafe
Enjoy the Best Kept Secret of the Internet!
Home
Forums
Current Events, Philosophy, & Paranormal.
Esoteric
The "One God" & Distinction Between Magical And Religious Texts In Ancient Egypt
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
[QUOTE="Ross_Я, post: 108822, member: 6806"] Thanks. As you can probably deduce from my rather limited presence recently, I've been busy with real life stuff, so I'll keep it short and will answer only last question for now. I will most likely return to your post about a week later, since it's quite a good one and I want to watch that video you provided which will likely give me some more points to talk about. But I need some free time for that. But as for the entry-level books, I can recommend three. First of all, [B]Encyclopaedia Of Religion And Ethics[/B], which I quoted in this thread: [URL unfurl="true"]https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.php?threads/6623/[/URL] It provides a wide range of topics which it covers, though the problem is it is not a purely egyptian-centered literature, and therefore it is huge. But once you locate the topic you want to know about, this Encyclopaedia has a good chance to provide you with knowledge. It is not without a catch though: every article is written by its own author, and you have to keep in mind that some of them can be biased. Here's a note I made for myself (and for everyone who will download this stuff from me via DC++) for the parts of the Encyclopaedia saved on my HDD: That being said, his article about Dreams And Sleep is still worth a read. The point is: as you read through different works about Ancient Egypt, it is always important to look at the author. This part of history is very ancient, sometimes quite damaged, and therefore it allows for multiple interpretations and subtle bends. If you'll really get into it, with time you will choose your preferences - I cannot put it any other way; once again, this part of history is so ancient it almost impossible to choose purely objective and scientific approach. Too much is left to speculation. I mean, among other things, we still do not even know all the hieroglyphs, which in turn means some words or even sentences from different texts have to be filled from the context, and, well... As I often say, even one carefully inserted word can change the meaning of the whole text. So yeah, if you'll get deep into it, I guess there's no other way but choosing your favorite authors and sticking to their writings. I prefer mostly researchers from the first part of the 20th century; a friend of mine, whom I quoted in the OP, on the contrary thinks most of them were christianity-obsessed fanatics and prefers more modern approaches... To quote myself one more time: Anyway, here's my personal list of worthy names to look at (the ones that write on english, at least): Alan H. Gardiner Aylward M. Blackman Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge Jan Assman (as I've said in the OP, he is cool, even though I disagree with a huge number of his points; if anything, his translations are most excellent in my opinion) Miriam Lichtheim Aside from Encyclopaedia Of Religion And Ethics, I have to recommend another book. After all Encyclopaedia is more of a... collection of second-hand interpretations of what you can read on your own. Though reading it all on your own is definitely a much more... huge task. But it's a direct, head-on approach which I wholeheartedly encourage if you have the time (though even I do not have time to read it all, hence why I turn to Encyclopaedia every now and then). Anyway, here's the book I myself started with: [B]Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating To The Old Testament[/B] by James B. Pritchard. It's a wonderful book. Once again, it is not really Ancient Egypt-only literature and it features texts from different cultures of the region, but it is comprised much tighter than Encyclopaedia and it is much easier to navigate. This book actually provides a wide arrangement of texts - far from only those related to Old Testament. It has myths, rituals, songs, didactic literature, letters, various documents and records written by the official scribes and more, all of which ought to give you quite a comprehensive view on quite an amount of aspects of life of an ancient egyptian. The book also features quite an expanded introduction to each text, mentioning time periods this or that particular text has been written in, which researcher worked on it, whose translation is featured in the book, et cetera - along with multiple quotations which can easily lead you to further researches about the texts you like. Not to mention that there are actually texts that are related to Old Testament in this book - heck, matter of the fact, there is a number of original texts from various polytheistic religions which Old Testament borrowed from. If not to say outright copied. Overall, as I've said, it is a wonderful book and the one I started with myself. Finally, the third book, which is quite similar to the previous one, but which is written in more modern language and, unlike all the previous books, completely centered on Ancient Egypt is [B]Ancient Egyptian Literature[/B] by Miriam Lichtheim. It's in three volumes, and it features a lot of ancient egyptian texts. In general, I have to say I do not like Miriam Lichtheim's translations as much as I like the ones provided in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating To The Old Testament, but it is nice to read alternative takes on some texts, as well as Lichtheim's personal notes on some of them. Overall, I feel like Miriam's book is a lighter read rather than a previous recommendation, though at the same time it is completely centered on Egypt and Egypt only and that's definitely a plus. That, and the fact that some texts Miriam features in her book simply do not appear in the Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating To The Old Testament. So, yeah, I'd recommend either second or third book for a direct, wide and slow approach, or Encyclopaedia Of Religion And Ethics for a brief collection of thoughts about the topics that are of interest to you. Obviously, I have most of the books I've mentioned on my HDD (well, all of them, but Encyclopaedia Of Religion And Ethics, from which I only saved the passages I personally was interested in), and therefore I can upload them somewhere if you'll have troubles finding them yourself. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Name
Verification
Post reply
Home
Forums
Current Events, Philosophy, & Paranormal.
Esoteric
The "One God" & Distinction Between Magical And Religious Texts In Ancient Egypt
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
Accept
Learn more…