Oahspe Study
The Exodus of the Hebrews, Moses and the Pharaohs Part 12
The Rise of Amun-Re and Mut --- Baal and Ashtaroth
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According to Oahspe, Osiris had lost his dominions and Baal controlled the oracles of Egypt at the close of the Cpenta-armij cycle around 1550 b.c.e. Such a significant event should be reflected in a change of Osiris' status among the mortals of Egypt around the same time. And it was --- the Egyptians were strongly influenced by the oracles, who were taken over by Baal, so, it would be no co-incidence that Nu-ghan, who was under the inspiration of Baal, decreed Osiris banished from the earth. Egyptian history reflects this decree when Osiris suddenly loses his position as the prominent deity of Egypt and the practices associated with Osiris worship are abandoned in the New Kingdom.
Oahspe, Book of the Arc of Bon; 27/20.16.
|| Of Pharaoh and his hosts who were not destroyed in the seas, be it said, they returned home to their places. And not long after that Pharaoh banished God (Osiris) from the earth, declaring himself the Savior of the World and Vice-Gerent of the Holy Ghost.||
This change in religious orientation is demonstrated in the different burial practices of the kings of Egypt; the establishment of Thebes and the cult of Amun as the new religious and cultural centre of Egypt; and changes in the style and content of art and culture of the New Kingdom which returned to the idealistic forms of the Old Kingdom.
The establishment of the burial place of Pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom in the Valley of the Kings replaced Osiris cult traditions involving the building of royal pyramids.
The Pyramid Shaped Mountain of the Valley of the Kings
The end of pyramid building saw a new, pragmatic change in royal burials, which required far less labor (since the huge slave labor force of Hebrews had left Egypt in the first year of Ahmose i's reign), being located in the shadow of a natural pyramid shaped mountain on the West Bank near Thebes. This new tradition, is believed to have begun either with the son of Ahmose I, Amenhotep I or his successor,Thutmose I.
|| The official name for the site in ancient times was The Great and Majestic Necropolis of the Millions of Years of the Pharaoh, Life, Strength, Health in The West of Thebes, or more usually, Ta-sekhet-ma'at (the Great Field). The Valley of the Kings (Arabic: "Gates of the King") is a valley in Egypt where for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th century BC, tombs were constructed for the kings and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom (the Eighteenth through Twentieth Dynasties of Ancient Egypt).....The Valley was used for primary burials from approximately 1539 BC to 1075 BC, and contains at least 63 tombs, beginning with Thutmose I (or possibly earlier, during the reign of Amenhotep I), and ending with Ramesses X or XI.....In the Pyramid Age the tomb of the king was associated with a mortuary temple located close to the pyramid. As the tomb of the king was hidden, this mortuary temple was located away from the burial, closer to the cultivation facing towards Thebes.....After the defeat of the Hyksos and the reunification of Egypt under Ahmose I, the Theban rulers began to construct elaborate tombs that would reflect their new found power.....|| (retrieved 24 Sept, 07)
Ahmose's heir, Amenhotep I was posthumously awarded "titular" god status after his death, which reflects the God King status that the Pharaoh's of the New Kingdom now assumed and an indication of the transformations that occurred following the abandonment of the Osiris cult and the adoption of Amun as supreme deity.
||....It would seem that by the end of Amenhotep I's reign, the main characteristics of the 18th Dynasty had been established, including a clear devotion to the cult of Amun at Karnak, its successive military conquests in Nubia and its closed royal family with a developing administrative organization drawn from powerful families and collateral relatives.
Amenhotep I was given the rare honor of being declared a titular god upon his death by the priests. He was regarded as the patron god of the Theban necropolis, alongside his mother, Ahmose Nefretiri, who's posthumous renown probably exceeded that of her son. In fact, her name appears in the litany of Amenhotep I's own cult....... || (retrieved 24 Sept, 07)
||.....Thebes, now held the mantle of the most important city in Egypt [The New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty]. Therefore, Amun became nationally important. The Pharaohs attributed all their successful enterprises to Amun, and they lavished much of their wealth and captured spoil on the construction of his temples.....|| (retrieved 5 Oct, 07)
Since the loss of the four million Israelite slaves in the Exodus, the Egyptian Pharaohs of the New Kingdom acquired wealth and slaves by plunder (although the extent of wealth and slaves of the Middle Kingdom were never attained again), becoming Warrior Kings, their deity, Amun [Aries], was transformed into a war God. The overlay of Taurus characteristics onto Amun, are evidenced in the rise of the Apis bull cult in Lower Egypt in the New Kingdom, Alexander later adopted the man-bull god to syncretize the Egyptian and Greek deities, who according to Oahspe, was one and the same, Baal, who was worshipped as Zeus by the Greeks.
|| These [The Waset (Thebes)] princes now established Dynasty 18, and thereby the New Kingdom begins.....At this point the Waset princes attributed their successful victory over the Hyksos to him [Amun] and he was even being considered to have brought about Egypt's expansion in Asia Minor.
To ensure Amun's sovereignty, the Waset rulers associated him with Re, whose aspects as well as mythology Amun assumed. He also became the protector of the royal house and therefore his powers and influence extended substantially.....
The new cosmogony which the priesthood at Waset developed incorporated motifs from the earlier creation myths and aimed at placing Amun as the primeval creator of the cosmos as well as of all other gods. He was the invisible but ever-present selfcreator, who had come forth from an egg which had existed on the primeval mound. All other creation myths and all other gods were said to have then been brought into existence by Amun. Thus he was in effect each and every one of the gods and could at will assume any of their aspects. Accordingly he was called the 'King of the gods' .......Besides placing Amun as the creator god of the cosmos, the priesthood in Waset also claimed that the city was the original place where Creation had occurred, where the Primeval Island had risen out of the chaotic waters of Nun and where Amun had created himself out of the egg. Waset as the center of the worship of Amun, the state god and protector god for the royal house, now became the most important religious center in Egypt. Instead of having their burial places at Abydos, the kings and nobles now chose to have their tombs prepared here.....|| (retrieved 24 Sept, 07)
And here also was Baal's opportunity to eclipse the name of his former ally, Osiris and replace it with a name associated with Creator or King of the Gods, as he also did with the later Greeks and their Zeus, also dubbed King of the Gods.
The deities, Amun and Re only became prominent in combined form in the New Kingdom, but they existed long before then. Amun, having long been known as a God of Air and associated with the breath of life and fertility (Aries), now became combined with the attributes of Re, as Creator God and Father of the Gods. In the New Kingdom, Amun / Amun-Re was depicted in the form of a man with a beard on a throne, thus becoming known as King of the Gods under the inspiration of Baal, who had also appropriated the name of De'yus, which the Greeks pronounced Zeus. These two, Amun and Zeus, later became known as the same God:
||..... Because of the adoration now given to Amun, visiting Greek travelers to Egypt would report back that Amun, king of the Egyptian gods, was one and the same, and therefore became identified with, the Greek king of the gods Zeus. As did Amun's consort Mut become associated with Zeus's consort Hera.....|| (retrieved 5 Oct, 07)
The syncretization of Egyptian deities was a long held practice which allowed favored deities of regional areas to be absorbed into the greater Egyptian Pantheon. By combining with Re, Amun gained the attributes of supreme deity, since Re was the primordial Father of the Gods, the sun and Creator from ancient times, being supreme above all. Other lesser Gods and Kings also syncretized with Re to claim Re's omnipotence and power to rule and be worshipped, especially in times of fragmentation when local deities were popular.
||....The increased political importance of the provincial cities, which after the fall of the Old Kingdom became independent states, gave a correspondingly increased importance to their gods. The rulers of the cantons erected new temples to the deities under whose banners they fought with one another or against their nominal overlords; the same conditions which had developed the independent city religions in prehistoric Egypt now gave them new vitality.
Under these circumstances the effect of the higher theology was not that the local god was subordinated to Re, much less superseded by him, but that Re was identified with the local god, who thus appropriated the universal attributes and powers of Re. The incongruity of many of these identifications did not hinder them when once they were in fashion; the crocodile-god of the Fayum has as little trouble in becoming a sun-crocodile, Sebek-Re, as the ram of Thebes [and Nubia] in becoming Amon-Re, or the ithyphallic idol of Min in being similarly promoted. Practically, therefore, the whole gain of the higher theology accrued to the lower religion, making it equally acceptable to the few who were indoctrinated in the priestly wisdom and to the many to whom the god of their fathers was good enough without any speculative improvements. In the end almost every Egyptian god who had a public cult was hyphenated with Re. Osiris, notwithstanding an inextricable confusion with Re in magical mystifications from the pyramid texts to the Book of the Dead, is hardly identified out and out with Re; besides him, Ptah, the old god of Memphis, and Thoth, the moon-god and vizier of Re, are almost the sole gods who in the end escape the combination....|| (retrieved 6 Oct, 07)
The Egyptians of the delta regions worshipped Gods who had counterpart identities in both the Asiatic and Egyptian Pantheons, particularly Re, Seth and Anath. The identities of Seth and Anath can be linked to Baal and Ashtaroth:
||....[The predominant God of the Hyksos was]Sutekh [Seth], and he is depicted in clothes and a headdress that resembled that of the Semitic god Baal. .. Is it significant that Sutekh is also the name of the Egyptian God who slew Osiris?|| Egypt and the Semites; Samuel Kurinsky, 1994.
The origin of the myths about these Gods are obscured in antiquity, but the abandonment of the Osiris cult in favor of the cult of Amun, also suggests that the previously obscure Theban God Amun may have now complemented the role of Seth, who, in the ancient myth killed Osiris, since Amun replaced Osiris as the preferred Egyptian God in the New Kingdom. In the blending of these older personas, Baal could appropriate the common religious elements already existing, to establish and maintain his position as dominant God of the regions.
Anath, Anat-Isis and Astarte represented Asiatic and Egyptian names of Ashtaroth, her rise in popularity as worshipful deity under these names corresponds to the efforts she continued to make to establish herself as Goddess in the lower heavens of the surrounding regions along with Baal. The Egyptian counterpart Isis, who was well established in Egypt by the end of the Middle Kingdom, continued to enjoy high status within the Amun-Re cult, which also reflects the allied relationship she and Baal continued to have up until they became enemies some 400 years later.
Isis, Image from Oahspe
Egyptian Isis is also Ashtaroth
||....In the 14th and 13th centuries b.c.e., Canaanite deities were worshipped in Egyptian temples. This may have resulted from the influence of settlements of Asiatic workers near Egyptian cities (mainly Memphis and Thebes) where the Canaanite pantheon was worshipped. The Asiatics may have been brought to Egypt as prisoners following Egyptian military expeditions to Syria during the reign of Tuthmosis III in the 15th century B.C.E. The Canaanite gods were partly merged with the Egyptian deities when there were similarities in their functions -- as so often happened in the ancient world....||Understanding Asherah - Exploring Semitic Iconography by Ruth Hestrin; Biblical Archaeological Review, Sept/Oct 1991.
The co-existence and syncretization of Canaanite Gods with Egyptian Gods in Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom also accords with Oahspe's account of the history of the lower heavens at the end of the cycle of Cpenta-armij and the beginning of the cycle of Lika. Baal, together in an alliance with Ashtaroth, had already maintained domination over the non-Faithist (non-Israelite) Asiatics for hundreds of years and continued to exercise dominion in their respective regions as well as Egypt many hundreds of years more.
Oahspe, Book of the Arc of Bon; 27/17.1.
|| Jehovih, through His angels, said to Moses: When the body of the king is embalmed and put away, you shall go quickly to your people; for he who comes to the throne is under the voice of the Lord, Baal, and he will try to prevent the departure of My chosen....||
Since the Egyptian New Kingdom came under the dominion of Baal, a long time warrior God (in contrast to Osiris who strived to establish prosperity by preserving peace in his dominions, but who nevertheless promoted the wars in Asia; and the subjugation of independent nations and states in neighboring regions of Africa and Asia; and who also profited by the enslavement of war refugees into his regions), it is not surprising that the New Kingdom pharaohs become aggressive warrior kings extending their territory far into the eastern lands. Through invasion and conquering they established what became known as the Egyptian Empire, contending with worshippers of rival false Gods for hundreds of years more.
Hundreds of years after the Exodus the apostate Israelites, who intermarried with the Canaanites and falling under the inspiration of Baal and Ashtaroth, abandoned the community fathers rule of Moses and chose Kings. They thus became a part of the politics and wars of the Egyptian Empire and surrounding regions. For hundreds of years prior to that period, the Israelites, as peaceful non materialistic families of semi-nomads, went unnoticed and unmolested by other warring nations.
Oahspe, Book of Saphah, 35/K.24-27; 31-32.
|| Nevertheless, it so happened that when the half‑breed children were grown up, having Canaan mothers, they began to murmur against the peace policy of the Israelites, saying: As other people have kings and emperors, why not here? As other people raise up soldiers, declare war, and go forth possessing lands and cattle, why do we not do so?
For three hundred and ninety‑seven years after going out of Egypt, the Israelites lived without a corporeal king, or other government, except the community of fathers; and they attained to six million souls, men, women and children.
But in the three hundred and ninety‑seventh year, the Gods Baal and Ashtaroth triumphed, through their familiar spirits, and caused the Israelites to anoint a king to rule over them. This king was called Saul, signifying Of the Lord God. Prior to this the Israelites acknowledged no God or Lord, but covenanted with the Great Spirit, E‑O‑Ih. The name had been kept secret with the fathers, and the commandments were announced from the Great Spirit, I Am.
The familiar spirits now inspired Saul to change the words of the commandments to the Lord Your God, as a conciliatory stratagem to please the nations and tribes of people who worshipped Baal, Dagon, Ashtaroth, Haughak, and other Gods and Lords of the lower heavens.....
In the four hundred and ninth year after the departure out of Egypt, the entire PEACE POLICY and NON RESISTANCE of the Mosaical Inspiration was overthrown, and the Israelites became warriors, and even warred against one another.
The Israelites not only worshipped the imaginary idol, Lord God in heaven, but built representatives of him in stone and wood, and worshipped them also.||
SUMMATION OF THE EXODUS, MOSES AND THE PHARAOHS:
The date of the Migration of the Israelites as circa 1546 b.c.e. is sufficiently attested to in historical and archaeological contexts. The entrance of the Israelites into Canaan, as accounted for in Oahspe, is proved by the lack of archaeological or historical evidence of an aggressive migration and invasion, such as the Egyptian account of the Hyksos expulsion or the Jewish Ezra Bible's account of an invasion of Canaan by the Mosaic Israelites.
Within Egytpology's conventional timelines, the whole period of some 250 years from 1800 to 1550 b.c.e., dubbed the 2nd Intermediate period beginning the 13th Dynasty, has been incorrectly added to the end of the Middle Kingdom instead of being counted as running concurrently with it. This non-existant intermediate period makes the Middle Kingdom appear more ancient than art, culture, archaeological and historical references prove it to be.
Accordingly, as a result of confusion and omissions in the records of Ancient Egypt, combined with various inaccuracies in the Ezra Bible, all exacerbated by the adoption of inaccurate historical time periods of Egypt, the Pharaohs of Moses' time are yet to be recognized among scholars traditional and otherwise. However, in the light of the additional Oahspe information, otherwise unavailable to mortals, the identites of the principal players in the Exodus of the Hebrews have been identified in this series.
In the final part of this series, Part 13, we examine evidence of the Red Sea Crossing.
All Oahspe references are from the Standard Edition Oahspe of 2007
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