scholarly journals And Everything Began with Laughs and Tears… The Creation of the Gods According to Esna II, 163, 16-17; III 206, 8-9 (§13) and III, 272, 2-3: Precedents, Interpretation and Influences

Author(s):  
Josué Santos Saavedra ◽  
◽  
Roger Fortea Bastart ◽  

The tears of the demiurge play a prominent role within ancient Egyptian cosmogonic traditions regarding the genesis of the human being. However, the creation of the gods as a consequence of the demiurge's laughter appears to be a unicum of the Esna temple texts. This is not to say, however, that certain precedents of laughter as a vitalizing agent cannot be traced at least from the Old Kingdom, which would later be duly reworked by Latopolitan theologians during the late period. It is precisely this topic that will be studied in this work, showing some possible antecedents in which the idea of ​​the creation of divine entities through laughter would have settled, at the same time that it will delve into the meaning of this theogonic method compared to the anthropogonic. Likewise, the relevance or not of the hypothesis formulated by some researchers regarding the transmission of this notion of theogonic laughter to different texts written in Greek will be analyzed, as well as the intellectual context in which such an event could have occurred.

Author(s):  
Wolfram Grajetzki

This chapter explores the notion of a ‘national administration’ in Egypt, from the Early Dynastic Period to the Late Period, by discussing a range of textual sources and other written forms known in tombs and temples. These studies suggest that from the beginning of writing in Egypt around 3000 bc, some form of administrative structure is visible. The supply of food and other resources for the royal palace seems to have been the main concern of the administration in most periods of ancient Egyptian history. In the Fourth Dynasty the vizier became the head of the administration. He controlled legal matters, the scribal offices and was, in the Old Kingdom, also often in charge of the pyramid building. In the New Kingdom the office was divided into two, one vizier had an office in Memphis and other one in Thebes. Other important offices at the royal court were officials in charge of the treasury, those with the granaries and officials in charge of royal domains. The Old Kingdom administration seems to be a rather loose system where the king appointed officials when needed. The Middle and New Kingdom administration shows more fixed structures.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leival Richards

It is not clear what an Egyptian god was, what was believed about them, or how people responded to them. This qualitative work induces the nature of gods from the fourth and third millennia B.C.E. culture with the intention of stating what Egyptians believed. Framed in a philosophical design, it explores three features. First, using language, archaeology, and iconography the essentials of the god identity are outlined for original qualification. Second, god existence is argued using classical proofs. Third, god character is examined to reveal the specific psychological archetype that dictated their behaviour in myth. Then, delineated by the essential qualities of all three features, the nature of the gods is consolidated and filtered through an Old Kingdom value structure to reveal their conception—habitual ideal individual behaviour. The ancient Egyptians had a monistic idea for god that was internalised by every individual thus creating a system of internal equality despite the external inequality.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 156
Author(s):  
Julia Alonso

This paper is an investigation of the divine feminine power as depicted in the texts of Hispanic mystics from Sufi, Hebrew, and Christian traditions. This work is intended to investigate the origin and subsequent development of a transcendent reconciliation of polarity, its diverse manifestations, and the attainment of a common goal, the quintessential of the Perfect Human Being. The architect of the encounter that leads to Union is “Sophia.” She is the Secret. Only those who are able to discern Her own immeasurable dimension may contemplate the Lady who dwells in the sacred geometry of the abyss. Sophia is linked to the hermetic Word, She is allusive, clandestine, poetic, and pregnant with symbols, gnostic resonances, and musical murmurs that conduct the “traveler” through dwellings and stations towards an ancient Sophianic knowledge that leads to the “germinal vesicle,” the “inner wine cellar,” to the Initium, to the Motherland. She is the Mater filius sapientae, who through an alchemical transmutation becomes a song to the absent Sophia whose Presence can only be intuited. Present throughout the Creation, Sophia is the axis around which the poetics of the Taryuman al-ashwaq rotates and the kabbalistic Tree of Life is structured.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Clucas

The Animadversiones in Elementorum Philosophiae by a little known Flemish scholar G. Moranus, published in Brussels in 1655 was an early European response to Hobbes’s De Corpore. Although it is has been referred to by various Hobbes scholars, such as Noel Malcolm, Doug Jesseph, and Alexander Bird it has been little studied. Previous scholarship has tended to focus on the mathematical criticisms of André Tacquet which Moranus included in the form of a letter in his volume. Moranus’s philosophical objections to Hobbes’s natural philosophy offer a fascinating picture of the critical reception of Hobbes’s work by a religious writer trained in the late Scholastic tradition. Moranus’s opening criticism clearly shows that he is unhappy with Hobbes’s exclusion of the divine and the immaterial from natural philosophy. He asks what authority Hobbes has for breaking with the common understanding of philosophy, as defined by Cicero ‘the knowledge of things human and divine’. He also offers natural philosophical and theological criticisms of Hobbes for overlooking the generation of things involved in the Creation. He also attacks the natural philosophical underpinning of Hobbes’s civil philosophy. In this paper I look at a number of philosophical topics which Moranus criticised in Hobbes’s work, including his mechanical psychology, his theory of imaginary space, his use of the concept of accidents, his blurring of the distinction between the human being and the animal, and his theories of motion. Moranus’s criticisms, which are a mixture of philosophical and theological objections, gives us some clear indications of what made Hobbes’ natural philosophy controversial amongst his contemporaries, and sheds new light on the early continental reception of Hobbes’s work.


2021 ◽  
Vol 89 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Marie Peterková Hlouchová

Analysing early pieces of evidence for a phenomenon has always been a problematic task and it can be more difficult when dealing with a religious topic. Anachronistic approaches have often been projected in this kind of research, which brings inaccurate interpretations and findings. This paper concentrates on early testimonies for the ancient Egyptian god Kheprer, the deity of the morning sun and autogenesis. It discusses some previously suggested Predynastic, Early Dynastic, and Old Kingdom sources (such as finds of beetles in vessels, the so-called Libyan Palette, Giza writing board, figures of beetles, personal names and titles, Pyramid Texts) that can refer to the existence and belief in this deity. This study focuses mainly on the problematic issues in the interpretations of those finds, demonstrating thus that the only secure evidence for Kheprer comes from the Pyramid Texts.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Jafar Aghazadeh ◽  
Hasan Mohammadi

<p>In the thoughts and beliefs of Iranians, kingdom has had a history of the creation of human beings on the earth. Accordingly, Iranians believe that the first creature and human being on the earth was the first king of Iran. Iranians connects the history of their mythical royal dynasties to the creation of humanity. For Iranians, the mythical kings of Iran are the creators of the royal institution and the functions and duties of the royal institution have been established, developed and transferred to next generations by the measures of these kings. The objective of the present study is to investigate the establishment of the royal institution and the development of royal institution in ancient Iran by a descriptive-analytical method. The findings indicate that Iranians had specific sacredness for their kings and called the first creature of Ahura Mazda as the King. In addition, they believed that kings should perform particular tasks whose formation was attributed to the mythical kings of Iran. Further, they believed that only those persons had the right of being a king who were from the race of kings and were approved by Ahura Mazda. to examine Lessing’s elucidation of authentic knowledge in <em>Shikasta</em>. The methodology appropriated in the paper entails depiction of visible world as an illusion of the Real pointed in Plato’s allegory of Cave and Nagarjuna’s Mundane Truth. We clarify emotion as the main motivator of such illusionary status stressed in both Plato and Nagarjuna’s thoughts. We argue that while the importance of reason and eradicating emotion cannot be ignored, what adjoins people to Truth is mindfulness and intuitive knowledge which is close to Nagarjuna’s non-dual patterns. By examining ordinary life as the illusion of Real, and emotion as the main obstacle to achieve the Truth emphasized in both Nagarjuna and Plato’s trends, we depart from other critics who undermine the eminence of essentialist trace in Lessing’s works and examine her approach towards Truth merely under postmodern lens. This departure is significant since we clarify while essentialism has been abandoned to a large extent and supporters of Plato have become scarce, amalgamation of his thoughts with spiritual trends opens a fresh way to earn authenticity in Lessing’s novel. </p><p> </p>


Mayéutica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (102) ◽  
pp. 261-292
Author(s):  
Enrique A. Eguiarte ◽  
Mauricio Saavedra ◽  

The article deals with Augustine’s idea about Creation and Ecology in the first two commentaries that the Bishop of Hippo wrote, namely, De Genesi contra manicheos and De Genesi ad litteram opus inperfectum. The article stresses that in those Works, St. Augustine underlines that the triune God is the creator of all things. The article also stresses God’s omnipotence, the Creation ex/de nihilo, and also the ecological ideas that Augustine presents in those commentaries, such as the Philocalia as a path to discover the Beauty of God in his works; the Order of the Creation in which all creatures are necessary and are interconnected between them; the Creation as a House in which God as the paterfamilias takes care of all things; the human being as the one who has to take charge of Creation in the Name of God, and how all Creation is directed towards God.


Author(s):  
Aurore Motte

In this paper, I investigate the speech captions (the so-called ‘Reden und Rufe’) in the private tombs from the Old Kingdom to the Late Period. I aim to show some of the ways used by the Egyptian scribes and/or artists to formally distinguish these speeches from other captions and inscriptions displayed in private tombs. After presenting the text- image interrelation and the most common speech caption layouts, I turn my attention to the form(s) of these captions and trace back the appearance of discursive marks in Old Kingdom mastaba as first evidence of paratextuality. I then offer a diachronic overview of the other paratextual means used to categorize a caption as a speech or a song: Dd-formulas, the parenthetic in indicating a direct quotation as well as the expression xn n wSb and xn n nhm.


2019 ◽  
pp. 390-472
Author(s):  
Ryholt Kim

This chapter is a survey of collections of literary texts from Late Period and Graeco-Roman Egypt, c.750 BCE–250 CE, effectively the last millennium of the ancient Egyptian culture. Examples of different forms of collections are described and discussed in detail: temple libraries and private libraries, as well as groups of literary texts found in tombs, in rubbish dumps, in waste paper collections, and re-used in cartonnage. The texts include narratives, wisdom instructions, science (esp. divination and medicine), and cultic texts (esp. ritual guidelines, religious treatises, and hymns). Additional paragraphs concern the use of master copies, different types of storage, the abduction of libraries, and the so-called House of Life.


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