Murder by the Gods: An Ancient Egyptian Mystery

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Books by William G. Trivia About Murder by the God No trivia or quizzes yet. In contrast, the cult of Isis, like Christianity and some other mystery cults, was made up of people who joined voluntarily, out of their personal commitment to a deity that many of them regarded as superior to all others. Their rites thus acquired some of the aura of secrecy that surrounded the mystery cults. Even in ancient times these similarities were controversial.

Non-Christians in the Roman Empire in the early centuries CE thought Christianity and the mystery cults resembled each other. Reacting to these claims by outsiders, early Christian apologists denied that these cults had influenced their religion. Intensified by religious disputes between Protestants, Catholics, and non-Christians, the controversy has continued to the present day. Some scholars have specifically compared baptism with the Isiac initiation described by Apuleius. Before the early fourth century CE, baptism was the culmination of a long process, in which the convert to Christianity fasted for the forty days of Lent before being immersed at Easter in a cistern or natural body of water.

Thus, like the mysteries of Isis, early Christian baptism involved a days-long fast and a washing ritual. Both fasting and washing were common types of ritual purification found in the religions of the Mediterranean, and Christian baptism was specifically derived from the baptism of Jesus and Jewish immersion rituals. Therefore, according to Hugh Bowden, these similarities come from the shared religious background of Christianity and the Isis cult, not from the influence of one tradition upon the other.

Similarly, the sacred meals shared by the initiates of many mystery cults have been compared with the Christian rite of communion.

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Witt called the banquet that concluded the Isiac initiation "the pagan Eucharist of Isis and Sarapis". The most distinctive trait of Christian communion—the belief that the god himself was the victim of the sacrifice—was not present in the mystery cults. Bowden doubts that afterlife beliefs were a very important aspect of mystery cults and therefore thinks their resemblance to Christianity was small.

But, he says, they did not become similar by borrowing directly from each other, only by adapting in similar ways to the Greco-Roman religious environment. Each took what it needed and adapted these elements according to its overall drift and design. Motifs from Apuleius's description of the Isiac initiation have been repeated and reworked in fiction and in esoteric belief systems in modern times, and they thus form an important part of the Western perception of ancient Egyptian religion.

An influential example is the novel Life of Sethos by Jean Terrasson.

Terrasson claimed he had translated this book from an ancient Greek work of fiction that was based on real events. The book was actually his own invention, inspired by ancient Greek sources that assumed Greek philosophers had derived their wisdom from Egypt. In the novel, Egypt's priests run an elaborate education system like a European university. Based on Lucius's statement in The Golden Ass that he was "borne through all the elements" during his initiation, Terrasson describes the initiation as an elaborate series of ordeals, each based on one of the classical elements: William Warburton 's treatise The Divine Legation of Moses , published from to , included an analysis of ancient mystery rites that drew upon Sethos for much of its evidence.

One of them, Moses , learned this truth during his Egyptian upbringing and developed Judaism to reveal it to the entire Israelite nation. Freemasons , members of a European fraternal organization that attained its modern form in the early eighteenth century, developed many pseudohistorical origin myths that traced Freemasonry back to ancient times.

Egypt was among the civilizations that Masons claimed had influenced their traditions. Late in the century, Masonic writers, still assuming that Sethos was an ancient story, used the obvious resemblance between their rites and the initiation of Sethos as evidence of Freemasonry's supposedly ancient origin.

The best-known of these works is the opera The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Emmanuel Schikaneder , in which the main character, Tamino, undergoes a series of trials overseen by priests who invoke Isis and Osiris. Karl Leonhard Reinhold , a philosopher and Freemason writing in the s, drew upon and modified Warburton's claims in an effort to reconcile Freemasonry's traditional origin story , which traces Freemasonry back to ancient Israel, with its enthusiasm for Egyptian imagery.

He claimed that the sentence " I am that I am ", spoken by the Jewish God in the Book of Exodus , had a pantheistic meaning. He compared it with an Egyptian inscription on a veiled statue of Isis recorded by the Roman-era authors Plutarch and Proclus , which said "I am all that is, was, and shall be," and argued that Isis was a pantheistic personification of Nature. According to Reinhold, it was this pantheistic belief system that Moses imparted to the Israelites, so that Isis and the Jewish and Christian conception of God shared a common origin.

In contrast, some people in the wake of the dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution used the imagery of a pantheistic Isis to represent their opposition to the clergy and to Christianity in general. To them, she symbolized both modern scientific knowledge—which hoped to uncover Nature's secrets—and the mystical wisdom of the ancient mystery rites. The vague set of esoteric beliefs that surrounded the goddess offered an alternative to traditional Christianity. Various esoteric organizations that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as the Theosophical Society and the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis , repeated the beliefs that had originated with Sethos: James imagined this mystery school as a grandiose organization with branches on many continents, so that the purported system of Egyptian mysteries shaped cultures all over the world.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Scholars sometimes refer to the veneration of Isis, or of certain other deities who were introduced to the Greco-Roman world, as "religions" because they were more distinct from the culture around them than the cults of Greek or Roman gods. He could have introduced elements of the Eleusinian Mysteries into the worship of Isis at the same time.

Along with Osiris, these gods were once analyzed as members of a category of " dying and rising gods " who had the power to overcome death.

These gods and their myths are now known to be more different from each other than was once thought, and some may not have been resurrected at all. Authors who imitated Terrasson's description of the Egyptian initiation included a trial by earth as well.

Mysteries of Isis

Alvar, Jaime []. Translated and edited by Richard Gordon. The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism. Religions of Rome, Volume I: From Adhesion to Conversion in the Mystery Cults". Mystery Cults of the Ancient World. Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World. Isis in the Isaeum at Pompeii". Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia.

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University of Texas Press. Power, Politics and the Cults of Isis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture. Casadio, Giovanni; Johnston, Patricia A. Isis on the Nile: Egyptian Gods in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. Religion in Roman Egypt: My lips will not be dry': Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride. University of Wales Press. Apuleius, the Isis-book Metamorphoses, book XI. The Secret Lore of Egypt: Unraveling the Secrets of an Ancient Art. Brad Geagley's second book: He is sent to Iraq on a secret mission.

I think this book is even better than the first. Carol Thurston has a book called The Eye of Horus which is split between modern day, and ancient Egypt. It is about a mysterious artifact mummy that the moderns in a museum are studying, and the ancient part is what happened to her. Other Ancient Egyptian Books Pauline Gedge is probably the queen of Ancient Egyptian writing, though the books are not considered mysteries: The hippopotamus Marsh Lord of the Two Lands: Volume 1 The Oasis: Lords of the Two Lands: Volume 2 The Horus Road: Volume 3 The twelfth transforming: Of course all of Christian Jacq's books.

Some books are better than others because they are translated into English. Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz has 3 books about ancient Egypt: Suzanne Frank or Suzanne Frank has a time travel romance series where the two main characters keep changing time periods.

The first book starts in the modern day and the switches to ancient Egypt. It is called Reflections in the Nile. It is lite and fluffy, and a bit pink, but not bad. Judith Tarr has several books set in Egypt. She writes as though the magic and gods of the ancient world were real, so some don't like the 'fantasy' element. I can second the recommendation for Brad Geagley; I loved both his books. I have not heard whether any more are on the horizon, unfortunately.

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I couldn't get into P. I just didn't like his writing style. Maybe I'll try again one of these days. Ficus, I'll be adding some of your recommendations to my TBR list.

Thanks for the truly impressive post!! Thank you, hope you enjoy the books. I talked to him email maybe a year ago. He was at the publishing house that had Michael Korda as a big time editor. Korda was forced out and those under him were also canned.

One of the them was Geagley's editor, so no more books. He has an agent, and the agent suggested that he not write another book of Egyptian mystery because he would get pigeon-holed as only doing one thing. I think Geagley said he had the story arc mapped out for up to 7 books or so, and did want to continue at some point. He was working on a novel about Cleopatra, as his next project. Haven't emailed him recently, and don't know if he is still working on the book, or if he is done, and just trying to get it published.

Updates on the books The series by Wilbur Smith has a 4th book which I missed: Rhadopis of Nubia Voices from the Other World: Ancient Egyptian Tales both of which I have ordered. Nefertiti by Moran Nefertiti: The Book of the Dead by Drake Both are good, though with some problems, and both have a second book coming that follows the story in the first book.

I read Moran's Nefertiti, and thought it was just okay. I felt like I was reading the same scene over and over between Mutny and Nefertiti. Hopefully, Brad Geagley will disregard his agent's advice about being pigeonholed. Isn't that what series writers do, write multiple books with the same setting?

Seems like sort of silly advice to me. I thought the writing in Moran's book was better, and she sucked me right in. I felt a certain high-school-ishness to the book because their outlook Mutny, Nefer, Ankhenaten , expectations, and behavior were often so trivial and over the top emotionally, over minor stuff. I suspect the advice was because he was just starting out, and lost his place. Perhaps there isn't a big market for historical fiction mysteries that aren't blockbusters? I think Robinson and Haney have had to stop too.

Mysteries set in Ancient Egypt

But I agree its sad. Publishers probably don't want to wait for a series and a following to develop anymore. Now is books and if you aren't a best seller its out the door. I found a series by Christian Jacq, can't remember where! They are set in the time of Rameses. So far 6 books; Ramses: The Son of Light, Ramses: The Eternal Temple, Ramses: The Battle of Kadesh, Ramses: The Lady of Abu Simbel, Ramses: Under the Western Acacia, Ramses: The Temple of a Million Years.

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