THE TEN COMMANDMENTS AND
THE BOOK OF THE DEAD
There seems to be a similarity between the
moral codes of the ancient Egyptians and the early Israelites. The
Ten Commandments given by God to Moses on the top of Mount Sinai are
clearly set in an Egyptian tradition and would seem to have common
roots with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Except for the first two
commandments, we find the same moral rules in the Hebrew Bible that
are also found in the Egyptian hieroglyphic writings. Egyptian
religion was a polytheistic belief, and hundreds of gods and
goddesses were worshiped in the Nile valley. These deities were
believed to manifest themselves in certain images and the artists of
that time captured these images in pictures and statues. This was
completely forbidden by the Monotheistic God of Moses in the first
two of his commandments given in Chapter 20 of the Book of Exodus:
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto
thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven
above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water
under the earth."
Also, unlike the
Israelites, Egyptians believed in a second life after death. They
believed that every person has, other than his physical body, a dual
spiritual nature, which they called the KA and the BA. They also
regarded the name and shadow of a person as living entities, part of
the spiritual existence, not just linguistic and natural phenomena.
Thus Egyptians regarded death as simply a temporary interruption
rather than a complete cessation of life, and believed that after
their death, they faced a trial in the underworld before the god
Osiris and his forty-two judges in the Hall of Judgement. In the
Egyptian culture, eternal life had to be ensured by various means,
including the preservation of the physical body through
mummification, the provision of funerary equipment, and the presence
of magical spells in the tomb to protect the dead person in his
journey in the underworld.
Their composition of the
texts relating to death and afterlife went back to the Pyramid
Texts, the first examples of which were inscribed in the 5th dynasty
pyramid of Unas (2375 - 2345 BC) at Saqqara. By the time of the 18th
dynasty, about 1500 BC, these spells were copied on rolls of papyrus
and placed within the coffins. These rolls have come to be known now
as copies of the Book of the Dead. This is, nevertheless, a modern
term, as the Egyptians themselves called it "Going Forth by Day."
The Ten Commandments
represent God's orders to humans given in the imperative form; the
Egyptian texts use this form:
Thou shalt not kill. Thou shat not commit
adultery. Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Spell 125 of the Book of
the Dead, contrary to the Book of Exodus, contains a moral code
represented in a form of Negative Confession that the dead person
has to recite when he descends to the hall of the Two Truths. He
shall say:
Hail to thee, great God,
Lord of the Two Truths. I have come unto thee, my Lord, that thou
mayest bring me to see thy beauty. I know thee, I know thy name, I
know the names of the 42 Gods who are with thee in this broad hall
of the Two Truths . . . Behold, I am come unto thee. I have brought
thee truth; I have done away with sin for thee. I have not sinned
against anyone. I have not mistreated people. I have not done evil
instead of righteousness . . .
I have not reviled the God. I have not laid violent
hands on an orphan. I have not done what the God abominates .
. . I have not killed; I have not turned anyone over to a
killer. I have not caused anyone's suffering . . . I have not
copulated (illicitly); I have not been unchaste. I have not
increased nor diminished the measure, I have not diminished the
palm; I have not encroached upon the fields. I have
not added to the balance weights; I have not tempered with the
plumb bob of the balance. I have not taken milk from a child's
mouth; I have not driven small cattle from their herbage . .
. I have not stopped
(the flow of) water in its seasons; I have not built a dam against
flowing water. I have not quenched a
fire in its time . . . I have not kept cattle away from the
God's property. I have not blocked the God at his
processions.
Ahmed Osman
Historian,
lecturer, researcher and author, Ahmed Osman is a British
Egyptologist born in Cairo
His four
indepth books clarifying the history of the Bible and Egypt
are: Stranger in the Valley of the
Kings (1987) - Moses: Pharaoh of Egypt (1990) -
The House of the Messiah (1992)
- Out of Egypt (1998)
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