In the Beginning: The Birth of a God
Just as the gods of ancient Egypt were numerous and varied, so too are the Egyptian accounts of creation. Some inscriptions tell of a cosmic egg that existed before creation, while other versions assert that the world was born out of water and darkness. Some of the earliest myths from the Old Kingdom attribute the creation of the world to eight primordial gods, the
Ogdoad, while later stories give credit to a single creator god—
Atum or
Ra being two of the more popular deities. Still other accounts claim that the world began when the sun rose for the first time. However, despite their differences, most of the Egyptian creation myths do have many elements in common. That said, and for the purpose of this article, the following version of the creation myth seems to be the most accurate representation of Egyptian creation mythology.
In the beginning the world existed as a swirling void of dark, watery chaos called
Nu. It was out of this darkness that the creator god, Atum emerged, creating himself through the power of his thoughts and sheer force of will. That said, spell 261 of the
Coffin Text seems to imply that there was another god present before creation,
Heka, the god of magic.
Heka is sometimes referred to as “
the eternal god” though in reality he seems to have been viewed more as a supernatural cosmic power—magic—used by the gods, who was later deified into the god of magic and medicine. Additionally, his claim of eternal preexistence is thrown into serious doubt by the fact that he was believed by some Egyptian cults to be the son of the god
Khnum and one of several goddesses:
Nebetu’u (Hathor), Menhit,
Mehetweret, or
Neith, while still other texts assert that Heka was created by Atum at the time of creation.
After creating himself, Atum created a hill, the
Ben-Ben to stand on, as before that time there was no ground in Nu’s watery void.
Now Atum was alone. Being filled with loneliness, and being neither male nor female, Atum had sex with his own shadow and gave birth to twins, a son and a daughter. His son,
Shu, was born from either Atum’s sneezes or semen, depending on the myth in question. Shu became god of the air, while his sister,
Tefnut, who was vomited up by Atum, became the goddess of mist and moisture. These two children of Atum brought order to the chaos and void of Nu. They divided the light from the darkness and brought stability, law and order to the world. It was this natural order that the ancient Egyptians referred to as
Ma’at .Ma’at was often depicted as a feather, as it was viewed as being pure and lightweight.
Later, the two children of Atum, Shu and his sister Tefnut had sex and gave birth to
Geb, the earth god, and his sister,
Nut, the sky goddess. These two gods would likewise engage in incestual relations, forcing Shu to push Nut into the sky where she would forever be separated from Geb—all for the sake of fulfilling their roles in Ma’at. However, this was not before Nut had conceived the principle gods of Egypt through her union with Geb.
The names and number of these gods vary once again from myth to myth, with some versions of the creation story including Hathor,
Thoth and
Horus the Elder among those begotten of Nut
. However their are four main deities that appear to be universally accepted in the narrative:
Nephthys,
Isis,
Set (Seth) and
Osiris.
Therefore, it is clearly evident in Egyptian Mythology that Osiris was not preexistent. That is to say, he was not eternal. He had not always existed and had a definitive beginning, being born—as most ancient gods are—through a sexual union between two other gods.
On the other hand, Christian theology teaches that Jesus is eternal, having existed as God for eternity. (
John 1:1-18, John 10:30-33) Therefore Jesus is
without beginning in regards to his divine nature.
With respect to Jesus’ earthly nature, however, the Bible teaches that he was born of a virgin. Not through a sexual union between Mary and God—which would make Jesus a demigod—but through a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, as foretold in
Isaiah 7:14 and
Genesis 3:14-15. This point was of such great importance that the Bible goes out of its way to emphasis the fact that Marry remained a virgin until after the baby was born in
Matthew 1:20-25.
Additionally, Christian theology states that God has existed forever, he has no beginning and no end. He was there before creation (
Genesis 1:1-2) He did not need to create himself, like Atum, in order to exist.
Furthermore, God is triune in nature. That is to say, he exists as one God in three persons. He is not three gods. He is not a three-headed god. He is three
persons in one
God. Just as each of us exists as one, individual person in one human being, so God exists as three distinct persons—The Father, The Son (Jesus) and The Holy Spirit—in one eternal being: God.
Therefore, since God is triune, God was not lonely at the time of creation. He has existed in perfect love and unity within himself for all eternity. Likewise God is not dependent on his creation for purpose and meaning—He created the world simply because it pleased him to do so. The Christian God did not require other gods working for eons to create the universe for him, he created it all by his word alone! (
Genesis 1-2) The God of the Bible is literally the
Creator God.
In that regard the
only similarity between the Genesis account of creation and Egyptian mythology is the fact that the world was covered by a primeval ocean before the creation of dry land; a theme that, for the most part, seems to be widely held if not universal among virtually every ancient civilization.
Furthermore, it is illogical to assume that these universal themes were inspired by other religions given the fact that many of these cultures (i.e the
Polynesian cultures) are so far removed from one another that they are unlikely to have ever come into contact. What seems far more likely to me is that the concept of a primeval ocean is founded on a historical truth that was, at one time, common knowledge, and that it was this common knowledge, passed down from generation to generation since the time of creation, that formed the inspiration for the countless creation myths we find throughout the ancient world.
