Isaiah Roman

Stele

On the Island of Sehel, just below the First Cataract on the Nile River there is a large granite block with an inscription carved into it. Some believe the inscription is a copy of an earlier document and that the inscription was actually carved some time in the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Others believe that it is original to it’s subject; the Pharaoh Djoser.

Pharaoh Djoser is most famous for his commissioning of the step pyramid, which was believed to be the pattern used for the later pyramids. Djoser is also famous for his advisor, Imhotep. The modern remake of “The Mummy” features a fictional Imhotep who rises as a supernatural, demon-like force intent on conquering the world. The original Imhotep was a much more refined individual.

There’s another inscription on a statue of Djoser that describes Imhotep’s many talents. He is truly a remarkable individual. He is touted as a physician, craftsman, architect, magician and high priest of Ptah. Imhotep is the first, and the only, non pharaoh enshrined with a pharaoh in statue form. It is Imhotep who is attributed with the design and execution of the building of the step pyramid.

Djoser, according to the so called “Famine Stele,” had a dream of a seven year famine. He consults Imhotep about the matter and they determine that the god Khunum is angry. Djoser offers sacrifices and Khunum is satisfied. At the top of that stele Djoser is depicted as bringing sacrifices to three gods Khnum, Satis and Anuket.

Khnum is described as the creator god, who made humans out of clay on a potter’s wheel. He is described as having made all the other deities. The second deity Satis is described as a woman, but the name means “that which is ejected out.” Satis is associated with the floods of the Nile and is often depicted as offering jars of purified water. Anuket is the most mysterious of the three. The deity is represented as a woman and the name means “embrace.” She is said to bring comfort during fertility and infuse those souls on their way to the afterlife with living water.

Djoser gives worship to a trinity. That trinity is the creator of men, the offspring of Khnum who is the bringer of life, and the comforter who is the living water.

The step pyramid itself is interesting. Regarded as the first great work of Egypt, it is remarkably like every other step pyramid, or ziggurat on the planet. The ziggurats of the Ur of the Chaldees, the ziggurats of South and Central America, the step mounds of North America, all take the same shape. It’s interesting that this shape finds it’s way into every single culture. Even China has it’s own variety of step pyramid. We think of Egyptian tombs as being designed to carry the remains of the kings into the after-life. Actually the tombs were designed to keep the kings alive forever. They were supposed to be the salvation of the kings.

Why that shape? A pyramid is four triangles pointing towards the heavens. They look like man-made mountains. At their base they have a place of worship. You’d think that a race that worships the sun would have it’s place of worship at the top, to be nearest the sun. Yet, the tomb, and the ceremonial areas are all at the bottom. The pyramid itself is made up of six layers, but perhaps at one time had seven. There were seven small step pyramids built in the different provinces of Egypt.

Djoser built a mountain at which he could worship and which would allow him to be perpetually reborn, to be “carried over” into a new life.

Imhotep is identified as the son of Ptah, or Peteh. He was the high priest of Ptah. Ptah is an anomaly in Egyptian mythology. He appears only for a short time. He is the creator god who dreamed the universe into existence. He is a single god, not part of a pantheon, from whom nine other gods came. Those nine other gods became the basis for much of the pantheonic beliefs of early Egypt. The worship of Ptah lasted about as long as Imhotep. It wasn’t long after his death that Ptah began to be assimilated into the persona of Osiris, the goddess of the underworld.

Imhotep himself became a god and was deified. He eventually became part of his own trinity; Imhotep, Ptah and Sekhmet. Sekhmet is a goddess with the head of a lioness. Interesting that Imhotep should be identified with Ptah, the one god, and Sekhmet, the lion. Her name means “Before whom evil trembles.” Perhaps part of the mystique of Imhotep is the fact that his burial site has never been found. Imhotep’s tomb is simply not known. Strange, for a man of such renown and prominence that he would be considered a god by those of later generations.

Imhotep worshipped the creator god, and was a brother of the lion “before whom evil trembles.”

Here’s what I find most interesting about Egyptology. When studying different sources on what we know about these characters there’s a lot of speculation, a lot of “believed to be” and “supposedly” going around. It’s really difficult to get a clear picture of who these characters are, when they existed and what they actually did. Egyptology has a sort of religion all it’s own that acts as a basis for most of these assumptions.

Egyptians are mainly believed to be death cult followers. The reason is simple, they built a lot of tombs to commemorate the dead. But, was that really what they were doing? By their own admission, Egyptologists assert that the tombs and pyramids of Egypt were not for worshiping the dead so much as they were for providing life after death. It seems that a great deal of their culture centered around the worship of god(s) in the effort to gain eternal life.

There is a collection of papyri called the Papyrus Prisse. It is a collection of writings of a man named Ptahotep, who was the vizier of one of the 5th Dynasty. Interestingly enough Imhotep and Ptahotep were fairly contemporaneous. In the writings of Ptahotep we find the following words;

If you are weak, follow a man of excellence
and all your conduct will be good before god.
When you have known lesser men before,
do not be proud against him,
from what you knew of him before.
Respect him according to what he has become,
for goods do not come of their own accord.
This is their law for their desire.
An overflow – he has assembled it of himself.
It is the god who makes him excellent,
and protects him while he sleeps.

Does anyone else notice that Ptahotep is referencing one god?

All of the facts used in the text above are from purely secular sources. I will grant that they are selective, but they are accurate. Being a biblical scholar first, and a student of history second, I personally can’t see how anyone can look at the facts on the ground and not see the truth that lies beneath. For some time I’ve been following the case for Imhotep as Joseph. There are some very remarkable similarities between the two men. Unfortunately there is not a single direct correlation between Joseph and Imhotep. All of the evidences point circularly towards Joseph, but none state either his Hebrew name, nor his Egyptian name as recorded by the Bible.

Not too long ago a man by the name of Immanuel Velikovsky dared to challenge the status quo by asserting that the Bible had it right, and historians have it wrong. Velikovsky was not an historian, or an archaeologist. He was a psychologist. He wasn’t part of the clique. They attacked him with a vitriol that is almost unbelievable. Velikovsky was vilified, his name became almost a curse word. They picked his theories apart piece by piece and managed to find a few holes in his assertions. They used these holes as a means to discount his entire thesis, but I’ve read Velikovsky. His research is thorough and well documented.

Subsequent discoveries and some errors in interpretation have rendered some of his surmising as incorrect, yet I doubt there is a scientist alive who today believes everything he believed ten years ago. That’s the nature of science. But, the key is this; Velikovsky used the Tanakh as the template. It wasn’t the fact that Velikovsky was on the outside that got him into trouble, it was the fact that he used the scriptures as his base line.

It all comes down to a choice. Here’s what I find most interesting. Modern historians try to use the discoveries they find as pieces in a puzzle that describe history. But, what they don’t have is the picture on the box that shows them how the puzzle should be assembled. I believe we have the box top that reveals the picture we want to make of the pieces, but science seems to want to make it up as they go along. Yet, there is a simple message staring us all right in the face. A message that seems to be ignored. The Egyptians believed in life after death, and the eternity of the soul. They believed that a mountain could help you escape death. They believed that one god made man out of clay.

Where did those ideas come from?