The Mystery of the Copper Scroll of Qumran

by Robert Feather

  What a strange dichotomy for the ancient mind to grapple with – a creator sun and yet a destroyer sun. A powerful force to be revered and loved and yet to be both feared and dreaded. Throughout the Bible this conflict of qualities is reflected in its stories, and in our present day concept of a loving yet vengeful God.

  Of course, the other great impelling icon for the ancient Egyptian mind was the Nile River, and it too meanders its way through several Biblical stories. Suffice it to say, the river also presented and reinforced the same dichotomous imagery. It nourished the crops, bringing food and vital sustenance, but it could also bring disastrous floods, death and destruction.

  Both the sun and the Nile, as the two most powerful natural forces known to the ancient Egyptians, understandably became the main bases of spiritual interest and the sources for the Egyptians’ ideas on the origins of creation and life itself.

  EGYPT AND CREATION

  Before getting to why Egypt should be so influential on formative Western religions and subsequent attitudes about morality, as I claim, it is necessary to examine in some detail the what, to see if the fundamental ideas, which might relate to Western religious concepts, actually existed.

  I started my search with some early Egyptian mythology in relation to the creation, to see what interesting correlations were discernable. To understand the mythological background we need to examine a bit more closely the early history and legends of Egypt.

  The conventional view of Egyptian religion is one of multifarious deities, with an overbearing emphasis on death and exotic half-human creature-like gods exemplified by Horus – the falcon-headed human-bodied god of war, the sky and divine kingship; or Anubis – the canine god of the dead.

  These conceptions are not in themselves incorrect, but underlying the diverse religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians there was also a deep comprehension that one Supreme Being lay behind this panoply of gods.

  The idea of a single God, in fact, dated back a thousand years before the time of Abraham. Even by the beginning of the Old Kingdom period, in 2700 BCE, there was recognition that one source of authority on earth (Pharaoh) was paralleled by one single creator and originator of divine power. By the height of the Old Kingdom, c.2500 BCE, the High God of Heliopolis was envisaged as a spiritual and intellectual force that controlled time and motion, morality and natural order.1

  Until about 1760 BCE, with the invasion of the Hyksos2 tribes from Asia, Egypt remained remarkably unaffected by outside cultural influences. Cut off by the sea to the north, by desert to the south-west and north-east, and by impassable cataracts downstream of the Nile, it developed its own unique social, scientific and religious environment, and its own hieroglyphic (pictorial imagery) form of writing. This cultural isolation allowed a distinct religious and philosophical framework to evolve, which, although continually modified by re-evaluation, remained essentially the same for 1,250 years, from 3000 BCE. The main religious icons were, as I have already mentioned, the Sun and the Nile, together with a third, the natural sequel to Creation – Death.

  Our view of the events in this period has largely been deduced from ancient inscriptions found inside the tombs of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasty pharaohs, queens and officials, dating from 2350 to 2250 BCE. Other sources of information come from the Coffin Texts of the Seventh to the Tenth Dynasties, dating from 2250 to 2050 BCE, and the Book of the Dead, which dates from immediately before 2000 BCE (see Glossary).

  These sources show that the Egyptians, some 4,000 years before our time, were amazingly intellectually and religiously inquisitive. Their ways of conceptualizing, often in highly sexual terms, were through myths and stories that related to a complex structure of gods and their creativity.

  In many respects their ideas, recognized by such historians as the American Professor James Breasted,3 and E. Wallis Budge,4 Curator at the British Museum, were well in advance of Greek and Christian philosophy. Early Egyptian ideas were compounded by an almost surrealistic concept of a single divine creator, who could, nevertheless, without any conflict of understanding, take numerous forms – vengeful, destructive, combative, as well as loving, creative and assistive.

  INSTABILITY BRINGS NEW IDEAS

  At the end of the Middle Kingdom period (2055–1780 BCE), Asiatic invaders began to overturn the status quo of Egyptian customs and wrought havoc on the religious structures. The invaders adopted many Egyptian ways but brought with them Syro-Canaanite influences. The catharsis of chaos spawned a new philosophical examination of the role of man’s own will, his relationship with God, good and evil, and man’s soul. The idea of God as the shepherd and His children as the flock, an analogy later borrowed in modified form by the Christian Gospels, could no longer be maintained.

  After the upheavals of the Second Intermediate Period, from 1650 to 1550 BCE, the Hyksos invaders left a legacy of doubt in the Egyptians’ minds about the supreme God’s desire to protect them from outside disaster. An Egyptian poet of the period, Ipu, touchingly calls on the ‘director of the universe’ to awake from his slumbers and, as a ‘loving shepherd’, protect his people:

  It used to be said that He was everyman’s shepherd, that there was no evil in his heart, that however insignificant his flock he would spend the whole day in caring for them…6

  Table 3: Egyptian Pharaoh-Ruler Chronology and Probable Scheme of Dates for the Hebrew Patriarchs5

  R. T. Rundle Clark, Lecturer in Ancient History at Birmingham University, described Ipu’s poem:

  it reveals the underlying monotheism of the Egyptian mind and the tragic situation that results when this imposing conception has been shaken to the very roots.7

  Where was God now? Could man stand on his own judgements? Who would care for his soul?

  Around this period we find a clear acknowledgement that man has been granted the free-will to do good or evil, and injunctions to take care of others – particularly dead parents and their resting places – become apparent. With the accession of the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom, and the Amenhotep family (beginning with Ahmose in 1538 BCE), the concept of free-will was consolidated into the idea of a unifying God.

  The few examples given below show how this ‘evolving’ early monotheism left its mark on the Old and the New Testaments, and underline the power of Egyptian ideas and their influence on the Hebrew mind.

  EGYPTIAN TEXTS AND THE BIBLE

  The Book of the Dead, chapter 85, records the Supreme Creator as saying:

  I came into being of myself in the midst of the Primeval Waters in this my name Khopri.8

  Atum was the ultimate God in invisible form, Re was God as the sun in the heavens, Khopri was God in visible form.

  The initiator of light from the utter darkness of the all-enveloping waters, which were conceived as filling the universe, brought morning. The emergence of Atum to create the light was marked by the appearance of a ‘Light-bird’, or ‘Phoenix’. In the Pyramid Texts, composed largely by the priests of Heliopolis, Utterance 600 is a prayer for the protection of the pyramid:

  O Atum! When you came into being you rose up as a High Hill, You shone as the Benben Stone in the Temple of the Phoenix in Heliopolis.9

  We can see this ‘Phoenix-like bird’ today, appearing in numerous guises in Hebrew as well as Christian mythology. It has an early colourful depiction in the Catacombs of Priscilla, outside Rome, where the earliest known depiction of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, can also be seen.

  Figure 4: A generalized scheme of the Egyptian gods.

  Before creation, in Egyptian mythology, there was nothing but water everywhere. Darkness was upon the face of the deep. The first manifestation of the High God is in the form of Light. Sounds familiar? Compare Genesis 1:1–3:

  In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Now the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said: ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light.

  The Egyptian myths
of how the ‘word’ of Ptah and the ‘eye’ of Atum, the creator gods, became the vehicles of creation and the seeing element of light are directly analogous to the Old Testament creation stories. The parallel role of mythological creatures, such as the snake, can also be clearly identified.10

  The order of creation in Egyptian cosmology varies through the dynastic periods, as well as according to the perspectives at the different centres of religious culture – Heliopolis, Hermopolis, Memphis, Thebes, Herakleopolis – so it is not easy to establish a standard format. Usually all the core elements are present, but interpretations vary. The prevailing pattern as presented in later dynasties is, generally, as follows:

  1) The Supreme Being exists and nothing else.

  2) Primeval waters encompass everything.

  3) Light and space (Shu and Tefnut).

  4) Heaven and earth are separated (Nut and Geb).

  5) Light creates the first dawn.

  6) Land emerges from the waters.

  7) Vegetation (flowers,trees etc), springs from the pure earth.

  8) Creatures emerge from mud and slime.

  9) Primeval geese, birds, and animals.

  10) Man is created.11

  Compare the contents of Genesis 1:1–31.

  1) There is God and nothing else.

  2) Formless heaven and earth are covered by endless water and darkness.

  3) There was light.

  4) Earth and heaven are separated.

  5) Land and sea are separated.

  6) Vegetation appears.

  7) Day is separated from night.

  8) Birds, creatures and animals are created.

  9) Man is created.

  The Biblical version encompasses all the elements of the Egyptian cycle, and perpetuates the anomalies and confusions that become apparent in the light of modern science and cosmology.

  In both versions there is a clear concept of earth and sky being connected and, therefore, having a need to be separated. One could, of course, argue that this was a profound understanding of the twentieth-century idea of ‘Big Bang’, where everything in the Universe started from one concentration of matter about 15 billion years ago. In Biblical and Egyptian terms, original light is conceived as being independent of the sun and the stars and darkness as separate from light, whereas darkness is purely an absence of light.12

  The ancient Egyptians, however, had a deeper understanding of the universe. The mistaken concept that early Egyptian deism was centred on the Sun is absolutely dispelled by Pyramid Text 449:

  I know his name, Eternity is his name,

  ‘Eternity, the master of years’ is his name,

  exalted over the vaults of the sky,

  bringing the sun to life every day.13

  To the early Egyptians the pivotal movements of the stars around the Pole Star were an obsessive wonder, more so than to any other contemporary civilization. Here was the centre of celestial movement and what better place for the Great God, the protector of mankind, to reside than on the very axis of the universe?*14

  Central to the early creation concept was the idea that order should come out of chaos. This striving for order was taken as the justification for the development of an ordered State, as well as for the conquest of neighbouring states whose houses needed putting in order, as the gods would have desired. The early Egyptians also held that at the end of time chaos and disorder would return. Strange that these early minds had, in a sense, formulated the Second Law of Thermodynamics – ‘Entropy of a closed system increases with time’!*15 Later I will show that this understanding of the process of chaos–order–chaos was echoed by the Qumran-Essenes, who also envisaged chaos reigning at the end of time.

  Establishing order on behalf of the gods was a prime earthly motivator, originating from the earliest conception of Egyptian religion. The motivation inevitably spread to a desire for a more ordered theism. By the time the Old Kingdom is centred at Memphis, around 2600 BCE, the High God is worshipped in the name of Ptah. Ptah subordinates all the previous gods and mythical figures to one supreme spirit. The previous Sun God, Horus, purveyor of intelligence and spoken authority, and the Moon God, Thoth, the god of insight and learning, are replaced by a God of mind and will.14

  The tone now is of thoughts, rather than personalities, as being the force behind creation. Here we begin to see Vedic and even Buddhist ideas being previewed. Karma for the Buddhists is the ‘Ka’ (a kind of vital power transferred from the gods to man) of the Egyptians – the power to become divine and eternal.

  Although the New Testament and the Koran were both written at a much later date than the Torah, one can still find Egyptian influences that have ‘jumped’ the Old Testament. One example is the Christian belief that God is present in three forms as a ‘Trinity’ – the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Implicit in the early development of Egyptian belief was this idea that the Supreme God could manifest Himself in three forms. The grouping of gods into a ‘trinity’ was not evident in other religions, such as those in Syria. Thus when Syrian goddesses were adopted into Egyptian theology, they were combined as a ‘trinity’ of Kadesh, Astarte and Anath.15

  Initially, these groupings were apparently designed to enhance the power of the unit, but later there evolved a definite pattern of spiritual unity. This can be seen in the Leyden Hymns to Amon, which appeared after the Amarna period (c.1350 BCE), and was almost certainly a consequence of that period’s monotheistic ideas.

  All gods are three: Amon, Re and Ptah…‘Hidden’ is His name as Amon, He is Re in face, and His body is Ptah.16

  There were also groupings of gods like – Ptah, a national god, Osiris, power god of the dead, and Sokaris, a local god of Memphis – into a ‘trinity’ that was also looked on as a ‘unity’.

  In the Coffin Texts we find a vibrant expression of the ‘Trinity’:

  I am “life”, the lord of years, alive until infinity, a lord of eternity, I am he whom Atum, the eldest, has brought forth through his might when he brought forth Shu and Tefnut at Heliopolis, when he was One, when he became Three.17

  DEATH AND THE AFTERLIFE

  Lurking behind in this ‘competition of the gods’ we have a dark horse. Dating back to at least 3000 BCE, he is Osiris. His appearance is more formalized in the Pyramid Texts, written between 2400 and 2200 BCE.18 A figure of fertility, rebirth, life and death, his popularity ebbs and flows over the years, at times even rivalling Re, the Sun God of the Pharaohs.

  The myths surrounding Osiris are many and varied, but from the Coffin Texts, and sources such as Plutarch (see Glossary), the general theme is that Osiris is eventually incapacitated by his rival, and brother, Seth. It is worth looking at this story in a bit more detail, as it relates to a number of issues that will arise later on.

  A real blood-thirsty character is Seth; not content with killing Osiris, he tears his brother into pieces and scatters the bits around Egypt for good measure. Isis (Osiris’s wife-sister), aided by her sister Nephthys, gathers all the pieces of their brother together but can’t find his penis. Undeterred, she still manages to impregnate herself from Osiris’s reconstructed parts and gives birth secretly to his son Horus. When Horus grows up he seeks out his father’s tormentor, and in the ensuing ferocious fight tears out Seth’s testicles – vengeance is sweet! – although at the expense of his left eye – not so sweet! – which is gouged out by Seth. The High God rules that the feuding must cease, and Horus is made the successor–ruler to Osiris as the Sun King, whilst Seth is reduced to the role of a carrier or boat transporter, perhaps as controller of the wind, or the bringer of death.

  Meanwhile, poor Osiris has descended into the underworld and lies in a state of limbo. He perks up, however, on learning from Horus of his success in defeating the dreaded Seth. Osiris is resurrected, becoming the spirit of renewed life and rebirth, Lord of the Dead, with a soul that is again free.

  This myth largely reflects the fear that the early Egyptians had for the safety of the soul of the recently dead.
The vulnerable time for evil spirits to attack the soul was while the dead body awaited, in a state of limbo, the coming of Horus to ‘free the soul’. To prevent any mischief, priests would stand watch through the night to guard the mummified body.19 The myth also manifests itself in modern cultures in many guises – the wake, tomb vigils, the urgency of burial, the need for an intact cadaver.

  By the time of Ramses II, around 1200 BCE, traditionally believed to be the Pharaoh ruling at the time of the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, Re and Osiris have merged and act as one god. In a piece of jewellery of Osorkon II we have an image of Osiris’s wife and son, Isis and Horus, ministering to the needs of the unified God (see Plate 5).

  After 1000 BCE, Osiris gains ascendancy in the Egyptian pantheon, and is still going strong when the Romans reach Egypt in 30 BCE.

  PUBESCENT MONOTHEISM

  I think I have now given sufficient evidence to justify the conclusion that monotheism was a developing force in Egypt from quite early on in its history. There is a possibility, therefore, that Moses, as an Egyptian Prince, was an heir to this belief and might have brought with him strong Egyptian influences on the Hebrew religion and its texts – perhaps to be reflected in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls and, as I believe I have already established, in the Copper Scroll of the Qumran-Essenes.

  As far back as 2250 BCE, pubescent monotheism was a central belief. For the Egyptians – intelligentsia and peasants alike – there was a single Creator and a single supreme God standing behind all the other gods. Yes, their concept of God was different from ours in peripheral understanding, worship, and interpretation, but it was nevertheless basically the same monotheism that we understand today.

  Thus, an intense religious philosophy was being built up against a background of cultural, artistic, scientific and medical knowledge and ability far superior to that existing anywhere else in the world. Pioneering developments in writing and numbering systems, astronomical mapping, surgical operations, the processing of iron and bronze, metal polishing, the construction of vast buildings and complex geometry and mathematics were but a few of the fruits of these intellectual activities. Moreover, the driving forces for all these disciplines were religious considerations and demands.