#jan assmann

[aboutanancientenquiry]

An article of Jan Assmann on the Bible and the blackening of Egypt’s reputation (with some thoughts of mine on Herodotus and the Bible as sources on ancient Egypt)

“The Blackening of Egypt's Reputation

Prof. Jan Assmann

It was from Egypt –and not, e.g. from Babylonia or Khatti (Turkey—Hittite land) or any other country of the Ancient world – that the Israelites believed themselves to have emigrated in order to enter the covenant with God and eventually the Promised Land of Canaan. The reason for this choice may be historical, if we believe in the historicity of the exodus, or symbolic, if we take the exodus story as a foundational myth rather than a historical account. In either case, however, it is legitimate to ask about the significance and origin of the stark antagonism that the biblical account constructs between Egypt and Israel.

The negative image of Egypt in the exodus story blackens the memory of Pharaonic Egypt until today. It focuses mainly on two points: Egypt as the “house of serfdom” and Pharaoh as the paragon of tyranny and despotism.[1]

Conscripted Labor not Slavery

In Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome, slaves were understood to belong by nature to a lower species of human beings; this idea was unknown in Egypt. Egyptians worked as servants, laborers, and peasants, but not as slaves. There was, however, the institution of corvée or conscripted labor.

Throughout the Ancient Orient, conscripted labor was a customary form of taxation and could be paid in the form of labor service. In Egypt, conscripted labor played a particularly important role since the annual flooding of the Nile put a halt to work in the fields for three to four months at a stretch, freeing up farm hands for other activities. Furthermore, huge loads that would otherwise have had to be arduously hauled overland could now be transported by ship.

We must further distinguish between normal conscripted labor and forced labor. The first form is free from every degrading or punishing aspects, the second form, however, is the usual form of punishment in antiquity and highly degrading.

Apiru

‍In the New Kingdom (1500-1100 BCE), forced and corvée labor was more and more left to prisoners of war and people deported from occupied countries like Nubia (to Egypt’s south) and Canaan. In this way, even Hebrews and other Canaanites may have been engaged in the large building projects of Ramses II. In Egypt, these foreign workers were called capiru, a Babylonia loan word (hapiru), meaning “vagabonds, outlaws, migrants.”[2] This fits the meaning of capiru in the exodus story, in which the enslavement of the Hebrews begins with conscripted labor, then forced labor, and eventually full enslavement.

Solomon’s Conscription of Captives

The closest the Bible comes to describing an Israelite king enslaving his population is the text concerning Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, which focuses on domestic rather than foreign corvée labor. When asked to lower the service burden, Rehoboam famously said: “My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions” (1 Kings 12:14). But Rehoboam never gets to make good this promise; unsurprisingly, his outburst brings on the secession of the Israelite northern kingdom.

When describing the “actual” corvée system under Solomon, however, the Bible does not make use of the same hyperbolic tone as we see in Exodus, though both texts use same term, mas (מס). Exodus 1:11 describes Pharaoh appointing “officers of the levy/labor (שרי מסים)” over the Hebrews; in 1Kings 5, the term is used both for the levy (מס) Solomon demanded of his own people and for the forced labor exacted from defeated cities and enslaved captives.

The book of Kings reports that Solomon, who spent twenty years building the Temple and royal palace in Jerusalem while also undertaking further construction projects in Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer, conscripted 30,000 men (1 Kings 5:27-30 [=vv. 13-16 in most English Bibles]):

מלכים א ה:כז וַיַּעַל הַמֶּלֶךְ שְׁלֹמֹה מַס מִכָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיְהִי הַמַּס שְׁלֹשִׁים אֶלֶף אִישׁ. ה:כח וַיִּשְׁלָחֵם לְבָנוֹנָה עֲשֶׂרֶת אֲלָפִים בַּחֹדֶשׁ חֲלִיפוֹת חֹדֶשׁ יִהְיוּ בַלְּבָנוֹן שְׁנַיִם חֳדָשִׁים בְּבֵיתוֹ וַאֲדֹנִירָם עַל הַמַּס. ה:כט וַיְהִי לִשְׁלֹמֹה שִׁבְעִים אֶלֶף נֹשֵׂא סַבָּל וּשְׁמֹנִים אֶלֶף חֹצֵב בָּהָר. ה:ל לְבַד מִשָּׂרֵי הַנִּצָּבִים לִשְׁלֹמֹה אֲשֶׁר עַל הַמְּלָאכָה שְׁלֹשֶׁת אֲלָפִים וּשְׁלֹשׁ מֵאוֹת הָרֹדִים בָּעָם הָעֹשִׂים בַּמְּלָאכָה.

1 Kgs 5:27 And King Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men. 5:28 And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand [men] a month by courses: a month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home: and Adoniram was [supervisor] over the levy. 5:29 And Solomon had threescore and ten thousand that bare burdens, and fourscore thousand hewers in the mountains; 5:30 Besides the chief officers of Solomon which were [deployed] over the work, three thousand and three hundred, which ruled over the people that wrought in the work.

Although the Bible describes what sounds like very hard work, the text offers not the slightest suggestion that the levy introduced by Solomon was tainted by indignity, degradation, enslavement, suffering, or the deprivation of rights.

A little later in the Book of Kings, however, we are told that Solomon levied only Canaanites for construction work and spared the Israelites for service in the army:

מלכים א ט:כ כָּל הָעָם הַנּוֹתָר מִן הָאֱמֹרִי הַחִתִּי הַפְּרִזִּי הַחִוִּי וְהַיְבוּסִי אֲשֶׁר לֹא מִבְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הֵמָּה. ט:כא בְּנֵיהֶם אֲשֶׁר נֹתְרוּ אַחֲרֵיהֶם בָּאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר לֹא יָכְלוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְהַחֲרִימָם וַיַּעֲלֵם שְׁלֹמֹה לְמַס עֹבֵד עַד הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה. ט:כב וּמִבְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֹא נָתַן שְׁלֹמֹה עָבֶד כִּי הֵם אַנְשֵׁי הַמִּלְחָמָה וַעֲבָדָיו וְשָׂרָיו וְשָׁלִשָׁיו וְשָׂרֵי רִכְבּוֹ וּפָרָשָׁיו.

1 Kgs 9:20 And all the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which were not of the children of Israel, 9:21 their children that were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel also were not able utterly to destroy, upon those did Solomon levy a tribute of bondservice unto this day. 9:22 But of the children of Israel did Solomon make no bondmen: but they were men of war, and his servants, and his princes, and his captains, and rulers of his chariots, and his horsemen.

This passage navigates the difficultly between two conflicting principles: not to oppress the Israelites with bondservice and the obligation of Deuteronomy 7:1-2 and 20:16-18 to annihilate the Canaanites.[3] Solomon’s treatment of the Canaanites that are still living in Israel amounts to a flagrant violation of Deuteronomistic puritanism, but by enslaving them and thus avoiding the creation of Israelite bondsmen, the passage ameliorates the problem somewhat. It also demonstrates some ambivalence about the idea of Solomon levying his own people to do hard labor; no such ambivalence is expressed about doing so to foreigners.

Pharaoh’s Shift to Forced Labor and the Use of Genocide

Considering the fact that a king levying work, even physical labor, from his citizens and certainly from foreign residents was the norm in the ancient Near East, including Egypt and Israel, the accusation against Pharaoh in Exodus needed to be about something more extreme than this. And thus we read in the exodus story, about how Pharaoh gradually exchanges the normal forms of conscripted labor to aggravated forms of forced labor (Exod 5:6-9).[4]

But the accusation against Pharaoh is much more serious and by far exceeds anything connected with forced labor: In order to cull the Israelite population, he commands his people to kill all the males among the Hebrew newborns by drowning them into the Nile:

שמות א:כב וַיְצַו פַּרְעֹה לְכׇל עַמּוֹ לֵאמֹר כׇּל הַבֵּן הַיִּלּוֹד הַיְאֹרָה תַּשְׁלִיכֻהוּ וְכׇל־הַבַּת תְּחַיּוּן.

Exod 1:22 And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.

This step, however, is told in chapter 1, long before Pharaoh’s negotiations with Moses, and is never referred to in the later unfolding of the narrative. The story belongs within the widely-known myth of the Exposed Child and bears unmistakable fairy-tale traits. It may, however, serve as a foreshadowing of the 10th plague, the killing of the Egyptian firstborn and is, in the Christian reading of the Old Testament, the typos or prefiguration of the massacre of the innocents in Bethlehem recounted in Matthew 2.

The Narrative Logic of the Sinister Egypt

The sinister role Egypt and Pharaoh play in the story of Exodus reflects the narrative logic of the story that leads from utter God-forsakenness in Egyptian slavery to the status of God’s Chosen People and the enjoyment of permanent divine presence. God, who is completely absent in the two first chapters describing the sufferings of the Israelites[5] (through Exod 2.23-25 where in five sentences Elohim is mentioned five times), ends up by entering into the tabernacle in order to “dwell in the midst of his people,” “speaking from above the Kerubîm.”[6]

The dark image of Egypt in the book of Exodus is a construct, not founded in historical reality. Its depiction of Egypt as a paradigmatic rogue state is a theological and narratological necessity. The Egyptian enslavement is needed in order to understand the covenant and its laws as liberation. God is the liberator “who led thee out of Egypt, the house of bondage.” They themselves are continually reminded of this fact and enjoined never to forget that they “were slaves in Egypt.”

They are to remain slaves, however; from slaves (avādîm) of the Egyptians they have become the servants[7] of YHWH:

ויקרא כה:נה כִּי לִי בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲבָדִים עֲבָדַי הֵם אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִי אוֹתָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם אֲנִי יְ־הֹוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם:

Lev 25:55 For unto me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am YHWH your God.

The Torah’s message is that servitude to God frees one from human enslavement.

ויקרא כו:יג אֲנִי יְ־הֹוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִי אֶתְכֶם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִהְיֹת לָהֶם עֲבָדִים וָאֶשְׁבֹּר מֹטֹת עֻלְּכֶם וָאוֹלֵךְ אֶתְכֶם קוֹמְמִיּוּת.

Lev 26:13 I am YHWH your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt from being their slaves, and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.

Historical Context of the Narrative

In the Bible, the story of the exodus from Egypt is set in the New Kingdom or Late Bronze Age. The orally transmitted myth that serves as the basis for this story may very well go back to this age, when Canaan was ruled by Egypt and its inhabitants suffered under the Egyptian occupation[8] or even – as deportees – in Egypt itself.

In my opinion, however, in its current, elaborated form, it must postdate the time when the kingdom of Judah collapsed (586 BCE) and the people were deprived of any exterior stabilizers of memory and identity: kingship, state and territory, temple, priesthood and cult. In exile, they experienced, discovered or invented a new form of spiritual resettlement in the ideas of revelation, covenant and faith, which they codified in the Torah. Upon their return to Jerusalem, they made this Torah the spiritual foundation of the new Second Temple Judaism.

View Footnotes

Prof. Jan Assmann is Professor (Emeritus) of Egyptology at the University of Heidelberg and is now Honorary Professor of Cultural and Religious Studies at Constance. He received his Ph.D and Dr.habil from Heidelberg, as ... Read more

Source: https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-blackening-of-egypts-reputation

Professor Jan Assmann

Jan Assman is for sure a great Egyptologist and this article of his offers very important insights. I think, however, that it is well established that slavery existed in Egypt too, not only in Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. Moreover, corvée labor, although not slavery in the strict sense of the term, is a form of forced labor, which can be very harsh. This was also the case with the corvée labor performed in ancient Egypt by the Egyptian population, which was a standard feature of the Pharaonic political and socio-economic system. But of course forced labor imposed on foreigners by the Egyptian state could be even harsher. 

Anyway, I think that it becomes clear from this article that the main source of the blackening of the reputation of ancient Egypt through history is not Herodotus, but also that one cannot compare Herodotus and the Bible as sources on ancient Egypt, contrary to what some people foolishly claim on this site: Herodotus’ account of Egypt, despite its understandable flaws from a modern point of view, is the first comprehensive account of a foreign civilization in human history and contains much information still useful today, whereas the Exodus is “sacred history”, in which Egypt is just used as the stage and later the antagonist in a narrative constructing the collective identity of the Israelites on the basis of their special relationship with Jahveh.

[danieleneandermancini]

CENNI SUL PENSIERO FILOSOFICO DEGLI ANTICHI EGIZI

CENNI SUL PENSIERO FILOSOFICO DEGLI ANTICHI EGIZI “Soldati, dall'alto di queste piramidi, quaranta secoli vi guardano.” E' la storica frase che Napoleone I rivolse la mattina del 21 luglio 1789 ai soldati dell'armata di Egitto prima della famosa Battaglia delle Piramidi e, nonostante, le immense ricchezze archeologiche, storiche e artistiche che ci sono state tramandate, anche gli Egizi mettevano in discussione il mondo e quindi producevano un loro...

“Soldati, dall’alto di queste piramidi, quaranta secoli vi guardano.” E’ la storica frase che Napoleone I rivolse la mattina del 21 luglio 1789 ai soldati dell’armata di Egitto prima della famosa Battaglia delle Piramidi e, nonostante, le immense ricchezze archeologiche, storiche e artistiche che ci sono state tramandate, anche gli Egizi mettevano in discussione il mondo e quindi producevano un…

[intellectures]

Mehr oder weniger gespalten

Wo stehen wir nach all den Krisen der vergangenen Jahre als Gesellschaft? Gibt es noch einen gemeinschaftlichen Konsens? Was ist überhaupt diese so umkämpfte Mitte der Gesellschaft? Einige aktuelle Bücher gehen diesen Fragen auf den Grund.

Wo stehen wir nach all den Krisen der vergangenen Jahre als Gesellschaft? Gibt es noch einen gemeinschaftlichen Konsens? Was ist überhaupt diese so umkämpfte Mitte der Gesellschaft? Wer darf in dieser Platz nehmen und welche Themen werden dort verhandelt? Und was ist eigentlich mit dieser digitalen Welt, in die alles strebt? Einige aktuelle Bücher gehen diesen Fragen auf den Grund. Continue…

[betweenheroesandvillains]

KLAUS BERGDOLT IST LETZTES JAHR GESTORBEN???

[menlove]

actually we ALL need to be thinking more abt the roman empire bc if I have to read One More Take in my studies abt how monotheism is the reason christianity is so violent im gonna start hitting people in the knees

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

they're like parents to me

[khensaptah]

Mystic Egyptian Polytheism Resource List

Because I wanted to do a little more digging into the philosophy elements explored in Mahmoud's book, I took the time tonight to pull together the recommended reading he listed toward the end of each chapter. The notes included are his own.

MEP discusses Pharaonic Egypt and Hellenistic Egypt, and thus some of these sources are relevant to Hellenic polytheists (hence me intruding in those tags)!

Note: extremely long text post under this read more.

What Are The Gods And The Myths?

ψ Jeremy Naydler’s Temple of the Cosmos: The Ancient Egyptian Experience of the Sacred is my top text recommendation for further exploration of this topic. It dives deep into how the ancients envisioned the gods and proposes how the various Egyptian cosmologies can be reconciled. ψ Jan Assmann’s Egyptian Solar Religion in the New Kingdom: Re, Amun and the Crisis of Polytheism focuses on New Kingdom theology by analyzing and comparing religious literature. Assmann fleshes out a kind of “monistic polytheism,” as well as a robust culture of personal piety that is reflected most prominently in the religious literature of this period. He shows how New Kingdom religious thought was an antecedent to concepts in Hermeticism and Neoplatonism. ψ Moustafa Gadalla’s Egyptian Divinities: The All Who Are The One provides a modern Egyptian analysis of the gods, including reviews of the most significant deities. Although Gadalla is not an academic, his insights and contributions as a native Egyptian Muslim with sympathies towards the ancient religion are valuable.

How to Think like an Egyptian

ψ Jan Assmann’s The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs is my top text recommendation for further exploration of this topic. It illuminates Egyptian theology by exploring their ideals, values, mentalities, belief systems, and aspirations from the Old Kingdom period to the Ptolemaic period. ψ Garth Fowden’s The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind identifies the Egyptian character of religion and wisdom in late antiquity and provides a cultural and historical context to the Hermetica, a collection of Greco-Egyptian religious texts. ψ Christian Bull’s The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus: The Egyptian Priestly Figure as a Teacher of Hellenized Wisdom provides a rich assessment of the Egyptian religious landscape at the end of widespread polytheism in Egypt and how it came to interact with and be codified in Greek schools of thought and their writings.

How To Think Like A Neoplatonist

Radek Chlup’s Proclus: An Introduction is my top text recommendation for further exploration of this topic. It addresses the Neoplatonic system of Proclus but gives an excellent overview of Neoplatonism generally. It contains many valuable graphics and charts that help illustrate the main ideas within Neoplatonism. ψ John Opsopaus’ The Secret Texts of Hellenic Polytheism: A Practical Guide to the Restored Pagan Religion of George Gemistos Plethon succinctly addresses several concepts in Neoplatonism from the point of view of Gemistos Plethon, a crypto-polytheist who lived during the final years of the Byzantine Empire. It provides insight into the practical application of Neoplatonism to ritual and religion. ψ Algis Uzdavinys’ Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth: From Ancient Egypt to Neoplatonism draws connections between theological concepts and practices in Ancient Egypt to those represented in the writings and practices of the Neoplatonists.

What Is “Theurgy,” And How Do You Make A Prayer “Theurgical?”

ψ Jeffrey Kupperman’s Living Theurgy: A Course in Iamblichus’ Philosophy, Theology and Theurgy is my top text recommendation for further exploration of this topic. It is a practical guide on theurgy, complete with straightforward explanations of theurgical concepts and contemplative exercises for practice. ψ Gregory Shaw’s Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus demonstrates how Iamblichus used religious ritual as the primary tool of the soul’s ascent towards God. He lays out how Iamblichus proposed using rites to achieve henosis. ψ Algis Uzdavinys’ Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity explores the various ways theurgy operated in the prime of its widespread usage. He focuses mainly on temple rites and how theurgy helped translate them into personal piety rituals.

What Is “Demiurgy,” And How Do I Do Devotional, “Demiurgical” Acts?

ψ Shannon Grimes’ Becoming Gold: Zosimos of Panopolis and the Alchemical Arts in Roman Egypt is my top text recommendation for further exploration of this topic. It constitutes an in-depth look at Zosimos—an Egyptian Hermetic priest, scribe, metallurgist, and alchemist. It explores alchemy (ancient chemistry and metallurgy) as material rites of the soul’s ascent. She shows how Zosimos believed that partaking in these practical arts produced divine realities and spiritual advancements. ψ Alison M. Robert’s Hathor’s Alchemy: The Ancient Egyptian Roots of the Hermetic Art delves deep temple inscriptions and corresponding religious literature from the Pharaonic period and demonstrates them as premises for alchemy. These texts “alchemize” the “body” of the temple, offering a model for the “alchemizing” of the self. ψ A.J. Arberry’s translation of Farid al-Din Attar’s Muslim Saints and Mystics: Episodes from the Tadhkirat al-Auliya contains a chapter on the Egyptian Sufi saint Dhul-Nun al-Misri (sometimes rendered as Dho‘l-Nun al-Mesri). He is regarded as an alchemist, thaumaturge, and master of Egyptian hieroglyphics. It contains apocryphal stories of his ascetic and mystic life as a way of “living demiurgically.” It is an insightful glimpse into how the Ancient Egyptian arts continued into new religious paradigms long after polytheism was no longer widespread in Egypt.

Further Reading

Contemporary Works Assmann, Jan. 1995. Egyptian Solar Religion in the New Kingdom: Re, Amun and the Crisis of Polytheism. Translated by Anthony Alcock. Kegan Paul International. Assmann, Jan. 2003. The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs. Harvard University Press. Bull, Christian H. 2019. The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus: The Egyptian Priestly Figure as a Teacher of Hellenized Wisdom. Brill. Chlup, Radek. 2012. Proclus: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. Escolano-Poveda, Marina. 2008. The Egyptian Priests of the Graeco-Roman Period. Brill. Fowden, Garth. 1986. The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind. Cambridge University Press. Freke, Tim, and Peter Gandy. 2008. The Hermetica: The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs. Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin. Gadalla, Moustafa. 2001. Egyptian Divinities: The All Who Are The One. Tehuti Research Foundation. Grimes, Shannon. 2019. Becoming Gold: Zosimos of Panopolis and the Alchemical Arts in Roman Egypt. Princeton University Press. Jackson, Howard. 2017. “A New Proposal for the Origin of the Hermetic God Poimandres.” Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism 17 (2): 193-212. Kupperman, Jeffrey. 2014. Living Theurgy: A Course in Iamblichus’ Philosophy, Theology and Theurgy. Avalonia. Mierzwicki, Tony. 2011. Graeco-Egyptian Magick: Everyday Empowerment. Llewellyn Publications. Naydler, Jeremy. 1996. Temple of the Cosmos: The Ancient Egyptian Experience of the Sacred. Inner Traditions. Opsopaus, J. 2006. The Secret Texts of Hellenic Polytheism: A Practical Guide to the Restored Pagan Religion of George Gemistos Plethon. New York: Llewellyn Publications. Roberts, Alison M. 2019. Hathor’s Alchemy: The Ancient Egyptian Roots of the Hermetic Art. Northgate Publishers. Shaw, Gregory. 1995. Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus. 2nd ed. Angelico Press. Snape, Steven. 2014. The Complete Cities of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. Uzdavinys, Algis. 1995. Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books. Uzdavinys, Algis. 2008. Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth: From Ancient Egypt to Neoplatonism. Lindisfarne Books. Wilkinson, Richard H. 2000. The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson.

Ancient Sources in Translation Attar, Farid al-Din. 1966. Muslim Saints and Mystics: Episodes from the Tadhkirat alAuliya. Translated by A.J. Arberry. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Betz, Hans Dieter. 1992. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Copenhaver, Brian P. 1995. Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation, with Notes and Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Guthrie, Kenneth. 1988. The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library: An Anthology of Ancient Writings which Relate to Pythagoras and Pythagorean Philosophy. Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press. Iamblichus. 1988. The Theology of Arithmetic. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press. Iamblichus. 2003. Iamblichus: On the Mysteries. Translated by Clarke, E., Dillon, J. M., & Hershbell, J. P. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Iamblichus. 2008. The Life of Pythagoras (Abridged). Translated by Thomas Taylor. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing. Lichtheim, Miriam. 1973-1980. Ancient Egyptian Literature. Volumes I-III. Berkeley: University of California Press. Litwa, M. David. 2018. Hermetica II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Majercik, Ruth. 1989. The Chaldean Oracles: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Leiden: Brill. Plato. 1997. Plato: Complete Works. Edited by John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. Plotinus. 1984-1988. The Enneads. Volumes 1-7. Translated by A.H. Armstrong. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Van der Horst, Pieter Willem. 1984. The Fragments of Chaeremon, Egyptian Priest and Stoic Philosopher. Leiden: E.J. Brill.

[asinusrufus]

"Seth is the god of blasphemous and scandalous curiosity. This is also the theme of a myth told by Ovid and several other ancient authors that provides an explanation of animal worship in ancient Egypt. The gods, it is revealed, so feared the reckless curiosity of Seth-Typhon that they decided to disguise themselves in the shapes of animals. Later they declared these animals sacred out of gratitude to them. Diodorus of Sicily, who calls the cult of the animals an aporrhêton dogma (unspeakable secret) replaces “Seth” with “humankind” in his rendering of the story, which is how he claims to have heard it in Egypt. It seems possible that this very strong and conspicuous condemnation of curiosity reflects an Egyptian reaction to the scientific and investigative mind of the Greeks, who subjected the Egyptians to a veritable program of “Egyptological” research. It strangely foreshadows Saint Augustine’s verdict on curiosity, which dominated the occidental attitude toward the world and nature until the end of the sixteenth century. Another work in which the theme of curiosity plays a central role is The Golden Ass, by Apuleius of Madauros. Lucius, the hero, dabbles in magic out of an insatiable curiosity and is punished by being transformed into an ass, the animal of Seth, whose principal vice he practiced."

Jan Assmann, Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism

[alephskoteinos]

Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt by Jan Assmann, 2011 (pages 371-372)

This is all a very interesting perspective on pagan apotheosis and self-deification. Becoming-divine here means to be endlessly renewed in the cyclical time embodied by Ra, divine sun, and indulge every transformation you desire in the power of the sun god. The ancient Egyptian soul desired to achieve this state after death, and for them that meant joining the company of Ra. Assmann doesn't say as such but I like to think that means joining Ra on the solar barque and thus participating in the struggle against Apep. There are many interesting implications to consider and derive from here, especially in regards to "dying to yourself" - there is a sense in which you would be enacting the self-regenerating immortality of the sun.

[dearorpheus]

Motifs of death were omnipresent in Giger's work since his early days. [...] the important role of ancient Egyptian culture in this context goes back to Giger's early youth: “As a kid, for a while every Sunday morning I walked alone to the Rhaetian Museum in Chur. The mummy of an Egyptian princess was displayed in the basement vault. This mysterious black body attracted me tremendously, but it also scared me. Primordial life processes have always fascinated me.” Just staring at the approximately 2,700-year-old mummy of Ta-di-Isis from Thebes created that familiar mixture of horror and fascination that would fuel his further exploration of fears and spiritual abysses. The close connection between themes is directly related to the role of death in ancient Egypt: it was, as the Egyptologist Jan Assmann explains, “a center of cultural consciousness, one that radiated out into many—we might almost say, into all—other areas of ancient Egyptian culture.” Assmann also uses the findings to make a more generalized statement: “Death is the Origin and center of culture. Death—that means the experience of death, the knowledge of the finite nature of life... the symbolic exchange between the worlds of the living and the dead, the pursuit of immortality, of continuation in any form, of any lasting traces and effects, of more world and more time.”

— Andreas J. Hirsch, HR Giger 40th Anniversary Edition

[hildegardladyofbones]

list of people that hate me and want to make my life as hard as possible by hiding the meanings of their sentences behind complex and impossible to understand word choices:

Juri Lotman when he was writing his papers about memory in a culturological light

Jan Assmann when he was writing his papers about the different characteristics of cultural memory

And most likely every old white man whose papers i will read on this topic

[o-craven-canto]

Been reading a couple books on Ancient Egyptian history (Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs by Barbara Mertz and The Mind of Egypt by Jan Assmann), and I’m struck by two things:

For being a Bronze Age kingdom ruled by literal god-kings, Ancient Egypt looks surprisingly nice. Sure, they had their share of dispotism, chauvinism, and imperial warfare, but I haven’t found anything like Assyrian brutality on prisoners, Roman blood sports, Greek slave economy and rampant misogyny, or Aztec mass human sacrifices. For the standards of antiquity (which are very low to us), it seems an actually pretty decent place to have lived as a commoner.

The development of culture and worldview looks so strangely like a coherent arc. First there’s Ancient Kingdom pharaohs, who look so aloof and self-sufficient in their divinity. Then the kingdom collapses in rebellion and civil war, teaching the rulers of Egypt that they have responsibilities towards their people; Middle Kingdom pharaohs care a lot more about justifying their position with philosophy and theology. That era collapses too, with an invasion and occupation that teaches them that the rest of the world exists, too; and the New Kingdom is defined by imperial engagement with the great powers of Asia. Eventually the state model of the Bronze Age becomes unsustainable and Egypt fades into a province of distant empires, ruled by fatalism and detachment. This honestly sounds like the kind of satisfying storytelling that one should be most skeptical about in history; I wonder how much this understanding is due to scarcity of records, pareidolia, and my own ignorance, and in what proportion.

[yellow-yarrow]

6 for the book ask!

6.Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?

ooh that's a very long list lmao.

I was like let's read the ones that I have a physical copy of first but then I didn't do that

I got Reason and Revolution by Herbert Marcuse from that free library but I don't know when I'll start that one

I also got two books, Libertalia, Free pirate communities - The first democratic constitutions of the new age (that's the Hungarian title translated to English by me btw), and Jan Assmann: Cultural memory for my birthday back in April that I want to read at some point..

I've been also meaning to read Anti-Oedipus by Deleuze and Guattari but I'm stuck on reading a reader's guide for Anti-Oedipus since last year lmao

there are many other books I'm planning on reading but I thought I would at least get halfway through these this year

[tempe-corals]

REMEMBER THEIR NAMES: THE WOMEN WHO ALMOST SAVED TROY

by Christine Lehnen

… In the oral tradition of those countries that now cover the territory of Ancient Greek Scythia, stories of women warriors are widespread and told with relish. In those stories, women often face men in combat – and it is just as often that the woman comes out on top, not the man. From the Lady Amezan, who accidentally kills the man she loves in battle and then stabs herself, through the warrior queen Nushaba, who meets Alexander the Great, to Queen Semiramis, who according to Herodotus ruled all of Asia and may or may not have constructed the Hanging Gardens of Babylon – stories of heroines abound, both historical and mythical, preserved to this day in the storytelling traditions that stretch from Georgia over the Caucasus to China, leaving their traces even in Ancient Greek poems such as the Iliad.

What and whom we remember matters. The stories we tell each other of our past define who we think we are today, and what we believe we can be in the future. They are what makes up our cultural memory, and our cultural memory in turn defines our collective identity, as the theorists and historians Jan and Aleida Assmann have shown.

Simone de Beauvoir, one of the founders of modern feminism, wrote in The Second Sex that women have no history of their own. Brilliant as she was, she may have been wrong in this one regard. Women do have a history, a past to call their own: we do have heroines, in myth, in legend, in history. All we need to do is remember them. …

[menlove]

any recs for intro/base level jewish study texts? np if they’re academic ones I can use my uni’s library :-)

oooo okay. fair warning my minor is history so a lot of this is history focused but there are a lot of modern Jewish studies as well! like intersections w queerness and feminism etc. it is just not my wheelhouse.

starting w some comparative religion is always a solid base when it comes to academics bc some of the first classes are like world religions etc. it has been so long that i do Not remember which one i used but really any "intro to world religions" textbook that your uni's library has is good! and if you want to just focus on the section about Judaism go for it. looking at Christianity and Islam might also be helpful though to put it into some context.

A Short History of the Jewish People: From Legendary Times to Modern Statehood by Raymond P. Scheindlin is excellent. here if you want to dig deeper whenever it mentions a Jewish thinker/scholar, try and find some primary resources of their writings! like Moses Maimonides, possibly the most influential Jewish philosopher, or Moses Mendelssohn (another philosopher and theologin).

Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy. if you wanna go the extra mile go for the whole Torah (so Leviticus and Numbers as well), but these three do a solid job of giving a good idea of the more non-historical aspect of Jewish religious history and will give you a good idea of where a lot of customs, laws, etc came from. of particular note are gonna be the two accounts of the Sinai event in both Exodus and Deuteronomy and ask yourself: why do they differ? why do you think that is? what could this tell you about Judaism and the ancient Israelites when each account was written?

I have not read it but Wanderings by Chaim Potok is a highly recommended one outside of academia and one that I know some goyim have read as well to better understand Jewish history. however I haven't read it so I don't know if there's any issues with it as it is an older work.

another one i see around a lot outside of academics is The Jewish Book of Why by Alfred J. Kolatch. this one is less history and more, as the title says, a book about Why and ritual/custom/etc.

more intermediate/deeper dives

this is my own personal niche so if you do not care about this you can ignore this section but I find it so interesting and useful/helpful to look at just How Judaism evolved and some good ones for that are The Origins of Biblical Monotheism by Mark S. Smith and as much as I have some beef w the man Jan Assmann is going to crop up a Lot in these types of discussions so giving him a read is useful, particularly Moses the Egyptian and The Price of Monotheism. give it a critical read though, I personally disagree w a lot of his conclusions but I find his work and history he gives to be of note & worthwhile. you might find you do totally agree and that's fine too.

continuing off of That i personally think the Ugaritic texts are incredibly important in understanding the context of the ancient Israelite religion that came before Judaism and thus Judaism itself and so if you're interested more in that type of ancient history when it comes to Jewish studies giving them a read is really eye-opening bc it gives you an idea of what sort of cultural knowledge was assumed by the writers of the Tanakh. like they were writing it with the assumption that their readers would Know these stories that were shared in this region so reading them is super helpful with putting certain customs/belief into context. but that's more of a lil deep dive so if you don't wanna do that you absolutely do not have to. rn i'm reading Stories From Ancient Canaan by Michael D. Coogan and Mark S. Smith

[fabiansteinhauer]

Via Robert Ballhaus

Das Mahl

Von der Initiale auf Tafel 78 an zeigt Warburg, dass er den Vertrag als Verzehr deutet. Die Elemente des Vertrages sind in dem Sinne Mahle, Letter, und das wiederum sind (Ein-)Verleibungen. Tafel 78 hat eine Initiale, ein erstes, einsetzendes, anfangendes Bild, das ist das Foto oben links aus dem Lateranpalast, das die Parteien und die Berater in einer Inszenierung zeigt, mit der sie eine andere Gründungsszene nachstellen, the last supper. Auf dem ersten Foto inszenieren sich die Beteiligten wie in einer bekannten Darstellung des Abendsmahls, der Mailänder Version von da Vinci. So verknüpft Warburg auch die Staatstafeln mit Tafel 72, der Tafel zu den Tischgemeinschaften.

Wenn man Warburg als Bildwissenschaftler bezeichnet und die These vertritt, dass er eine ausgefeilte Geschichte und Theorie des Rechts vertritt, dann muss man klarstellen, dass Bilder in diesem Fall zwar auch Tafelbilder, gleichzeitig aber auch Mahle oder Letter sind - und die wiederum die Kulturtechnik des Distanzschaffen in (Ein-)Verleibung umsetzen. Distanzierung schluckt, schlingt und frisst auch, so legt das Warburg nahe. Bilder als Mahle und das Mahl als Verleibung betrachten: Auch hier zieht Warburg eine Summe seines Schaffens - und greift auf Überlegungungen zurück, zu denen er seit spätestens 1896 forscht und korrespondiert. Warburg ist nicht Jan Assmann, er ist auch nicht Aleida. Er erzählt keine Geschichte der Exkarnation, er folgt dschon er protestantischen Historiographie seiner Zeit bestenfalls launisch. Immer wieder findet man in seinen Schreiben Passagen über Distanzgewinn, über wachsende Distanz zu archaischen oder zu blutigen Praktiken. Aber 'ebenso immer' sammelt er in seinem Zettelkästen auch neuste Nachrichten zum Kannibalismus.

Und so bleibt Warburg ein unzuverlässiger Zeuge, wenn man die Geschichte und Theorie des Rechts als Teil einer Entwicklung schildern möchte, in der die Differenzierung anwächst und der Abstand zwischen der Norm und dem Fleisch, dem Gesetz und dem Blut, dem Gericht und den Muskeln größer und immer nur größer geworden wäre. Wenn in der Geschichte irgendwie Abstraktion blüht, wenn Warburg irgendwo den Ausstieg aus dem Fleisch als Fortschritt preist, dann finden sich ein paar Notizen später, ein paar Zettel weiter wieder Passagen, an denen weit Entferntes wieder in der Nähe auftaucht.

Das Recht ist in dem Sinne eine Regung/ ein Regen: Norm ist die Stelle, durch die Bewegung geht und insofern bewegt und bewegend ist.