Kosh

I remember reading recently, and claim about
the source of the Amen that Xians are fond of
using at the end of prayers, etc.

Now I can't for the life of me find it again,
or remember exactly where it was (seems to be
happening a lot lately. It's either old age or
the kids driving me bonkers).

But I thought it'd be good to get full input
on it from the scholars and thiests here.

I remember the claim being something about it
originating with Egypt, maybe one of their
dieties? Or something to do with Amenhotep?

Comments?

Haran

The Greek word AMHN (amen) comes from a similar sounding Hebrew word and means something along the lines of "let it be so" and "truly". The word "amen" in Hebrew seems to be derived from the verb "aman", meaning "to strengthen" or "confirm".

Jesus uses AMHN in a similar way to the TaNaKh when he says "Verily, Verily, I say..." (AMHN AMHN LEGW). Note Numbers 5:22, Psalms 41:14 and 72:19.

Here is some <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01407b.htm" target="_blank">information from New Advent</a> on the word Amen.

I am unaware of any link between this word and the Egyptian deity.

Haran

[ February 14, 2002: Message edited by: Haran ]</p>

RyanS2

I've heard some Hebrew authorities say it sounds more like "Amein" than "Amen". If we assume that Amenhotep IV was the influencing factor on Hebrew monotheism, we find on the tombs of king TutankhAmen that he has the Amen sign on most of the emblems, but in a few cases, the Aten sign was left unchanged. The priests post-mortum reverted his symbols back to the predominate polytheism of the state.

The biggest proponent of this theory is Sir Laurence Gardner, who writes:

"It was upon the mountain at Sinai that Jehovah first announced his presence to Moses. Being an Aten supporter, Moses asked this new lord and master who he was, and the reply was "I am that I am", which in phonetic Hebrew became 'Jehovah'. However, for the longest time afterwards, the Israelites were not allowed to utter the name 'Jehovah' - with the exception of the High Priest who was allowed to whisper the name in private once a year. The problem was that prayers were supposed to be said to this new godhead - but how would he know the prayers were said to him if his name was not mentioned?

The Israelites knew that Jehovah was not the same as Aten (their traditional Adon or Lord), and so they presumed he must be the equivalent of the great State-god of Egypt, even if not one and the same. It was decided, therefore, to add the name of that State- god to all prayers thereafter, and the name of that god was 'Amen'. To this day, the name of 'Amen' is still recited at the end of prayers. Even the well-known Christian Lord's Prayer (as given in the Gospel of Matthew) was transposed from an Egyptian original which began, "Amen, Amen, who art in heaven..."

As for the famous Ten Commandments (said to have been conveyed to Moses by God upon the mountain), these too are of Egyptian origin and they derive directly from Spell Number 125 in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. They were not new codes of conduct invented for the Israelites, but were simply newly stated versions of the ritual confessions of the Pharaohs. For example, the confession "I have not killed" was translated to the decree "Thou shalt not kill"; "I have not stolen" became "Thou shalt not steal"; "I have not told lies" became "Thou shalt not bear false witness"; and so on.

Not only were the Ten Commandments drawn from Egyptian ritual, but so too were the Psalms reworked from Egyptian hymns (though they are attributed to King David). Even the Old Testament Book of Proverbs - the so-called 'wise words of Solomon' - was translated almost verbatim into Hebrew from the writings of an Egyptian sage called Amenemope. These are now held at the British Museum, and verse after verse of the Book of Proverbs can be attributed to this Egyptian original. It has now been discovered that even the writings of Amenemope were extracted from a far older work called The Wisdom of Ptah-hotep, which comes from more than 2,000 years before the time of Solomon."

Likewise, Ezekiel 20, 8 informs us that the Israelites:

"They did not forsake ha-elohim [the gods] of Egypt"

The plausibility of this theory depends upon how much someone ascribes to the theory of the Hyksos on the origins of the Hebrews cultural evolution. If someone believes that the Hebrews were the Canaanites, who were under heavy taxation from the Egyptians:

"Egypt imposed heavy taxes on Canaan, but in return the Canaanite cities gained security and better access to international markets. In the reign of Ramses II (1304-1237 BC), the empire was reorganized. Key strategic cities like Beth Shan and Gaza were strengthened, others were allowed to decline. Many people were made homeless and migrated to the Judean hill country, where they established small farming settlements. These dispossessed Canaanites, known to the Egyptians as Hapiru (or Hebrews), formed the basis of what was to become Israel."

- Bible Lands

The theory then states that this group was greatly enamored, though reviled, at the Egyptians.

"The Hyksos immediately proceeded to kill all the Egyptian males. Many Egyptians fled to Crete and the Aegean mainland, where - with the indigenous population they reconstituted a semblance of their culture. This accounts for the architectural similarity along with the concept of the 'Living God' in the religion of the Classical Age. Further, the Hyksos introduced the idea of 'slavery' into Egypt. Prior to their occupation, no Asiatics or sub-Sahara Blacks were permitted into Egypt. The Hyksos, in fact, brought in Blacks as slaves..."

- Publius (publius@gate.net)

Their god is said to have been Seth..."

- Siegfried Morenz, Egyptian Religion

"[The Hyksos king] Apophis took to him Sutekh [Seth] for lord and served not any god that was in the whole land save only Sutekh [Seth]."

- Papyrus Sallier, I, I, 2-3

In Egyptian mythology, Apophis was the name of an evil, monster, serpent god. [The last Hyksos king also known as Apophis or Apepi.]

"Here it may be assumed that Seth stands for the Syrian god 'Baal', because of all foreign deities Baal alone is designated in later Egyptian texts by Seth's animal (its species cannot be determined with certainly)."

- Siegfried Morenz, Egyptian Religion

The same God Baal was at times reviled and honored in the culture of the Hebrews. Commenting on this:

"Here we have the mourning rites, familiar among the ancient Semites and in Israel. Generally at death, which is a crisis in society when the community is especially open to the influences of the supernatural, normal activities were suspended to thwart those forces. Thus the normal resorts were avoided, one forsook one's usual seat to sit on the ground, like Job on the village midden (Job 2:8), or begrimed the personal or the clothes with dust and scored the face or the body. that last practice was specifically banned in Israel (Deuteronomy 14:1) in protest against what was seen as a barbarous Canaanite rite."
- John Gray, Near Eastern Mythology

"The Hyksos and the Hebrews were racially akin. Some of the Hyksos rulers had Semitic names: one, for example, was called Jacob-el (Ya' qub-'al), 'May El give protection', and another, Jacob-baal, 'May Baal protect'. Most scholars now agree that there is some connection between the Hyksos rule of Egypt and the settling of the Hebrews there. It seems reasonable to assume that the Hyksos, who themselves had traveled the caravan routes to Egypt for centuries before they finally took power there, favored other 'Apiru groups and encouraged them to settle. When the Pharaoh Amosis (c. 1552-1527) captured Avaris and expelled the Hyksos from Egypt, pursuing them to Palestine and opening the way to Asia and so the great age of the Egyptian empire in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties (the New Kingdom), the Hebrews in Egypt were left without protectors. Contemporary documents show that the Hyksos who escaped slaughter were enslaved. It is reasonable to suppose that the Hebrews, now unprotected by the Establishment, were also enslaved at this time."

- David Daiches, Moses - Man in the Wilderness

Joseph Wheless writes in "Christianity: Is it God's Word?"

"The names of Baal and Bel shared the same honors: Gideon was nick-named Jerub-baal, which seems to combine Jehovah and Baal. The name of Abimelech, a son of Gideon, who set himself up briefly, during the days of the judges, as first king over Israel, means "Moloch is my father." One of the sons of Saul was named Eshbaal, "son of Baal"; one of the sons of David was Beeliada, "whom Baal has known" (1 Chron. xiv, 7), and whose name is also given under the form Eliada (2 Sam. v, 16), showing that El and Baal were interchangeable names. This is also shown in the name of one of the "mighty men" of David, Beal-iah, "Yahveh is Baal" or Lord, and in Jezebel, both perfect combinations of the two heathen (Israelite and Canaanite) names for "Lord." That Baal, Bel, and El were equivalent terms for "Lord," but that Yahveh preferred the figurative term "my husband" to the more formal "Lord," and that a customary name for Yahveh was "Baal," he himself is quoted as declaring: "And it shall be at that day, saith Yahveh, that thou shalt call me Ishi [my husband]; and shalt call me no more Baali [my Lord]" (Hosea ii, 16). Not only the Hebrews, but all the Semitic peoples had this custom of compounding their names with that of their favorite deity, in the desire thus to secure the protection of the local Baal for their children. We may recall such names of Belshazzar, Hasdrubal, Hannibal."

This comes under some contention from scholars, (the verse about Hosea). Biblical scholars will tell us that this doesn't mean that YHVH was once Baal, rather, that it is in the context of husband and wife relationship. Hosea is depicting Israel 's relationship to God as a marriage, say that here, "Baal" as presented in this verse is a sterner form of "husband" with more of a service connotation of a master or an owner, versus the earlier word translated "husband," which has a plainer connotation of a man without any implication of servanthood.

One ultra-conservative author writes that "ba'aliy, rather than Baal, the name of a pagan God". He tries to implicate that Ba'aliy, (baali), isn't the name of the pagan God. The fact is, the name ba'aliy is the self-same as the name Baal. This is recorded in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, as saying:

Ba`aliy, "my lord", a deity in the northern kingdom, variation of the name 'Baal'.

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible", tell us that under Hosea, the reason for this discrepancy is:

"..namely, Baali, the Hebrew for my Lord, had been perverted to express the images of Baal, whose name ought not to be taken on their lips"

Likewise, another commentator, Matthew Henry, tells us of this verse:

"It is probable that many good people had, accordingly, made use of the word Baali in worshipping the God of Israel; when their wicked neighbours bowed the knee to Baal they gloried in this, that God was their Baal."

However, no Christian would ever buy into this theory, and even still, this takes a lot of faithful leaps to make the gaps, but it is a fun theory to play around with. For more ammo on "Egypt to Hebrew", "Jerusalem" simply means "City of Peace," and the actual city in Israel was named after the holy city of peace in the Egyptian sacred texts that already existed at the time the city was founded.

Likewise, "Bethany," site of the famous multiplying of the loaves, means "House of God," and is allegory for the "multiplication of the many out of the One." Any town of that designation was named for the allegorical place in the texts that existed before the town's foundation. The Egyptian predecessor and counterpart is "Bethanu."

The evidence is, largely anecdotal, but still there. This theory really depends upon how much you want to believe it.