101 Myths of the Bible: how ancient scribes - Conscious Evolution TV

Myths of the Heroes 229
of statue. The Hebrew god is an invisible one and can’t be physically displayed. We can
be fairly certain, however, that he didn’t resemble the Ark.
The role of the Ark as a symbol of kingship provides an important clue as to its
contents. When Israel came out of Egypt, it invented a new political idea. The people
had no human king. This was a direct attack on the Egyptian idea of kingship in
which the human king was an aspect of the deity. Among the Israelites, God was king
but he took no human form.
Egyptian symbolism played an important role in early Israelite life, sometimes positive
and sometimes negative. The Mosaic idea of kingship would have been modeled
after the Egyptian idea, but the human aspect of deity was eliminated.
God ruled Israel and, like Egyptian kings, the god of Israel would have been identified
with a symbol of kingship. Among the Egyptians that symbol was the uraeus
crown, otherwise know as the serpent crown. Evidence that this crown may have been
associated with the Hebrew Ark can be found in an Egyptian myth that includes a
prototype of the Ark.
According to the Egyptian myth, before Osiris and Horus had become kings, the
god Geb wanted to seize the crown from Shu. The symbol of kingship was the serpent
crown and Geb had to obtain that crown to exercise his authority. Re, the chief
deity, had placed it in a chest, along with a lock of his hair and a staff. When Geb and
his companions approached the chest, Geb opened it, but a surprise awaited. The
divine serpent on the crown exhaled on all those present, killing everyone but Geb,
who nevertheless received severe burns across his body. Only the lock of Re’s hair
could heal his wounds and Re used it to cure the injured god. Subsequently, Re dipped
the lock of hair into the lake of At Nub and transformed it into a crocodile. After Geb
healed, he became a good and wise king.
Compare that story with this account of the story of Moses’s bronze serpent.
And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought
us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any
water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. And the LORD sent fiery serpents
among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore