the Book of the Dead ( PDF )

The Legend Of RA And Isis.
Egyptian account of the Creation.
In a late copy of a work entitled the "Book of knowing the evolutions of Ra, the god Neb-er-tcher, the
"lord of the company of the gods," records the story of the creation and of the birth of the gods:--"I am he
who evolved himself under the form of the god Khepera, I, the evolver of the evolutions evolved myself,
the evolver of all evolutions, after many evolutions and developments which came forth from my
mouth.[12] No heaven existed, and no earth, and no terrestrial animals or reptiles had come into being. I
formed them out of the inert mass of watery matter, I found no place whereon to stand . . . . . I was alone,
and the gods Shu and Tefnut had not gone forth from me; there existed
[1. Brugsch, Religion, pp. 128, 129.
2. Ibid., p. 132.
3. Ibid., p. 140.
4. Ibid., p. 142.
5. Ibid., p. 148.
6. Ibid., pp. 149, 152.
7. Ibid., p. 158.
8. Ibid., p. 160.
9. Ibid., p. 161.
10. Ibid., p. 163.
11. Ibid., p. 187.
12 The variant version says, "I developed myself from the primeval matter which I had made." and adds, "My name is
Osiris, ###, the substance of primeval matter."]
{p. c}
"none other who worked with me. I laid the foundations of all things by my will, and all things evolved
themselves therefrom.[1] I united myself to my shadow, and I sent forth Shu and Tefnut out from myself;
thus from being one god I became three, and Shu and Tefnut gave birth to Nut and Seb, and Nut gave
birth to Osiris, Horus-Khent-an-maa, Sut, Isis, and Nephthys, at one birth, one after the other, and their
children multiply upon this earth."[2]
Summary of theories.
The reader has now before him the main points of the evidence concerning the Egyptians' notions about
God, and the cosmic powers and their phases, and the anthropomorphic creations with which they
peopled the other world, all of which have been derived from the native literature of ancient Egypt. The
different interpretations which different Egyptologists have placed upon the facts demonstrate the
difficulty of the subject. Speaking generally, the interpreters may be divided into two classes: those who
credit the Egyptians with a number of abstract ideas about God and the creation of the world and the
future life, which are held to be essentially the product of modern Christian nations; and those who
consider the mind of the Egyptian as that of a half-savage being to whom occasional glimmerings of
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