Mikyia wo (Greetings) Kenyatta and Aqil,
A couple of observations. The "Egyptian Book of the Dead" is definitely not the oldest set of texts coming out of Kamit. There is a difference between what are commonly called coffin texts, pyramid texts, the book of the dead, etc. Many writers (especially the first "egyptologists") lumped many of the different kinds of texts together and called them all versions of the "book of the dead". This is inaccurate. Today that mistake is usually no longer made. Nevertheless, these "scholars" made this mistake with the pyramid texts over a century ago. The pyramid texts are the oldest extant texts laying out the cosmology of our Ancestresses and Ancestors in Kamit. The "book of the dead" came later.
From the very beginning, and anyone who has reviewed the pyramid texts will see this, there was/is always the balance of male and female. In other words, the Supreme Being was always recognized and experienced----and continues to be recognized and experienced----by Afurakanu/Afuraitkaitnut (Africans) as Two Halves of The Divine Whole. The Great God and Great Goddess. [This is true in ancient Kamit and in contemporary Afuraka/Afuraitkait (Africa)] You will find the names of Amen and Amenet (God and Goddess) in the earliest texts (pyramid texts) of Kamit. Amen/Amenet together function as One Divine Unit---the Supreme "Being".
In the temples of Khemmenu (Hermopolis) as well as Ta Apet (Thebes) you will find Amen and Amenet again. You will hear such terminology as the "cosmology of Hermopolis" the "cosmology of Thebes" the "cosmology of Heliopolis" which is erroneous, as europeans believed that these were "competing" cosmologies. In reality, each "cosmology" was an aspect of our knowledge and all were/are in harmony with one another.
When Amen and Amenet are mentioned in Khemmenu (Hermopolis) as part of the Ogdoad (primordial Eight Deities responsible for the creation of the Universe) you'll find them with 3 other pairs of Deities:
Nnu and Nnut (Nanu and Nanut)
Kek and Keket (also called Ka and Kait)
Heh and Hehet
Each primordial pair is one male God and one female Goddess.
The primordial blackness from which Creation becomes is manifest through the God Kek and the Goddess Keket (Ka and Kait). I.e., the primordial blackness is not a feminine principle---it is the balance of male/female--Two Spirits/Divinities functioning together as One.
Amen and Amenet's names literally mean "hidden", "concealed". Amen and Amenet are the Great Hidden Father and Mother of Creation. The Great Hidden Being.
Now the quote from Aqil (inside *****):
From the Egyptian Book of the Dead:
**************“God is one and alone, and none other existeth with Him – God is the One, the One who hath made all things – God is a spirit, a hidden spirit, the spirit of spirits, the great spirit of the Egyptians, the Divine spirit – God is from the beginning, and He hath been from the beginning. He hath existed from old and was when nothing else had being. He existed when nothing else existed, and what existeth He created after He had come into being.
He is the Father of beginnings – God is the Eternal One, He is eternal and infinite and endureth forever, and yes – God is hidden and no man knoweth His form. No man hath been able to seek out His likeness; He is hidden to the gods and men, and He is a mystery unto His creatures. No man knoweth how to know Him – His name remaineth hidden; His name is a mystery unto His children. His names are innumerable; they are manifold and none knoweth their number – God is truth and He feedeth thereon. He is the king of truth, and He hath established the Earth thereupon – God is life and through Him only man liveth.
He giveth life to man, He breatheth the breath of life into his nostrils – God is father and mother, the father of fathers and the mother of mothers. He begetteth, but was never begotten; He produceth, but was never produced; He begat himself and produced himself. He createth, but was never created; He is the maker of His own form and the fashioner of His own body - God Himself is existence, He endureth without increase or diminution, He multiplieth Himself millions of times, and He is manifold in forms and in numbers – God hath made the Universe, and He created all that therein is; He is the Creator of what is in this world, and of what was, of what is, and of what shall be.
He is the Creator of the Heavens, and of the Earth, and of the deep, and of the water, and of the mountains. God hath stretched out the Heavens and founded the Earth – what His heart conceived straightway came to pass, and when He hath spoken, it cometh to pass and endureth forever – God is the father of the gods; He fashioned men and formed the gods – God is merciful unto those who reverence Him, and He heareth him that calleth upon Him. God knoweth him that acknowledges Him; He rewardeth him that serveth Him, and He protecteth him that followeth Him.”
("The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani," transliteration and translation by E.A. Wallis Budge, pp. xcii-xciii)*********************
This is not a quote from the "book of the dead". The late egyptologist Dr. Brugsch took a number of quotes from texts of all ages in Kamit and put them all together to produce the quote above. Dr. E. Wallis Budge reprinted this collage of quotes. Dr. Brugsch was attempting to prove what he believed was indo-european-style monotheism in egypt. He mistranslated a number of references and threw them together to "prove" his point. He also hid identical references to female Deities.
For example, you will read "God is One". The term in Kamit being referred to is "UA" (One). What is hidden by Brugsch, but is well known today, is that many Gods and Goddesses use this epithet in the texts of Kamit in all periods. Ra is called Ua (One). Ptah is called Ua/One. Hapi is called Ua/One. Ausar is called Ua/One. The Goddess Neith is called Ua/One. The Goddess Mut is called Ua/One. This can go on. The sentiment is similar in english when brothas say, "you 'da man" "you are THE Man". We are not saying that this man is the only man in existence. We're saying that he is the man/chief in/of a particular situation. The same sentiment ran through this epithet when applied to Deities (Goddesses and Gods) in Kamit, as well as today, as those of us who practice Afurakani/Afuraitkaitnit (African) Ancestral Religion (be it Akan, Yoruba, Ewe, Igbo, etc.) continue to use such metaphors when referring to the Deities (Male and Female). After all, Akan, Ewe, Yoruba, Igbo, etc. cultures and languages are direct descendants of Kamit and Keneset (Nubia). We still worship the same Deities, many by the exact same names, as we did in ancient times.
Finally, Bes is a God, the head of a pantheon. He is One of the Children of the Supreme Being---Amen/Amenet but He was never considered the Supreme Being. Many misconceptions about him are taken from Gerald Massey's work.
Also, Afurakanu/Afuraitkaitnut (Africans) including those of Kamit and Keneset never had what the whites and their offspring did with respect to patriarchy/patrilinealism, nor did we have absolute matriarchies. One term that was created by Oba T'Shaka is "Twinlineal". He uses that term because he wanted to describe our societal structures more accurately. See his "Return to the African Mother Principle of Male-Female Equality".
The stories about fights between patriarchy and matriarchy; the cult of Ausar (Osiris) vs. the cult of Ra, etc. are absolutely false. These conflicts were manufactured in the minds of european egyptologists, who couldn't understand the multiplicity of Divinities in Afurakani/Afuraitkaitnit (African) Ancestral Culture.
The concept of monotheism, a great male deity who is alone, etc. is nothing more than the product of the inferior mind of the european.
Ma asomdwoee-Hetep (Peace),
Ra Nehem
kenyatta said:
I love this site and my brothers here, so let me pose this question: When did God/Creator get to be a man/male ? Sure, according to the book of the dead we would take this to be true, since it is the oldest book in the world. But before there was even such a physical land called kemet/tawi/egypt/tamerry, (for our people have history of that region when there was nothing there but water), what was /is the oldest representation of what we now call God ? Since nothing in life is ONE sided, there was never a time when God existed without the Goddess.
For the sake of this conversation we'll call it the masculine/feminine principle. Darkness was in the beginning and represented the feminine aspect. It was this aspect or principle that gave birth to the sun, the stars, the planets and all else...which takes us to "from the darkness came the light". Science has long postulated that the male was produced from a break off of the XX chromosome. Ours is XY with the remaining stem at the bottom missing that would have made it XX. For the Gods and Earths, X=24, which cancels out to 6, plus another X which cancels out to 6. 6+6=12, which cancels out to 3. In man, X=24 which cancels out to 6, and Y=25 which cancels out to 7. 7+6+13, which cancels out to 4. Only by adding the feminine number of 3 with the masculine number of 4 do we equal the number of God which is 7, therefore finding G to be the seventh letter of the alphabet.
What need to be checked out is the war or conflict that the patriarchy had with the matriarchy before there was even a first dynasty in Kemet...and to know what the results were. This of course would take us back to the civilization of Anu, what later became Kush/Abysinnia/Ethiopia...which was the holy land of the people of Kemet. Since the two oldest writings in the world, now called sebillian 1&2 can't be decyphered, there's obviously a lot of history and speculation that we must weave together. I believe and according to Dr. Yosef Ben Yochannan, the oldest known Creator is called GODDESS BES.
There is more, but this is enough for now.
Love ya
Keita Otiba Kenyatta