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The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they've died. They're like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honor the pharaohs. Only instead of being made of stone, they're made out of the memories people have of you.
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R.J. Palacio (Wonder (Wonder, #1))
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...we should be remembered for the things we do. The things we do are the most important things of all. They are more important than what we say or what we look like. The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honour heroes after they've died. They're like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honour the Pharaohs. Only instead of being made out of stone, they're made out of the memories people have of you. That's why your deeds are like your monuments. Built with memories instead of with stone.
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R.J. Palacio
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Annabeth nodded. "That's right.Alexander conquered Egypt.After he died, his general Ptolemy took over. He wanted the Egyptians to accept him as their pharaoh, so he mashed the Egyptian gods and the Greek gods together and made up new ones."
"Sounds messy," Sadie said. "I prefer my gods unmashed.
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Rick Riordan (The Staff of Serapis (Demigods & Magicians, #2))
“
Oh, I believe you. It’s too ridiculous not to be true. It’s just that each time my world gets stranger, I think: Right. We’re at maximum oddness now. At least I know the full extent of it. First, I find out my brother and I are descended from the pharaohs and have magic powers. All right. No problem. Then I find out my dead father has merged his soul with Osiris and Why not? Then my uncle takes over the House of Life and oversees hundreds of magicians around the world. Then my boyfriend turns out to be a hybrid magician boy/immortal god of funerals. And all the while I’m thinking, Of course! Keep calm and carry on! I’ve adjusted! And then you come along on a random Thursday, la-di-da, and say, Oh, by the way, Egyptian gods are just one small part of the cosmic absurdity. We’ve also got the Greeks to worry about! Hooray!
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Rick Riordan (The Staff of Serapis (Demigods & Magicians, #2))
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I, SINUHE, the son of Senmut and of his wife Kipa, write this. I do not write it to the glory of the gods in the land of Kem, for I am weary of gods, nor to the glory of the Pharaohs, for I am weary of their deeds. I write neither from fear nor from any hope of the future but for myself alone. During my life I have seen, known, and lost too much to be the prey of vain dread; and, as for the hope of immortality, I am as weary of that as I am of gods and kings. For my own sake only I write this; and herein I differ from all other writers, past and to come.
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Mika Waltari (سینوهه)
“
This precept means that we should be remembered for the things we do. The things we do are the most important things of all. They are more important than what we say or what we look like. The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they’ve died. They’re like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honor the pharaohs. Only instead of being made out of stone, they’re made out of the memories people have of you. That’s why your deeds are like your monuments. Built with memories instead of with stone.
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R.J. Palacio (Wonder)
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The most common theory points to the fact that men are stronger than women and that they have used their greater physical power to force women into submission. A more subtle version of this claim argues that their strength allows men to monopolize tasks that demand hard manual labor, such as plowing and harvesting. This gives them control of food production, which in turn translates into political clout. There are two problems with this emphasis on muscle power. First, the statement that men are stronger is true only on average and only with regard to certain types of strength. Women are generally more resistant to hunger, disease, and fatigue than men. There are also many women who can run faster and lift heavier weights than many men. Furthermore, and most problematically for this theory, women have, throughout history, mainly been excluded from jobs that required little physical effort, such as the priesthood, law, and politics, while engaging in hard manual labor in the fields....and in the household. If social power were divided in direct relation to physical strength or stamina, women should have got far more of it. Even more importantly, there simply is no direct relation between physical strength and social power among humans. People in their sixties usually exercise power over people in their twenties, even though twenty-somethings are much stronger than their elders. ...Boxing matches were not used to select Egyptian pharaohs or Catholic popes. In forager societies, political dominance generally resides with the person possessing the best social skills rather than the most developed musculature. In fact, human history shows that there is often an inverse relation between physical prowess and social power. In most societies, it’s the lower classes who do the manual labor.
Another theory explains that masculine dominance results not from strength but from aggression. Millions of years of evolution have made men far more violent than women. Women can match men as far as hatred, greed, and abuse are concern, but when push comes to shove…men are more willing to engage in raw physical violence. This is why, throughout history, warfare has been a masculine prerogative. In times of war, men’s control of the armed forces has made them the masters of civilian society too. They then use their control of civilian society to fight more and more wars. …Recent studies of the hormonal and cognitive systems of men and women strengthen the assumption that men indeed have more aggressive and violent tendencies and are…on average, better suited to serve as common soldiers. Yet, granted that the common soldiers are all men, does it follow that the ones managing the war and enjoying its fruits must also be men? That makes no sense. It’s like assuming that because all the slaves cultivating cotton fields are all Black, plantation owners will be Black as well. Just as an all-Black workforce might be controlled by an all-White management, why couldn’t an all-male soldiery be controlled by an all-female government?
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
“
Egyptians believed that the Pharaoh would be resurrected, but they did not accept the resurrection of the mases
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Reza Aslan (Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth)
“
The things we do are the most important things of all. They are more important than what we say or what we look like. The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they’ve died. They’re like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honor the pharaohs. Only instead of being made out of stone, they’re made out of the memories people have of you. That’s why your deeds are like your monuments. Built with memories instead of with stone.
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R.J. Palacio (Wonder)
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If one Egyptian tailor hadn’t cheated on the threads of Joseph’s mantle, Potiphar’s wife would never have been able to tear it, present it as evidence to Potiphar that Joseph attacked her, gotten him thrown in prison, and let him be in a position to interpret Pharaoh’s dream, win his confidence, advise him to store seven years of grain, and save his family, the seventy original Jews from whom Jesus came. We owe our salvation to a cheap Egyptian tailor.
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Peter Kreeft
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Better is bread with a happy heart, than wealth with vexation
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Amenemope, Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh
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Some slogans of modern political revolutionaries—“ Make America Great Again”—echo the way that Akhenaten and other pharaohs manipulated nostalgia in order to justify change.
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Peter Hessler (The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution)
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To take no notice of a violent attack is to strengthen the heart of the enemy.
vigour is valiant, but cowardice is vile.’ (Ancient egyptian. The Pharaoh
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C.S. Lewis (The Abolition of Man)
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For ten generations her family had styled themselves pharaohs. The Ptolemies were in fact Macedonian Greek, which makes Cleopatra approximately as Egyptian as Elizabeth Taylor.
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Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra)
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Whether you're talking about the Egyptian pharaohs or Hollywood movie stars it all ends the same way. DEATH
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Neal A. Yeager (The 33rd Year: A Novel)
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I bet if I were pharaoh, I’d have had my tomb planned and designed by the time I was ten. I've always wanted to be five steps ahead of where I am. And my mind does it right now: I picture the king on his deathbed, and Ay delivers the awful news to me, but I'm the best embalmer in Thebes thanks to Anubis, so I'm alone in a dark room, and I cut open his soft chest, and take out a heart filled with dreams and love and sadness.
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Leah Rooper (Jane Unwrapped)
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[Egyptian] advances in medicine, however, as well as in other areas of science, were limited to their attempts to solve the problems confronting them. They did not attempt to probe into the realm of theory.
"History for the Egyptians was the cyclic recurrence of the elements of the divine eternal order. Just as the land was reborn each year, so the pharaoh who died and became Osiris was reborn in Horus, his son and successor. The passage of time was marked by the succession of pharaohs, who were grouped into dynasties and numbered.
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Norman F. Cantor (Antiquity: The Civilization of the Ancient World)
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9The bEgyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and his horsemen and his army, and overtook them cencamped at the sea, by Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV))
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4And vI will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will wget glory over Pharaoh and all his host, xand the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD.” And they did so.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV))
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The graves in the Pet Sematary mimed the most ancient religious symbol of all: diminishing circles indicating a spiral leading down, not to a point, but to infinity; order from chaos or chaos from order, depending on which way your mind worked. It was a symbol the Egyptians had chiseled on the tombs of the Pharaohs, a symbol the Phoenicians had drawn on the barrows of their fallen kings; it was found on cave walls in ancient Mycenae; the guild-kings of Stonehenge had created it as a clock to time the universe; it appeared in the Judeo-Christian Bible as the whirlwind from which God had spoken to Job.
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Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
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Mitterrand was a bold man,” Langdon replied, splitting the difference. The late French president who had commissioned the pyramid was said to have suffered from a “Pharaoh complex.” Singlehandedly responsible for filling Paris with Egyptian obelisks, art, and artifacts, François Mitterrand had an affinity for Egyptian culture that was so all-consuming that the French still referred to him as the Sphinx.
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Dan Brown (The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2))
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A priest, who came from a land far away and wed priestess Seshat, used powerful magic for Pharaoh Tutimaeus. With his invention of a horseless chariot and magic men who blew steam, the Egyptians defeated the Hyksos warriors.” He felt his mouth quirk and a deep chuckle rolled from his belly. “Well, an Egyptian priest is a quite a step up from assistant to the conservator of the Louvre.” - As Timeless As Stone
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Maeve Alpin
“
Because the Egyptians had no feeling that events of the moment were transitory, they viewed the present as eternal. The world was static; what seemed like change was only recurrence of the eternal order. Thus, Egyptian literature does not contain careful records of the deeds, or distinctive characteristics of the pharaohs. Rather they are portrayed as the divine ideal, always just, wise, bold, strong, and victorious.
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Norman F. Cantor (Antiquity: The Civilization of the Ancient World)
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The first monotheist religion known to us appeared in Egypt, c.1350 BC, when Pharaoh Akhenaten declared that one of the minor deities of the Egyptian pantheon, the god Aten, was, in fact, the supreme power ruling the universe
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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The first monotheist religion known to us appeared in Egypt, c.1350 BC, when Pharaoh Akhenaten declared that one of the minor deities of the Egyptian pantheon, the god Aten, was, in fact, the supreme power ruling the universe.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" And God said, "I will be with you." (Exodus 3:10-12). Moses is asking about his identity when he asks God: "Who am I?" In effect, he is saying, "Are you sending me back to the Pharaoh as an Egyptian prince, as a Jewish slave or as a Midianite shepherd?" This would have huge implications for the words he would use and the approach he woudl take in confronting Pharoah. What is intriguing to me is God never gives him an answer. He simply tells Moses to go and that his presence will be with Moses. God is affirming Moses' triculturalism: "I have created you the way you are, Moses. You are the person that I need for this task right now. Go and I will give you all that you need to accomplish what I have set before you."
God uses us where we are, in all our complexity and confusion, especially in our ethnic identity, and does great and wonderful things through us.
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Orlando Crespo (Being Latino in Christ: Finding Wholeness in Your Ethnic Identity)
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Anything that exceeds our need becomes worldly, “Egyptian,” something of Pharaoh, and it frustrates us from the economy of God’s purpose....Our living and our existence depend on the provision from the heavenly source, not on the supply from the world.
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Witness Lee (Crystallization-study of Exodus: Volume One (The Holy Word for Morning Revival))
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It is often said that God helps those who help themselves. This is a roundabout way of saying that God doesn’t exist, but if our belief in Him inspires us to do something ourselves – it helps. Antibiotics, unlike God, help even those who don’t help themselves. They cure infections whether you believe in them or not. Consequently, the modern world is very different from the premodern world. Egyptian pharaohs and Chinese emperors failed to overcome famine, plague and war despite millennia of effort. Modern
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Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow)
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Pharaohs
It took Khufu twenty-three years to build his Great Pyramid at Giza, where some eleven hundred stone blocks, each weighing about two and a half tons, had to be quarried, moved, and set in place every day during the annual building season, roughly four months long. Few commentators on these facts can resist noting that this achievement is an amazing testimonial to the pharaoh’s iron control over the workers of Egypt. I submit, on the contrary, that pharaoh Khufu needed to exercise no more control over his workers at Giza than pharaoh Bill Gates exercises over his workers at Microsoft. I submit that Egyptian workers, relatively speaking, got as much out of building Khufu’s pyramid as Microsoft workers will get out of building Bill Gates’s pyramid (which will surely dwarf Khufu’s a hundred times over, though it will not, of course, be built of stone).
No special control is needed to make people into pyramid builders—if they see themselves as having no choice but to build pyramids. They’ll build whatever they’re told to build, whether it’s pyramids, parking garages, or computer programs.
Karl Marx recognized that workers without a choice are workers in chains. But his idea of breaking chains was for us to depose the pharaohs and then build the pyramids for ourselves, as if building pyramids is something we just can’t stop doing, we love it so much.
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Daniel Quinn (Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great Adventure)
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In America’s earliest mythologizing of itself, America is the underdog guided to the promised land by a merciful God. Other countries do something similar. In some other national mythology, America might be the Egyptian Pharaoh holding a worthy population captive.
We can’t all be that righteous. And sometimes that’s hard to stomach. It’s hard accepting that your comfort, or privilege, or disinterest might feed into a real and palpable problem for another group of people. And it’s hard, once you’ve recognized this to be the case, to heed the call to change.
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Tracy K. Smith
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Oh, I believe you. It’s too ridiculous not to be true. It’s just that each time my world gets stranger, I think: Right. We’re at maximum oddness now. At least I know the full extent of it. First, I find out my brother and I are descended from the pharaohs and have magic powers. All right. No problem. Then I find out my dead father has merged his soul with Osiris and become the lord of the dead. Brilliant! Why not? Then my uncle takes over the House of Life and oversees hundreds of magicians around the world. Then my boyfriend turns out to be a hybrid magician boy/immortal god of funerals. And all the while I’m thinking, Of course! Keep calm and carry on! I’ve adjusted! And then you come along on a random Thursday, la-di-da, and say: Oh, by the way, Egyptian gods are just one small part of the cosmic absurdity. We’ve also got the Greeks to worry about! Hooray!
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Rick Riordan (The Staff of Serapis (Demigods & Magicians, #2))
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A few of my Aramean ancestors went to Egypt. We grew into an entire nation there. The Egyptians enslaved us and treated us like shit, so we asked Yahweh, our forefathers’ god, for help. He turned Egyptian waters to blood, chased the Egyptians with frogs and insects, leperized them, turned off their sun, killed all their firstborn sons, and finally, he drowned Pharaoh and his entire army in the sea—all to free us from Egypt. Now he gave us this beautiful paradise. So thank you, Yahweh, for killing all the Canaanites and giving us their land! Here is a nice fruit basket for you!
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Steve Ebling (Holy Bible - Best God Damned Version - The Books of Moses: For atheists, agnostics, and fans of religious stupidity)
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The end of Egypt's isolation turned what had been only occasional and incidental contact with the rest of the Near East into a constant and significant exchange of goods and ideas. The new cosmopolitanism introduced new forms and motifs and a growing naturalism to art. Egypt had always been receptive to immigrants, who had easily been assimilated into its culture; now even the pharaohs could marry foreigners. In addition, the increase of commerce and the emergence of a cosmopolitan urban population -- at Thebes and other cities -- marked the first real urbanization in Egyptian society.
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Norman F. Cantor (Antiquity: The Civilization of the Ancient World)
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You say the ancient Egyptians believed the heart was critical for surviving in the next world.” Romero nodded. “Once in the netherworld, the pharaoh’s heart would have been inspected, tested by Anubis, in a ceremony known as the Weighing of the Heart. At least, that was the belief of later Egyptians.
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Lincoln Child (The Third Gate (Jeremy Logan, #3))
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The central concern of Egyptian art, literature, and architecture was the divine world order -- the pharaoh and the gods, who were essentially one and the same. To the Egyptians, that divine order was eternal and unchanging, but it did not rest on a coherent and defined system of belief. The same god might be seen one time as the sky, another time as a bird; he might have a mythical mother, yet it might be said that he gave birth to himself; the sky could be both a cow and a goddess. The Egyptians did not think in chronological or logical terms but pictured the same phenomenon in a number of different ways.
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Norman F. Cantor (Antiquity: The Civilization of the Ancient World)
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Even more importantly, there simply is no direct relation between physical strength and social power among humans. People in their sixties usually exercise power over people in their twenties, even though twenty-somethings are much stronger than their elders. The typical plantation owner in Alabama in the mid-nineteenth century could have been wrestled to the ground in seconds by any of the slaves cultivating his cotton fields. Boxing matches were not used to select Egyptian pharaohs or Catholic popes. In forager societies, political dominance generally resides with the person possessing the best social skills rather than the most developed musculature. In organized crime, the big boss is not necessarily the strongest man. He is often an older man who very rarely uses his own fists; he gets younger and fitter men to do the dirty jobs for him. A guy who thinks that the way to take over the syndicate is to beat up the don is unlikely to live long enough to learn from his mistake. Even among chimpanzees, the alpha male wins his position by building a stable coalition with other males and females, not through mindless violence.
In fact, human history shows that there is often an inverse relation between physical prowess and social power. In most societies, it’s the lower classes who do the manual labor. This may reflect homo sapiens position in the food chain. If all that counted were raw physical abilities, sapiens would have found themselves on a middle rung of the ladder. But their mental and social skills placed them at the top. It is therefore only natural that the chain of power within the species will also be determined by mental and social abilities more than by brute force. It is therefore hard to believe that the most influential and most stable social hierarchy in history is founded on men's ability to physically coerce women.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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So maybe Third World discontent is fomented not merely by poverty, disease, corruption and political oppression but also by mere exposure to First World standards. The average Egyptian was far less likely to die from starvation, plague or violence under Hosni Mubarak than under Ramses II or Cleopatra. Never had the material condition of most Egyptians been so good. You’d think they would have been dancing in the streets in 2011, thanking Allah for their good fortune. Instead they rose up furiously to overthrow Mubarak. They weren’t comparing themselves to their ancestors under the pharaohs, but rather to their contemporaries in the affluent West.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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We might have noticed more differences with a dog, Louis thought, but cats are such goddamn independent animals anyway. Independent and odd. Fey even. It didn’t surprise him that the old Egyptian queens and pharaohs had wanted their cats mummified and popped into their triangular tombs with them in order to serve as spirit guides in the next world. Cats were weird.
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Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
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The early and relatively sophisticated Egyptians understood that their civilization would be threatened if they bred with the Negroes to their south, so pharaohs went so far as "to prevent the mongrelization of the Egyptian race" by making it a death penalty-eligible offense to bring blacks into Egypt. The ancient Egyptians even constructed a fort on the Nile in central Egypt to prevent blacks from immigrating to their lands. In spite of the efforts by the Egyptian government to defend their civilization, blacks still came to Egypt as soldiers, slaves, and captives from other nations. By 1,500 B.C., half of the population of southern Egypt was of mixed blood, and by 688 B.C., societal progress had ended in Egypt when Taharka became the first mulatto pharaoh. By 332 B.C., Egypt had fallen when Alexander the Great conquered the region.
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Kyle Bristow (The Conscience of a Right-Winger)
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Egypt was rich in copper ore, which, as the base of bronze, had been valuable through the entire Meditarranean world. By 1150 B.C., however, the Iron Age had succeeded the bronze Age. Egypt had no iron and so lost power in the Asiatic countries where the ore existed; the adjustment of its economy to the new metal caused years of inflation and contributed to the financial distress of the central government. The pharaoh could not meet the expenses of his government; he had no money to pay the workers on public buildings, and his servants robbed him at every opportunity. Still a god in theory, he was satirized in literature and became a tool of the oligarchy. During the centuries after the twelfth B.C., the Egyptian state disintegrated into local units loosely connected by trade. Occasional spurts of energy interrupted the decline, but these were short-lived and served only to illuminate the general passivity.
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Norman F. Cantor (Antiquity: The Civilization of the Ancient World)
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There is a tendency to romanticize the abilities of the ancient Egyptians because they produced structures that were miraculous for their time and certainly would pose a serious challenge to ours. They were somehow immensely more talented with sticks and stones than modern researchers have been able to demonstrate using the same implements. When pondering the theories proffered by Egyptologists, one gets the impression that an ancient Egyptian quarry worker was like a maestro playing a complete symphony on a violin made of a cigar box and a stick and producing the quality of a Stradivarius.
The argument is pleasing and poetic, but the trouble is that, metaphorically speaking, when modern scholars make a violin from a cigar box and a stick, its results are precisely what you would expect from a cigar box and a stick. So the question persists: From what instruments did the symphonic architecture of Egypt materialize?
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Christopher Dunn (Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs)
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EXO14.21 And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. EXO14.22 And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left. EXO14.23 And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: King James Version)
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To see Ramses, at fourteen months, wrinkling his brows over a sentence like 'The theology of the Egyptians was a compound of fetishism, totem-ism and syncretism' was a sight as terrifying as it was comical. Even more terrifying was the occasional thoughtful nod the child would give.
...the room was dark except for one lamp, by whose light Emerson was reading. Ramses, in his crib, contemplated the ceiling with rapt attention. It made a pretty little family scene, until one heard what was being said. '...the anatomical details of the wounds, which included a large gash in the frontal bone, a broken malar bone and orbit, and a spear thrust which smashed off the mastoid process and struck the atlas vertebra, allow us to reconstruct the death scene of the king.' ... From the small figure in the cot came a reflective voice. 'It appeaws to me that he was muwduwed.'...' a domestic cwime.'...'One of the ladies of the hawem did it, I think.' I seized Emerson by the arm and pushed him toward the door, before he could pursue this interesting suggestion.
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Elizabeth Peters (The Curse of the Pharaohs (Amelia Peabody, #2))
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We should be remembered for the things we do. The things we do are the most important things of all. They are more important than what we say or what we look like. The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they've died. They're like pyramids that the Egyptians built to honor the pharaohs. Only instead of being made out of stone, they're made out of memories people have of you that's why your deeds are like your monuments. Built with memories instead of with stone.
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R.J. Palacio (Wonder)
“
(Story on an Egyptian pharaoh)
(Close Friends and family disturbed by him not keeping regular hours at court.)
_________________________________________
“Sire you are not conducting yourself properly by pursuing worthless past times you ought to be seated solemnly on your stately throne transacting affairs of state throughout the day that way the Egyptians would know that they’re being governed by a competent man and your reputation would improve but as it is, you are not acting at all like a king.”
The king retorts: “When archers need to use their bows, they string them tightly but when they are finished using them, they relax them for if a bow where to remain tightly strung all the time it would snap and be of no use when someone needed it. The same principle applies to the daily routine of a human being. If someone wants to work seriously all the time and not let himself ease off for a share of play, he will go insane without even knowing it or at least suffer a stroke. And it is because I recognize this maximum that I allot a share of my time to each aspect of life.
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Herodotus
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The most well known theory concerning the whereabouts of the Ark, made famous by the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, places it in the ruins of the ancient city of Tanis in Egypt. This theory proposes that the Ark was plundered by the Egyptians shortly after Solomon’s death. According to the Old Testament, the pharaoh Sheshonq I of Egypt attacked Jerusalem, raided the Temple, and plundered its treasures (1 Kgs 14:26). Sheshonq I established Tanis as the new Egyptian capital, and so it is here that Indiana Jones discovers the lost Ark in Steven Spielberg’s movie.
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Graham Phillips (The Templars and the Ark of the Covenant: The Discovery of the Treasure of Solomon)
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Even when portrayed as a man, Hatshepsut often used grammatically feminine epithets, describing herself as the daughter (rather than son) of Ra, or the lady (rather than lord) of the Two Lands. The tension between male office and female officeholder was never satisfactorily resolved. Little wonder that Hatshepsut’s advisers came up with a new circumlocution for the monarch. From now on, the term for the palace, per-aa (literally “great house”), was applied also to its chief inhabitant. Peraa—pharaoh—now became the unique designation of the Egyptian ruler. While
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Toby Wilkinson (The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt)
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This precept means that we should be remembered for the things we do. The things we do are the most important things of all. They are more important than what we say or what we look like. The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they’ve died. They’re like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honor the pharaohs. Only instead of being made out of stone, they’re made out of the memories people have of you. That’s why your deeds are like your monuments. Built with memories instead of with stone. Apples
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R.J. Palacio (Wonder)
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Greek was her first language, and in Greek literature and culture she was educated. Although representing on Egyptian temples and some statuary in the traditional headgear and robes of the pharaohs’ wives, it was unlikely she actually dressed this way save perhaps occasionally to perform certain rites. Instead she wore the headband and robes of a Greek monarch. Cleopatra proclaimed herself the ‘New Isis’, and yet her worship of the goddess betrayed a strongly Hellenised version of the cult. She was no more Egyptian culturally or ethnically than most residents of modern day Airzona are Apaches.
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Adrian Goldsworthy (Antony and Cleopatra)
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But the Egyptians believed that only prayers to the living-god pharaoh and to his heavenly patron Sobek could save the Nile Valley from devastating floods and droughts. They were right. Pharaoh and Sobek were imaginary entities who did nothing to raise or lower the Nile water level, but when millions of people believed in pharaoh and Sobek and therefore cooperated in building dams and digging canals, floods and droughts became rare. Compared to the Sumerian gods, not to mention the Stone Age spirits, the gods of ancient Egypt were truly powerful entities that founded cities, raised armies and controlled the lives of millions of humans, cows and crocodiles.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens and Homo Deus: The E-book Collection: A Brief History of Humankind and A Brief History of Tomorrow)
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One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13When che went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by fa well.
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Anonymous
“
Verse 12 [of Ex. 12) tells us that the judgment of Yahweh is not only on the Egyptians but also on their deities. This is probably an allusion to the fact that Egyptians would often pray for the safety of their firstborn, particularly firstborn sons, as was the custom in many ancient patriarchal cultures. The death of the firstborn would be seen as a sign of the anger or perhaps the impotence of their gods. This is worth pondering when it comes to the death of Jesus as God’s only begotten, or beloved, Son. Would Jesus’ contemporaries have assumed his death was a manifestation of God’s wrath? Probably so. In any event, Yahweh is showing his superiority over the spirits behind the pagan deities, and thus we should not overlook the supernatural struggle that is implied to be behind the contest of wills between Moses and Pharaoh.
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Ben Witherington III (Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper)
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People in their sixties usually exercise power over people in their twenties, even though twentysomethings are much stronger than their elders. The typical plantation owner in Alabama in the mid-nineteenth century could have been wrestled to the ground in seconds by any of the slaves cultivating his cotton fields. Boxing matches were not used to select Egyptian pharaohs or Catholic popes. In forager societies, political dominance generally resides with the person possessing the best social skills rather than the most developed musculature. In organised crime, the big boss is not necessarily the strongest man. He is often an older man who very rarely uses his own fists; he gets younger and fitter men to do the dirty jobs for him. A guy who thinks that the way to take over the syndicate is to beat up the don is unlikely to live long enough to learn from his mistake. Even among chimpanzees, the alpha male wins his position by building a stable coalition with other males and females, not through mindless violence. In fact, human history shows that there is often an inverse relation between physical prowess and social power. In most societies, it’s the lower classes who do the manual labour. This may reflect Homo sapiens’ position in the food chain. If all that counted were raw physical abilities, Sapiens would have found themselves on a middle rung of the ladder. But their mental and social skills placed them at the top. It is therefore only natural that the chain of power within the species will also be determined by mental and social abilities more than by brute force. It is therefore hard to believe that the most influential and most stable social hierarchy in history is founded on men’s ability physically to coerce women.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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Humanism has dominated the world for 300 years, which is not such a long time. The pharaohs ruled Egypt for 3,000 years, and the popes dominated Europe for a millennium. If you told an Egyptian in the time of Ramses II that one day the pharaohs will be gone, he would probably have been aghast. ‘How can we live without a pharaoh? Who will ensure order, peace and justice?’ If you told people in the Middle Ages that within a few centuries God will be dead, they would have been horrified. ‘How can we live without God? Who will give life meaning and protect us from chaos?’ Looking back, many think that the downfall of the pharaohs and the death of God were both positive developments. Maybe the collapse of humanism will also be beneficial. People are usually afraid of change because they fear the unknown. But the single greatest constant of history is that everything changes.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow)
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24 By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; 25 Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; 26 Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward. 27 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. 28 Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them. 29 By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned. 30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days. 31 By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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The ideology of kingship required—demanded—a male ruler. Yet Hatshepsut, as her very name announced, was female. Her response to this conundrum was deeply schizophrenic. On some monuments, especially those dating from the time before her accession, she had the images recarved to show her as a man. On others, she had female epithets applied to male monarchs of the past, in an apparent attempt to “feminize” her ancestors. Even when portrayed as a man, Hatshepsut often used grammatically feminine epithets, describing herself as the daughter (rather than son) of Ra, or the lady (rather than lord) of the Two Lands. The tension between male office and female officeholder was never satisfactorily resolved. Little wonder that Hatshepsut’s advisers came up with a new circumlocution for the monarch. From now on, the term for the palace, per-aa (literally “great house”), was applied also to its chief inhabitant. Peraa—pharaoh—now became the unique designation of the Egyptian ruler.
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Toby Wilkinson (The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt)
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God, who is omnipotent, could have softened Pharaoh’s heart, but he hardens it instead, which gives him a reason to afflict every Egyptian with painful boils and other miseries before killing every one of their firstborn sons. (The word Passover alludes to the executioner angel’s passing over the households with Israelite firstborns.) God follows this massacre with another one when he drowns the Egyptian army as they pursue the Israelites across the Red Sea. The Israelites assemble at Mount Sinai and hear the Ten Commandments, the great moral code that outlaws engraved images and the coveting of livestock but gives a pass to slavery, rape, torture, mutilation, and genocide of neighboring tribes. The Israelites become impatient while waiting for Moses to return with an expanded set of laws, which will prescribe the death penalty for blasphemy, homosexuality, adultery, talking back to parents, and working on the Sabbath. To pass the time, they worship a statue of a calf, for which the punishment turns out to be, you guessed it, death. Following orders from God, Moses and his brother Aaron kill three thousand of their companions.
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Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined)
“
The market's second wild trait-almost-cycles-is prefigured in the story of Joseph. Pharaoh dreamed that seven fat cattle were feeding in the meadows, when seven lean kine rose out of the Nile and ate them. Likewise, seven scraggly ears of corn consumed seven plump ears. Joseph, a Hebrew slave, called the dreams prophetic: Seven years of famine would follow seven years of prosperity. He advised Pharaoh to stockpile grain for bad times to come. And when all passed as prophesied, "Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians...And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands." Given the profits he and Pharaoh must have made, one might call Joseph the first international arbitrageur. That pattern, familiar from Hurst's work on the Nile, also appears in markets. A big 3 percent change in IBM's stock one day might precede a 2 percent jump another day, then a 1.5 percent change, then a 3.5 percent move-as if the first big jumps were continuing to echo down the succeeding days' trading. Of course, this is not a regular or predictable pattern. But the appearance of one is strong. Behind it is the influence of long-range dependence in an otherwise random process-or, put another way, a long-term memory through which the past continues to influence the random fluctuations of the present.
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Benoît B. Mandelbrot (The (Mis)Behavior of Markets)
“
Prior to the invention of writing, stories were confined by the limited capacity of human brains. You couldn’t invent overly complex stories which people couldn’t remember. With writing you could suddenly create extremely long and intricate stories, which were stored on tablets and papyri rather than in human heads. No ancient Egyptian remembered all of pharaoh’s lands, taxes and tithes; Elvis Presley never even read all the contracts signed in his name; no living soul is familiar with all the laws and regulations of the European Union; and no banker or CIA agent tracks down every dollar in the world. Yet all of these minutiae are written somewhere, and the assemblage of relevant documents defines the identity and power of pharaoh, Elvis, the EU and the dollar.
Writing has thus enabled humans to organise entire societies in an algorithmic fashion. We encountered the term ‘algorithm’ when we tried to understand what emotions are and how brains function, and defined it as a methodical set of steps that can be used to make calculations, resolve problems and reach decisions. In illiterate societies people make all calculations and decisions in their heads. In literate societies people are organised into networks, so that each person is only a small step in a huge algorithm, and it is the algorithm as a whole that makes the important decisions. This is the essence of bureaucracy.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow)
“
The Lord Gives Victory See, God has come to save me. I will trust in him and not be afraid. The LORD GOD is my strength and my song; he has given me victory.” ISAIAH 12:2 NLT The first time we see the phrase “the Lord is my strength and my song” is in the book of Exodus in the song Miriam and the women danced to as Moses and Miriam and the children of Israel sang. The reason for their rejoicing was their deliverance from Pharaoh and his army. When the Israelites left Egypt, they came to the Red Sea. They realized the army of Egypt had followed them. Then the Lord opened the Red Sea, and the Israelites crossed on dry land. The Egyptians followed. But once the last Israelite was safe on the other side, the Lord closed the waters over the Egyptians who had followed them. It was a great deliverance, and the people celebrated. Later, Isaiah not only predicted God’s judgment on the people of Israel because of their sin and desire to go their own way, he also predicted that God would send salvation and deliverance once their time of judgment was complete. As God had delivered the nation of Israel in ancient times, so would He deliver His people in the future. All would know His name; all would trust Him and not be afraid; all would find strength in praise and rejoicing. And therein lies true victory. Father, faith in You brings victory in the battle against sin. May we sing praises to You for Your salvation.
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Various (Daily Wisdom for Women 2015 Devotional Collection - January (None))
“
(3) Theology of Exodus: A Covenant People “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God” (Exod 6:7). When God first demanded that the Egyptian Pharaoh let Israel leave Egypt, he referred to Israel as “my … people.” Again and again he said those famous words to Pharaoh, Let my people go.56 Pharaoh may not have known who Yahweh was,57 but Yahweh certainly knew Israel. He knew them not just as a nation needing rescue but as his own people needing to be closely bound to him by the beneficent covenant he had in store for them once they reached the place he was taking them to himself, out of harm's way, and into his sacred space.58 To be in the image of God is to have a job assignment. God's “image”59 is supposed to represent him on earth and accomplish his purposes here. Reasoning from a degenerate form of this truth, pagan religions thought that an image (idol) in the form of something they fashioned would convey to its worshipers the presence of a god or goddess. But the real purpose of the heavenly decision described in 1:26 was not to have a humanlike statue as a representative of God on earth but to have humans do his work here, as the Lord's Prayer asks (“your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” Matt 6:10). Although the fall of humanity as described in Genesis 3 corrupted the ability of humans to function properly in the image of God, the divine plan of redemption was hardly thwarted. It took the form of the calling of Abraham and the promises to him of a special people. In both Exod 6:6–8 and 19:4–6 God reiterates his plan to develop a people that will be his very own, a special people that, in distinction from all other peoples of the earth, will belong to him and accomplish his purposes, being as Exod 19:6 says “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Since the essence of holiness is belonging to God, by belonging to God this people became holy, reflecting the character of their Lord as well as being obedient to his purposes. No other nation in the ancient world ever claimed Yahweh as its God, and Yahweh never claimed any other nation as his people. This is not to say that he did not love and care for other nations60 but only to say that he chose Israel as the focus of his plan of redemption for the world. In the New Testament, Israel becomes all who will place faith in Jesus Christ—not an ethnic or political entity at all but now a spiritual entity, a family of God. Thus the New Testament speaks of the true Israel as defined by conversion to Christ in rebirth and not by physical birth at all. But in the Old Covenant, the true Israel was the people group that, from the various ethnic groups that gathered at Sinai, agreed to accept God's covenant and therefore to benefit from this abiding presence among them (see comments on Exod 33:12–24:28). Exodus is the place in the Bible where God's full covenant with a nation—as opposed to a person or small group—emerges, and the language of Exod 6:7, “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God,” is language predicting that covenant establishment.61
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Douglas K. Stuart (Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2))
“
In the Old Testament, the Egyptian ruler during the period of
Prophet Ibrahim (as) and Prophet Yusuf (as) are named "Pharaoh."
However, this title was actually employed after the eras in which these
two prophets lived.
While addressing the Egyptian ruler at the time of Prophet Yusuf
(as), the word "Al-Malik" in Arabic is used in the Qur'an: It refers to a
ruler, king or sultan:
The King said, ‘Bring him to me straight away!'… (Qur'an, 12:50)
The ruler of Egypt in the time of Prophet Musa (as) is
referred to as "Pharaoh." This distinction in the Qur'an is not
made in the Old and New Testaments nor by Jewish historians.
In the Bible, the word "Pharaoh" is used, in every reference
to an Egyptian monarch. On the other hand, the
Qur'an is far more concise and accurate in the terminology
it employs.
The use of the word "Pharaoh" in Egyptian history
belongs only to the late period. This particular title
began to be employed in the 14th century B.C., during
the reign of Amenhotep IV. Prophet Yusuf (as)
lived at least 200 years before that time.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica says that the
word "Pharaoh" was a title of respect used from
the New Kingdom (beginning with the 18th
dynasty; B.C. 1539-1292) until the 22nd
dynasty (B.C. 945-730), after which this
term of address became the title of the
king. Further information on this
Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an
291
subject comes from the Academic American Encyclopaedia, which states
that the title of Pharaoh began to be used in the New Kingdom.
As we have seen, the use of the word "Pharaoh" dates from a specific
period in history. For that reason, the fact that the Qur'an distinguishes
between the different Egyptian titles in different Egyptian eras
is yet another proof that the Qur'an is Allah's word.
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”
Harun Yahya (Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an)
“
The very successes of the megamachine re-enforced dangerous potentialities that had hitherto been kept in check by sheer human weakness. The inherent infirmity of this whole power system lies exposed in the fact that kings, exalted above all other men, were constantly cozened, flattered, and fed with misinformation-zealously protected from any disturbing counterbalancing 'feedback.' So kings never learned from either their own experience or from history the fact that unqualified power is inimical to life: that their methods were self-defeating, their military victories were ephemeral, and their exalted claims were fraudulent and absurd.
From the end of the first great Age of the Builders in Egypt, that of the Sixth Dynasty Pharaoh, Pepe I, comes corroborative evidence of this pervasive irrationality, all the more telling because it issues from the relatively orderly and unbedevilled Egyptians:
The army returned in safety
After it had hacked up the land of the Sand Dwellers
...After it had thrown down its enclosures...
After it had cut down its fig trees and vines...
After it had cast fire into all its dwellings...
After it had killed troops in it by many ten-thousand.
That sums up the course of Empire everywhere: the same boastful words, the same vicious acts, the same sordid results, from the earliest Egyptian palette to the latest American newspaper with its reports, at the moment I write, of the mass atrocities coldbloodedly perpetrated with the aid of napalm bombs and defoliating poisons, by the military forces of the United States on the helpless peasant populations of Vietnam: an innocent people, uprooted, terrorized, poisoned and roasted alive in a futile attempt to make the power fantasies of the American military-industrial-scientific elite 'credible.
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Lewis Mumford (Technics and Human Development (The Myth of the Machine, Vol 1))
“
We need to be humble enough to recognize that unforeseen things can and do happen that are nobody’s fault. A good example of this occurred during the making of Toy Story 2. Earlier, when I described the evolution of that movie, I explained that our decision to overhaul the film so late in the game led to a meltdown of our workforce. This meltdown was the big unexpected event, and our response to it became part of our mythology. But about ten months before the reboot was ordered, in the winter of 1998, we’d been hit with a series of three smaller, random events—the first of which would threaten the future of Pixar. To understand this first event, you need to know that we rely on Unix and Linux machines to store the thousands of computer files that comprise all the shots of any given film. And on those machines, there is a command—/bin/rm -r -f *—that removes everything on the file system as fast as it can. Hearing that, you can probably anticipate what’s coming: Somehow, by accident, someone used this command on the drives where the Toy Story 2 files were kept. Not just some of the files, either. All of the data that made up the pictures, from objects to backgrounds, from lighting to shading, was dumped out of the system. First, Woody’s hat disappeared. Then his boots. Then he disappeared entirely. One by one, the other characters began to vanish, too: Buzz, Mr. Potato Head, Hamm, Rex. Whole sequences—poof!—were deleted from the drive. Oren Jacobs, one of the lead technical directors on the movie, remembers watching this occur in real time. At first, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Then, he was frantically dialing the phone to reach systems. “Pull out the plug on the Toy Story 2 master machine!” he screamed. When the guy on the other end asked, sensibly, why, Oren screamed louder: “Please, God, just pull it out as fast as you can!” The systems guy moved quickly, but still, two years of work—90 percent of the film—had been erased in a matter of seconds. An hour later, Oren and his boss, Galyn Susman, were in my office, trying to figure out what we would do next. “Don’t worry,” we all reassured each other. “We’ll restore the data from the backup system tonight. We’ll only lose half a day of work.” But then came random event number two: The backup system, we discovered, hadn’t been working correctly. The mechanism we had in place specifically to help us recover from data failures had itself failed. Toy Story 2 was gone and, at this point, the urge to panic was quite real. To reassemble the film would have taken thirty people a solid year. I remember the meeting when, as this devastating reality began to sink in, the company’s leaders gathered in a conference room to discuss our options—of which there seemed to be none. Then, about an hour into our discussion, Galyn Susman, the movie’s supervising technical director, remembered something: “Wait,” she said. “I might have a backup on my home computer.” About six months before, Galyn had had her second baby, which required that she spend more of her time working from home. To make that process more convenient, she’d set up a system that copied the entire film database to her home computer, automatically, once a week. This—our third random event—would be our salvation. Within a minute of her epiphany, Galyn and Oren were in her Volvo, speeding to her home in San Anselmo. They got her computer, wrapped it in blankets, and placed it carefully in the backseat. Then they drove in the slow lane all the way back to the office, where the machine was, as Oren describes it, “carried into Pixar like an Egyptian pharaoh.” Thanks to Galyn’s files, Woody was back—along with the rest of the movie.
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Ed Catmull (Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration)
“
Pharaoh gave orders that all the male children should be destroyed, and none had escaped the danger. Whence did these expect to save their child? From faith. What sort of Faith? “They saw” (he says) “that he was a proper child.” The very sight drew them on to Faith: thus from the beginning, yea from the very swaddling-clothes, great was the Grace that was poured out on that righteous man, this being not the work of nature. For observe, the child immediately on its birth appears fair and not disagreeable to the sight. Whose [work] was this? Not that of nature, but of the Grace of God, which also stirred up and strengthened that barbarian woman, the Egyptian, and took and drew her on.
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John Chrysostom
“
To understand, you need some basic history. There is no evidence that Israel was ever a significant slave population in Egypt or that the mass Exodus, desert wanderings, or invasion of Canaan ever occurred. Israel appears to have simply evolved in Canaan, entering actual history when the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah recorded annihilating a people called “Israel” in Canaan on his victory stele, dated about 1200 BC.
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Steve Ebling (Holy Bible - Best God Damned Version - The Books of Moses: For atheists, agnostics, and fans of religious stupidity)
“
That deliverance entailed not just leaving behind the land of Egypt, but leaving behind the ways of Egypt. Each of the ten plagues was more than just a dramatic sign to Pharaoh that he must release the Hebrews. Each was a symbolic defeat of an Egyptian deity. Osiris, whose bloodstream was believed to be the Nile, bleeds out before his worshipers when Yahweh turns the Nile to blood. In reverence to Heqet, the frog-goddess of birth, Egyptians regarded frogs as sacred and not to be killed. Yahweh slays them by the thousands. Egyptian gods governing fertility, crops, livestock, and health are all shown to be impotent before the mighty outstretched arm of Israel’s God. In the ninth plague of darkness, Yahweh demonstrates his rule over the sun god Ra, whom Pharaoh was believed to embody. And in the final plague, the death of the firstborn, God shows himself supreme over the entire Egyptian pantheon by demonstrating his power over life and death.
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Jen Wilkin (Ten Words to Live By: Delighting in and Doing What God Commands)
“
Or consider one of my all-time favorite passages, the description of the ten plagues that Moses brought down on the heads of the Egyptians in order to compel Pharaoh to “let my people go.” The fifth plague was a pestilence that killed “all of the livestock of the Egyptians” (Exodus 9:5). How is it, then, that a few days later the seventh plague, of hail, was to destroy all of the Egyptian livestock in the fields (Exodus 9:21–22)? What
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Bart D. Ehrman (Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them))
“
earth in her hand, and formed thereof a sacred serpent in the form of a dart; she did not set it upright before her face, but let it lie upon the ground in the path whereby the great god went forth, according to his heart’s desire, into his double kingdom. Now the holy god arose, and the gods who followed him as though he were Pharaoh went with him; and he came forth according to his daily wont; and the sacred serpent bit him. The flame of life departed from him, and he who dwelt among the cedars (?) was overcome. The holy god opened his mouth, and the cry of his majesty reached unto heaven; his company of gods said, ‘What hath happened ? ’ and his gods exclaimed, ‘ What is it ?’ But R could not answer, for his jaws trembled and all his members quaked; the poison spread swiftly through his flesh just as the Nile rusheth through all his land. When the great god had stablished his heart, he cried unto those who were in his train, saying, ‘Come unto me, O ye who have come into being from my body, ye gods who have come forth from me, make ye known unto Khepera that a dire calamity hath fallen upon me. My heart perceiveth it, but my eyes see it not; my hand hath not caused it, nor do I know who hath done this
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E.A. Wallis Budge (Egyptian Magic)
“
As for the foundations of these settlements, it appears that even some of the smaller ones, such as Kalibangan and Lothal, were built on anti-flood platforms, like the one at Mohenjo-daro. This platform, constructed out of mud brick faced with a wall of burnt brick, required a massive investment of labour and time. If we accept Possehl’s estimate, on the basis that a labourer can move about a cubic metre of earth in a day, the platform at Mohenjo-daro would have entailed four million days of labour. With a really substantial labour force of ten thousand men, the task would have taken four hundred days, or just over a year; with a quarter this number of labourers, almost four-and-a-half years. What drove the labourers, in the apparent absence of any Indus equivalent of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh? According to Marshall, writing in 1931 (though he was unaware of the platform, which was discovered only in 1964 by Dales), ‘If there is one fact that stands out clear and unmistakable amid these ruins, it is that the people must have lived in ever-present dread of the river.
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Andrew Robinson (The Indus)
“
Sex is taken as a biological given: non-cultural, static and scientifically measurable. Gender, however, is an intangible social concept with a specific contextual construction.
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Tom Neal (Women Warriors in Ancient Egyptian Archaeology: Facts, Myths and Mysteries of Queen Ahhotep of the Pharaoh: A Biography of a Queens Everyday Life + History of Weapons, Art and Jewellery in Her Tomb)
“
The confusion is the result of a strategic mistake made by the pharaohs. The Egyptians hired the Sea People as mercenaries—a short-term decision that would have long-term consequences. The Romans also hired foreigners as auxiliaries. One of them, Arminius, a cavalry officer, led Germanic tribes in the massacre of several Roman legions in the Teutoburg Forest.
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Captivating History (The Sea People: A Captivating Guide to the Seafarers Who Invaded Ancient Egypt, Eastern Anatolia, the Hittite Empire, Palestine, Syria, and Cyprus, along ... Age Collapse (Exploring Ancient History))
“
But a cursory review of ancient Egyptian literature suggests that the Egyptians of three thousand years ago were already keenly aware of the insubstantial nature of human achievement. These monuments, these tombs, these mummies were not necessarily meant to escape the passage of time but rather to provide future generations with a past they could find, a past whose shadow would loom over them and offer them guidance. As archaeologists continue to study ancient Egypt thousands of years later, the pharaohs continue to guide posterity and provide humanity with permanent symbols of history, in more impressive and far-reaching ways than even they could have planned.
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Tom Head (World History 101: From ancient Mesopotamia and the Viking conquests to NATO and WikiLeaks, an essential primer on world history (Adams 101 Series))
“
The Babylonian armies continued to undertake campaigns in the upper Euphrates region, reaching as far as Nisibis. In 610, with the help of the Medes and Scythians, they took Haran. The Egyptians had sought to make common cause with the retreating remnants of Assyria, and they made a combined attempt to recapture Haran in 609, but were unsuccessful. (This was the context of the death of King Josiah of Judah as he sought to prevent pharaoh Neco’s advance; see ‘The Kingdom of Judah’.)
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Adrian Curtis (Oxford Bible Atlas)
“
The one who wins even after death is known as Tut-Ankh-Amun.
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Vinaya
“
The story of Jacob’s burial, in the end, is the story of two heroes. The first is Joseph, who risked everything to bury his father according to his wishes. He risked the loss of power, prestige—and perhaps most of all, his good standing in the eyes of Pharaoh. But the second hero, unlikely as it may seem, is Pharaoh himself. He resisted the urge to impose upon the venerated Jacob an exclusively Egyptian identity. He allowed Jacob to be who he was—Israelite, not Egyptian—and still he and the populace would cherish him; still he and Egypt would regard Jacob as royalty. They would accord him all the honor of a king, notwithstanding Jacob’s rather public decision that Canaan was his true home. The humility evinced by Pharaoh’s stance is nothing short of remarkable.
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David Fohrman (The Exodus You Almost Passed Over)
“
We asked earlier why it took Jacob seventeen years of living in Egypt to realize that Joseph was righteous, that Joseph had not assimilated into Egyptian culture. Why did Jacob not realize this the moment he first set eyes upon him, when Joseph embraced him, cried, and promised to take care of the family’s every need? That seems like the moment Jacob should have realized what a good son Joseph was. Why was it only now—seventeen years later—that Jacob understood this? But it makes perfect sense. This really was the moment that Jacob knew that Joseph was a loyal son. Providing for the family was one thing. That choice did not really require him to put his relationship with Pharaoh under any strain. But a state funeral in Canaan? Trying to honor that request could come at a real price for Joseph. When Joseph swore he would do it, Jacob understood what that meant. In a contest between competing fathers and their respective interests, Joseph had just chosen Jacob.
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David Fohrman (The Exodus You Almost Passed Over)
“
From Egyptian pharaohs to Persian Kings and Massachusetts Senators, the cancellation of debts is a time-tested method tyrants have used to gain the support of the mob - & Solon was no different.
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Sal Mayweather (The American Experiment: What Your History Teacher Didn't Tell You)
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On the evening before the Battle of the Pyramids, Napoleon and a few of his officers were riding past a pyramid. A man wrapped in a red cloak stepped out of the pyramid and motioned to Napoleon to come forth. Napoleon obliged, telling his officers to wait outside as he stepped into the pyramid with this red-mantled stranger. After an hour of uneasiness, the officers were ready to enter and ensure Napoleon’s safety, but Napoleon stepped out of the pyramid. With a satisfied smile, he demanded they prepare for battle with the Egyptians. The officers were confused, given his previous reluctance, but they followed his orders, leading to their victory in the Battle of the Pyramids. The Great Pyramid of Giza The year after his invasion, Napoleon returned to Egypt, to the Great Pyramid of Giza. After discovering the Rosetta Stone—an ancient stone that helped scientists to understand how to read hieroglyphics—Napoleon began to believe that the pyramids held great mystique and spirituality. He spent the night inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, inside the king’s chamber that was about 32 feet long and 16 feet wide. For seven hours, he sat in the dark room, not emerging until sunrise. However, when he stepped out of the pyramid, his face was pale. Visibly shaken and terrified, he refused to tell anyone what he’d experienced, saying, “If I told you the truth, you would not believe me.” Even years later, when one of Napoleon’s men asked about the experience, Napoleon considered telling him but then decided against it, saying, “No, never mind” (Shkuro, 2019, para. 2). Considering Napoleon admired Alexander the Great, who had also spent the night in the king’s chambers and had an experience, some believe he may have been trying to claim a piece of Alexander’s legacy in that respect. He’s even been said to have created stories about himself that aligned with Alexander. Though, even his officers said he was clearly disturbed by whatever he saw.
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Alda Dagny (Secrets of the Nile: An Archaeological Journey to the Land of Pharaohs)
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The Egyptian Pharaoh Shoshenq I (Shishak, 1 Kings 11:40, 14:25), invaded the land of Judah/Israel around 925/926 B.C. When he returned to Egypt, he had inscribed on the temple wall at Karnak a list of the places he conquered in his campaign into Canaan. One of those names says it was the fort (or enclosure) of Abraham that he conquered, in a region near the Negev (cf. Genesis 12:1, 13:1, 20:1). This is the only ancient inscription that mentions Abraham.
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Simon Turpin (Adam: First and the Last)
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The narrative in Genesis portrays Joseph (1915–1805 B.C.) serving as Egypt’s vizier (chief administrator) in the court of native Egyptian rulership, not Semitic (Hyksos, “Shepherd Kings” or “Rulers of Foreign Countries"), most likely in their Twelfth Dynasty. Many of the features of Joseph’s lifespan reflect this setting: 1) the personal names are Egyptian: Potiphar, Asenath, Zaphenath-paneah (Joseph’s Semitic name would not have been changed to an Egyptian name under a Hyksos ruler — Genesis 39:1; 41:45); 2) Joseph shaves himself before seeing Pharaoh, an Egyptian custom not a Semitic one (Genesis 41:14); 3) the embalming process was an Egyptian practice (Genesis 50:2–3); 4) assuming that Joseph was Egyptian, his brothers spoke Hebrew to one another when they first met him (Genesis 42:23), something they would not do if they supposed he was Hyksos;37 and 5) Joseph married the daughter of Potiphera priest of On (Heliopolis), as arranged by the Pharaoh (Genesis 41:45).
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Simon Turpin (Adam: First and the Last)
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Israel in Egypt God called Abraham to leave his home in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) for a land that his descendants would receive as their own. Why, then, did God multiply Israel into a nation of two million in Egypt rather than Canaan? There seem to be at least five reasons: First, it was necessary that Israel be formed as a nation in circumstances that kept her distinct and unique. In Canaan, Jacob’s family was almost absorbed by the existing population (see Genesis 34). In Egypt, on the other hand, Israel never risked assimilation; the Egyptians took care to segregate the Hebrews because they scorned shepherds (see Genesis 46:28–47:6). Second, in Egypt, God preserved Israel from the moral corruption that was so rife in Canaan. While the Egyptians were pagans, their religious and social practices were not as debauched (the Canaanites practiced child sacrifice and ritual prostitution). Third, Israel would be God’s instrument of judgment against the wicked Canaanites. God was waiting until “the sin of the Amorites [the Canaanites] . . . reached its full measure” (Genesis 15:16). Then He would bring His people in to annihilate them. Fourth, Israel had to learn to trust God rather than men. As long as there was a pharaoh who remembered Joseph, the Hebrews were treated with respect. But when a pharaoh arose who did not “know” Joseph, they fell quickly from favor. Clearly, dependence on God rather than political alliances was the only way for Israel to survive. Finally, God desired to birth Israel in circumstances that would display His power and glory. As Israel multiplied even under oppression, it became evident to everyone that God’s blessing was upon His people.
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The Navigators (Exodus (LifeChange Book 14))
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Although Sinai 361 is not dated, it is found among other inscriptions in the mines at Serâbît el Khadîm of the Egyptian New Kingdom. The pottery found in those mines was used during the reigns of Thutmose III (the Pharaoh who chased Moses out of Egypt) and Amenhotep II (the Pharaoh of the exodus) — so the pottery dates the inscription (c. 1446 B.C.).
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Simon Turpin (Adam: First and the Last)
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The work of the shepherd was an abomination, we are told, to the ancient Egyptians, and so it is to all pulpit Pharaohs who are interested in building pyramids out of eloquent words.
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Charles Jefferson (The Minister As Shepherd: Pastoral Leadership According to the Bible)
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In Alexandria were parks and gardens, palaces, shrines and a zoo. The city was rich in sights to please even the most jaded traveller, and its architecture laid out its cultural and intellectual claims to pre-eminence. The pharaoh-emperor’s arrival was the most extraordinary occasion most Egyptians would ever see.
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Elizabeth Speller (Following Hadrian: A Second-Century Journey through the Roman Empire)
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If the hyperconnectedness of humanity is true, it would mean that everyone alive today—you, your neighbor, Vladimir Putin, and the emperor of Japan—could count the same Egyptian pharaoh, as well as everyone else alive at the time, as a distant grandparent.
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Christine Kenneally (The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures)
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I tried to close my ears to the strange worshipful chanting and fix my mind on God, but the Egyptians’ idolatry weighed down my weary shoulders and brought tears to my closed eyes.
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Kristen Reed (Five Nights With Pharaoh)
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As Pharaoh erred in ancient Egypt, so did the Aryans after him who picked up that same theological tradition and activated it anew. The Hippopotamus was no Horse, and the Unicorn was no Arabian Oryx. Taweret and the Unicorn are mythical; and the Hippopotamus and the Rhinoceros have low agility. The universal keys of symbolism however were given to the Arabs; with Arabian horses bred for speed and one mythical horse that leaped right into the horizon(unlike the Egyptian solar barque symbolizing the time of the sundial).
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Ibrahim Ibrahim (The Calendar of Ancient Egypt: The Temporal Mechanics of the Giza Plateau)
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On the one hand, Solomon’s marriage to the daughter of the Egyptian Pharaoh is mentioned no less than five times in the narrative of 1 Kings 3-11, with each mention having a very distinct context and appearing archival in nature. She is mentioned: 1) in relation to Solomon’s alliance with the Egyptian Pharaoh (1 Kgs. 3:1); 2) in a description of the construction of the royal palace (1 Kgs. 7:8); 3) in relation to the Egyptian conquest of Gezer and its subsequent absorption into Greater Israel (1 Kgs. 9:16); 4) in a description of building activities throughout Jerusalem (1 Kgs. 9:24); and 5) in a list of Solomon’s wives (1 Kgs. 11:1).
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Charles River Editors (King Solomon and the Temple of Solomon: The History of the Jewish King and His Temple)
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The Aryan/Hurrian mother-of-all-living goddess Heba is another evidence of the Aryans adopting the ancient Egyptian god Hathor (i.e. Yahweh) as we also witness in Genesis 3:20. This explains the alliance of Abdi-Heba whose name means, the servant of Yahweh, with Egypt; he pitifully appealed to Pharaoh for help after being attacked by the Semites
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Ibrahim Ibrahim (The Mill of Egypt: The Complete Series Fused)
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It seemed that he had lost control over his own senses, so how then could he control his kingdom?
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Mohamed Adly (Samatya - An Egyptian Woman Among the Children of Israel)
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If the Pharaoh had been truly a god, he would not be shaken by the so-called magic of Moses.
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Mohamed Adly (Samatya - An Egyptian Woman Among the Children of Israel)
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Squaring the Circle was devised upon disbelief in Adam's heritage (which were granted to him by God) by the ancients to replace his tradition with that of the "Christ" whom was proclaimed anew in each age. The Egyptian Royal Cubit (according to Michell) equals to 1.728 feet; it was used in Squaring the Circle of the New Jerusalem which was based on the Great Pyramid's model. The Great Pyramid's base diagonal equals to one complete circular rotation of a Royal Cubit pace (622/360=1.728), and its structure is raised in an angle into the skies to project the Moon's rotation (622=51.85*12). We can link the meter as a unit of measurement to ancient Egypt -even though it was only recently devised- because it harmonizes with its decanic calendar which is still in use today by the Judeo-Christian heirs of Pharaoh's religion. The Royal Cubit angularly articulates the Primal Creation on yearly, monthly (0.5236*180/pi) and weekly (pi/6) basis and that is exactly why it was utilized; it served as a good tool for Squaring the Circle.
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Ibrahim Ibrahim (The Mill of Egypt: The Complete Series Fused)
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Land would be passed down the female line and in order to become king, a warrior would marry a royal princess. This may have been the original reason why the Egyptian Pharaohs married their sisters.
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Sarah Owen (Paganism: A Beginners Guide to Paganism)
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The harsh wind of the Egyptian desert is even worse than the harsh wind of the Egyptian pharaoh.
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Tim Collins (Diary Of Dorkius Maximus In Egypt)
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7The LORD said, “I have in fact seen the affliction (suffering, desolation) of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters (oppressors); for I know their pain and suffering. 8“So I have come down to rescue them from the hand (power) of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a land [that is] good and spacious, to a land bflowing with milk and honey [a land of plenty]—to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. 9“Now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me; and I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. The Mission of Moses 10“Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, and then bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.
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Anonymous (Amplified Holy Bible (2015 Text): Captures the Full Meaning Behind the Original Greek and Hebrew)
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The Minoan Civilization was the first link in the European chain (as Will Durant describes it) and its handcraft of the bull's-head rhyton suggests a prominent role of the bull for Minoan symbolism just as this animal was for ancient Egyptians. However, since the western biblical narrative started off with the heritage of the Pharaohs (and were passed down by the Jews who plagiarized and tampered the Semitic narrative from the Israelites with elements from ancient Egypt), we expect to find an adherence to the ancient Egyptian agrarian system of Theology that culminated the week with a resting day for JHWH (as I have demonstrated in my earlier slides) in Europe; and that is exactly what we witness in the coding of the Phaistos Disc!
This artifact of fired clay (were numerically investigated before this work of mine by Alan Butler in his great book 'The Bronze Age Computer Disc') consists of 61 groups of symbols in total on its two sides. But if we to inspect these groups linguistically (i.e. as words; as Gareth Owens insists to do so), we find that (through linking the disk's system with that of ancient Egypt's and based on the 366-circle-system interpretation which were devised by Alan Butler) these words on the disk were modulated annually on top of six decans (i.e. 61/6=10) exactly as is the case with the circular zodiac of Dendera (in the case of the latter they are equinoxes and solstices related decans as I have shown on earlier slides). We also know from Isaiah 58:13 that the Jew keeps his/her cow-glorifying mouth shut on the Sabbath restricting thereby the words' utterance (and the work in general) down to six days (i.e. 61 words *6 days=366 and 61 words/ 6 days=10 commandments) and to thirty six decans for the ancient Egyptian (i.e. 366/ 36 decans=10 days per decan and 61 words/ 6 decans = 10 days). The Minoan Libation Formula is after all comprised of ten repeated words according to Gareth Owens, which I find to be eminently resonating with the Jew formula!
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Ibrahim Ibrahim (The Mill of Egypt: The Complete Series Fused)
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The first monotheist religion known to us appeared in Egypt, c.1350 BC, when Pharaoh Akhenaten declared that one of the minor deities of the Egyptian pantheon, the god Aten, was, in fact, the supreme power ruling the universe. Akhenaten institutionalised the worship of Aten as the state religion and tried to check the worship of all other gods.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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After that fateful day of July 23, 1952, the "Paris Along the Nile," as Cairo was lovingly renamed by the foreigners who flocked to the city and helped to design, build, and run it during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was cast into the proverbial dustbin of history. Quarrels rather than friendships between Egyptians and foreigners became the order of the day. Indeed, the foreigners' property was confiscated. Along with the aristocracy itself, they eventually either chose to leave or, after the 1956 Suez War, were forced to flee. Symbolic of Nasser's rank xenophobia was his expulsion of half of Egypt's Jews, endlessly linked in the regime propaganda machine with the recently created state of Israel. This was one of a number of witch hunts Nasser used (another targeting the Muslim Brotherhood) to deflect attention from his own shortcomings, especially in the area of foreign policy.
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John R. Bradley (Inside Egypt: The Road to Revolution in the Land of the Pharaohs)
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But in 1954 the organization was banned, then almost annihilated by Nasser. He claimed they tried to assassinate him while he delivered a public speech in October that year in Alexandria, the shots heard live on Egyptian radio. The Brothers denied any involvement in the events of that day. Nasser, it should be noted, was not beyond conjuring up such spectacular crises to shore up his domestic support—having likely arranged, for instance, the bombing of the landmark coffee shop Groppi's in the heart of downtown Cairo in a bid to create instability at the height of his power struggle with the first figurehead leader of the republic.
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John R. Bradley (Inside Egypt: The Road to Revolution in the Land of the Pharaohs)