Beliefs In Ancient Egyptian Religion

The ancient Egyptian civilization began in ca. 2700 until 1075 BC. The Egyptians depended on the Nile River for their economy, rural, and religion. During the middle and new kingdoms in Egypt, the Israelites were slaves, but God delivered them out of Egypt. There are the primary differences are the worship, purpose of man, and life after death.

The sun god Ra was the most important and powerful of all in the polytheistic Ancient Egyptian religion (Shaw, 273). Not many of the images that come to mind when “Egypt” is mentioned contain clouds, and that is because the land of Egypt has sweltering weather. A direct influence from the environment can be seen on the religion as the sun had a huge impression of the lives of Ancient Egyptians and the sun god is the most worshipped and important of all. From their elaborate mummies and huge pyramids, it can be seen that the Ancient Egyptians concerned themselves a great deal with the afterlife. They believed that a person would not be able to proceed to the afterlife without recognising their secular body and therefore as many as could afford it mummified their relatives. Before mummification became a common practice, it often happened accidentally when bodies

Almost every civilization has a religion, but Ancient Egypt had a complex religion. In Ancient Egypt, there were many gods or polytheistic beliefs. To start off, they believed in the afterlife. When a person died, they would move to another world. The Ancient Egyptians always wrapped the dead in cloths or mummified them.

Religion was not a monolithic institution, it consisted of a large variety of different beliefs and practices, all of which were linked by the common focus on the interaction between the Egyptian people and the divine realm, as the gods of this realm linked the Egyptian understanding of the world. As the Ancient Egyptian Religion was an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. Polytheism the belief of multiple deities usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses along with their own mythologies and rituals was an essential aspect of ancient Egyptian religion. As the Ancient Egyptian religion included a large and diverse pantheon of gods and goddesses, and around these deities arose a rich mythology that helped explain the

Religion plays enormous role in the past and the present. It had shaped our laws, social norms, and purpose. Religion gives its people hope and understanding of many things that are unknown and a mystery. It provides security to its people. Religion has many roles which branch off due to the many different religions observed in the world. In ancient Egyptian literature, deities were important and mention a lot. The Egyptians worshiped and followed many gods and other sacred beings, which had diverse roles in its society. The functions of Egyptian deities provided understanding of the mysteries of world, accountability of life events, and control in society.

The ancient Egyptian’s views were very different than those of the views of the Mesopotamians who viewed the afterlife as this dark and gloomy place where no matter what your status was on earth everyone was the same in the afterlife. The Mesopotamian’s believed that the afterlife was the total opposite of life on earth; people would eat clay, drink dirt and wear garments made out of feathers. In contrast, the Egyptians viewed the afterlife as a mirror image of life on earth. Egyptians were buried with their most valuable possessions so that they would have these things in the afterlife as well. The Egyptians praised their pharaohs and believed that the pharaohs served with the gods in the afterlife. The path that they take to get there was

Egyptians believed in afterlife, it was considered to be a happy place. This can be found out from the paintings in the tombs.

Chapters 1 & 2 focused on religions in the Americas and religions in Africa. One of those religions is the Ancient Egyptians. Discuss in detail the religion of the Ancient Egyptians. Pick one other religion discussed in these two chapters discuss it in detail.

The Egyptians had a very strong religion. The characteristics of the Ancient Egyptian religion can be divided into five elements of authority, faith, rituals, moral code, and the gods worshipped. The main authority of the Egyptian religion was the Pharaoh, he had divine right over the people and was considered a god. Also, he could change the religion any way he wanted. Religion in Egypt played a very significant role.

In like manner, Ancient Egypt believed very strongly in the afterlife. This was the cause of mummification. Mummification was the process of preserving bodies for the afterlife. The Egyptians presented the dead with items that they would need in the afterlife. In the case of the dead person being a Pharaoh, their riches would be put along with them.

While some civilizations are defined by their religion, ancient Egyptian religion was defined by the civilization. The people of ancient Egypt (3500-30 BCE) were greatly influenced by the cyclical nature of their environment and the Nile River, causing their society to be immensely uniform in their ways. This uniformity is reflected in Egyptian theology and overall culture; the Egyptian polytheistic gods and their existence in daily life rarely, if ever, changed and never drastically. However, for a brief period in the Old Kingdom, a rapid shift in Egyptian religion took place. Akhenaten, originally known as Amenhotep IV, became pharaoh of Egypt, and with his rule came the upheaval of practices which had previously been in place for thousands of years.

The Egyptians believed very much in life after death. As Taylor states in Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt, “It is often observed that they appear to have devoted greater efforts and resources to preparing for the afterlife than to creating a convenient environment for living” (Taylor, 2001:12). The Egyptians viewed life on earth as one stage and death as the beginning of another. They believed that, “human existence did not end with death and that survival of the body played a part in the new life” (Taylor, 2001:12). One of the key elements in the Egyptian culture and religion was the preservation of the body. The body was the most important aspect because it was like a portal through which an individual could continue to live

Egyptian religion was a mix of convictions and practices which, in the advanced would incorporate enchantment, mythology, science, pharmaceutical, psychiatry, mysticism, herbology, and also the present day comprehension of religion as faith in a higher power and an existence after death. Religion had influence in each part of the lives of the old Egyptians since life on earth was viewed as stand out part of an everlasting excursion, and with a specific end goal to proceed with that trip after death, one expected to carry on with an existence deserving of continuation.

The Egyptians had many strong beliefs but one of them was life after death, it was an important practice that in order to achieve their duties, they had to followed certain obligations while living . This meant that when they died their spiritual body would continue to exist in the afterlife,similar to their living world. The role of the afterlife played a huge part in the lives of the Egyptians that it influenced their everyday life. Egyptians were not guaranteed that there spiritual body would continue to exist, so they would recite spells in order for their bodies to be clean and pure. The Book of the Dead was used as a guide by the Egyptians because they believed that it was an everlasting form of how the life of an Egyptian should be. The afterlife was taken very seriously by the Egyptians that they did anything in their power to reach it such as reciting spells from the Book of the Dead, following the instructions of scribes, and practiced mummification in order for the soul of a dead body to be reunited with its spiritual body in the underworld. Egyptians knew that their life on earth was limited that the afterlife meant to them that once they passed away they believed that they were going to have an everlasting afterlife because their main focus while being alive was to satisfy the requirements to reach it.

Ancient Egypt revolved around the belief that one was reborn after death and would be guaranteed eternal life if the body was preserved and buried properly. Their preparation consisted of extensive work on the construction of their tombs, preserving the body and making sure it was well protected for the journey of the underworld.