Ancient Egyptian Religious Literature

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Jana Al-Jarrah

Sr. Ameena

World Literature

Ancient Egyptian religious literature

Since the beginning of time, religion has been a large part of society. An example is ancient Egyptian society, and how it was structured around religion. In ancient Egypt, religion guided every aspect of life. The Egyptians followed the religion of their ancestors without any questions. Their society was almost all structured around their religion and religious beliefs. For example, the way they buried their dead was with a religious ceremony where they tried to revive them; if they stayed dead they would send them to the afterlife. Another example is that they used to make religious sacrifices to the gods so that they could keep the Nile river flowing. The Egyptian religion strongly believed in gods and goddesses to have created almost everything. They had over 2,000 gods and goddesses in their religion, like Khonsu the moon god and Thoth the god of secrets. Some of the gods like Amun were worshipped throughout the whole country, while others were worshipped only locally. Egyptians talk a lot about these gods and goddesses in their literature, because they try and incorporate religious beliefs in their myths and stories. Magic and sorcery played a big role in Egyptian religion. This is shown in Egyptian literature because they make a lot of references to miracles and magic. Ancient Egyptian literature relates to African literature in the sense that both regions incorporated religion in their literature. Religion was very important in both African and Egyptian literature and society.

Egyptian culture and society were really closely based on religion. The pharaohs would be seen as gods and would be worshipped by everyone. The middle class blindly followed their ancestors and didn’t think for themselves. The poor had it the worst because they were always sent as labor to help the pharaohs with odd jobs. The poor made very little money and were at the bottom of the food chain, along with the beggars and the wanderers. The middle class had some status depending on what their position was in society. The middle class businessmen had high paying jobs and traveled a lot so that they could trade their products throughout Asia and the Middle East. The elite and the pharaohs were the highest positions in society and they told the middle and lower classes what to do, and the lower classes were happy to oblige. The caste system built in Egypt made it so that they had a scarce ancient Egyptian middle class and more of an elite and lower class, and only a few people floated in the middle. The basic structure of the caste system was that the pharaoh was sometimes considered a god because of how much power he had, and then came the elite, the middle class, and finally the lower class, and scrubs. They believed that the Pharaoh was a god, and what he spoke became law. The Egyptian caste system was a way of life for the Egyptians; the structure of their caste system was very similar to many caste systems throughout Africa.

There were many different beliefs about gods. The Egyptians worshipped trees, water, animals, and even vegetables. The Egyptians also believed that a person had two souls, the ba and the ka, which left the body when they died and then it came back later to the body. The Egyptians believed that mummification made sure that the soul went back to the body before it was transported into the underworld. The Egyptians also believed that they were the servants of the gods, and the gods controlled them. They also believed that the gods owned all the land, therefore a lot of the crops Egyptians sold were sold at the temples. Egyptians were sometimes tricked by their religious leaders into paying money, so that the gods could purify the sins of the people and their children. Ancient Egyptian religion and culture had really high respect towards their gods, and did everything they could to keep the gods happy.

The Egyptians performed many rituals that were part of their religion, but which they incorporated within their literature. For example, when a person died, their body was mummified, therefore the person who mummifying the body was performing a ritual. Another example is that the Egyptians would practice reading the Book of the Dead so that they would be ready to read from it during judgment of the Dead. Egyptians were obsessed with the after-life. They thought they would reincarnate into many different animals before they actually died. Ancient Egyptian people gave up a lot of their resources so that they could perform rituals, and so they could construct their temples. They did all these rituals and these things so that they could gain the favor of the gods. They also did it so that they could interact with the gods on a personal level through prayer and magic. Throughout Egypt’s history people have performed many different rituals and ceremonies in order to get closer to the gods.

There are many literary features within ancient Egyptian religious literature. An example of that is how they used magic, within their society. Magic was a big part of ancient Egyptian society, as was sorcery. Many sorcerers had a high place in the pharaoh’s palace, and were even sometimes seen as advisors to the royal family. Many Egyptian priests were highly influential, and were believed to use magic to fight bad luck. Priests were supposedly given magical powers by the gods, so that they could change fate or destiny. A lot of their magic was used in their literature, and this literature was stored in their ancient temples and their libraries. Another literary feature that was used in their literature was their reference to gods, and to higher powers. Egyptian creation myths have many gods, and each of those gods are responsible for creating a certain unexplainable phenomenon. For instance they had Amun who was the god of creation, and Thoth who was the god of wisdom, and secrets. These gods had a huge role in Egyptian literature, and they always had some type of animal characteristic. This is yet another feature; the Egyptians like to use combinations such as animal-god, or animal-human. The main example of this is the Sphinx. The Sphinx is half pharaoh and half cat. The Egyptians have many stories that explain how the Sphinx was created and found, and it is supposed to represent half pharaoh and half god. They mentioned a lot about half creatures in their literature, and many of these stories were preserved on tablets and in libraries. Egyptians used a lot of literary features in their literature; a lot of these features had a significant role in Egyptian religion.

Many places associate culture and every aspect of life with religion. One of those places, Egypt tried to make religion heavily influenced within every aspect of their lives. They did everything so that they would be blessed. They listened to their "lords", a lot of times their pharaohs, and they always praised the gods. This is shown within their tales, and their literature. These religious tales had a great significance to Egyptian, as well as African literature. Ancient Egyptians throughout their history have greatly tied religion in with their literature.