Sound Bite
An award-winning writer and international journalist leads the general reader through the history of ancient Egypt, Egyptian culture and d Egyptian technological achievements, exploring the maze of facts and fantasies. He examines Egypt's place in the history of religion and monotheism in particular. He shows how Egypt both influenced and mystified other civilizations for centuries.
(Volume I situates the Egyptian religion, political system and society within the contexts — some of them stretching back as far as before c. 4000 BC — of the early history of religion, mythology, technology, art, psychology, sociology, geography and migrations of peoples.)
This, Volume II, discusses the major consequences that arose from Egypt's system. The religious, funerary, afterlife and societal views of Egyptians are compared to the other major religions and societies. Their probable influence on Greek religion and on Hebrew and Christian monotheisms is carefully traced, as are Egypto-Hebrew relations. The highlights of Egypt's religious, political, colonial, artistic and literary life are examined as well as the subsequent decline of Egypt.
About the Author
Simson Najovits is a former Editor-in-Chief of Radio France International in Paris, where he wrote and broadcast on lifestyles, politics and religion. His essays, articles, stories an poems have been published in the United States and Canada. He is a winner of Canada Arts Council and Quebec Arts Council awards. Educated at Concordia University, he is a specialist of systems of religious beliefs. In this, his first American book, he shares the inexhaustible pleasure of exploring the Egyptian patrimony and capturing the glow of ancient Egyptian society.
|
About the Book
Writing in an easy to read narrative literary style while respecting the norms of Egyptological scholarship, the author examines the contradictory opinions of major Egyptologists (and the major loonies), and brings us closer to Egypt's core...
Writing in an easy to read narrative literary style while respecting the norms of Egyptological scholarship, the author examines the contradictory opinions of major Egyptologists (and the major loonies), and brings us closer to Egypt's core meaning and influence. Along the way, he illuminates the enchanting, imaginative beauty of the Egyptian saga.
Ancient Egypt built a society on a remarkable mixture of the new, the useful and the beautiful, while retaining primitive magic, obscurantism, and the infantile but extraordinarily poetic. Egypt was also one of the most optimistic nations ever founded, inventing optimistic answers to many of man's fundamental questions.
This, Volume II, discusses the major consequences that arose from Egypt's system. The religious, funerary, afterlife and societal views of Egyptians are compared to the other major religions and societies. Their probable influence on Greek religion and on Hebrew and Christian monotheisms is carefully traced, as are Egypto-Hebrew relations. The highlights of Egypt's religious, political, colonial, artistic and literary life are examined as well as the subsequent decline of Egypt.
|
More . . .
(Excerpt from Chapter 9) Osirisian concepts lie at the center of gravity between what the Egyptians invented before and after the rise of Osiris. Unsurprisingly, and even mundanely, the Egyptian goal was to live well, to have pleasure, reschut, long life, ankh, prosperity, udja, and good health, seneb. Magical appeasement and then the manipulation of the gods had been standard practice (for probably thousands of years before Egypt) to obtain these goals in this life. But before the...
(Excerpt from Chapter 9) Osirisian concepts lie at the center of gravity between what the Egyptians invented before and after the rise of Osiris. Unsurprisingly, and even mundanely, the Egyptian goal was to live well, to have pleasure, reschut, long life, ankh, prosperity, udja, and good health, seneb. Magical appeasement and then the manipulation of the gods had been standard practice (for probably thousands of years before Egypt) to obtain these goals in this life. But before the Egyptians, what occurred in the afterlife remained a vague notion. Death was scandalous to the Egyptians, perhaps more than to other peoples. The Egyptians developed an overriding obsession towards finding a solution to the problem of death, and this distinguished the Egyptian religion from all other religions for thousands of years. The goal became not only to live well but, because life was so good, to eternally and happily 'repeat life,' wehem ankh, after death. The Egyptian goal was endless life, the defeat of death. ETERNAL OPTIMISTS Thus, one of the great peaks which mark the achievements and illusions of human history, which constitute the specific nature of man, occurred in Egypt. And this peak emblematically took the form of an accelerated search for a solution to the problem of death. As we shall see in this chapter, 'repeating life,' wehem ankh, was a highly complex system involving aper, being 'equipped' ' that is, material and magical architectural, artistic, ritualistic and bodily preparations; threats and supplications to the gods; a sprinkling of decent behavior and judgment (a kind of proto-morality); and a vast magical system of survival of the body and several souls in the afterlife. The Egyptian approach to the problem of death and the afterlife was the most optimistic solution ever elaborated until their time. The end of life, death, was simply unacceptable. This reflected their optimistic nature, their love of the body and the joys it procured, a contrario to the Hindu solution to the problem of death which reflected a pessimistic nature and the rejection and destruction of the body. Death was intolerable for the Egyptians; it was desirable for the Hindus. Perhaps, above all, the Osirisian revolution represented the highest point of optimism and hope reached in the ancient world before the evolution (from the sixth century BC) of Zoroastrian/Hebrew/Christian resurrection/afterlife concepts. Death posed such difficult problems for man that it took over 60,000 years or more, the interim between the Neanderthals and the Egyptians, to come up with radically new ideas and launch a new trajectory of wishful thinking and illusion which would eventually lead to the inventions of Paradise and Hell based on morality and the final judgment and final destiny of all mankind. Egypt, probably largely independently and right from the start of the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3100'2686 BC), innovated, made major breakthroughs and may have exercised significant influence on other peoples in the search for a solution to the problem of death. What had somehow occurred in Egypt was a fabulous bringing to fruition of all of man's imaginative efforts and abstract reasoning concerning death. The Egyptians sketched out and invented a new type of afterlife aimed at permanently defeating death. The origins of the notions of an afterlife, Paradise and Hell are enveloped in considerable obscurity. At least sixty thousand years ago, the Neanderthals...
|
CHOICE February 2004
Not since Siegfried Morenz's Egyptian Religion (1973) has such a systematic effort on the topic been attempted. An independent scholar with a background in journalism, Najovits has based his book on careful reading and thorough analyses, using all the best scholarship and translations of Egyptian sources, with broader results than Claude Traunecker in the Gods of Egypt (CH, Apr '02). Beginning with the transition out of Neolithic "agro-sedentary society" along the Nile with its need to give expression in writing, architecture, and art, Najovits identifies and compares those religious concepts for which the peculiar, nearly isolated Egyptian landscape with its totemic elements allowed the development of profound metaphors of meaning. He opposes all "loonies of Egyptomania," though readers must await volume 2 to obtain a full narrative of how the contexts discusses in the first volume yield diverse consequences....This volume could be valuable on many academic levels for those studying the origin and history of religion and of Egypt. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates and above. C.C. Smith, Emeritus, University of Wisconsin, River Falls.
Publishers Weekly: July 21, 2003 | More »
Publishers Weekly: July 21, 2003
In the first of two volumes, Najovits, former editor in chief of Radio France International, provides a remarkably evenhanded introductory survey of Egypt. He observes that the earliest Egyptian culture, with the introduction of farming and animal husbandry, can be traced to around 5800 B.C., but his own overview begins around 4000 B.C., with an investigation of the predynastic Naqada culture and its religious system of totemism, animism and magic. Najovits contends that scholarly focus on ancient Greece and Rome and on Christianity and Judaism has tended to obscure Egyptian contributions to the development of culture. Egyptian religion was highly original, he says: "Never before had such an elaborate religion and such an all-inclusive mythology been invented." As to its lasting contributions, the Egyptians, he says, invented the belief that the body could be preserved and stay alive after death. They were also, he claims, the first monotheistic culture, although monotheism waxed and waned under various pharaohs. They developed a belief in a savior god, Osiris, whose resurrection led to a belief in the afterlife. Najovits even concludes that the holy family of Osiris, Isis and Horus offers the mythological foundations upon which later cultures constructed their own foundational holy families (e.g., Jesus, Mary and Joseph). Egypt also provided examples of early jurisprudence and political systems, primarily in its extensive legal codes and its focus on kingship. On balance, Najovits offers a detailed and original historical survey of Egypt as a cradle of civilization. Publishers Weekly. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book News (c) 2003
A French specialist in systems of religious belief recounts his exploration of the Egyptian patrimony society from 3100 BC to AD 395. The first volume looks at the matrix from which the Egyptian religion, political system, and contexts emerged. The second will trace how Egyptians developed distinctive features to address their own concerns.
Concordia University Magazine | More »
Concordia University Magazine
In Egypt, Trunk of the Tree: A Modern Survey Of An Ancient Land, Vol. I , Simson Najovits, BA 59, an award-winning journalist, takes readers through an insightful tour of early Egypt, exploring the realities and myths of the ancient civilization. Volume I surveys the religious underpinnings of the society. [This book] Volume II discusses Egypt's place in the history of religions and monotheism. Najovits is a former editor-in-chief at Radio France International in Paris and a winner of Canada Council for the Arts and Quebec Arts Council awards. This is his first American-published book. He lives in Paris.
|
|
Year: 2003
LC Classification: BL2441.N23
Dewey code: 932'dc21
Soft Cover
ISBN: 978-0-87586-256-9
Price: USD 23.95
Hard Cover
ISBN: 978-0-87586-257-6
Price: USD 29.95
Ebook
ISBN: 978-0-87586-201-9
Price: USD 29.95
|