Ra and Sekhmet

Before there was land in Egypt, there was only Nun, the great ocean.  Out of this ocean rose The Egg, and The Egg was Ra.

The omnipotent Ra took many forms, and spoke many names, and his power was such that whatever he spoke came into existence.  "At dawn, I am Khepera.  At noon, I am Ra.  In the evening, I am Atum."  The sun rose, passed through the sky, and set.  It was the first day.

Then Ra created the winds, and named them Shu.  Then Tefnut, the spitter, came, and it rained.  Next he named Geb, and there was land; Nut, the goddess of the sky, stood on one side of the horizon, and placed her hands on the other.  Then Ra named Hapi, and he watered all of Egypt with the Great Nile.  After this, Ra named all living things on the earth, and, last of all, man.

Ra took the form of man and became the first Pharoah.  He ruled over the land of Egypt for thousands of years.  During his reign, the harvests were plentiful, so much so that people still use the phrase "which happened in the time of Ra" to describe good things.

Ra discovered, however, that as a man, he would grow old.  As he aged, he discovered that men no longer feared him.  They would laugh and say, "His bones are like silver, his flesh like gold, and his hair looks like lapis luzi!"

Though this angered Ra, people continued to do evil deeds.  So Ra met with Shu, Tefnut, Nut, and Geb - all the gods he had made.  Nun was also there, and Ra spoke to him. "Ancient One, creator of Ra, look on mankind.  They plot against me, they are disobedient to my laws, and they mock my ancient wisdom, I who created the other gods.  I wish to destroy them, but I will heed your advice first."

Nun replied, "Ra, destroy them with your daughter, Sekhmet."

The gods all answered, "Send Sekhmet against them!"

They all bowed their heads to the ground, and Ra said, "Even now, fear is seizing them as they hide in the desert." 

So from the Eye of Ra, Sekhmet came, and her chief delight was in bloodshed.  She laid waste the people of Upper and Lower Egypt, pursuing them into the mountains, rushing along the Nile, and slaughtering them in the desert.  When Ra looked out and saw what she had down, he was pleased, and asked, "Tell me what you did."

"By your will, I have avenged you.  I am glad."

The Nile ran red with blood for many nights, and her feet were red, as one who presses grapes for wine, and Ra began to pity the men.  Sekhmet, however, would not stop, and Ra himself had to resort to clever cunning in order to cease her slaughter.

Ra called for his messengers, and told them to go to Elephantine Island, in the First Cataract, and bring him red ochre.  The messengers did so, bringing the ochre to the City of the Sun, where Ra lived.  The women in city had spent all day brewing beer, according to the will of Ra, and when the messengers returned at night, Ra bade them to put the ochre into the beer.  There were seven thousand jars.

"Take it to the place where Sekhmet plans her next slaughter."  So they did, and they poured it out upon the fields.  The liquid, which looked like blood, was thick upon the ground.  As Sakhmet approached the next day, she saw the beer and thought it to be the blood of her victims.  She laughed, roaring like a lioness, and stooped to drink.  Over and over she drank, and soon she became drunk, unable to kill.

Reeling left and right, she came upon Ra, who named her Hathor.  She was no longer violent, but peaceful and sweet, overcoming men and women with love, instead of death.  Mankind was saved, and Ra continued to rule for a little while longer.   

-Egypt


This week's myth offers us up the typical creation story of the great cosmic ocean, out of which comes a god/the gods.  We find similar ideas in Mesopotamia, certain Native American tribes, the Hindu scriptures, and so on.  But what is striking about this story is its similarity to a far-less compared story found in the Book of Exodus:  the ten plagues.

We read in the story of Ra that Sekhmet "laid waste the people of Upper and Lower Egypt," that "the Nile ran with blood," and that the whole of Egypt was perishing under Sekhmet's fury.  In the Book of Exodus, we read:  'Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go.  Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the river. Confront him on the bank of the Nile, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake.  Then say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness. But until now you have not listened.  This is what the LORD says: By this you will know that I am the LORD: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood.  The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not be able to drink its water.’”

As we continue to read, we find that plagues of frogs, gnats, boils, and other plagues strike the Egyptians, causing an economic nightmare.  The final plague involves the death of all of the firstborn sons of Egypt.  While the Bible is unclear how long all ten of these plagues lasted, it does make one thing clear:  the land of Egypt was full of blood and death. 

At this point, we may begin to see that the Egyptian belief in Sekhmet and the incidents of the Exodus may very well be parallel accounts.  Both describe incidents which, at their cores, are very similar.  While the causes certainly vary, the results do not. Now, I am not attempting to say that the story of Sekhmet is the Egyptian version of the Exodus plagues - not at all.  However, from a logical standpoint, how likely is it that the Egyptians would tell a story of their own destruction at the hands of the Hebrew God?  What seems far more likely is that they would invent a story that would refer to the real events, but through the interpretive lens of their own pagan beliefs.  In other words, what I am suggesting is that, rather than disregard the Bible as so many do, we should be willing to take a fresh look at it and see how other literature parallels - and even supports - the Biblical account.

Water Into Wine

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.  When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

 
“Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”
 
His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
 
Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.
 
Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.  Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”  They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
 
What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.

-John 2:1-12, NIV Translation

When we look at this story of the Wedding at Cana, we have to ask ourselves the inevitable question:  did this really happen?  Now, obviously since none of us were there, we cannot say with certainty one way or the other.  We may believe it happened or believe it couldn't have happened, but we cannot say for sure.  We can, though, examine the evidence and decide if it's likely.

The first thing that is most striking about this story is that there are several witnesses to the event, and the town was actually named.  Weddings were a remarkably large event in first-century Israel, often lasting a week and with hundreds of guests.  Though it does not appear as if everyone there was aware of what happened, we do know that many of the servants "who had drawn the water knew [where the wine came from]."  John, writing in the late first-century, was opening up his tale to much criticism, because witnesses can always be located, particularly if their location is outright named.  Anyone doubting the validity of John's account could easily have gone to Cana (a real town) for him or herself and questioned the people.  If the story were untrue, it is quite likely that it would have faded into oblivion, because no one would have been able to verify it.  On the other hand, the story endured through the first century and on into the second century, with no evidence of contradiction.  While this does not prove the event, it should make us pause and consider the implications.

One argument that is made quite often is the fact that the Gospel of John was written sometime in the second century by a Gentile, and not the Jewish Apostle John.  This is highly unlikely, as we find that the author appears to be quite familiar with first-century Jewish customs.  The practice of ceremonial washing (the purpose of the water in the story) was not observed by the Christian Church once it became predominantly Gentile (end of the first-century).  A Gentile, then, writing a century (or two) after the fact would not be likely to have mentioned the jars at all.  His or her water source would have been something more common to second century Roman culture.  While it is possible that this detail was "added" for realism, it is highly unlikely, leading us to a relatively safe assumption that the author was, at the very least, Jewish.  So we cannot conclude from this that it had to be John who penned the Gospel, but internal evidence does not rule him out as the author, either. 

Lastly, we note a reluctance on the part of Jesus to even reveal His power.  If Jesus were faking this, if He were merely a clever magician or a sleight-of-hand artist, then what we would find is, most likely, a deep and unyielding sense of showmanship.  Think about modern entertainers today:  David Copperfield, David Blaine, Criss Angel, even those of the last few decades (e.g., Doug Henning, Blackstone).  They actively seek out individuals, they actively arrange for Las Vegas shows, television spots, and they actively promote their magic.  They sell themselves as entertainers or supernatural beings, but they rarely, if ever, seem to hide from their talents.  We find a startling humility in a man who claimed to be God.  Does this prove His claim?  No, but it should strike us as odd that a faker would be reluctant to fake.

What do we have?  We have reasonable cause to believe that what we read in this portion of John may have actually occurred.  We have reasonable assumptions that:

1) It was written during the time period in which it occurred by a witness
2) It occurred, not in a vacuum, but in front of many people in a real place
3) It was performed by someone who was not an entertainer looking to wow a crowd, but someone who was reluctant and reserved - in other words, a real person who performed a real miracle.

These are not concrete, nor are they airtight in their arguments.  But, as with much ancient literature, we must approach with an examination of its pprobability, not with a denial of its possibility.