Week 4 Reading Diary : Egyptian Myths and Legends

I really love how Egyptian myth was written with so detailed and complicated description. From the first paragraph of first story described the birth of Ra in complicated phrase. "The god of brightness first appeared as a shining egg which floated upon the water's breast, and the spirits of the deep, who were the Fathers and the Mothers, were with him there, as he was with Nu, for they were the companions of Nu."

The most interesting about this Egyptian myth is that Ra had many names for himself, and names give him a divine power. It is interesting that he was given with a lot of names and a name is the source of his magnificent  power. From the passage of second part of the story,  "He spake further, saying: "I am a god and the son of a god; I am the Mighty One, son of the Mighty One. Nu, my father, conceived my secret name which giveth me power, and he concealed it in my heart so that no magician might ever know it and, knowing it, be given power to work evil against me."

The one thing I realized was about this myth was that it is very similar to other stories based on gods or creation. From a reading, I found that people in this story was forgiven with their sin. From the paragraph, "Ra beheld that which his followers among men had done, and he was well pleased. He spake unto them saying: "Now is your sin forgiven. Slaughter atones for slaughter. Such is sacrifice and the purport thereof." I could not stop thinking about how this Egyptian myth was so similar to other creation story or Bible.

(Ra from Ralph Buckley)

From Mackenzie's Egyptian Myth and Legend