Cosmogonies and Theogonies

In a previous article, The Egyptian Heliopolitan myth, I tried to show the real meaning of the
allegory told by the Heliopolitan theology, and I tried to find the meaning of the actions of some
characters of that mythology coming to account, and this was expressed also in 1873 by FT and B.
Clavel in the History of Freemasonry and secret societies, that the deities of Heliopolitan Pentade,
Osiris- Horus-Seth and Isis-Nephthys, interpret particular moments of the daily, monthly and annual
course of the two celestial bodies, the Sun and the Moon.

In this brief review I would like to step back and see if we can make a similar analog speech for
some ancient cosmogonies.
In the mentioned article I already gave a description of the general scaffolding of the Egyptian
theogony and, for completeness, i will report it briefly:
In the beginning there was Nun, the Chaos, the not-created. From the Nun a little hill emerged from
which was born Atum, whose shadow was Iasaaset, later denoted with Amonet, the mother of
creation, the mother who is father. Atum, spitting or ejaculating, gave birth to Shu (air) and Tefnut
(the moisture, water), which in turn begat Geb (the earth) and Nut (the sky). Nut and Geb, the sky
and the earth, begot four sons twins, two boys and two girls, Osiris and Seth, Isis and Nephthys.

From a work, printed in 1853, S. Munk, Palestine, geographical, historical and archaeological
description, we find a theogony of the Canaan region and then of the ancient Palestine:
"According to Philo of Byblos, who speaks on behalf of Sanchuniathon (XI century BC.), Dagon is
a masculine deity daughter of heaven and earth. After having spoken of God Sydyk (justice) and of
his sons the Dioscori or Cabiri, he continues: "In their time was born some Elioun, whose name
means most High, and his wife called Beronth, who lived near Byblos. From them was born
Epigeios (terrestrial) or autochthon (indigenous), which later was called Heaven. This had a sister
born of the same parents, which was called the Earth, and she was that because of her beauty gave
her name to the land. Their Almighty father, being fallen into a fight that claimed against animals,
was deified by his sons, who consecrated libations and sacrifices to him. Sky (Uranus), heir of the
kingdom of his father, married his sister Earth (Gaia), and had by the same four children, namely
Ilos (El), also called Saturn (Kronos), Betylos (Bethel), Dagon, which means corn, and Atlas. "

Notice the last sentence: it is exactly the same description of the birth of Isis, Osiris, Nephthys and
Seth, but the names and meanings of the gods change, the historical period is much more recent,
and the gods are Hellenized and all male.

Although the book of Jewish Genesis divide the creation in six days, or phases, and then add the
appendix of the creation of Adam, Eve and their children, the pattern is not dissimilar from those
mentioned above: God creates, in the order, Heaven and Earth and the Light and Darkness. Then
the Firmament, Heaven, as already created before, serving to separate the waters above from the
waters below thus separating the wet from dry and emerging the hearth.
The fact that the narrative presents repetitions and adjustments suggests that it was organized by
several hands at different times, but, what I think leaps out, is that it is a theogony and not a
cosmogony, and we will see it soon.

I must first say that, as the narrative rewind and better specify his steps with the creation of the plant
species, animals and man, being more imaginative and articulate then the cosmogonies illustrated
above, it instantly realigns to the ancient theogonies.
Of course the Jewish story is made monotheistic by a single god and gets rid of other ancient
personifications of creation. To want to be orthodox in fact we must assume that this story was
written after the Babylonian captivity and then after the seventh-sixth century BC, otherwise we can
also think that the monotheism occurred only with the Masoretic version of the second century BC
(The full oldest text we have is dated only at 1008 AD).
In fact this creation does not differ conceptually from the Egyptian theogony and from the
Canaanite: Creating water and air, heaven and earth, the sun and the moon, the light and the
darkness. Just mythologizing these elements and associating them with the Gods, the descriptions
overlap perfectly.
But we can get even more detail in comparison Jewish-Egyptian: Geb and Nut in the Hebrew
pantheon are Adam and Eve who begot four twin sons, two males Abel and Cain, and two females.
Indeed from medieval sources we find that Cain married his sister Calmana and Abel married
another sister Delbora (as we are told by several sources very late: Apocalypse of Pseudo-
Methodius, Golden Legend by Jacopo da Varazze, Historia Scholastica in Gen 4: 1 (PL 198,
1076) by Peter Comestor, Seder ha-Dorot) exactly as in the Egyptian myth the two brothers Osiris
and Seth marry with his two sisters Isis and Nephthys. Then Cain kills Abel as Seth kills Osiris.
The sob story in which Cain is presented as the first murderer, and not indicative of any expression
of repentance and remorse, is pure myth directly taken from the Egyptian. Cain and Abel are also
solar avatar: the setting sun kills the rising sun, evil prevails over good as night over day and winter
over summer.
It seems to me that is conceivable a complete overlap between the Egyptian theology and Jewish
theology from which (some people say) Christianity is derived.

We can outline this theogony borrowing Egyptians gods of witch we have also stylized images

To these gods, of which I carry synthesized associations with Jewish ones:

Atum-Ra-Elohim
Shu-Air-Elioun and Tefnut-Water- Beronth
Geb-Earth-Adam and Nut-Sky-Eve
Osiris- Abel, Isis-Delbora, Nephtys-Calmana, Seth-Cain
we must add Horus, son of Isis and Osiris, and Anubis.

Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, 14, tells us that Anubis is the son of Osiris and Nephthys but other
sources want him as brother of Osiris or fourth son of the sun god Ra. He is a very ancient deity that
will be also identified with Hermes in turn identified with Thoth. I insert Anubis in the proposed
framework as the son of Seth and Nefthys only for reasons of symmetry and also because, being a
deity linked to death and night, it seems a plausible association. But we shall soon see what is the
reason why I intend to include Anubis in this theology.

The reader who knows my thesis on the myth narrated in the Christians Gospels will know that I
have suggested a correlation between Horus and Jesus and between John the Baptist and Seth as
representations of the rising and the setting sun. Those who do not know this hypothesis can read
my other article The gospels were (and are) allegorical stories or my short and concise Pier Tulip’s
Theorem and Jesus was an avatar of Horus?.

Anubis, greek Hermes, is the psychopompos accompanying souls in the afterlife, as Charon through
the swamp Stygia and as Cristophoros carrying Jesus on his shoulders for him to cross a river.
If this interpretation does not satisfy us, the Copts miniaturists help us drawing the bearer of Christ
with the head of a dog just like Anubis but shortening his ears to try to disguise somehow this
correspondence.

Pier Tulip

Adapted from the book:

KRST - Jesus a solar myth. A new exegesis explores mythical and allegorical content of the
Gospels. New hypothesis on the historical Jesus.
Available in epub, pdf and printed format.