urantia book source studies - paper 95 - melchizedek ... · melchizedek. in some of these lands...

WORK-IN-PROGRESS (AUGUST 1, 2020) PARALLEL CHART FOR

Paper 95 — The Melchizedek Teachings in the Levant

© 2011, 2012, 2015, 2020 Matthew Block

This chart is a revision of the 2011, 2012 and 2015 versions.Most endnotes and Urantia Book cross-references have been deleted to enhance readability.

Sources for Paper 95, in the order in which they first appear

(1) Lewis Browne, This Believing World: A Simple Account of the Great Religions ofMankind (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926)

(2) James Henry Breasted, The Dawn of Conscience (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,1933)

(3) Harold Peake and Herbert John Fleure, Priests and Kings (The Corridors of Time,Volume IV) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927)

(4) Ernest F. Scott, The Kingdom of God in the New Testament (New York: The MacmillanCompany, 1931)

(5) Robert Ernest Hume, Ph.D., The World’s Living Religions: An Historical Sketch (NewYork: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1924)

Note: Coded as Hume1.

(6) Robert Ernest Hume, Ph.D., Treasure-House of the World’s Religions: Selections fromTheir Sacred Scriptures (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932)

Note: Coded as Hume2.

Key

(a) Green indicates where a source author first appears, or where he/she reappears.

(b) Yellow highlights most parallelisms.

(c) Tan highlights parallelisms not occurring on the same row.

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(d) An underlined word or words indicates where the source and the UB writer pointedlydiffer from each other.

(e) Blue indicates original (or “revealed”) information, or UB-specific terminology andconcepts. (What to highlight in this regard is debatable; the highlights are tentative.)

(f) Light green indicates Bible passages or fragments thereof, which are not paralleled in thesource text.

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SOURCE OR PARALLEL URANTIA PAPER 95

Work-in-progress Version 3 jan. 2011© 2011, 2012, 2015, 2020 Matthew BlockRevised 7 Feb. 2012, 13 Feb. 2015, 1 Aug.2020

PAPER 95 — THEM E L C H I Z E D E KTEACHINGS IN THELEVANT

95:0.1 As India gave rise to many ofthe religions and philosophies of easternAsia, so the Levant was the homeland ofthe faiths of the Occidental world.

The Salem missionaries spread out allover southwestern Asia, throughPalestine, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Iran, andArabia, everywhere proclaiming the goodnews of the gospel of MachiventaMelchizedek. In some of these lands theirteachings bore fruit; in others they metwith varying success. Sometimes theirfailures were due to lack of wisdom,sometimes to circumstances beyond theircontrol.

1. THE SALEM RELIGION INMESOPOTAMIA

BOOK II: HOW RELIGION DEVEL-OPED IN THE ANCIENT WORLD, II:THE BABYLONIANS (Browne 65)

1. The Semitic goddesses—how the Babyloniangods arose—trinities. (Browne 65)

95:1.1 By 2000 B.C. the religions ofMesopotamia had just about lost theteachings of the Sethites

and were largely under the influence ofthe primitive beliefs of two groups ofinvaders,

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Thousands of years ago, when some of[the bedouin Semites] struggled out of thebarren desert and obtained a foothold inthe lush meadows of Mesopotamia, theybrought with them their old desertreligion. It was then little more than acrude animism, with Ishtar, “SelfWaterer,” the spirit of the oasis, as thechief deity (B 66-67).

the Bedouin Semites who had filtered infrom the western desert

[When these barbarian cavalrymen from

the northeast overran the whole Euphrates

valley, they did not conquer the remnants of

the Andites who dwelt upon the mouth of the

river on the Persian Gulf. [Etc.] (78:8.5)]

and the barbarian horsemen who hadcome down from the north.

4. The defects of the religion—polydemonism—aritualized morality—Shabatum and mythology—contrast with Hebrew versions of same—fear.(Browne 72)

95:1.2 But the custom of the earlyAdamite peoples in honoring the seventhday of the week never completelydisappeared in Mesopotamia. Only,during the Melchizedek era,

Taboos dogged [the Babylonians’] everystep in life, and “bad luck” threatenedthem at every turn. Every seventh daywas regarded as somehow “evil,”

the seventh day was regarded as the worstof bad luck.

and on it special sacrifices were fearfullyoffered and all manner of special tabooswere observed.

It was taboo-ridden;

For instance, the princes were forbiddento go forth on journeys that day, or to eatmeat cooked over a fire (B 73-74).

it was unlawful to go on a journey, cookfood, or make a fire on the evil seventhday.

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It is highly probable that the Hebrewsactually got their Sabbath from theBabylonian Shabatum, for we know theypaid little heed to its observance untilafter they had lived in exile in Babyloniafrom 586 B.C. to 536 B.C. But note howdifferently the Hebrews regarded the day.To them it was holy, not evil. TheHebrews told themselves that the Sabbathwas a divinely appointed day of rest, andthough they observed on it many of theold Shabatum taboos, they did so not outof fear of the genii but out of respect fortheir God (B 74).

The Jews carried back to Palestine manyof the Mesopotamian taboos which theyhad found resting on the Babylonianobservance of the seventh day, theShabattum.

1. The Semitic goddesses—how the Babyloniangods arose—trinities. (Browne 65)

95:1.3 Although the Salem teachers didmuch to refine and uplift the religions ofMesopotamia,

But the [newly arrived] Babyloniansby no means contented themselves withmerely remodeling the old [desert] gods.They manufactured new ones, too—hundreds of them. Even to list the chief ofthem—Ningursu, Bel, Shamash, Nabu,Marduk, Anu, Ea, Sin, and the rest—would be quite tiresome. The idea of onegreat god with universal sway seemshardly to have occurred to the people (B68).

they did not succeed in bringing thevarious peoples to the permanentrecognition of one God.

Such teaching gained the ascendancy formore than one hundred and fifty yearsand then gradually gave way to the olderbelief in a multiplicity of deities.

95:1.4 The Salem teachers greatlyreduced the number of the gods ofMesopotamia, at one time bringing thechief deities down to seven: Bel,Shamash, Nabu, Anu, Ea, Marduk, andSin.

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At the height of the new teaching theyexalted three of these gods to supremacyover all others, the Babylonian triad:

Occasionally not a single god, but a groupof three together was worshipped assuperior: Anu (sky), Bel (earth), and Ea(sea);

Bel, Ea, and Anu, the gods of earth, sea,and sky.

or Shamash (sun), Sin (moon), and Ishtar(the star Venus). . . . Age after age newtrinities of that sort arose (B 68).

Still other triads grew up in differentlocalities,

all reminiscent of the trinity teachings ofthe Andites and the Sumerians and basedon the belief of the Salemites inMelchizedek’s insignia of the threecircles.

2. Ishtar and the sex rites—holy prostitution—astrology. (Browne 68)

[contd] But from beginning to end, onedeity remained supremely popular at leastamong the plain people of Mesopotamia.That deity was Ishtar,

95:1.5 Never did the Salem teachersfully overcome the popularity of Ishtar,

the great mother of the gods, the spirit ofsex and fertility, the very principle of lifeitself (B 68).

the mother of gods and the spirit of sexfertility.

[See B 70, comparing the cult of Ishtar with theprimitive Celtic cult of Bridget.]

They did much to refine the worship ofthis goddess,

In Babylonia and throughout theLevant the people seem to have boweddown to it inordinately, and sex rites inhonor of Ishtar—or Astarte, Ashtoreth,Isis, Cybele, Venus, and Aphrodite, as thegoddess was known in the variouslands—were counted of primaryimportance.

but the Babylonians and their neighborshad never completely outgrown theirdisguised forms of sex worship.

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In Babylonia itself it was required thatevery woman, rich or poor, should submitat least once in her life to the embraces ofa stranger. She had to wait in the courts ofa temple of Ishtar until some man boughther for an hour, and then she had todedicate to the goddess the wages earnedby her harlotry.

It had become a universal practicethroughout Mesopotamia for all womento submit, at least once in early life, to theembrace of strangers;

this was thought to be a devotion requiredby Ishtar,

Without performing that rite a womanwas imagined to be incapable of bearingchildren, and was therefore unfit to marry(B 68-69).

and it was believed that fertility waslargely dependent on this sex sacrifice.

95:1.6 The early progress of theMelchizedek teaching was highlygratifying until Nabodad, the leader of theschool at Kish, decided to make aconcerted attack upon the prevalentpractices of temple harlotry. But theSalem missionaries failed in their effortto bring about this social reform, and inthe wreck of this failure all their moreimportant spiritual and philosophicteachings went down in defeat.

[See previous page.]

95:1.7 This defeat of the Salem gospelwas immediately followed by a greatincrease in the cult of Ishtar, a ritualwhich had already invaded Palestine asAshtoreth, Egypt as Isis, Greece asAphrodite, and the northern tribes asAstarte.

And it was in connection with this revivalof the worship of Ishtar that

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[The Babylonian priests] had somehowhit on the idea that the constant changesin the heavens bear some subtle relationto the happenings here on earth.... Allhuman souls were believed to be hitchedfor weal or woe to stars, and the chiefconcern of the priests was, therefore, star-gazing.

the Babylonian priests turned anew tostargazing;

That sorry deceit called astrology, whichstill lures the feebler-minded among men,had its first development back there inBabylonia almost four thousand yearsago! (B 70)

astrology experienced its last greatMesopotamian revival,

3. The priesthood—its vices—and virtues. (Browne70)

After all, religion to the Babylonian wasnot a matter of noble sentiment, but a sortof complicated insurance business; and itspriestly solicitors and agents were, asAmericans would say, out to get “all therewas in it for them.” Their extortions,especially for fortune-telling, sometimesgrew so flagrant that kings had actually topass laws to control them (B 71).

fortunetelling became the vogue, and forcenturies the priesthood increasinglydeteriorated.

95:1.8 Melchizedek had warned hisfollowers to teach about the one God, theFather and Maker of all, and to preachonly the gospel of divine favor throughfaith alone. But it has often been the errorof the teachers of new truth to attempt toomuch, to attempt to supplant slowevolution by sudden revolution. TheMelchizedek missionaries in Meso-potamia raised a moral standard too highfor the people; they attempted too much,and their noble cause went down indefeat. They had been commissioned topreach a definite gospel, to proclaim thetruth of the reality of the UniversalFather, but they became entangled in theapparently worthy cause of reforming themores,

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and thus was their great missionsidetracked and virtually lost infrustration and oblivion.

95:1.9 In one generation the Salemheadquarters at Kish came to an end, andthe propaganda of the belief in one Godvirtually ceased throughout Mesopotamia.But remnants of the Salem schoolspersisted. Small bands scattered here andthere continued their belief in the oneCreator and fought against the idolatryand immorality of the Mesopotamianpriests.

But it must not be imagined for amoment that the great priesthood ofBabylonia was unrelievedly lecherousand low. One cannot read their ancienthymns without realizing that at least someamong their band were men of what wevaguely call “spirituality” and “religiousinsight.” Most of those hymns are meremedleys of magic phrases, but others arepoems of amazing beauty. Indeed, certainof them ring with tones that are strikinglyreminiscent of the Hebrew Psalms. Forinstance:

The sin which I sinned I knew not;My God has visited me in wrath.I sought help, but none took my hand;I wept, but none gave ear.To my God, the merciful God, I turn and

pray;How long, O Lord! . . .O God, cast not away thy servant,But turn my sin into a blessing.May the wind carry away my

transgressions.Seven times seven are they—Forgive thou them! . . .

Now this is no ordinary bit ofprimitive liturgy. It reveals a reverencefor the deity, a humility in the wor-shipper, [contd next pg.]

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and above all a freedom from magicalformula that would lead us to think it alla forgery did we not have the very stoneon which the Babylonian priests engravedit.

95:1.10 It was the Salem missionariesof the period following the rejection oftheir teaching who wrote many of the OldTestament Psalms, inscribing them onstone,

where later-day Hebrew priests foundthem during the captivity and sub-sequently incorporated them among thecollection of hymns ascribed to Jewishauthorship.

Such lines may not even be remotelytypical, but they are authentic. Andbecause they are authentic, and they andother lines of like quality were everwritten in Bel-Marduk’s courts, the cultof Babylonia must be seen to mark adistinct advance in the evolution ofreligion (B 71-72).

These beautiful psalms from Babylonwere not written in the temples ofBel-Marduk;

they were the work of the descendants ofthe earlier Salem missionaries, and theyare a striking contrast to the magicalconglomerations of the Babylonianpriests.

[See 96:7.] The Book of Job is a fairly goodreflection of the teachings of the Salemschool at Kish and throughout Mesopo-tamia.

95:1.11 Much of the Mesopotamianreligious culture found its way intoHebrew literature and liturgy by way ofEgypt through the work of Amenemopeand Ikhnaton. The Egyptians remarkablypreserved the teachings of socialobligation derived from the earlier AnditeMesopotamians and so largely lost by thelater Babylonians who occupied theEuphrates valley.

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2 . E A R L Y E G Y P T I A NRELIGION

95:2.1 The original Melchizedekteachings really took their deepest root inEgypt, from where they subsequentlyspread to Europe. The evolutionaryreligion of the Nile valley was period-ically augmented by the arrival ofsuperior strains of Nodite, Adamite, andlater Andite peoples of the Euphratesvalley. From time to time, many of theEgyptian civil administrators wereSumerians. As India in these daysharbored the highest mixture of the worldraces, so Egypt fostered the mostthoroughly blended type of religiousphilosophy to be found on Urantia, andfrom the Nile valley it spread to manyparts of the world.

XVII: THE SOURCES OF OURMORAL HERITAGE (Breasted 336)

Gressmann goes even farther inidentifying foreign influences in theHebrew Psalms. He says: “The oldestmythological motif in the [Hebrew]hymns was that of the creation of theworld, and it (together with the creationmyth) probably originated in Babylonia.

The Jews received much of their idea ofthe creation of the world from theBabylonians,

The motif of the divine care of the worldwas a later idea, which made its way intoPalestinian Psalmody under the influenceof Egypt” (JHB 368).

but they derived the concept of divineProvidence from the Egyptians.

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BOOK II: HOW RELIGION DEVEL-OPED IN THE ANCIENT WORLD, III:THE EGYPTIANS (Browne 75)

2. The idea of monotheism emerges. (Browne 77)

Centuries before the Hebrews came upout of the night of desert savagery, wefind the Egyptians already groping theirway toward the idea of a monotheism, aOne God. It was political rather thanphilosophical considerations

95:2.2 It was political and moral, ratherthan philosophic or religious, tendencies

that impelled the Egyptians in such adirection.

that rendered Egypt more favorable to theSalem teaching than Mesopotamia.

As soon as some tribal chieftain managedto fight his way to the throne of the land,

Each tribal leader in Egypt, after fightinghis way to the throne,

sought to perpetuate his dynasty by

so soon did he try to set his tribal god onthe throne of the heavens.... Usually hetried to wipe [the defeated gods] out bydeclaring them to be merely so manyvagrant manifestations of his own deity.Or else his priests invented elaboratemythologies to prove that his god hadbeen the very first in the universe, andhad actually created all the other deities.Century after century such strategemswere resorted to (B 77-78).

proclaiming his tribal god the originaldeity and creator of all other gods.

In this way the Egyptians gradually gotused to the idea of a supergod, asteppingstone to the later doctrine of auniversal creator Deity. The idea ofmonotheism wavered back and forth inEgypt for many centuries, the belief inone God always gaining ground but neverquite dominating the evolving concepts ofpolytheism.

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1. Original animal-worship—the growth of thegods—the priests. (Browne 75)

Of course, in very early times theEgyptians, like the rest of the primitivepeoples of the earth, were simple animists(B 75).

95:2.3 For ages the Egyptian peopleshad been given to the worship of naturegods;

Each tribe—there seems to have beenforty-two of them in Egypt about seventhousand years ago—worshipped thespirit inhabiting some particular speciesof living creature, and looked to it forprotection.

more particularly did each of thetwoscore separate tribes have a specialgroup god,

One worshipped the ram, another the bull,a third the lion; others worshipped theserpent, the cat, the goat, the ass, thefalcon, the hippopotamus, the pig, and thevulture.

one worshiping the bull, another the lion,a third the ram, and so on.

Evidently the earliest religion of Egyptmust have been a totemism rather likethat of the American Indians, each tribebeing named after the animal which itheld sacred, and which it may havelooked on as its spiritual ancestor (B 75-76).

Still earlier they had been totem tribes,very much like the Amerinds.

IV: THE OLD KINGDOM OF EGYPT(Peake & Fleure4 61)

The rich soon lined their tombs with sun-dried brick, to add to the comfort of thedeparted, while the poor were contentwith a simple pit, covered with a mat,which soon became silted up with sand.

Now this sand was impregnated withnatron or soda, so that the bodies in thegraves became pickled while those in thebrick vaults gradually decayed. In duecourse this difference was discovered andits cause determined.

95:2.4 In time the Egyptians observedthat dead bodies placed in bricklessgraves were preserved—embalmed—bythe action of the soda-impregnated sand,while those buried in brick vaultsdecayed.

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Instead, however, of abandoning brickvaults for graves, the rich experimented inmethods of pickling the corpses of theirrelatives in solutions of natron. Thus byslow degrees arose the custom ofmummification (P&F4 91).

These observations led to thoseexperiments which resulted in the laterpractice of embalming the dead.

The preservation after death of the bodywas the great desire of the Egyptians, asit was believed that some kind of liferemained as long as the body was intact(P&F4 91).

The Egyptians believed that preservationof the body facilitated one’s passagethrough the future life.

The first clear evidence that we have ofthe custom [of mummification], still in itsinitial stages, is in some of the tombs ofthe second dynasty. It was not, however,very successful, and the use of portrait-statues was to act as a substitute for thecorpse should the latter decay (P&F4 91). That the individual might properly be

identified in the distant future after thedecay of the body, they placed a burialstatue in the tomb along with the corpse,

[?] carving a likeness on the coffin.

Later portrait-statues become commonerand reach their zenith during the fourthdynasty, when statues both in diorite andwood, of kings, queens, and nobles, attaina lifelike perfection never subsequentlyreached (P&F4 89-90).

The making of these burial statues led togreat improvement in Egyptian art.

95:2.5 For centuries the Egyptiansplaced their faith in tombs as thesafeguard of the body and of consequentpleasurable survival after death.

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XIII: POPULAR APPROPRIATION OFTHE OLD ROYAL HEREAFTER ANDTHE GROWTH OF MAGIC (Breasted223)

The belief in the efficacy of magic asan infallible agent in the hand of the deadman was thus steadily growing, and weshall see it ultimately dominating thewhole body of mortuary belief as itemerges a few centuries later in the Bookof the Dead (JHB 242).

The later evolution of magical practices,

It is difficult for the modern mind tounderstand how completely the belief inmagic penetrated the whole substance oflife, ... as much a matter of course assleep or the preparation of food (JHB247).

while burdensome to life from the cradleto the grave,

most effectually delivered them from thereligion of the tombs.

XIV: THE JUDGMENT HEREAFTERAND MAGIC (Breasted 250)

Already in the Feudal Age the priestsinserted in the Coffin Texts a charm forthis purpose entitled:

The priests would inscribe the coffinswith charm texts which were believed tobe protection against

“Chapter of not Permitting a Man’s Heartto be Taken Away from Him in theNether World.”

a “man’s having his heart taken awayfrom him in the nether world.”

This charm was now included in the Bookof the Dead.

Presently a diverse assortment of thesemagical texts was collected and preservedas The Book of the Dead.

Here magic entered a new realm— But in the Nile valley magical ritual earlybecame involved with the realms

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that of conscience, personal qualities, andcharacter. The unlimited possibilities ofgain made it inevitable that the priestsshould now take the momentous step ofpermitting such agencies thus to enter theworld of moral values. Magic mightbecome agent for moral ends (JHB 263).

of conscience and character

to a degree not often attained by therituals of those days.

[?] And subsequently these ethical and moralideals, rather than elaborate tombs, weredepended upon for salvation.

VII: THE NATURE GODS ANDHUMAN SOCIETY: OSIRIS (Breasted94)

95:2.6 The superstitions of these timesare well illustrated by

The battle of Horus with Set, which, aswe recall, was a Solar incident, waged sofiercely that the young god lost his eye atthe hands of his father’s enemy. WhenSet was overthrown, and the eye wasfinally recovered by Thoth, this wise godspat upon the wound and healed it. Thismethod of healing the eye, which is, ofcourse, folk-medicine reflected in themyth, evidently gained wide popularity, the general belief in the efficacy of spittle

as a healing agent,

an idea which had its origin in Egypt

passed into Asia, and seems to reappearin the New Testament narrative, in theincident which depicts Jesus doubtlessdeferring to recognised folk-custom inemploying the same means to heal a blindman (JHB 102).

and spread therefrom to Arabia andMesopotamia.

In the legendary battle of Horus with Setthe young god lost his eye, but after Setwas vanquished,

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this eye was restored by the wise godThoth, who spat upon the wound andhealed it.

V: THE PYRAMID TEXTS ANDPHARAOH’S ASCENT TO THE SKY(Breasted 65)

Two ancient doctrines of this celestialhereafter have been commingled in thePyramid Texts: one represents the dead asa star,

95:2.7 The Egyptians long believedthat the stars twinkling in the night skyrepresented the survival of the souls ofthe worthy dead;

and the other depicts him as associatedwith the Sun-god, or even becoming theSun-god himself (JHB 73).

other survivors they thought wereabsorbed into the sun.

[?] During a certain period, solar venerationbecame a species of ancestor worship.

Much discussion has been caused by thefact that the sloping entrance passage ofthe Great Pyramid points directly towardsthe Pole Star.

The sloping entrance passage of the greatpyramid pointed directly toward the PoleStar

The hitherto unnoticed reason isobviously disclosed in the Pyramid Texts.When the king’s soul emerged from thispassage

so that the soul of the king, whenemerging from the tomb,

its direction carried it straight towards thecircumpolar stars (JHB 73-74).

could go straight to the stationary andestablished constellations of the fixedstars,

the supposed abode of the kings.

In the oblique rays of the sun, also,shooting earthward through some openingin the clouds,

95:2.8 When the oblique rays of thesun were observed penetrating earthwardthrough an aperture in the clouds,

they beheld a radiant stairway let downfrom the sky that the king might ascend.

it was believed that they betokened theletting down of a celestial stairwaywhereon the king and other righteoussouls might ascend.

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“King Pepi has put down this radiance asa stairway under his feet, whereon KingPepi ascended to this his mother, theliving Uræus that is on the head of Re”(JHB 78).

“King Pepi has put down his radiance asa stairway under his feet whereon toascend to his mother.”


5. The dead—the Judgment Day—the resort tomagic. (Browne 85)

95:2.9 When Melchizedek appeared inthe flesh, the Egyptians had a religion farabove that of the surrounding peoples.

It was believed that on death the soul of aman set out at once to reach a JudgmentHall on high. Evil spirits tried to waylayit on the journey, but any soul adequatelyprovided with magic formulae couldevade them all.

They believed that a disembodied soul, ifproperly armed with magic formulas,could evade the intervening evil spirits

With these spells the evil spirits could bedodged or fought off until finally the soulattained the Judgment Hall and stoodbefore the celestial throne of Osiris, theJudge.

and make its way to the judgment hall ofOsiris,

There it gave an account of itself to Osirisand his forty-two associate gods. Anysoul that could truly say: “I come beforeye without sin, and have done thatwherewith the gods are satisfied. I havenot slain, nor robbed, nor stirred up strife,nor lied, nor lost my temper, norcommitted adultery, nor stolen templefood. . . . I have given bread to thehungry, clothes to the naked, a ferry tohim who had no boat”—if in sincerity itcould say all that,

where, if innocent of “murder, robbery,falsehood, adultery, theft, andselfishness,”

then the soul was straightway gatheredinto the fold of Osiris.

it would be admitted to the realms ofbliss.

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But if it could not, if it was found wantingwhen weighed in the heavenly balances,then it was cast into a hell, to be rent toshreds by the “Devouress.” For only therighteous souls, only the guiltless, werethought to be deserving of lifeeverlasting! . . (B 86-87).

If this soul were weighed in the balancesand found wanting, it would be consignedto hell, to the Devouress.

[contd] It was an extraordinary set ofbeliefs, and reveals a moral insight on thepart of the Egyptians that must have beenunmatched in the world of four thousandyears ago (B 87).

And this was, relatively, an advancedconcept of a future life in comparisonwith the beliefs of many surroundingpeoples.


In contemplating Amenemope’spleasing picture of the two trees [seeExhibit A], one is inevitably reminded ofthe first Psalm:

Blessed is the man that walketh not in thecounsel of the wicked, ...

And he shall be like a tree planted by thestreams of water,

That bringeth forth its fruit in its season,Whose leaf also doth not wither,And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.The wicked are not so,But are like the chaff which the wind driveth

away.Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the

judgment.

It is important to notice that “thejudgment” appearing here is the onlymention of it in the entire Book of Psalms.This is a significant hint, for a judgmenthereafter, as we have already seen, wasthe contribution of Egyptian civilisation(JHB 365-66).

95:2.10 The concept of judgment in thehereafter for the sins of one’s life in theflesh on earth was carried over intoHebrew theology from Egypt.

The word judgment appears only once inthe entire Book of Hebrew Psalms,1

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We cannot doubt that Jeremiah wasacquainted with Amenemope’s picture ofthe two trees, and it must equally wellhave been known to the author of the firstPsalm (JHB 367).

[Note: See 95:4.6, below, where the UB identifiesAmenomope as the author of the first Psalm.]

and that particular psalm was written byan Egyptian.

3. EVOLUTION OF MORALCONCEPTS

FOREWORD (Breasted ix)

95:3.1 Although the culture andreligion of Egypt were chiefly derivedfrom Andite Mesopotamia

It is now quite evident that the ripe socialand moral development of mankind in theNile Valley, which is three thousandyears older than that of the Hebrews,contributed essentially to the formation ofthe Hebrew literature which we call theOld Testament. Our moral heritagetherefore derives from a wider humanpast enormously older than the Hebrews,and it has come to us rather through theHebrews than from them.

and largely transmitted to subsequentcivilizations through the Hebrews andGreeks,

The rise of man to social idealism tookplace long before the traditionaltheologians’ “age of revelation” began(JHB xv).

much, very much, of the social andethical idealism of the Egyptians arose inthe valley of the Nile as a purelyevolutionary development.

Notwithstanding the importation of muchtruth and culture of Andite origin, thereevolved in Egypt more of moral culture asa purely human development thanappeared by similar natural techniques inany other circumscribed area prior to thebestowal of Michael.

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95:3.2 Moral evolution is not whollydependent on revelation.

The fact that the moral ideas of earlymen were the product of their own socialexperience is one of profoundest meaningfor thinking people of today. Out ofprehistoric savagery, on the basis of hisown experience, man arose to visions ofcharacter (JHB xv).

High moral concepts can be derived fromman’s own experience.

Man can even evolve spiritual values andderive cosmic insight from his personalexperiential living because a divine spiritindwells him. Such natural evolutions ofconscience and character were alsoaugmented by the periodic arrival ofteachers of truth, in ancient times fromthe second Eden, later on fromMelchizedek’s headquarters at Salem.

IX: CONDUCT, RESPONSIBILITY,AND THE EMERGENCE OF AMORAL ORDER (Breasted 115)

95:3.3 Thousands of years before theSalem gospel penetrated to Egypt,

The Maxims of Ptahhotep [from theTwenty-seventh Century B.C.] furnish uswith the earliest formulation of rightconduct to be found in any literature....

A spirit of tolerant kindness pervadesall of the aged stateman’s [Ptahhotep’s]wisdom....

It can hardly be doubted that thiskindliness is close kin to fair and justtreatment, and it is therefore not sur-prising to find that righteousness andjustice are lifted above everything else inthis Wisdom of Ptahhotep (JHB 129, 135,136).

its moral leaders taught justice, fairness,and the avoidance of avarice.

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Perhaps the ethical spirit of the old vizier[Ptahhotep] is best summarised in hiswarning against avarice, when withouttoo obvious relevancy he bursts outalmost triumphantly with the assurance,“Established is the man whose standardis righteousness, who walketh accordingto its way.” This has decidedly the ring ofHebrew wisdom as preserved to us in theOld Testament, but it is over twothousand years older (JHB 138).

Three thousand years before the Hebrewscriptures were written, the motto of theEgyptians was: “Established is the manwhose standard is righteousness; whowalks according to its way.”

Over half of Ptahhotep’s admonitionsdeal with personal character and conduct,while the remainder have to do withadministration and official conduct. Wehave seen that in general they inculcategentleness, moderation, and discretionwithout lack of self-assertion, displayingindeed the soundest good sense in thepoise and balance to which theycommend the young man (JHB 138).

They taught gentleness, moderation, anddiscretion.

Finally the dominant note is acommanding moral earnestness whichpervades the whole homely philosophy ofthe old vizier’s wisdom. The most prom-inent imperative throughout is “do right,”and “deal justly with all” (JHB 139).

The message of one of the great teachersof this epoch was: “Do right and dealjustly with all.”

These great men [of the Old King-dom] ... must long have groped for a termwhich would best express their idea of thehuman order, and focus in its meaning theachievements of which they were theheirs. They eventually found it in a singleremarkable word, which summed up forthem all that was highest in human life. Itwas the word “Mat” or “Maat,”

22


one of the earliest abstract termspreserved in human speech, the wordwhich we have been translating“righteousness,” “justice,” “truth,” for allof these conceptions were finallyrepresented in Egyptian speech, by thissingle word, Maat (JHB 142-43).

The Egyptian triad of this age wasTruth-Justice-Righteousness.

Of all the purely human religions ofUrantia none ever surpassed the socialideals and the moral grandeur of thisonetime humanism of the Nile valley.

III: THE SUN-GOD AND THE DAWNOF MORAL IDEAS (Breasted 29)

95:3.4 In the soil of these evolvingethical ideas and moral ideals thesurviving doctrines of the Salem religionflourished.

Already at this remote stage of humandevelopment [in the middle of the FourthMillennium B.C.] there is recognition ofthe fact that some conduct is approvedand some disapproved. Each is treatedaccordingly. “Life is given to the peaceful(literally “to the one bearing peace”), anddeath is given to the guilty” (literally “theone bearing guilt”). It is very noticeablethat these early thinkers do not use herethe terms “good and evil.” The concepts of good and evil found

ready response in the hearts of a peoplewho believed that “Life is given to thepeaceful and death to the guilty.”

The peaceful is “he who does what isloved” and the guilty is “he who doeswhat is hated.”

“The peaceful is he who does what isloved; the guilty is he who does what ishated.”

23


These are social judgments, designatingwhat is approved (“loved”), and what isdisapproved (“hated”). These two terms,“what is loved” and “what is hated,”occurring here for the first time in humanhistory, form the earliest known evidenceof man’s ability to draw the distinctionbetween good and bad conduct. They hada long subsequent history and continuedin use for many centuries. It was longbefore they were displaced by right andwrong (JHB 38-39).

For centuries the inhabitants of the Nilevalley had lived by these emerging ethicaland social standards before they everentertained the later concepts of right andwrong—good and bad.


5. The dead—the Judgment Day—the resort tomagic. (Browne 85)

95:3.5 Egypt was intellectual and moralbut not overly spiritual.

Religion advanced in the valley of theNile to unprecedented heights.... But thepity of it was that, though those heightswere attained, they were not held.Perhaps that decline occurred because theEgyptians sank too completely in thethralldom of the priests. (Save forIkhnaton, Egypt in all her five thousandyears of history produced not a singleprophetic spirit. And prophetic spiritsalone can keep a people on the heights.)(B 88)

In six thousand years only four greatprophets arose among the Egyptians.

Amenemope they followed for a season;Okhban they murdered; Ikhnaton theyaccepted but halfheartedly for one shortgeneration; Moses they rejected.

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Again was it political rather thanreligious circumstances that made it easyfor Abraham and, later on, for Joseph toexert great influence throughout Egypt inbehalf of the Salem teachings of one God.But when the Salem missionaries firstentered Egypt, they encountered thishighly ethical culture of evolutionblended with the modified moralstandards of Mesopotamian immigrants.

XVI: THE FALL OF IKHNATON —THE AGE OF PERSONAL PIETY —SACERDOTALISM AND THE END(Breasted 303)

As the Egyptian people passed intothe last thousand years B.C. the develop-ment of conscience which we have beenfollowing for some two thousand yearsreached its conclusion in a profoundlyimportant transition which had been inpreparation for many centuries. Theimpelling voice within, which hadoriginally grown up out of social influ-ences and had since been furtherdeveloped by many centuries of con-templative reflection, was now unre-servedly recognised by the believer to bethe mandate of God himself. We haveseen that this idea arose over five hundredyears earlier at the beginning of theEmpire,

These early Nile valley teachers were thefirst to proclaim conscience as themandate of God,

but in this new age of personal pietyconscience became, as it had never beenbefore, the unmistakable voice of God(JHB 320).

the voice of Deity.

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4. THE TEACHINGS OFAMENEMOPE

95:4.1 In due time there grew up inEgypt

This new attitude is revealed to us ina remarkable treatise which we may callthe “Wisdom of Amenemope.” Writtenby a sage named Amenemope, a teacher called by many the “son of

man” and by others Amenemope.

it is now preserved to us in a papyrus inthe British Museum (JHB 320-21).

[Compare JHB 322 & 328.] This seer exalted conscience to its highestpinnacle of arbitrament between right andwrong, taught punishment for sin, andproclaimed salvation through callingupon the solar deity.

Professor Lange of Copenhagen ...says, “The religious views of Amene-mope are much deeper and penetratemuch more deeply into his entire world ofthought [than his predecessors]. To theother teachers of wisdom piety is a virtue,the thought of death and eternity is amotive for virtuous conduct, it is Godwho gives riches and fortune.

95:4.2 Amenemope taught that richesand fortune were the gift of God,

and this concept thoroughly colored thelater appearing Hebrew philosophy.

But for Amenemope the consciousness ofGod is the determining factor in hisconception of life and his entirebehaviour.”

This noble teacher believed that God-consciousness was the determining factorin all conduct;

To his son, therefore, Amenemopeconstantly holds up this attitude towardslife, that it is to be lived both in personaland official relations, in full realisation ofmomentary responsibility to God.

that every moment should be lived in therealization of the presence of, andresponsibility to, God.

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This ultimate intensity of conscience andGod-consciousness in the teachings of anEgyptian thinker in the Tenth CenturyB.C., before any of the Old Testamentwas written, is the more remarkable,because we now know that the Wisdomof Amenemope was translated intoHebrew,

The teachings of this sage were sub-sequently translated into Hebrew

it was read by Hebrews, and an importantpart of it found its way into the OldTestament (JHB 321-22).

and became the sacred book of thatpeople long before the Old Testamentwas reduced to writing.

The chief preachment of this good manhad to do with

[contd] In preparing his son for anofficial career in the Egyptian gov-ernment, our sage takes up one afteranother the temptations to corrupt use ofhis official opportunities for gain, andwarns the youth against yielding to suchtemptations (JHB 322).

instructing his son in uprightness andhonesty in governmental positions oftrust,

and these noble sentiments of long agowould do honor to any modern statesman.

In the wise conclusion that riches “makethemselves wings and fly away,”

95:4.3 This wise man of the Nile taughtthat “riches take themselves wings and flyaway”—2

Amenomope’s graphic picture of theuncertainty and perishability of earthlygood, we recognise a figure which hascome down to us through the editor of theHebrew Book of Proverbs, and in the lifeof the Western world has gained pro-verbial currency after three thousandyears.

that all things earthly are evanescent.

Our sage regards dependence upon suchfleeting human resources as futile; theonly security is in God, pray to him and“thou art saved from fear” (JHB 328).

His great prayer was to be “saved fromfear.”

27


He exhorted all to turn away from

As Sethe has shown, [Amenemope’s]seemingly obscure lines regarding thedivergence of the words of men and theacts of God can mean nothing else thanthe wide difference between the words,that is the plans, of men and thesubsequent acts of God.... The contrast isobviously between “the words of men”and “the acts of God,” and when it isstated that they both “diverge” themeaning evidently is “from each other.”

“the words of men” to “the acts of God.”

We thus have here in its oldest form theworld-wide proverb, “Man proposes, Goddisposes” (JHB 329-30).

In substance he taught: Man proposes butGod disposes.


[F]uller study of the Proverbs willundoubtedly disclose how dependentupon Amenemope were the Hebreweditor’s ideas throughout the Book ofProverbs (JHB 375).

His teachings, translated into Hebrew,determined the philosophy of the OldTestament Book of Proverbs.

[?] Translated into Greek, they gave color toall subsequent Hellenic religiousphilosophy. The later Alexandrianphilosopher, Philo, possessed a copy ofthe Book of Wisdom.

95:4.4 Amenemope functioned toconserve the ethics of evolution and themorals of revelation and in his writingspassed them on both to the Hebrews andto the Greeks. He was not the greatest ofthe religious teachers of this age, but hewas the most influential in that he coloredthe subsequent thought of two vital linksin the growth of Occidental civilization—

28


the Hebrews, among whom evolved theacme of Occidental religious faith, andthe Greeks, who developed pure philo-sophic thought to its greatest Europeanheights.

[See Exhibit B.] 95:4.5 In the Book of HebrewProverbs, chapters fifteen, seventeen,twenty,

All Old Testament scholars of any weightor standing now recognise the fact thatthis whole section of about a chapter anda half of the Book of Proverbs [Footnote:Chapters 22:17, to 23:11.] and chapter twenty-two, verse seventeen,

to chapter twenty-four, verse twenty-two,

is largely drawn verbatim from theWisdom of Amenemope; that is, theHebrew version is practically a literaltranslation from the Egyptian (JHB 371).

[[T]he Hebrew compiler of the Proverbs, though hedid not retain all of the available thirty chapters [ofAmenomope’s Book of Wisdom], neverthelessemployed exactly thirty proverbs in his abridgededition (Prov. 22:17-24:22) (JHB 380).]

are taken almost verbatim fromAmenemope’s Book of Wisdom.

[See 95:2.10, above.] The first psalm of the Hebrew Book ofPsalms was written by Amenemope

[?] and is the heart of the teachings ofIkhnaton.

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5. THE REMARKABLEIKHNATON

[Note: Breasted states that Ikhnaton lived in the14th century B.C. and Amenemope in the 10th

century B.C. Wikipedia articles indicate thatIkhnaton (Akhenaten) belonged to the 18th

Dynasty, while Amenemope lived during the 20th

Dynasty.]

95:5.1 The teachings of Amenemopewere slowly losing their hold on theEgyptian mind when, through theinfluence of an Egyptian Salemitephysician, a woman of the royal familyespoused the Melchizedek teachings. Thiswoman prevailed upon her son, Ikhnaton,Pharaoh of Egypt, to accept thesedoctrines of One God.3


3. The reformation under Ikhnaton—reaction.(Browne 78)

95:5.2 Since the disappearance ofMelchizedek in the flesh, no human beingup to that time had possessed such anamazingly clear concept of the revealedreligion of Salem as Ikhnaton.

This Ikhnaton, who reigned in Egypt fromabout 1375 to 1350 B.C., has not unjustlybeen called the first individual in humanhistory.

In some respects this young Egyptianking is one of the most remarkablepersons in human history.

During this time of increasing spiritualdepression in Mesopotamia, he kept alivethe doctrine of El Elyon, the One God, inEgypt, thus maintaining the philosophicmonotheistic channel which was vital tothe religious background of the thenfuture bestowal of Michael.

[See 123:0.3.]And it was in recognition of this exploit,among other reasons, that the child Jesuswas taken to Egypt, where some of thespiritual successors of Ikhnaton saw himand to some extent understood certainphases of his divine mission to Urantia.

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95:5.3 Moses, the greatest characterbetween Melchizedek and Jesus, was thejoint gift to the world of the Hebrew raceand the Egyptian royal family; and hadIkhnaton possessed the versatility andability of Moses, had he manifested apolitical genius to match his surprisingreligious leadership, then would Egypthave become the great monotheisticnation of that age; and if this hadhappened, it is barely possible that Jesusmight have lived the greater portion of hismortal life in Egypt.

95:5.4 Never in all history did any kingso methodically proceed to swing a wholenation from polytheism to monotheism asdid this extraordinary Ikhnaton.

With amazing clarity of vision andsingleness of purpose he set himself thetask of making the religion of Egypt anabsolute monotheism.

With the most amazing determination

He broke completely with the polytheisticpast, denying all the favorite old gods andsuppressing their cults. Only Aton, theSun-God, was recognized, and to Himevery human knee was made to bend, andevery tongue to give homage.

this young ruler broke with the past,

The king gave up the name, Amonhotep,by which he had been known all his life,simply because it contained the name ofthe old god, Amon. Instead he calledhimself Ikhnaton, which meant “Spirit ofAton.”

changed his name,

Because his old capital was the center ofAmon worship, the king gave that up, too.

abandoned his capital,

He built himself an entirely new city,calling it Akhetaton, meaning “Horizon ofAton.”

built an entirely new city,

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He tried to revolutionize every phase ofEgyptian life, spurning all the oldconventions and creating by fiats even anew art and literature! . . (B 78-79). and created a new art and literature for a

whole people.

[?]

But he went too fast; he built too much,more than could stand when he had gone.Again, he failed to provide for thematerial stability and prosperity of hispeople, all of which reacted unfavorablyagainst his religious teachings when thesubsequent floods of adversity andoppression swept over the Egyptians.

95:5.5 Had this man of amazingly clearvision and extraordinary singleness ofpurpose had the political sagacity ofMoses, he would have changed the wholehistory of the evolution of religion andthe revelation of truth in the Occidentalworld.

[Compare JHB 306-07.]

[?]

During his lifetime he was able to curbthe activities of the priests, whom hegenerally discredited, but they maintainedtheir cults in secret and sprang into actionas soon as the young king passed frompower; and they were not slow to connectall of Egypt’s subsequent troubles withthe establishment of monotheism duringhis reign.

XV: UNIVERSAL DOMINION ANDEARLIEST MONOTHEISM (Breasted272)

It is evident that the young king[Amenhotep IV, or Ikhnaton] favouredthe claims of the old Sun-god as opposedto those of Amon, whose powerfulTheban priesthood had begun callingtheir once obscure local god by acomposite name “Amon-Re”, thusindicating his identity with the Sun-godRe. [contd next pg.]

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Early in his reign we find Amenhotep IVardently supporting a new form of the oldSolar faith, which may have been theresult of a compromise between the two(JHB 277-278).

95:5.6 Very wisely Ikhnaton sought toestablish monotheism under the guise ofthe sun-god.

This decision to approach the worship ofthe Universal Father by

In the Pyramid Age, too, the Sun-god hadalready begun the process of absorbingthe other gods of Egypt, a processresulting even at so remote a date in aform of national pantheism, in which allthe gods ultimately coalesced into formsand functions of one (JHB 273).

absorbing all gods into the worship of thesun

was due to the counsel of the Salemitephysician.

XVI: THE FALL OF IKHNATON—THE AGE OF PERSONAL PIETY—SACERDOTALISM AND THE END(Breasted 303)

Ikhnaton took the generalized doctrines of

A hymn to Osiris of the same age[i.e., the two centuries after Ikhnaton]says of him: “Thou art the father and themother of men, they live from thybreath.” ... That God is the father andmother of his creatures was, of course, adoctrine of the Aton faith (JHB 312). the then existent Aton faith regarding the

fatherhood and motherhood of Deity

and created a religion which recognized

As we look further into ... the twocenturies after Ikhnaton, the confidenceof the worshipper in the solicitude of theSun-god for all, even the least of hiscreatures, has developed into a devotionalspirit, and a consciousness of personalrelation with the god,

33


which was already discernible inIkhnaton’s declaration to his god: “Yet artthou still in my heart.” ... Furthermore,although rooted in the teaching of anexclusive few heretofore, these beliefs inan intimate and personal relation betweenthe worshipper and his god had now ...become widespread among the people(JHB 312-13).

an intimate worshipful relation betweenman and God.

XV: UNIVERSAL DOMINION ANDEARLIEST MONOTHEISM (Breasted272)

95:5.7 Ikhnaton was wise enough tomaintain the outward worship of Aton,the sun-god, while he led his associates inthe disguised worship of the One God,creator of Aton and supreme Father of all.

It is unthinkable that such a growing andprogressing movement as that of Ikhnatonshould not have produced treatises inwhich he set forth his doctrines. There is,moreover, good evidence of the existenceof such writings. This young teacher-king was a prolific

writer,

In the Amarna tombs where the nobles ofIkhnaton’s court love to depict theirrelations with their sovereign, theyconstantly refer to the new faith. Theyhave only one word for it, and that is the“teaching.” It is attributed solely to theking, and we cannot doubt that thisteaching is the general name for theformal statement of his doctrine in atreatise of some kind, written of course onpapyrus.

being author of the exposition entitled“The One God,” a book of thirty-onechapters,

After his fall Ikhnaton’s enemies left nostone unturned to obliterate everysurviving evidence of his hated rule, andof course they destroyed these papyruswritings of the king (JHB 297).

which the priests, when returned topower, utterly destroyed.

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[The tombs of the partisans of the king]contain a series of hymns in praise of theSun-god, or of the Sun-god and the kingalternately, which afford us at least aglimpse into the new world of thought, inwhich we behold this young king and hisassociates lifting up their eyes andendeavouring to discern God in theillimitable sweep of his power—God nolonger of the Nile Valley only, but of allmen and of all the world (JHB 281).

Ikhnaton also wrote one hundred andthirty-seven hymns,

We cannot doubt that in some form[Ikhnaton’s Royal Hymn] survived thedeath of Ikhnaton so that centuries later itwas known to the Hebrews and was usedby the author of the One Hundred andFourth Psalm (see pp. 282-284) (JHB308-09).

twelve of which are now preserved in theOld Testament Book of Psalms, creditedto Hebrew authorship.


We recall that Ikhnaton’s supreme wordas he endeavoured to introduce Solarmonotheism in the Fourteenth CenturyB.C., was “righteousness.”

95:5.8 The supreme word of Ikhnaton’sreligion in daily life was “righteousness,”

His movement had been the logicaldevelopment of the old Solar doctrine,which recognized the supremacy of Maat“righteousness” as the national moralorder. Ikhnaton’s hymn expands thisnational sovereignty of “righteousness”into an international moral order of theworld under a sole god (JHB 369).

and he rapidly expanded the concept ofright doing to embrace international aswell as national ethics.

XVI: THE FALL OF IKHNATON—THE AGE OF PERSONAL PIETY—SACERDOTALISM AND THE END(Breasted 303)

[contd from 95:5.6] The result was thatan age of personal piety

This was a generation of amazingpersonal piety

35


and inner aspiration to God now dawnedamong the masses [i.e., in the twocenturies after the overthrow of Ikhnaton](JHB 313).

and was characterized by a genuineaspiration among the more intelligentmen and women to find God and to knowhim.


Social position or high rank gave noEgyptian any advantage in the eyes of thelaw (JHB 342).

In those days social position or wealthgave no Egyptian any advantage in theeyes of the law.

IX: CONDUCT, RESPONSIBILITY,AND THE EMERGENCE OF AMORAL ORDER (Breasted 115)

In the Wisdom of Ptahhotep ... we findfull confirmation of the evidence from thetomb inscriptions and relief pictures thatit was family life which first made manconscious of moral responsibilities (JHB139).

The family life of Egypt did much topreserve and augment moral culture

and was the inspiration of the later superbfamily life of the Jews in Palestine.



95:5.9 The fatal weakness ofIkhnaton’s gospel was its greatest truth,the teaching that Aton was not only thecreator of Egypt but also of

“... the whole earth hast Thou createdaccording to Thine own understanding.

“the whole world,

When Thou wast alone didst Thou createman and beast, both large and small;all that go upon their feet, all thatfly on wings;

man and beasts,

36


yea, and all the foreignlands, even Syria and Kush besides thisland of Egypt.

and all the foreign lands, even Syria andKush, besides this land of Egypt.

Thou settest all in theirplace, and providest all with theirneeds. . .” (B 79).

He sets all in their place and provides allwith their needs.”

These concepts of Deity were high andexalted, but they were not nationalistic.Such sentiments of internationality inreligion failed to augment the morale ofthe Egyptian army on the battlefield,while they provided effective weapons forthe priests to use against the young kingand his new religion. He had a Deityconcept far above that of the laterHebrews, but it was too advanced to servethe purposes of a nation builder.4

95:5.10 Though the monotheistic idealsuffered with the passing of Ikhnaton, theidea of one God persisted in the minds ofmany groups.

When Ikhnaton died, Aton also died. Thepriests of Amon and Re and the other oldgods quickly came into their own again,setting up their old altars, and chantingtheir old spells. The very son-in-law ofthe man who so zealously altered hisname from Amonhotep to Ikhnaton

The son-in-law of Ikhnaton

went along with the priests, back to theworship of the old gods,

thought it wise to change his own namefrom Tutenkhaton back to Tutenkhamen.

changing his name to Tutankhamen.

Once more Thebes was made the capital,and its priesthood waxed fat with might.

The capital returned to Thebes, and thepriests waxed fat upon the land,

37


Two per cent of the entire population(one out of every fifty Egyptians!) be-came actual slaves in the temples; and aseventh of all the arable soil in the realmbecame temple property. eventually gaining possession of one

seventh of all Egypt;

The high-priests grew more powerful yearby year, and in the end one of themactually seized the crown! . . . And thuswas all the labor of that royal heretic,Ikhnaton, made to come to naught (B 80-81).

and presently one of this same order ofpriests made bold to seize the crown.

[contd] Yet a vestige of that impetuousreform did endure. The idea of amonotheism, of a single God in all theuniverse, was never quite blotted out fromIkhnaton’s day on (B 81).

95:5.11 But the priests could not fullyovercome the monotheistic wave.

More and more the old gods were mergedtogether; even their names were hyphen-ated. Amon and Re were spoken of as onefrom then on—Amon-Re. And what wasmore important, this composite god wasnow thought of not as a spirit animatingmerely a golden disc in the heavens, butas a spirit flaming in the hearts of men.Not merely in the hearts of kings, but inthe hearts of men —all men! . . (B 81).

Increasingly they were compelled tocombine and hyphenate their gods;

more and more the family of godscontracted.

Ikhnaton had associated the flaming diskof the heavens with the creator God, andthis idea continued to flame up in thehearts of men, even of the priests, longafter the young reformer had passed on.Never did the concept of monotheism dieout of the hearts of men in Egypt and inthe world. It persisted even to the arrivalof the Creator Son of that same divineFather, the one God whom Ikhnaton hadso zealously proclaimed for the worshipof all Egypt.

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4. The religion of the masses—Osiris—the futurelife—why the pyramids were built. (Browne 81)

95:5.12 The weakness of Ikhnaton’sdoctrine lay in the fact that he proposedsuch an advanced religion that

[contd] The leaning toward mono-theism was not, however, the chiefdistinction of old Egypt’s religion. Onemust realize that the tendency in thatdirection was marked only in the upperlevels of religious thinking in Egypt (B81).

only the educated Egyptians could fullycomprehend his teachings.

So far as the Egyptian masses wereconcerned, no tendency toward mono-theism was even existent. The masseslaboring on the banks of the Nile, like themasses laboring on the banks of the Nile,were not much given to abstracttheologizing (B 81-82).

The rank and file of the agriculturallaborers never really grasped his gospel

and were, therefore, ready to return withthe priests to

From first to last, therefore, themasses of Egypt continued to worshiptheir innumerable half-animal gods,paying heed neither to the fiats of kingsnor the disquisitions of priests.... Onlyone god, Osiris, managed to hold hisplace in the affections of the peoplethroughout Egypt’s long history.Originally this Osiris seems to have beenthe spirit who made the crops grow, thegod of vegetation comparable to Tammuzof the Babylonians.... As time went on ... Osiris assumed a place of more and moreimportance in the minds of the people,until at last they came to look on him asthe Divine Lord of the Nile Lands, theGod of Justice and Love and nurturingLight (B 82-83).

the old-time worship of Isis and herconsort Osiris,

39


The story was told how once on a timeOsiris, this god of nurturing Light andGood, was treacherously put to death bySet, the god of withering Darkness andEvil. When Isis, the loving wife of Osiris,learnt of the murder, she went up anddown the land to find the body of her lord... The wicked Set got possession of it,dismembered it thoroughly, and then hideach fragment in a different place. Sothen Isis had to traverse the land a secondtime, seeking out the pieces of the body,and burying them more safely this time ina sealed tomb. And thereupon Osiriscame to life again! He was miraculouslyresurrected from death and taken up toheaven; and there in heaven, so the mythdeclared, he lived on eternally! (B 83)

who was supposed to have beenmiraculously resurrected from a crueldeath at the hands of Set, the god ofdarkness and evil.

95:5.13 The teaching of immortality forall men was too advanced for theEgyptians.

In the beginning, however, only thekings were believed to stand a chance ofresurrection, for they alone were thoughtto have souls.

Only kings and the rich were promised aresurrection;

That was why in those days the kingsalone were embalmed and mummified.Huge pyramids were built to shelter theirroyal bodies against the day of theirresurrection, enormous structures of brickand stone that still stand today, and nodoubt will still be standing centurieshence (B 84-85).

therefore did they so carefully embalmand preserve their bodies in tombs against the day of judgment.

[contd] But finally the day of thedespotic pyramid builders came to an end,and a spirit of democracy crept into theland.

But the democracy of salvation andresurrection as taught by Ikhnatoneventually prevailed,

The bliss of immortality that had formerlybeen reserved only for kings was thenpromised to all men (B 85).

40


Even the bodies of those animals thatwere deemed sacred to the various gods,the bulls and rams and cats andcrocodiles, were preserved in that hope(B 85).

even to the extent that the Egyptians laterbelieved in the survival of dumb animals.


[contd from 95:5.11] So the impatient heretic,the tyrant reformer, Ikhnaton, though hefailed,

95:5.14 Although the effort of thisEgyptian ruler to impose the worship ofone God upon his people appeared to fail,

nevertheless succeeded. A little, perhapsthe veriest trifle, of that which he hadpreached while he was yet alive remainedon after his death. But it was an enduringtrifle. . . (B 81).

it should be recorded that therepercussions of his work persisted forcenturies both in Palestine and Greece,and that Egypt thus became the agent fortransmitting the combined evolutionaryculture of the Nile and the revelatoryreligion of the Euphrates to all of thesubsequent peoples of the Occident.

XVI: THE FALL OF IKHNATON —THE AGE OF PERSONAL PIETY —SACERDOTALISM AND THE END(Breasted 303)

It is important to notice that the moraldevelopment of Egypt, like her culturalevolution as a whole, after having goneon for some twenty-five hundred years,

95:5.15 The glory of this great era ofmoral development and spiritual growthin the Nile valley

was nearly ended before the national lifeof the Hebrews had begun (JHB 332).

was rapidly passing at about the time thenational life of the Hebrews was begin-ning,

and consequent upon their sojourn inEgypt these Bedouins carried away muchof these teachings and perpetuated manyof Ikhnaton’s doctrines in their racialreligion.

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6. THE SALEM DOCTRINESIN IRAN

BOOK FIVE: WHAT HAPPENED INPERSIA: I. ZOROASTRIANISM(Browne 199)

1. The animism of early Iran—did Zoroaster everlive?—the legends concerning his life. (Browne199)

95:6.1 From Palestine some of theMelchizedek missionaries passed onthrough Mesopotamia

[contd] The scene of our story shiftswestward, leaving the walled cities andrice-swamps of China and going up to thewild plateau of Iran in western Asia (B199).

and to the great Iranian plateau.

For more than five hundred years theSalem teachers made headway in Iran,and the whole nation was swinging to theMelchizedek religion when a change ofrulers precipitated a bitter persecutionwhich practically ended the monotheisticteachings of the Salem cult.

[Compare: Tradition gives 660 B.C. as the date ofthe prophet’s birth; but actually it may even havebeen as early as 1000 B.C. (B 201).]

The doctrine of the Abrahamic covenantwas virtually extinct in Persia when, inthat great century of moral renaissance,the sixth before Christ, Zoroasterappeared to revive the smoulderingembers of the Salem gospel.

[Compare: Zoroaster was indeed a wonderfulchild—according to the legends. At a very earlyage he engaged the priests of the old religion in abitter debate, and routed them. And when grown tothe age of youth, he took staff in hand and went offinto the world in a quest for righteousness....

95:6.2 This founder of a new religionwas a virile and adventurous youth,

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For three years he tramped the desert trails insearch of salvation, of a reason for life. And failingto find it, a great gloom came over him. For sevenyears then he remained silent, morose and silent,while he brooded over the impenetrable blacknesswhich life had become for him. . . . And then of asudden, light came (B 202).]

who, on his first pilgrimage to Ur inMesopotamia, had learned of thetraditions of the Caligastia and theLucifer rebellion—along with many othertraditions—all of which had made astrong appeal to his religious nature.Accordingly, as the result of a dreamwhile in Ur, he settled upon a program ofreturning to his northern home toundertake the remodeling of the religionof his people.

2. The gospel of Zoroaster—Good vs. Evil—thefire altars—the future life. (Browne 203)

Ahura Mazda was the god of justice, notof mercy, and in his warfare he neithergave nor received quarter. In his servicethere was no room for sentimentality; onehad to be hard and unbending (B 204).

He had imbibed the Hebraic idea of aGod of justice,

the Mosaic concept of divinity.

The idea of a supreme God was clear inhis mind,

Zoroaster had no patience with the oldgods, Mithra, Anahita, Haoma, and therest, and denounced them all as demons.The very word deva, which had alwaysmeant “gods,” he made to connote“devils” (B 205).

and he set down all other gods as devils,consigned them to the ranks of thedemons

of which he had heard in Mesopotamia.

He had learned of the story of the SevenMaster Spirits as the tradition lingered inUr, and, accordingly,

According to [Zoroaster], all the universewas one great battle-ground on whichGood and Bad struggled for mastery. Onthe one side was Ahura Mazda, the WiseSpirit, supported by his six vassals: he created a galaxy of seven supreme

gods with Ahura-Mazda at its head.

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These subordinate gods he associatedwith the idealization of

Good Thought, Right Law, NobleGovernment, Holy Character, Health, andImmortality (B 203).

Right Law, Good Thought, NobleGovernment, Holy Character, Health, andImmortality.

95:6.3 And this new religion was oneof action—

It was not prayer but work that wasdemanded of the worshippers of AhuraMazda (B 204).

work—not prayers and rituals.

Ahura Mazda was in essence the spirit ofcivilization, and the only worshipacceptable to him was the spreading oforder and stability (B 204).

Its God was a being of supreme wisdomand the patron of civilization;

it was a militant religious philosophywhich dared to

Pitted against [Ahura Mazda] was AngraMainyu, the Lie Demon, supported bymost of the old gods of the popular faith.And midway between the two contendingarmies stood man. It was absolutelyincumbent upon man to choose on whichside he would battle: on the side of Good,Purity, and Light, or of Evil, Filth, andDarkness (B 203-04).

battle with evil, inaction, andbackwardness.

[contd from 95:6.2] Only one heathen rite didZoroaster take over, and that was theveneration of fire. (Some say he came ofa family of ancient fire-priests.) Butaccording to the prophet, fire was not agod to be worshipped as it may have beenworshipped by the earliest Iranians.

95:6.4 Zoroaster did not teach theworship of fire

No, it was a mere symbol of AhuraMazda. Fire-altars were to be erectedsolely as a testimonial to the veneration inwhich the “Wise Spirit” was held (B205).

but sought to utilize the flame as asymbol of the pure and wise Spirit ofuniversal and supreme dominance.

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(All too true, his later followers did bothreverence and worship this symbolic fire.)

3. The ordeal of Zoroaster—his first converts—death. (Browne 207)

And then at last a real prince wasconverted, a mighty ruler named Vishtaspwho became the Constantine of the newfaith.

Finally, upon the conversion of an Iranianprince,

A church militant was formed, and holywars were waged against the Turaniansavages on the north (B 208-09).

this new religion was spread by thesword.

Such was the gospel by whichZoroaster lived—and for which he died.For it may be that he did die in itsministry. Legend has it that Zoroaster wasstruck down while he stood ministering atan altar of fire, brought to book by one ofthose heathen priests whose worship hehad routed. . . (B 210).

And Zoroaster heroically died in battlefor that which he believed was the “truthof the Lord of light.”

95:6.5 Zoroastrianism is the onlyUrantian creed that perpetuates theDalamatian and Edenic teachings aboutthe Seven Master Spirits. While failing toevolve the Trinity concept, it did in acertain way approach that of God theSevenfold.

I: THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND(Scott 11)

(2) The Persian Influence (Scott 22)

[Zoroastrianism] has sometimes beendescribed as a metaphysical dualism, inwhich the conflict of good and evil wasaccepted as an eternal one, involved inthe very nature of all being. This,however, is to forget the ethical interestwhich determined the whole teaching.

Original Zoroastrianism was not a puredualism;

though the early teachings did picture evilas a time co-ordinate of goodness,

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The ethic was indeed combined with ametaphysical mythology, but the ultimatevictory of the good was assumed to becertain, or rather the good alone wasregarded, from an absolute point of view,as having real existence (S 23-24).

it was definitely eternity-submerged inthe ultimate reality of the good.

Only in later times did the belief gaincredence that good and evil contended onequal terms.

BOOK FIVE: WHAT HAPPENED INPERSIA: I. ZOROASTRIANISM(Browne 199)

5. The influence of Zoroastrianism on Judaism—onChristianity—on Islam—the Parsees. (Browne 216)

[contd from 95:6.7] First, [Zoroastrianism]made contributions to Judaism, forbetween 538 B.C. (when the Persiansunder Cyrus captured Babylonia and setfree the Jews exiled in that land) and 330B.C. (when the Persian Empire wasdestroyed by Alexander) the Jews weredirectly under the suzerainty of theZoroastrians. And it was from thesesuzerains that the Jews first learnt tobelieve in an Ahriman, a personal devil,whom they called in Hebrew, Satan.Possibly from them, too, the Jews firstlearnt to believe in a heaven and hell, andin a Judgment Day for each individual (B216-17).

95:6.6 The Jewish traditions of heavenand hell and the doctrine of devils asrecorded in the Hebrew scriptures, whilefounded on the lingering traditions ofLucifer and Caligastia, were principallyderived from the Zoroastrians during thetimes when the Jews were under thepolitical and cultural dominance of thePersians.

[contd] Zoroastrianism had developedquite fantastic ideas about the JudgmentDay

Zoroaster, like the Egyptians, taught the“day of judgment,”

which the prophet had declared to be theconsummation of all things (B 217).

but he connected this event with the endof the world.

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4. The corruption of the gospel—ritual—burialcustoms—“defilement”—the priesthood—Mithraism. (Browne 210)

[See seven rows down, and 98:5.2 and 98:7.6.] 95:6.7 Even the religion whichsucceeded Zoroastrianism in Persia wasmarkedly influenced by it.

When the Iranian priests sought tooverthrow the teachings of Zoroaster,

But the haoma rites were not the onlyrelics of the old heathenism that returnedafter Zoroaster’s death. Many of the oldfallen gods, too, were dragged back intofashion—Mithra and Anahita and others.The very Gathas of Zoroaster werecorrupted by interpolation, or at leastmisinterpretation, so that they might givethe impression that the prophet himselfhad commanded the worship of thesegods. . . . Mithra especially becamepopular;

they resurrected the ancient worship ofMithra.

and, as we have already seen, his cultlater spread beyond the borders of Persiainto Babylonia, Greece, and finally intoRome itself.

And Mithraism spread throughout theLevant and Mediterranean regions,

For at least two centuries that cultstruggled with Christianity for thedominance of the Roman Empire (B 216).

being for some time a contemporary ofboth Judaism and Christianity.

5. The influence of Zoroastrianism on Judaism—onChristianity—on Islam—the Parsees. (Browne 216)

[contd] But the importance ofZoroastrianism has always been qual-itative rather than quantitative. Its highestsignificance lies in the influence it hasexercised on the development of at leastthree other great religions (B 216).

The teachings of Zoroaster thus camesuccessively to impress three greatreligions:

Through Judaism, the religion ofPersia left its mark also on Christianity;and not merely through Judaism, but alsothrough Mithraism (B 218).

Judaism and Christianity

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Very directly, also, Zoroastrianisminfluenced the religion preached byMohammed. Many ideas set down in theKoran reveal that influence; and evenmore of the ideas set down in laterMoslem writings. . . (B 218).

and, through them, Mohammedanism.

4. The corruption of the gospel—ritual—burialcustoms—“defilement”—the priesthood—Mithraism. (Browne 210)

But this elaboration of Zoroaster’sstark doctrine was not nearly so tragic asthe perversion that ensued....

95:6.8 But it is a far cry from theexalted teachings and noble psalms ofZoroaster to the modern perversions ofhis gospel

For instance, among the things considered“holy” were fire, water, and earth, whilea corpse was thought to be dreadfully“unholy.” The disposal of the deadtherefore became a serious problem.Since the corpse might not be buried orburnt, or drowned, there was nothing leftbut to expose it on a high “Tower ofSilence,” where it could be devoured bythe vultures.... To this day the Parsees, thedescendants of the old Zoroastrians, stilldispose of their dead this way. . . (B 212).

by the Parsees with their great fear of thedead,

[Compare B 212-16, re purification ceremonies,haoma rites, etc.]

coupled with the entertainment of beliefsin sophistries which Zoroaster neverstooped to countenance.

95:6.9 This great man was one of thatunique group that sprang up in the sixthcentury before Christ to keep the light ofSalem from being fully and finallyextinguished as it so dimly burned toshow man in his darkened world the pathof light leading to everlasting life.

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7. THE SALEM TEACHINGSIN ARABIA

BOOK EIGHT: WHAT HAPPENED INARABIA: I. MOHAMMEDANISM(Browne 305)

95:7.1 The Melchizedek teachings ofthe one God became established in theArabian desert at a comparatively recentdate. As in Greece, so in Arabia theSalem missionaries failed because of theirmisunderstanding of Machiventa’s in-structions regarding overorganization.But they were not thus hindered by theirinterpretation of his admonition againstall efforts to extend the gospel throughmilitary force or civil compulsion.

95:7.2 Not even in China or Rome didthe Melchizedek teachings fail morecompletely than in this desert region sovery near Salem itself.

1. The idolatrous religion of primitive Arabia—Mecca and the Kaaba. (Browne 305)

[contd] And now we are come to thefounding of the latest—perhaps thelast—of the great world religions: Islam.For the third time the Arabian Desertplays a major part in the history of ourbelieving world. In that region’s giantwomb there had already been conceivedthe Babylonian worship of Ishtar and theHebrew worship of Yahveh. Now, morethan two thousand years after the birth ofthat second child, the desert conceivedand brought forth yet a third: theMohammedan worship of Allah (B 305).

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[contd] The religion of the ArabianDesert in the sixth century A.D. was muchwhat it had been a thousand or even twothousand years earlier.... Therefore, longcenturies after the East had gone Buddhistand the West had gone Christian,

Long after the majority of the peoples ofthe Orient and Occident had becomerespectively Buddhist and Christian,

the desert of Arabia continued as it hadfor thousands of years.

Arabia, that vast wasteland pinchedbetween East and West, still remainedcrudely animist. Each bedouin tribeworshipped its own tribal fetishes, rocksand trees and stars;

Each tribe worshiped its olden fetish,

and many individual families had theirown household gods.

Long the struggle continued betweenBabylonian Ishtar, Hebrew Yahweh,Iranian Ahura, and Christian Father of theLord Jesus Christ. Never was one conceptable fully to displace the others.

95:7.3 Here and there throughoutArabia were families and clans that heldon to the hazy idea of the one God. Suchgroups treasured the traditions ofMelchizedek, Abraham, Moses, andZoroaster. There were numerous centersthat might have responded to theJesusonian gospel, but the Christianmissionaries of the desert lands were anaustere and unyielding group in contrastwith the compromisers and innovatorswho functioned as missionaries in theMediterranean countries. Had thefollowers of Jesus taken more seriouslyhis injunction to “go into all the worldand preach the gospel,” and had they beenmore gracious in that preaching, lessstringent in collateral social requirementsof their own devising,

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then many lands would gladly havereceived the simple gospel of thecarpenter’s son, Arabia among them.

95:7.4 Despite the fact that the greatLevantine monotheisms failed to take rootin Arabia, this desert land was capable ofproducing a faith which, though lessdemanding in its social requirements, wasnonetheless monotheistic.

and the only approximation to a nationalcult among them

95:7.5 There was only one factor of atribal, racial, or national nature about theprimitive and unorganized beliefs of thedesert,

was a general awe of a particular fetishresting in the city of Mecca. This fetish, ablack rock enshrined in a small squaretemple called the Kaaba, was thought tobe possessed of dreadful potency (B 305-06).

and that was the peculiar and generalrespect which almost all Arabian tribeswere willing to pay to a certain blackstone fetish in a certain temple at Mecca.

This point of common contact andreverence subsequently led to theestablishment of the Islamic religion.What Yahweh, the volcano spirit, was tothe Jewish Semites, the Kaaba stonebecame to their Arabic cousins.

XI: ISLAM, OR MOHAMMEDANISM(Hume1 212)

10. Elements of Strength in Islam. (Hume1 232)

95:7.6 The strength of Islam has beenits clear-cut and well-defined presentationof Allah as

Its theory of one supreme deity,versus idolatry (H1 232).

the one and only Deity;

11. Elements of Weakness in Islam. (Hume1 232)

its weakness,

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Its reliance upon the method of force(H1 232).

the association of military force with itspromulgation,

Its low estimate of woman (H1 232). together with its degradation of woman.

II: THE DIVINE POWER ANDWISDOM (Hume2 7)

But it has steadfastly held to itspresentation of the One Universal Deityof all,

He is God, Who knows the unseen and the visible.He is the Merciful, the Compassionate, the King,the Holy, the Peace-Giver, the Faithful, the Protector, the Mighty, the Repairer, the Great. Celebrated be the praises of God! (H2 8)

“who knows the invisible and the visible.He is the merciful and the compassion-ate.”

III: THE DIVINE GOODNESS ANDWONDER (Hume2 12)

Truly, thy Lord is full of goodness towards men(H2 12).

“Truly God is plenteous in goodness toall men.”

The Lord of the worlds hath created me, andguideth me, giveth me food and drink; and when I am sick, He healeth me (H2 12). “And when I am sick, it is he who heals

me.”

IV: THE DIVINE OMNIPRESENCEAND INNER PRESENCE (Hume2 15)

There is no private discourse among three persons,but He is the fourth of them.He is with them, wheresoever they be (H2 16).

“For whenever as many as three speaktogether, God is present as a fourth,

I: THE ONE SUPREME GOD (Hume2 3)

He is the First and the Last, the Seen and theHidden (H2 4).

for is he not the first and the last, also theseen and the hidden”?

95:7.7 [Presented by a Melchizedek ofNebadon.]

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1. In the King James Version, the word ‘judgment’ appears 32 times in the Book of Psalms; the words ‘thejudgment’ appear four times. However, as Breasted notes, only in Psalm 1 does ‘the judgment’ refer to the judgmenthereafter.

2. This teaching seems to contradict the claim on 95:4.2 that Amenemope taught that “riches and fortune were thegift of God.”

3. Compare: A favourite theory has been that the religion of Aton was introduced from Syria. It seemed for a time tobe made out that the queen mother, Tiy, who had great influence over her son [Ikhnaton], and Nefertiti, his wife,were Syrian princesses; the name Aton suggested to etymologists by sound the Canaanite Adon. These combinationshave proved to be mistaken; the discovery of the tomb of Tiy showed that she was a native Egyptian, a woman of thepeople. But the fatal objection to the theory, before as after these discoveries, is that there is no trace of such a solarmonotheism in Syria (George Foot Moore, History of Religions, Vol. 1 [1913], p. 185).

4. Breasted says that the “powerful military group” were “disaffected by the king’s peace policy in Asia and his lackof interest in imperial administration and maintenance...” (B 305). At the time of Ikhnaton, according to Breasted,Egypt was a long established nation which dominated the Mediterranean world.

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urantia book source studies - paper 95 - melchizedek ... · melchizedek. in some of these lands...

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