"Out of Egypt"

by Ahmed Osman

Reviewed by the Egypt News Digest

The book demonstrates that the prophetic books of the Old Testament and their contents of the exploits and achievements of Abraham, Isaac and his son Joseph are essentially Egyptian in origin. Furthermore, Ahmed Osman shows, by comparing the hazy chronology of the Bible and its factual content with the ancient Egyptian written records, that the major Old Testament figures - Solomon, David, Moses and Joshua - are based on Egyptian historical originals. Not only were these major personalities and the stories - military, territorial and prophetic - associated with them nurtured on the banks of the Nile but the major tenets of Christian belief - the one God, the Trinity, the hierarchy of heaven, life after death and the Virgin birth - are all Egyptian in origin.

Ahmed Osman provides in this book a convincing argument that Jesus himself came out of Egypt. The Essenes and the Gnostics were devoutly guarding the secret Egyptian teaching well before the first century AD. John the Baptist was himself an Essene, and St Paul, as he indicates in his letter to the Galatians, had himself been initiated into the Egyptian mysteries by the Gnostics at Sinai. The author shows how Egyptian, Biblical and Rabbinical sources, coupled with recent archaeological discoveries prove that the roots of Christian belief spring not from Judaea but from Egypt.

Ahmed Osman was born in Cairo in 1934. He studied law at Cairo University and in the early 1960s worked there as a journalist. He has been living in London since 1965 searching the relationship between the Bible stories and Egyptian history. His previous books are: Stranger in the Valley of the Kings (1987); Moses: Pharaoh of Egypt (1990); and The House of the Messiah (1992).

Some points discussed in Out of Egypt:

Amarna religious revolution: - Akhenaten, king of Egypt (1378-1361 BC.), was the first monotheistic ruler in history. He abolished the worship of the different gods of Ancient Egypt and introduced a deity with no image 'Aten', biblical Adonai, to be the sole God for all people.

—Akhenaten was overthrown by a military coup when he used the army to force the new religion on his people, and was replaced by Tutankhamun in 1361 BC.

—Recognizing that ordinary people need a physical object for their worship, Tutankhamun allowed the ancient deities to be worshiped again, but only as mediators between the people and Aten.

—Pa-Nehesy (biblical Phinhas), the high priest of the exiled Akhenaten, regarded this behaviour of Tutanakamun as heresy, and killed him.

—The Ancient Egyptians were the first to recognise a spiritual part of human life, as the Ka which leaves the body at the time of death.

—They also believed that, providing the physical body can be kept safe, the Ka could be reunited with it in a future time, and the person lives a second life. That is why they mummified the bodies and kept them in tombs secured with magical spells.

—But, as mummification and burial were too expensive, it was only the Kings and rich nobles who could hope for the second life.

—From the time of the 19th dynasty, following the death of Tutankhamun, however a long process of philosophical and theological development took place. The result of this development, which materialised by the early time of Roman rule of Egypt, appeared within the cult of Serapis before being identified as Gnostic Christianity.

—Now it became possible for ordinary people to hope for eternal spiritual life, without need for mummification. All they need is to confess in the resurrection of Christ and go through a ritual that included baptism by water. St Paul initiated at the foot of Mount Sinai:

—St Paul had a different Christian Gospel from that of St Peter and the rest of the Jerusalem Church. He was the first to regard Christ as the redeemer and the son of God and gave different meaning to baptism in confession of the resurrected Christ, rather than John's baptism for remission of sin. Where did Paul get his Gospel from?

—In his letter to the Galatians Paul states that, having encountered the light of Christ on the road to Damascus, he retired to Arabia. In those times the political country of Arabia included, not only East Jordan, but also Sinai.

—Paul speaks of Mount Sinai as being a holy place, which is in heaven. He also states that he remained in Arabia for three years before returning to Jerusalem with his new Gospel.

—Three years is the right time for initiation into the community of the Gnostic Christians whose hermits are known to have inhabited the area beneath Mount Sinai, which is now occupied by the Monastery of St. Catherine.