Please read the Introduction (159 - 162) and then write a well-informed observation, using a quote as support. Choose something you are interested in. Then, respond to a response that another student has made.
Due: B3 - Wednesday, 1.30 / A2 - Thursday, 1.31
Due: B3 - Wednesday, 1.30 / A2 - Thursday, 1.31
The idea of a "Mother Goddess" seems to be popular amongst many polytheistic belief systems. In Greek mythology, we saw Gaea to be an essential female figure who began the line of deities. The Ancient Egyptians also promoted a female divinity, Isis as "the Great Goddess, the Mother Goddess and the lady of green crops, and lady of abundance" (161). Isis was considered a "loving and loyal wife and the loving and nurturing mother" (161).
ReplyDeleteI would compare Isis to the Greek goddesses, Demeter and Gaea. Isis is the goddess of crop abundance and she makes sure that the Egyptians are supplied with a rich crop yield. On the other hand, she is also the great mother goddess who is loved and respected by the mortal Egyptians. Therefore, I believe Isis is a synthesis of these two influential Greek matriarchs.
Kai Izumi
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Polytheistic religions all seem to be dominated by a patriarchal society. In all religions, gods are referred to as men, for example, Romans believe in Jupiter, as well as the Greeks believed in Zeus. The patriarch of the Egyptian religion would have to be Osiris, due to everything being involved around him. Not only did he resurrect the mortals, he "nourished all life" (160).
Osiris is much like a Hades or a Zeus to the Greek culture, because of his involvement with the beginning of a mortals life and the afterlife. On the other hand, Osiris was also said to be the god of the Nile, and its water "brought rebirth of the land and provided substance and survival to human beings" (160). So Osiris might have also been like a Demeter as well.
Seng Rang Jeon
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I am interested in Osiris, since he was both god and man. He was a god of grain and of the Nile at first, than became son of god. After his death, he became king of the gods and king of the Other World by great god of the sun, his father, Re. He was worshiped by Egyptian people, since they now got away from cannibalism. Now they believe that the key to become immortal was to live good life on earth, and get a good relationships between one another. He also had special power before his death too, since "Osiris was king of Egypt and the earth." (pg.160)
I would compare Osiris to Heracles. He was very similar to Heracles, because after Heracles's death, he became immortal by his father Zeus. He was worshiped by Greeks of his bravory and strenght, he even helped the villagers during his labor. Heracles too had a special power before his death, that he had physical strength to finish all of his labor.
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ReplyDeleteThe part about people becoming nicer and more civilised after worshipping Osiris caught my eye. Ancient Egyptians turned "away from cannibalism", because they realised humans are divine as well, just like Osiris (Rosenberg 160). Since Osiris was very humanlike - suffered and died, by worshipping him, they also began to "sympathize with the suffering and death of each human being" (Rosenberg 161). In hopes of becoming immortal, they also wanted to lead a "good life on earth, [and thus] the quality of their relationships with one another improved immeasurably" (Rosenberg 160). People become more civilised because of this driving force. We see this same change here and there in every culture. Just like the concept of karma and dharma changed ancient Indians as well. Christianity also stresses the same fact; and their divine role model is Jesus, like Egyptians had/have Osiris. This is how the Egyptians became more civilised after worshipping Osiris.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with Louis, how in every culture the concept of Mother Goddess is very often present. This is no surprise because women were the one who gave birth to kids and that concept of "fertility" glorified them even in the area of agriculture, because crops are earth's "children" and therefore earth must have looked feminine to the ancient people all around the world. As Louis also pointed out, in Ancient Greece, Isis's role is divided for Demeter and Gaea. That's just the way Greeks viewed their Mother Goddesses, who played different smaller roles, in comparison to other cultures who only had one Mother Goddess and no one to share her "responsibilities" with. But all in all, all the cultures share the idea of Mother Goddess and I totally agree with Louis.
I think it was interesting how the Nile River affected the ancient Egyptian people. The desert nearby made the people feel like their existence was fragile. "So, the annual flooding of the Nile caused great relief and celebration"(160). Compared to real life, flood would be like a disaster to us, but for them, surrounded by deserts, it was considered a relief. We see flood as a destruction as it kills people like in the Phillipines. However, for the ancient Egyptians, they were grateful and thankful of the flood because without it, their land would be a dry wasteland and fertile soil was desperately needed to live.
ReplyDeleteI like how Joshua was interested about how Osiris turned mortality into an advantage because many Egyptians feared death, but he took it and made it into a positive idea. I do agree with what he said that it was rare for a civilisation to worship a divine human. I agree with their idea because people who do good deeds are meant to have a good afterlife.
JOSHUA
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I was really interested how the gods where divine but mortal in the same time. This is a extremely rare case. How is it like to be a hybrid of a god and a human. It is a huge disadvantage as a god, but Osiris turned that into an advantage, in terms of influence. He provided Egyptians with hope for life after death. People always feared their mortality and wanted to avoid death, but in this case its different. Afterlife ideas such as" weighing ones heart" and making a judgement, is what I found to be interesting as well. (161)
To Sang Reng- I enjoyed how you compared Hercules and Osiris. What you listed were true facts. But I think Hercules was more strong hearted cause he actually started from nothing and went all the way up by just using plain physical power, unlike Osiris. As he pointed out, Hercules used physical, instead of just using magic. But they both have something in common, which is that they both succeeded and became superior among all the mortals. How come? Well, they both earned it just by themselves, without any or limited support.
Lyu
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You said "disadvantage as a god"(Joshua Kamioka), but you didn't explain why. I am a little bit surprised, but I don't see how being divine but mortal in the same time is a disadvantage. But I also agree that the after life ideas are interesting as well.
I'm sorry the comment I posted last night disappeared because I forgot to log in so my comment disappeared so here;
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that this is another mythology/story which centers about good conquering over evil is interesting because I have not yet seen a myth which has an ending where the evil wins. Why is it that the good always win? But I also think that there might be no good if evil didn't exist. Well right now, there is sell no knowing if good has conquered over evil. In this story "Good triumphed over evil" which is very cliche-like.(161) As I see it in this present world, they are still struggling and evil is going to win.
Kai- I don't think Kai's opinion about how "Polytheistic religions all seem to be dominated by a patriarchal society". The Greek religion is also a polytheistic religion but they also have a Great Mother Goddess, who is in charge of crops and fertile lands. Which is the core center of every flourishing civilizations.
What caught my eye was the fact that "religious ideas permeated Egyptian"(159) culture. The things that they did were all religious. It was involved with politics, science, art, and literature.The Greeks were also very religious and their lives also revolved around the Gods and religion. But why was the pharaoh like the God? The pharaoh was considered the sun God so they worshipped their king and the pharaoh was able to order the civilians to do whatever they wanted him to do. The Egyptian people's lives also revolved around the Gods.
ReplyDeleteYumi- I agree that good always win against evil. In the Greek mythology and Egyptian mythology it good conquers the evil and even in the present day, good always wins the evil. It is just like that because good is always good and bad is always bad. There is no reason for the bad to win because there is no good consequences.
I thought it was interesting how Gods could be related to nature. For example Osiris is a god/ human, and when hes alive the Nile river is in its best condition, but when Osiris dies the river dried up. But then Osiris gets reborn and the Nile becomes a river again. " His death represented the death of vegetation when the Nile dried up" (160). So every time the Nile dried up, the people believed Osiris died, and when it floods it was sign that he was reborn. Also for Isis, she was called the mother goddess, and controlled all the crops she created.
ReplyDeleteYumi- I really agree that good always win against evil. Mostly all myths , movies and any kind of story is like that. Probably because, if you were watching a movie, most people would want the good to win rather than bad, or else sometimes it doesn't make sense. But I think theres not really a rule that good always win. Its just that good wins more often that evil.
I was interested in what happands after death. When you die, your spirit will tell Horus the good deeds done in life. Also, your heart will be put on a scale with a feather on the other side. If your heart weighs more than the feather, "the jackal that was sitting near the scale would eat the person's heart and mummy"(161). and they would remain dead. I think when a heart weighs less than a feather, it means you're heart is pure and so, the heart's not eaten and you will begin life in another world.
ReplyDeleteAya- I like how things were all based on religion. I think it's because people wanted something they could believe in. I think the pharaoh was like a god because he was half human and half god and he is the son of the sun god, just like you said.
I would argue with Joshua about mortals being treated divine, because in history we have seen cases where individuals were treated divine, yet having everyone else treated normally. I would say it is unique for Egyptians to adopt such a mindset after an entity, which comes to show the amount of faith they had in the Egyptians.
ReplyDeleteI was interested by the fact that the idea of punishing the wrong, and rewarding the good, was ever present in all mythology, and the different ways that they would go about it. "Osiris would then take the persons heart (symbolising conscience) and place it on one side of a great balance scale, with a feather (symbolising law)"(161). When I first read this, the idea of karma came to my mind, for it works on the same logic, of the good being rewarded and bad being punished.
ReplyDeleteI was interested that when it said "The worship of Osiris was particularly significant because it turned the ancient Egyptians away from cannibalism"(160). I found that very interesting because we see this in every culture. Religion was the way of teaching people whats good and bad. Worshiping Osiris meant that if they did something bad like cannibalism they will not get to go to the afterlife.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Yuki how he related to the balance scale to Karma. It really is the way of teaching, so that human beings will know whats good and whats bad and that doing a good thing will get rewarded and doing a bad thing will get punished.
Max
Like what I said in the class, I found interesting how dead person’s heart is balanced on a scale with a feather on the other side. Person who had led a good life, her/his heart would weigh less than a feather and they “would be granted new life in Osiris’ kingdom”(161). If it weighs more, the heart would be eaten and the person will remain dead.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that thousands of years ago people of Egypt managed to have one of the most successful nations in the world;" Egypt was more politically stable that Mesopotamia, so the people could concentrate on improving the quality of their lives" (159). If you think about the situation in Egypt right now, it's very ironic, because as our civilization flourished, people lost the talent of keeping the country together. Back then, when war was the best solution to everything, the government somehow managed to put everything in order. Obviously, slavery was a huge issue, but that should be a separate topic, even though modern Egyptians are often treated not any better.
ReplyDeleteKai's observation were pretty interesting, because he found that connection between Osiris and Zeus. Basically many religions and cultures have this one main god who is in charge of many things going on on all the worlds. However, as Kai said, Osiris had even more power than Zeus since he wasn't only the main god of the mortals and underworld, but also Nile river which was in charge of Earth. In Greek mythology it's women who take care of fertility, agriculture and comfort.
B3 Literature Lyu
ReplyDeleteReading the introduction of "Osiris, Isis, and Horus" what I found interesting is that the fact that he is a God for a lot of things. Although he was also a human, he is the god of a lot of things. For example, he "was the god of grain and of the Nile" (160), and "also the god of truth and judge of the dead" (161). Although he was also a human, he is the god of a lot of things. But since he did things right, I can see why "Osiris gradually became as important as Re"(161)
I replied on Joshua's observation
One thing that I found interesting about Osiris was the fact that he was once human. And as a god he knew what it felt like to also be mortal therefore probably choose better decisions over a god that has always been immortal. “He had suffered and died he could understand and sympathize with the suffering and death of each human”.
ReplyDeleteWhat i thought was interesting about Alina's post was the fact that she was right for once. People in egypt now are actually struggling when they used to be known as one of the biggest and most successful civilizations of all time. They did a better job keeping people under control back then, then they do now even though there is the technology to keep everyone in your site.
I really think the idea of Horus being the "intermediary between Egyptians who were destined to die" , was really interesting because it somehow correlates to the religion of Islam. In Islam, there is there is an intermediary realm which humans are going to go through before they proceed to another realm. Also, the fact that Horus himself "was a form of the resurrected Osiris" (161) was intriguing because it sounds like Horus was somehow 'possessed' by his own father. However, I doubt this theory to be true since they Horus and Osiris was related like the saying like father like son.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Yuki's response for the idea of Egyptian's karma, balancing our good deeds and bad deeds to determine our afterlife. It is actually a lot similar to most religions of the world. For example, Islam we have to balance our book of good and bad deeds that were written down when we were alive. If our bad deeds, is heavier than the good, we would go to Hell for retribution.
I was interested in how the Egyptians pictured the desert as evil. They considered the desert as their environmental enemy, for “it represented death, for human beings could not survive in such a hot, dry wasteland”(160). It was believed that evil spirits and deadly animals dwelled there. I think that the predominant reason behind this belief is that the Egyptians wanted some sort of logic to explain the many unfortunate events that occurred. One example could be how the desert winds caused the river to become slow and narrow.
ReplyDeleteI was also interested in Katarina’s observation on what would become of mortals after death. The procedures and forms of judgement that they went through varied with culture and religion. A point that caught me by surprise was how a mortal could not get a “reward” of any sort for being good. Even if a mortal’s heart was lighter then the feather on the measuring scale, all they would get was life just as on earth. Personally, this does not sound too appealing since in other cultures, a mortal would usually be rewarded with a finer life for their good deeds during their lifetime.
One observation I made during the reading was that how the Nile River's flooding season was predictable, compared to the Tigris River flooded at capricious times. Usually people will be scared and unhappy with floods, but not with these guys. The Egyptians referred the desert as death, since it was all sand and had no water source, and also said there were dangerous animals and bad spirit. But "every summer, the intense heat and desert winds would cause the Nile to become slow and narrow" which brought fear to Egyptians since the Nile was most of their water supply, they did not like the narrow river (160). So when ever the Nile floods, it brings "great relief and celebration" among the people since the river is forming back to its original shape (160).
ReplyDeleteI like how Lyu pointed out that Osiris is a unique god with many powers. Including grains, truth, etc. But I was hoping he would be more specific on his last sentence, "But since he did right things". I wanted to know more about how Lyu thought what actions Osiris did that made Lyu think he did right things.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that, to the Romams the flood was a lifesaver and the desert was evil. "The Nile was the lifeblood of the Ancient Egyptians. Its waters created lush, fertile farmlands. Vegetation flourished along the banks of the mighty river, supporting the lives of animals and human beings"(160). Like this, they treasured the flood and thanked the flood. They were able to grow vegetation and harvest foods. The desert was a great environmental enemy of the ancient Egyptians. "It represented death, for human beings should not survive in such a hot,dry wasteland. It sheltered wild, poisonous animals and many evil spirits"(160). The desert was too hot and dry that they could not survive and grow foods."Water brought the rebirth of the land and provided sustenance and survival to human beings"(161). It was interesting how they expressed the desert and the flood as an opposite perspective. Now we don't really much appreciate floods but during the ancient times, they did.
ReplyDeleteI was interested in Katarina's observation. I wondered if hearts are really lighter than a feather. I thought it would be impossible for someone's heart to be lighter than a feather. Also, the book said that if that person's heart is lighter than a feather, it means that, that person has a pure, and good heart and will have a new life. But actually, who knows if that person has a pure heart or not. Maybe that person was a very bad person who had a very evil heart and yet, when they balanced, that person's heart might be lighter than a feather.
Enrique Lopez B3 Lit.
ReplyDeleteSomething that interested me was the fact that the Egyptians also believed that there had to be good and evil in the world, for the world to actually maintain itself. In the text it depicts how "Set plotted against Osiris, Isis, and Horus because they represented the forces of good" (161). But it wasn't always Set who planned a scheme to kill 'the forces of good' but also visa versa. This relates to the concept of Yin and Yang that's seen in the philosophy of Confucianism. The concept is that one cannot exist without the other, they can both be divisible but inseparable. Though it is not clearly shown in Egyptian mythology, this is true because good would try to control evil permanently, but it's always just temporarily and the same way round.
What Isshin pointed out was cool and pretty interesting but it just seems a bit to dramatical. I don't blame Isshin for it but the text is self seems kind of pathetic on the Egyptians. The Egyptians knew when the Nile river would flood and they would still freak out and when the flood did come they would hold a festival thanking the flood's coming. Maybe the festival is fine but freaking out for something they know will come is just pure acting. Instead they should store food more appropriately. I would have more respect for the people living nearby the Tigris and Euphrates rivers than people living nearby the Nile river.