الآلهة والناس فى مصر: من 3000 قبل الميلاد إلى 395 ميلاديًا

by Françoise Dunand, Christiane Zivie-Coche, فريد بورى (ترجمة)

In their wide-ranging interpretation of the religion of ancient Egypt, Françoise Dunand and Christiane Zivie-Coche explore how, over a period of roughly 3500 years, the Egyptians conceptualized their relations with the gods. Drawing on the insights of anthropology, the authors discuss such topics as the identities, images, and functions of the gods; rituals and liturgies; personal forms of piety expressing humanity's need to establish a direct relation with the divine; and the afterlife, a central feature of Egyptian religion. That religion, the authors assert, was characterized by the remarkable continuity of its ritual practices and the ideas of which they were an expression.

Throughout, Dunand and Zivie-Coche take advantage of the most recent archaeological discoveries and scholarship. Gods and Men in Egypt is unique in its coverage of Egyptian religious expression in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Written with nonspecialist readers in mind, it is largely concerned with the continuation of Egypt's traditional religion in these periods, but it also includes fascinating accounts of Judaism in Egypt and the appearance and spread of Christianity there.

Genres: History, Egypt, Religion, Egyptology, Ancient History, Egyptian Literature, Nonfiction

386 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[DAJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume is really made up of two books, one by Zivie-Coche covering dynastic Egypt and another by Dunand on the Greco-Roman period. Both cover beliefs and practices in roughly equal depth, which many current books on Egyptian religion unfortunately fail to do. The joint between the two parts is visible, but I don't think it's likely to cause confusion, because the start of the latter book gives a historical overview of the Greco-Roman period and its background.

Zivie-Coche's section is admirably thorough, with chapters discussing the gods, Egyptian beliefs about creation and the passage of time, temples, popular religion, and funerary practices. It is one of the few well-rounded books on Egyptian religion. The other major one is Stephen Quirke's Ancient Egyptian Religion, which is less dense and analytical than this book and may be a better introduction to the subject.

Dunand's section covers a lot of territory and feels a bit less cohesive. It describes how temples, popular religion, and funerary religion developed in Greco-Roman times, and it examines new factors in the equation: the Ptolemaic and Roman rulers, the hybrid Greco-Egyptian god Sarapis, the introduction of new religious beliefs (including Judaism and various forms of Christianity), and religious conflict. Dunand seems to contradict herself when discussing how separate the Greek and Egyptian cultural spheres were, perhaps because the relationship between them changed greatly between early Ptolemaic times and the early centuries of Roman rule. She does, however, deserve credit for covering the religious diversity in Greco-Roman Egypt, including Greek and Roman cults, Judaism, and even some of the variety of Christian sects, better than any other overview of Egyptian religion.