The Greeks were not monotheists but polytheists, and in Egypt they learned syncretism, that is the rationalization of innumerable overlapping deities by banging them together into synthetic polygods. One such mutant was Apollo-Helios-Hermes, the sun-god. They blended their own Dionysiac rites with the Egyptian Isis-cult. Their god of healing, Asclepios, was conflated with the Egyptian Imhotep. Zeus, the senior god, was the same as the Egyptian Ammon, the Persian Ahura-Mazda and, for all they cared, the Jewish Yahweh. That, needless to say, was not at all how pious Jews saw it. The truth, of
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