Katherine Griffis-Greenberg Wrote:

>
> Isis is a celestial being who creates by magic,
> such that she is known as the "great Enchantress."
> Her magical powers are strong enough to even bring
> the sun-god Ra into weakness. Sutekh, her brother,
> creates storms and is the lord of deserts, while
> her sister Nephthys creates and maintains the
> trappings of the dead (the mummy bandages are
> called the tresses of Nephthys, for example) and
> guards them in the afterlife within the tomb
> (which may be the origin of her name as "mistress
> of the mansion"). Horus, be he the Elder or the
> son of Isis/Osiris, is the creator of society as
> its king. Originally as aspect of Osiris, Horus
> quickly takes this role over providing a paternal
> succesion pattern to government and society and
> exercising the kingly prerogative of maintaining
> ma'at on behalf of the gods within human society.
>
> So, all gods create a part of their function, but
> kings are not and will not be their equivalent
> under any circumstance. As the Books of Gates and
> other royal afterlife books indicate, the role of
> the king after death is to assist Ra and other
> gods in their nightly struggle with Apep. In
> this, the king, while an elevated mortal in this
> struggle, is still not a god of the same stature
> as Horus, Ra, Atum, etc.
>
> Further, this struggle is a part of the king's
> testing to prove himself worthy of entry into the
> afterlife, which he must do again and again, night
> after night. Gods do not have to "prove"
> themselves worthy of entry into the pantheon - but
> deceased kings do have to prove themselves, to
> even hope of merely achieving communion with the
> gods in the afterlife.

There's no question that Isis was "Great in Magic" and knew all the words of magic. Geb and Nut were important deities in their own right. Osiris was very powerful and had more effect on people than most all the gods.

But none of these gods were turning out people on a potters wheel or creating the primordial mound or the waters of Nu.

Perhaps this is an overly fine distinction but it is one the ancients seemed to have made. Of course, this could just be a matter of place; the gods of the Earth could hardly create it after they got here. There were relatively few creation gods and it might not be surprising they were not of the Earth.

The kings certainly had to prove themselves. But I still question what happened to them when they did. Perhaps your well written and researched answers are exactly correct but then I'm left with the uneasy feeling that no one would want to work so hard and have his life turned upside down for a bit player in the afterlife.




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Man fears the pyramid, time fears man.