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became ; and my present object is to stow that their writings 
before Moses did not contain anything that could have sug- 
gested to him what he writes concerning God and the Creation. 
My first reference, for I cannot quote Egyptian, shall be to 
the work of Professor Lepsius on the Oldest Texts of the 
Book of the Dead, wherein he produces texts of the seven- 
teenth chapter of that collection of sentences, containing a 
full exhibition of the religious belief of the Egyptians,* * * § and 
translates this chapter into German. 
He places in parallel columns two specimens ; one from 
the sarcophagus of Mentuhotep, a king of the eleventh 
dynasty, which is said to have begun 2,240 years before 
Christ, and one from a papyrus of the twenty-sixth dynasty, 
which began 664 years before Christ, 1,576 years later than the 
commencement of the former. Considering that the earlier 
of these dynasties, though counted as the eleventh, was in 
reality the first Theban dynasty, and that Mentuhotep probably 
died within the second century after the Deluge, and lived 
at the same time with some members of the family of Noah, 
the sentences written on his coffin represent the religion of 
his day, and show what was believed in Egypt concerning 
the gods about 600 years before Moses. It is headed : “ The 
Chapter of the uprising of the dead in the day of days in 
the underworld,” and reads thus : — “ This is the word. I 
am Tum,f one being, one thing. I am Raj in his first 
dominion. I am the great god, existing of himself, the 
creator of his name, the Lord of all gods.” 
The same words, with enlargement, reappear on the 
papyrus, and show how they are understood after the lapse 
of at least fifteen centuries. The earlier text is nowin italics. 
The heading is : “ The chapter of the awakening of the dead, 
of the uprising, and of the entrance into the wider world,” 
&c. Then follows : “ This is the language of men, spoken 
concerning Osiris Aufanch the Justified. § I am Turn, as one 
being, that am one thing, as primal water. I am Ra in his 
dominion, in the beginning of his reign on which he has 
entered. What does this mean? It means that Ra, in his 
dominion, in the beginning of Ra reigning in Hat-Suten- 
Chunen, as a being from himself arisen, the exaltation of 
* The whole book, so far as contained in one of the best manuscripts, is 
translated into English, with copious commentary, by Dr. Birch in the fifth 
volume of Bunsen’s Egypt. 
+ Turn, the setting sun. f Ra, the risen sun. 
§ The deceased, like 6 fiatcapioQ. 
