Nibley's Egyptian connection of Atum=Adam

In Nibley's Teachings of the Pearl of Great Price, we read of some fascinating connections with the Egyptian Atum = Adam of the Bible. This is Nibley in his finest, most interesting form. I emphasize some things, but the entire post here is amazing!

We will see a lot about Ptah-Tenen. Notice, he is being acclaimed on the throne. He is the father. Ptah-Tenen is a rare form, but Ptah-Tenen means Ptah's office translated down to earth. It means the exalted one. It refers to the hill, among other things, the exalted hill. It refers both to the first land that emerged after the flood and the first land that emerged in the beginning when waters and darkness covered the earth. There was the later flood, and these are the waters the Egyptians are referring to as you learn from the Pearl of Great Price.

Remember, when she discovered the land, it was under water. She went there after the flood. But emerging from the flood is a very important thing. And Ptah-Tenen is the land that first emerged. But it is also the person who first occupied it and first lived in it. It means the exalted one, the exalted or uplifted land. This Ptah-Tenen always belongs to the earth.

He is the earthly representative of the heavenly order. Everything about him is earthy, and so he is chthonian. Chthon is the Greek word for "like earth." The solar is the light, and the dark is the chthonian. A perfect example of that is in our Facsimile No 2.

Notice all these deities are solar deities. (those in the upper half of facsimiles 2) They all have suns, and they are moving forth in glory. All these (in the lower upside-down half of the facsimile 2) are chthonian, the cow, the female, and including the inscription which tells us this is the dark place where everything comes to a halt. But you have to have both if you are going to create.

This is the womb; that's why the cow. That's Hathor, the mother cow-the womb from whom all life comes. And the four figures in front of her are, as Joseph Smith says, the four elements-the four regions of the earth from which physical bodies must be compounded.

So it tells us here this is Ptah on the throne of Ptah-Tenen. Wolf has written a good study on Ptah-Tenen. "He stirs the earth out of her lethargy, which is called Nen, a state of inertia, a heat death. That is to say out of her condition of chaos. It is Ptah-Tenen who visits the earth and organizes the earth here below." Out of its condition of chaos, he puts things into order. But he does not give it life or force. He depends on another for that.

When the waters were divided, he joined the lands together and made the earth habitable; and he sets the pattern for the king, for Horus Ptah-Tenen. He is Ptah's earthly counterpart. He is almost a byword for Ptah. His name is almost a synonym for Ptah's name-Ptah above, Ptah-Tenen below.

But he carries things out. He never loses his identity as the exalted one, and his form is purely human. He never takes any form but human. He wears the same crown as the two sun figures wear. It's being worn by Abraham in Facsimile 3.

It's the Atef-crown. He wears that crown which is the same as Amon wears. So we get Ptah-Tenen and Ptah.

Then the place, the setting, is the division between the north and the south. They are united here at this particular place where the two thrones are joined in one and the king of the North deseret and the king of the South sut (of the sedge) are united in a single glory.

Deseret and the bee are the symbol of the North king. His name is bit nu, meaning "belonging to the bee" which is feminine. They knew that the queen-bee was a queen already. They say in a single glory, Kha, which is a picture of the sun rising over a mound which represents the king mounting the throne.

The two thrones are placed side by side.

Everything is divided between the two, and this division is preserved throughout all of Egyptian life. This is a very important thing. In fact it is the main theme of this document, namely the importance of coexistence here. The two thrones are together, and they are as one. Now, you're never going to get rid of evil in the world. The Egyptians knew that because that was part of the plan.

This is why Egypt has been the most stable of all civilizations. They didn't try to wipe out all opposition. They could put up with things.

The theme is eternal life by eternal generation. The Gospel of Philip tells us nothing is eternal except progeny. All worlds pass away, as we are told in the Pearl of Great Price. They come into existence and pass away. What doesn't come into existence and pass away? Well, it is the individual. (Kerry's note: I would propose this is what Joseph Smith called "The Grand Key Words of the Holy Priesthood since they are associated with the ithyphallic seated deity in fac. 2, figure 7)

So here they are on the single throne. Now, we come to the theme here. There is much discussion about these lines and what they mean. Who begot Atum in the beginning? It was Ptah.

Atum is the big thing. At Heliopolis he is everything. It's very interesting. In the very old Coffin Texts, he is called Adamu, using the Canaanite ending u and also the soft d instead of it.

In fact, Lefebure, the famous French Egyptologist went to quite a great length to show that this is the same as Adam, and he obviously is Adam here.

So it says here, Atum who was begotten and who then became the father of the pesedj or the Great Council.

The pesedj is always translated Ennead, but is it the Ennead? I notice how Sethe sums it up here. Ennead doesn't have to be nine or eight, or any particular number. It means the vast number.

The numberless Council of the Gods is what it means.

Originally, half should be female and half male, with Ptah making the odd number, you see. It breaks down into couples such as Shu and Tefnut and Geb and Neith.

But first Atum. His name is a very important one. Rudolf Anthes has written several long articles and monographs about the name of Atum. It means "many," as we are told in Moses l:34. And, of course, it means "many" here. I notice that even Siegfried Lawrence, a very prejudiced character, says what it means is a gesammtheit-a gathering, a compound, or a complex. It includes everything in itself, and you will see why.

The word is very productive in Egypt. It's a word that means almost anything. You just draw a sled, and this is tm. It's a regular verb meaning "to be," but it also means "not to be." It means "to complete, to complete a circle."

Immediately, you think of the Hebrew word for perfect. Job was an upright man, yashar watamim, upright and perfect. Tamim means a perfect circle. It comes right back to the beginning where it started. Of course, tamam is the standard Arabic word for perfect or complete.

Well, Atum is the one who is perfect and complete. Oh, there are all sorts of things. When we get to the Atum literature, we may talk about them.

But in Egyptian it means "to be complete, to be everything, to be nothing, and not to be." The basic meaning they give is mes-tm, "one who begot all."

Well, that's what it's written as here. The father of all. Mes is like Moses, etc. It means "to beget, to have a child." And Mes-tm is the one who begot all. And Anthes says the name of Adam represents all that has gone before himself and all that comes after himself. He is the great bottleneck. As to his own origin, we are told it is deliberately left unrevealed or unreported.

There are various theories, of course. But in the Pyramid Texts, the oldest writings we have after this, he is the primal god who comes down to earth-the first one to set foot on the primal hill when the waters divide. When the land becomes habitable, Atum is the first one to occupy it. We are told in one text he needed no magic because he came first.

He was a real fact. He doesn't need to create something. He has a companion, Amun's pallakida, his mate.

That's a very interesting way of putting it, as Bonnet does. This was his companion, his helpmeet. This was Hathor, the woman who settled the land. The priestesses of the Atum temple were always called Hathors. That goes back, he thinks, to a tree cult because they have this tree of life business here.

 

So he brought forth the first pair, which bringing together became the source of all life on earth. They were the first flesh. But it is an interesting thing. He does not create, he begets. He is a father. He does not create; others do that. And then there's this idea "who begot himself." What is it talking about there? Diodorus tells us "the seed not the womb contains the life of the child.

Therefore, Adam contained within himself the life as in the womb, and so he is both father and mother." Bonnet insists that there is nothing offensive about this.

When Atum's son Shu separated the earth and heaven, male and female, it was really Atum himself who was doing it all. So Atum comes down here, and he is the father of the human race in every sense. He comes down and transfers it.

So Ptah begot Atum who was the father of the Council of the Gods.

But Ptah called together the family of the gods to settle an affair between Horus and Seth. Now there are these two plans. Seth had his plan. Horus favored the gods' plan.

Seth had a perfect right to object if he wanted to, but they were going to discuss it. You can never get rid of Seth; he is always there. He was cast out of heaven not because he disagreed but because he resorted to violence in heaven.

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