Title: Egyptian solar religion in the New Kingdom : Re, Amun and the crisis of polytheism /
Authors: Assmann, Jan
Publisher: Kegan Paul International ; Distributed by Columbia University Press,
Year: 1995
Subjects: Amon; Sun worship Egypt.; Egypt Religion.
Abstract: The golden age of Egyptian solar hymns - the three centuries from c. 1500 to 1200 BC which have provided many hundreds of examples of them - is a unique phenomenon. No other period of Egyptian history, indeed no other culture, has produced such an abundance of poetry in praise of the sun god. There are among them an astonishing abundance of hymns that have an individual character and represent the textual expression of the spiritual-religious movement. The spiritual movement that is embedded in and expressed by them is the struggle to articulate a concept of the unity of the divine - the One God. The uniqueness or oneness of god is the central theological problem of the New Kingdom. The Amarna period is striking proof of the historical explosiveness of this problem. It is less well known that the problem was by no means solved with the failure of Amarna religion.
Contents: 1. The Mysteries of the Sun Cult -- 2. The Iconography of the Solar Journey -- 3. The Phenomenology of the Solar Journey -- 4. Amun Theology of the Early Period -- 5. Ba: Hiddenness and Oneness. Theban Amun-Re Theology in the Ramesside Period I -- 6. Cosmic God and Saviour. Theban Amun-Re Theology in the Ramesside Period II -- 7. Judge and Saviour: The God of the Individual.