As you may have already read, Holy Week is a busy week around here.
Today, when we handed out chores, somehow Jack ended up with blog duty, and *I* had to clean out his closet.
“Content,” I told him, “The people want content.” Let’s see what he came up with for you fine folks, shall we?
My mom said I could write the blog today. I had some awesome video game tips I was going to share with you, but she said that you are mostly moms and probably don’t play video games a lot. So, I’m sharing the research paper I did for school on how our God beat up on those poor old ancient Egyptian gods. It’s good for Holy Thursday because it also includes the Passover.
If you want to know how our family celebrates Holy Thursday, you can check out this post my mom wrote about it last year. If you or your kids want my Clash of Clans tips, ask me in the comments.
The ancient Egyptian religion is based on the worship of many gods and goddesses that had to do with daily life. The Hebrews believed in the One True God. In the Exodus story, from the Bible, God hears his people cry for help, and sends Moses to work plagues upon Egypt. Through the plagues, God punishes the Egyptians for their cruelty to the Israelites and the stubbornness of Pharaoh, and also proves to them that He is greater than each of their individual gods.
The first plague God sent to Egypt is the river of blood. Moses struck the water with his staff, and it was turned to blood. Just as with the Israelites, it is considered by the Egyptians unclean to be sick, or to have touched anything having to do with death. So Nun, the god of all water, would be greatly disgraced by Moses’ action. The Nile was the most important aspect of Egyptian daily life and the most important thing that all their gods protected. As Egypt is the gift of the Nile, it’s defilement is an insult to all the gods.
The second plague of Egypt was the plague of frogs. Out of the Nile came thousands of slimy amphibians that swarmed into peoples houses. Heket, the goddess of frogs, was the protector of childbirth, and had the head of a frog. These creatures were sacred, and it was forbidden to kill them. To have them infesting and destroying like that is a great mockery to the goddess.
The third plague of Egypt was the plague of gnats. Moses turned the dust into gnats that annoy the people of Egypt. Geb was the god of the earth. To have the dust of the earth turned into this filthy bug would make his power seem inferior.
The forth plague was the plague of flies. Moses made great swarms of flies come into Egypt. Khepri was the god of all insects. God’s power destroys the false gods power and makes their own sacred creatures destroy the land.
The fifth plague was the plague of death of the cattle. God makes most of Egypt’s cattle die. Hathor is the protector of cattle, so killing them would make her seem useless.
The sixth plague was the plague of boils. Moses sprinkled ash into the air and it landed on the people and turned into great oozing sores. This made all the Egyptians unclean and assaulted the goddess Isis, the patron of healing and medicine.
The seventh plague was the plague of flaming hail. God made flaming hail fall on the land. It destroyed all the remaining animals and many of the crops. Nut, the goddess of the sky, would be greatly frowned upon for this terrible disaster.
The eighth plague was the plague of locusts. God sent thousands upon thousands of these foul creatures, who gobble up all the plants that had not already been destroyed. This diminishes Seth, the god of chaos, for not even he can bring such turmoil.
The ninth plague was the plague of great darkness. God made an immense darkness that covered all Egypt, except where the Israelites dwelt. It blotted out Ra, the god of the sun and most important god. In ancient Egypt, the god most loved by the people seemed to be the most powerful. But our God, loved by the Egyptians or not, smites down the false gods of the Egyptians.
The tenth and greatest plague upon Egypt is the plague of the death of the first born. God entered into the homes of all the Egyptians and struck a fatal blow on every first born in the country, from the son of the lowest slave to the son of Pharaoh himself. Because the Pharaoh was considered a god, to kill his son was to kill the future god.
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| via theology21 |
Jack, I think that is amazing research! Loved the final picture especially the Joseph's bones transport van!
Jack, thanks for writing about this. I learned quite a lot! 🙂
Nice work, Jack! Well done!
Now it makes sense why there were so many plagues! Thanks, Jack!
I had never heard that stuff about the Egyptian gods and goddesses. Thanks for sharing!
What's your favorite video game? Most of my students in Nashville loved Minecraft.
my favorite game is called Clash of Clans. It is on apple devices only . It is a tower defense game were you fight real people. I really like it. thank for reading my post. 🙂
Great job, Jack!
That was cool! I never knew the plagues corresponded with different Egyptian deities.
This is so great, Jack! I remember writing something like this back when I was in your grade. 🙂 (Now I feel old.)
I am 29 years old and just learned about this last week; your explanations were a great addition to what I just learned. I'm sure my husband would love to hear your Clash of Clans tips if you are willing to share.
I would suggest upgrading everything so that you can't upgrade them any more, before upgrading your town hall, starting with your defenses. If he plays he can try to join my clan, called yummyicecream My village is called jack.
🙂 Jack
Nice work, Jack. I never made the connection between the plagues and the Egyptian gods. Now go help your mom finish your closet. 😉
It's already clean.
:)Jack
Great paper, Jack! Did you select all of those pictures for your original paper, or were they just added in for the blog-post version?
They were just added for the blog post, but I think they are a great addition to it.
🙂 Jack
I still want his video game tips, though.
If you can take out all of the mortars and wizard towers with lightening spells and giants, you can easily swarm goblins and win. If you play you can join my clan.
:)Jack
Jack, you are so cute too and smart. Well done!
This also shows what a good teacher you have and what a nice school you go to 🙂
Well done Jack! Having been to Egypt twice this is very a accurate information. The Israelites didn't have such a great future ahead of them with 40 years of wandering in the desert. How is your closet looking? Grandad might be interested in those video game hints. Love you.
This was great, Jack! I never knew any of that as relating to the gods and goddesses of Egypt. Very interesting. 🙂
Nice job, Jack! My kids want your Clash of Clan tips, please. 🙂
After building the clan castle, you can join my clan by searching yummyicecream. Use the tips listed above.
🙂 Jack
Hey Jack! This was great. I'm going to read it to the kids tomorrow and learn them a thing or two. As far as Clash of Clans is concerned, how about I just deliver Johnny to you when he is of video-gaming age and you can show him all the ropes? Also, show him how to blog. I could use a little break;) love, mrs Fike
Wow, Jack! Impressive! I'm a teacher for MODG and have graded Egyptian papers before, but this one is definitely the most interesting one I've read! I'd give this an A+ 🙂
Bravo Jack, a well researched and written paper indeed! I hope your Mom does as good of a job on your closet today.
Hi! I was preparing my own blog post on the Ten Plagues when I found yours. This is such a great report about the judgement on false gods of Egypt that I had to put a link to it on my post! Thanks for sharing this with us.
(If you want to see my post it's at https://thebarkingfox.wordpress.com/2015/01/17/fox-byte-5775-14-vaera-and-i-appeared).
Alright, I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade and I really really hate stepping on someone's beliefs, but I'm an archaeologist and I really have to say there is absolutely no historical evidence for any of that happening. That doesn't mean to say Moses didn't lead a group of Israelites out of Egypt! Not at all, there's absolutely no problem with the core story, it's just important that people don't take it literally.
Well, aside from the whole Nile turning red thing. There's also a much older Egyptian legend about Sakhmet going a bit too far in her role and just going on a killing rampage which the other gods then resolved by turning the river to wine. She thought it was blood and in her frenzied state went and drank as much as she could and then promptly passed out absolutely plastered. I cannot imagine the hangover she would have had after that. It's likely that one year the annual flood brought a HUGE amount of red silt down and then everyone came up with their own stories for why the river was red.
…That and I know these are your beliefs and that's all well and good, but there are still some people who worship the Netjeru, and it is sort of offensive to see Them called false gods so many times. I was searching for an image of Nun earlier and the image of Him here was one of the first results so it's really, really easy for Kemetics to stumble across this. It gave me a good chuckle this morning but a lot of other people aren't Aussie like me and don't just laugh at everything.
Wow this turned out a lot longer than I meant it to. Again, I'm absolutely not having a go at you, I just had to put in my two cents. It's kind of important to archaeologists to stop the spread of misinformation, that's all.
…That and point out how easy it is to find this article and just mentioning how it could offend people who happen to stumble across it.
If you have Netflix, search for, stream and watch, "Patterns of Evidence: Exodus". If historic time lines are shifted slightly, suddenly large Egyptian towns with Jewish characteristics become empty overnight. Very interesting. Jack's grandad Curt