Duality in the Creation Accounts

Egypt is in the background of the two creation accounts found

in the books of Moses and Abraham.

Duality pervades Egyptian thought and world view.

Desert

River

Desert

River

Chaos

Order

The importance of duality in Egyptian thought . . .

The importance of duality in Egyptian thought . . .

“The Egyptians believed that unity was emphasized by the complementary of its parts. Thus the king of a united Egypt still bore the title ‘lord of the two lands’ and ‘he of the sedge and the bee.’ Similarly, the county was divided into the black land and the red land, and split between the east (the land of the living) and the west (the realm of the dead). The earth was distinct from the heavens but the two together were the complementary halves of the created universe, while beyond the universe was the ‘uncreated,’ the chaos from which man and the gods had emerged.

“The duality is present at many levels of thought and symbolism, so that there are gods of Upper and Lower Egypt, and the gods of the living and the dead. The mythical struggle between Horus and Seth was essentially regarded as the universal struggle between good and evil, the triumph of light over darkness and the prevailing of order over chaos.” (The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt [1995], p. 88)

Lower Egypt

Upper Egypt

Dualism exemplified in the dual monarchy of ancient Egypt:

Dualism exemplified in the dual monarchy of ancient Egypt:

The government of ancient Egypt was a “dual monarchy, the kingship of Upper and the kingship of Lower Egypt united in the single person of the ruler. This extraordinary conception expressed in political form the deeply rooted Egyptian tendency to understand the world in dualistic terms as a series of pairs of contrasts balanced in unchanging equilibrium.” (Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods [1978], p. 19)

Narmer’s Palette

Narmer’ in Battle

Narmer’s Palette

Narmer’s Palette

Crown of Upper Egypt

Narmer’s Palette

Crown of Upper Egypt

Narmer’s Palette

Crown of Upper Egypt

Crown of Upper Egypt

Narmer’s Palette

Crown of Upper Egypt

Crown of Upper Egypt

Crowns of Ancient Egypt

Crowns of Ancient Egypt

Upper

Crowns of Ancient Egypt

Upper Lower

Crowns of Ancient Egypt

Narmer—Pharoah United Egypt

This picture shows two goddesses Wadjet wearing the red crown of lower Egypt and Nekhbet wearing the white crown of upper Egypt.

Dualism in Moses 2• Day 1 Without form and void; light and

darkness; day and night ; morning and evening (vss 2-5)

• Day 2 Divided waters (above) from waters (under) the firmament (vss 6-(above7)

• Day 3 Dry land and Sea; seed and it’s fruit (vss 9-12)

• Day 4 Lights in heaven for signs and for seasons; for days and years; the greater (sun) and lesser (moon) lights (vss 14-18)

• Day 5 Sea life and fowl in the air (vss 20-21)

Dualism in Moses 2Day 6 . . . • animals and man; • God said unto mine Only Begotten; • Let us make man in our image after our

likeness; • Man is created male and female (vss. 24-27)