Animals

Hapy as Baboon and Kebeshsenuef with a falcon head from the Tomb of Nefertari

In Egypt there were animal gods (the Sphinx is the most famous), of which the hawk and falcon recur in the Arthurian legends as the knights Gawain and Galahad; other animal deities were the ibis, jackal and scorpion, all of whom were held to lead their tribes into battle - presumably, as the snake led Moshe, by being depicted on a banner.

APIS, for example, was the equivalent of the Greek Hapi, the sacred bull; worshipped at Memphis as sacred to Ptah.

Others included:

PETESUCHOS was the crocodile god Sebek.

The bird BENNU was worshipped at Heliopolis (On - Yoseph's city) as the soul of Osher (Osiris).

BAST, also called MUT, was a cat-god.

HAT-HOR, and sometimes ISIS, were represented as Cows (as was Greek IO) and of course Hebrew LE'AH.

HAPI and sometimes THOTH were pictured as a dog-faced ape.

SET was represented as a donkey, which image recurs throughout the Hebrew Bible.

All the principal gods including RA and HORUS are represented as falcons.

HEKET is depicted as a frog, TAUERET as a hippopotamus, ANUBIS as a jackal, NEFERTUM as a lion and both SEKHMET and TEFNUT as lionesses; AMON as the curve-horned ram; KHNUM HERSHEF and HARSAPHES as the wavy-horned ram, KHEPRI as the scarab, SELKET as a scropion, BUTO as a serpent, NEKHEBET as a vulture. Set is also depicted as an animal not easy to determine, but usually named the Typhonian Beast.


While none of these animal-gods are repeated, paralleled or in any other way present in the Hebrew cult, our knowledge of them in Egypt is helpful in understanding many parts of the Tanach, specifically those which are set in Egypt and directly influence (Moshe's headgear, for example, in Exodus 34:29, which verse 33 of the same chapter clarifies as being the totem-costume of a priest of Anubis). We also cannot ignore that Kena'an was repeatedly conquered by Egypt, with garrisons left for many decades, and the gradual absorption of those garrisons into Israelite society, as well as the direct imposition of Egyptian practice at the times of occupation.

Copyright © 2015 David Prashker

All rights reserved

The Argaman Press