Obliteration of God Seth During 20th Dynasty



John Salverda has written:


Dear Damien,

This Easter evening I did some studying, and I thought of you

In researching the Hebrew origins of the religious ideas of Egypt, specifically the Egyptian god “Seth” (who is, in my view, derived from the Hebrew God “of” Seth). I came across this very interesting quote by the famed Prussian diplomat and scholar Christian Charles Josias Bunsen (1791–1860), in his book “God in History,” (2.34);

Bunsen says, “It is, however, a most remarkable fact, now known to us on the evidence of monumental records, that up to the thirteenth century B.C., the Typhon of the Greeks — for we learn from the inscriptions that he is identical with Set — was a great god, universally adored throughout Egypt, who confers on the sovereigns of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties the symbols of life and power. The most glorious monarch of the latter dynasty, Sethos, derives his name from this deity. But subsequently, in the course of the twentieth dynasty, he is suddenly treated as an evil demon, insomuch that his effigies and name are obliterated on all the monuments and inscriptions that could be reached. Thus the well-known Typhon-mythos, which Plutarch relates at length in his learned work on Osiris and Isis, is a truth only for the later ages. In the days of Moses, Set was reigning in all his glory.”

Furthermore, this eminent writer calls Seth "the primitive God of Northern Egypt and Palestine," and goes on to say; “Since Seth stands in the closest connexion with Osiris, who is his brother, there can be no doubt that he too was already in the time of Menes a very ancient object of adoration. He is shown to be a Semitic god by the monumental inscription relating to the campaigns of Ramses the Great (towards 1380 B.C.). ... In the last book of my own work on Egypt, it is proved that the genealogy of the Seth of Genesis, the father of Enoch (the man) must be conceived as originally running parallel with that derived from the Elohim, Adam's father.”

Regardless of his confirmation of my theory about the origin of the Egyptian god Seth, please take note of the universal obliteration of his effigies (Seth/Typhon was largely portrayed as a dragon/serpent) during the 20^th Dynasty. Could this sudden religious reform, noticed by Bunsen in the course of Egypt’s 20^th Dynasty, show a relationship to the same reform undertaken by Hezekiah who also destroyed a well-known serpent idol that was honored from the days of Moses? Could Hezekiah’s reforms have been so widespread as to include the monuments of Egypt?

Maybe there is something in this that would help you to synchronize King Hezekiah with Egypt’s 20^th Dynasty.

Anyway, I hope you and yours had a good Easter.