Show THE ag 3 THE IT 18 ISM MANY MAX MAT THINK ACCORDING TO taa A WRITER altimore Bl a american I 1 it mitch nier M i ri now steif 4 j r june gives TS sa taij account iiii of ther the oldest W bodle 0 k in the world marywill manya Many will iv da ii meant but the most orthodox have never elm 4 idith of I 1 prior I 1 to td tl alie exodus from egypt while the Papy papyrus ids IF As se w was aa written at least I 1 afore moses was born bom and many years before the occurrence of the Noa chiau deluge the book was discovered by a frenchman named at thebes and and presented at the Nati nationals nationale onale in iff i paris par 1 s it was taken from a tomb in which was found the mummy of oneff one of the enters of the eleventh or first theban dynasty which would prove that the manuscript mau was written at least p prior bior to 2500 BC buethe but the book itself furnishes internal evidence evi dende of of the date of its composition and contains extracts from a work that was much older etwas it was compiled by the prefect atah hosep during the reign of king assa this potentate ten tate butone but one of the fifth dynasty so io that the book must have bin been written about B C or considerably my more than years ago the precepts of atah hosep which give the title to the book are preceded by passages from an earlier work written by K akiona Kakim na prefect to king Sene of the the third dynasty which ruled before the pyramids w were e built about B C which would make it if in existence now years old I 1 antedating acco according iding to the 01 old d chronologists and as some still believe the cr creation i cation of adam in the garden of eden or at least ae as t his fall from grace the book is written in hieratic arid and has been translated into trench french by M virey and into english by prof osgood its main value is not as a ri literary curiosity but bat for the insight it gives into the education and culture which had beim been readied by man at that early period M in the history of the human raw race its writer itah hosep waa a prefect a 3 place of great dignity and responsibility under tinder the ancient i egyptian kings jt it wu was second only to that of the king the same office which was held by jose joseph h the son of jacob during th the e latter itei portion 0 of f his alls career as told boldin in the bible the prefect was a sort of poo pooh h bah or treasurer secretary of state and chief justice of the supreme courtroul court rolled into on one e so what is said in tha book must be accepted as au an z id fai far as it goes the boak bad bpd upsets some theories concerning the origin of a number of for they are fauni lh ere divestea of A all rubbish several tha thousands U sands of bf years before fo re i ade u tf of iab who ho were t h it r ia have 0 n gm ate them chenu vi its jiin tone e is is lofty 0 f no not rel ac ay anc a would WO oe A 1120 r 4 rite rin tte the ce iti ji meals deals 4 with kite individual hii ibid zhe government 0 of bf thi hei stated persons persons jr ft iff ti ti t i a bli urged ato to libor labor 1 at atall all bertrue d e antl J ro ibi their 0 n e 61 uta autho C iriven glyen thelby favoron favo if he KS ie ine being to t d be weaken weaken aed aa numerous illusions are made m ri a e ato 16 the h ae supreme and ath they e y are bilidt hel gular number ai pro ag 41 V claimed by ass barc K W a it A the ia hi 6 i religion of ft in athe the ignorant Ig noran S classes acre W birds birdi i v arid WIS t images which were w e intended f 07 tar T i tv the religion ij as yamo t types aab of r certain 0 of V f god s attributes worshiped P ed as gods moses wh lio 0 was really a berince in egypt so ii far as his hi loci standing went was educated bat by ise th e priests and of course courie well understood the monotheistic character of tp the egyptian eg religion eli gion I 1 but he saw that the I 1 of the people had so go prostitutes prostituted pros their religion that he was wai anxious 1 the hebrews as far away from the their ir i pernicious example as possible 2 but it is reasonable to suppose that in theaky the age of atah hosep the writer of this thi book beok nearly 2000 years before moses was wai born there had been no such perversion of their religion reli m ion by the egyptians as disgusted disgust ed the great lawgiver of the israelites this book it must be borne in mind was not n i ot an isolated example of culture and scholarship it was the perfectly natural outcome of a civilization 1 which was scarcely in fenior totham to that of a century ago a and d which could bo boast ast of magnificent magni cent libraries fa a people highly instructed instruct in all the artson arts of pe peace leacea acea a state carefully organized orga nihed a hierarchy firmly founded minutely divided and organized even to the smallest external matters a universally diff diffused ased system of writing and the common use of papyrus in in short a civilization which in all es essential points has already attained its full maturity and only by close investigation is further development in in some directions discovered p and all this was many hundreds of years before abram under the guidance of the lord became an exile from his coun country try and settled in the plain of mamre |