Is Christianity A Copy Of Egyptian Religion? | The Bisrat Podcast w/ Dr. Vince Bantu

Because of the recognition that you have you know gods of your town gods of your family gods of your country gods of nature gods of the earth you know gods of all kinds of things it tends to add on rather than subtract so over time you know egypt is egypt is an empire egypt takes over their neighbors they take over nubia in the middle kingdom and what happens to the Nubian gods they become part of the egyptian pantheon okay now there are gods too because these are our people therefore these are our god [Music] all

right hello uh everybody welcome to the jew3 project and welcome to the biss rock podcast uh i am your host for this podcast vince bontu and it is a pleasure and a blessing to welcome you all to this podcast which is a ministry of the Ju3 project which is purpose at equipping the body of christ and the black church and community to help us know what we believe and why and the bis rock project is one of our special ministries in the ju3 project where we explore questions that are pertinent to early african christianity uh

and then and part of that is we have dialogues and conversations uh with scholars that are specialists in various areas in early African christianity and today i am uh very excited and and pleased to be joined by a friend and a colleague uh dr uh tamara souda and so um i am i just want to welcome her to join me in this conversation today our topic for today um is a very popular topic very controversial and also very live question in the black community not only in the united states but actually in uh throughout the

diaspora and even on the continent and that is is Christianity a copy of egyptian religion uh is christianity a copy of egyptian or comedic religion um a lot of you know it's a very live question so we're gonna get all into that today but from a historical perspective and and i am so excited uh and i think we could not have a better uh guest to speak to that question uh for multiple reasons but i'm gonna introduce now dr suda and then we're gonna we're gonna get right into it um but dr tamara souda Has

been researching and writing about egypt and egypt's pharaonic religion for three decades she has a master's degree in egyptology from the university of chicago and a second master's degree in coptic studies from macquarie university tamra completed a phd in religion from claremont graduate university where she wrote her dissertation about coptic martyrology and how it represents an evolution of the pharonic ancestor cult you see what i'm saying uh She founded the house of netjair uh a modern temple of ancient egyptian polytheism in 1989 and she serves as its spiritual leader and so without further ado i

want y'all to give um uh dr suda a virtual or physical uh applause and welcome her uh to this podcast conversation and again dr sute i just want to say hello and thank you so much for joining us hi thank you very much for inviting me i'm very i'm very pleased to have a chance To talk about these things oh definitely definitely um yeah i mean uh just for the listeners you know dr suti you know this but uh you know again like i'm we've met we've connected by doing coptic studies like kind of egyptian

christian context but you know i my expertise is not really pharonic egypt or kind of the traditional egyptian religion and so i've you know engaged this uh because it's a it's a live apologetical issue in my community But i've gone to dr seuda y'all to ask questions that really to get resources on uh on more how that compares with the traditional religion of comet or of of egypt and so i'm just so excited to be in this conversation with you um as you said and and to get right to the title of this episode uh

i was wondering let's let's let's both just kind of reflect together on this question um uh is christianity a copy of egyptian uh or comedic religion Yeah easiest answer is no yes yeah yeah like no it's not okay the podcast is over we can now go home the big answer is no the more complex answer is no but there are many routes to christianity which i am assuming that you talk about in your podcast all the time and christianity is a multicultural Religion and it comes from lots of places and it picks up lots of

things along the way and it keeps them um so there are certainly significant egyptian contributions to christianity you know by actual egyptian christians by ethiopian christians by nubian christians um who are themselves either converts from that earlier pharonic religion or They're living in a world where that is also being practiced at the same time so they're familiar with it to suggest that there's no connection between the two is disingenuous and we can't say that they're completely separate but it's also not correct that christianity is only coming from that place or that it owes everything that

it has to that place yeah yeah i definitely i i couldn't agree with you i agree with everything You said um you know i think that you know christianity i mean i'm speaking as a christian not only as a scholar but also as a as a pastor and and as a uh or as i like i i like to use the ethiopian word uh as a as a nazarawi um you know i definitely would agree with you that you know uh that the bis rot or christianity uh has lots of different influences egypt being one

of them but i but i also would agree with and I'd love your thoughts on this as we just kind of even really just kind of play around in this question a little bit like um for me the idea of the idea of a religion being a copy of another religion um it just doesn't seem to me the way that the ancient world really saw things yeah i mean it really seems like kind of a modern You know what i mean like kind of a modern imposition i guess maybe two things is like you know

number one just that way of seeing things is not how ancient people approach religion but then also the implication that's made in the black community when when it's attempted to be proven and there's all we'll get into this in this episode there's all these alleged you know similarities between christianity and and ironic religion And and you know sometimes half or 75 percent of them aren't even accurate but let's just say they were like let's just say all of them um i guess you know there's a there's a there's this false claim that it's a copy

which to me feels like a modern way of approaching religion um and not the way people did but then the second part is there's an implication that that if it were some kind somehow like copying or borrowing that that somehow kind of Um like illegitimate or that that somehow and that to me also seems like a very modern way of looking at ancient religion it seems to me that the ancient world that not only not only are there similarities we could point to that as you said to be disingenuous not to there are similarities we

could point to between egyptian religion christianity but there's also some others you could point to between egyptian and sumerian Religion or egyptian and greek religion and christianity and islam and like every you could point to similarities in almost every religion but to do that is isn't doesn't mean that that they're copying each other um and also that that doesn't somehow like kind of remove legitimacy from that religion's teaching you know what i mean i know exactly what you mean and i'm going to get controversial right from the start and i'm going to say that that

tendency To try to you know say that something is new and improved and then also at the same time to say that the old thing is is also somehow venerable and therefore being able to connect yourself to it or say oh well that's just a cheap copy of this um that owes more to capitalism and to colonialism than it does at all to religion or the way the humans work it's It's something that's come about it's something that's come about in our societies and actually really troubles me when it happens because it says that the

community is in is internalizing that colonialist stuff that says that earlier things can't be good you know that they always have to be improved on or conversely that later things can't be good because they're just cheap copies of better previous Things there's there's a tendency to kind of accelerate that and make judgments about things based on their age and we do that about people too you know we assume certain things about young people and old people so you know it's kind of an extension of that but it but you're right it's not something we don't

see ancient people we don't see Early christians we don't see early people who are practicing the pharaonic religion doing that they're not having that kind of comparison with each other for them it's like if they see another group that has something in common they think that's really neat and they're just like oh well that just kind of proves that we're all we have something in common you know it's like they're they're celebrating Their commonality as opposed to focusing on how they're different or how they're better than each other in a lot of ways i mean

not to say that they don't do that certainly there are you know the ancients were not at all incapable of being proud of themselves and putting other people down but the desire to compartmentalize things like religion and and past them on the whole and the Entire religion is is inadequate because it's a copy of a previous thing i don't think they would have done that and and i don't think we have any evidence that they're doing that yeah i mean i wonder like what are you know um i mean i think of like uh you

know i wonder what are some examples of like how uh you know again i think this word copy i mean i think you make some great points about capitalism i use the i use the word kind of i isolated it From modernity or kind of a modern concept but i think you have a great point about it there being an extension of capitalism and again it just doesn't seem like that's a way that christians or you know other uh you know other folks um thought about uh yeah about similarities i don't even use the word

copy because that has a that has a negative you know connotation to it but there's similarities in influences um and and i mean uh you know i think that Um you know i think about the apostle paul who quotes greek philosophers in the new testament and then draws parallels to things that they were saying and the claims of christianity you know is he copying or is he copying these people no he's just he's saying look there's a touch point here there's a connection uh and from his perspective and from mine jesus is the ultimate fulfillment

of all of These things but you know whether or not someone believes that or not again it's like um yeah it's it's not this idea of copy and so i wonder um what would be some examples you know for our listeners who maybe like myself who aren't like specialists and like as you are in pharaonic egypt egypt like what would be some examples um of some like ways in which egyptian religion the indigenous practices were themselves influenced uh By other religions um you know i think of thing i don't know like i think of things

like you know the presence of other peoples like the the hixos or the the ptolemaics or uh or even even before that like um but i just um yeah i wonder what some and the reason i ask this is because um you know we're kind of talking about this idea of copying but also um a lot of times you know in our community when you have people who are you know Comedic or hotep or um you know part of these different religions that are making this claim that christian is a copy of egyptian religion and

then therefore it's you know it's it's invalid um they seem to be arguing from this uh the other side of that coin seems to be that they seem to think that egyptian religious was somehow this pure unadulterated uninfluenced kind of uh you know it's the first religion like it's before everything else so not just Christianity but there was some past everything topping off of egypt you know the babylonians the persians the the greek muslim everybody's copying off of egypt and and so i guess you know i think that maybe if we could elevate some examples

of how yes egypt influenced its neighbors but also it itself was influenced you know and maybe some examples of what that looked like it could help to maybe you know like maybe nuance that Perspective a little bit sure um well first of all we're just one of the things that we don't think about when we think about either of these traditions is is how old they are and okay you know we know we know exactly how old christianity is if only because we date our dates from jesus so so christianity is roughly 2 000 years

old right so egyptian religion you know that Pharaonic religion that polytheism that exists in egypt previous to christianity is at least twice as old if not three times as old so that so that's already mind-boggling it's like cleopatra who is somebody that everybody talks about is closer to jesus literally within a hundred years than she is to the beginning of the culture that she was queen for by quite a bit by almost by almost triple It's the age of this veronica tradition is is hard it's hard to wrap your head around and then if you

sit and you think about that and you think about you know okay we know christianity is about 2000 years old how is current christianity different from the original christianity that was started you know where it started where it's at now how is that different how has that developed how has That changed i don't think anyone would suggest that it hasn't but okay so that's two thousand years if you take this other tradition and you double that you make it four thousand years or you make it fifty five hundred years you make it six thousand years

or you take it back to when we first start seeing the symbolism which is 12 000 years in the neolithic so that's six times longer the idea that that is an unchanging Tradition that has been the exact same for those whole 12 000 years is ridiculous and we can't really even talk about it as a single tradition kind of i mean i also don't i am of the opinion that you also can't talk about one christianity there are christianities there are cultural traditions there are there are traditions that come up at certain times and then

they go away at Other times or they develop into something else there are multiple christianities they all come from the same and they're all basically branches of the same tree but there are multiple christianities and then i would also say that there are multiple kinetic traditions there are there are egyptian religions plural and they change over time at the same time Something that they all keep in common and this is probably part of why people get that idea that it stays the same is that it as a moral value as a practitioner value it says

that the closer that you can keep it to the way that your ancestors gave it to you the better and there is a there is a very conservative tradition especially in the temples to use rituals that came from Earlier times you know they copied them you know when the papyrus breaks down then you copy it onto something else and they keep they keep using the same things they don't they don't value in innovation more of a value of you know this was given to us in a certain way and it's our responsibility to pro to

perpetuate it but then at the same time this is a polytheism This is a this is a tradition that believes in lots of gods none of which cancel the others out none of which are expected to be worshipped above all the others that's that's not something and there are regional gods you know if you live in a certain city there are certain gods that are going to be more important to you than others but that doesn't mean that other gods don't exist and because of that Because of the recognition that you have you know gods

of your town gods of your family gods of your country gods of nature gods of the earth you know gods of all kinds of things it tends to add on rather than subtract so over time you know egypt is egypt is an empire egypt takes over their neighbors they take over nubia in the middle kingdom and what happens to the nubian gods they Become part of the egyptian pantheon okay now our gods too because these are our people therefore these are our gods they take parts of the levant they take over kingdom they take over

parts of syria they take over parts of what's now israel those gods get incorporated they generally stay where they came from i mean only a couple of nubian gods actually get worshipped outside nubia but they become Tradition and so everybody's familiar with them so there's this continual addition if you believe in lots of gods there are always more so as the religion goes on it does get bigger and it does pick up more traditions and it picks up more people because egypt does now when it's earlier and when it's more xenophobic when they're just sort

of in The nile valley and they're not messing with their neighbors at all it doesn't happen as much but especially after the new kingdom you're like you mentioned the hixos after the pixels um with the introduction of the chariot and the introduction of like imperial warfare and colonization and the egyptians were doing this they were taking over other countries they were bringing home those people you Know both as prisoners of war and sometimes as in particular with people in the levant the people we call the sea people they hired them as navy they hired them

as mercenaries these people are moving to egypt they're amer they're intermarrying they're staying in egypt they're becoming part of egyptian culture and so their religion and their religious practices also come in to a certain degree you know whether or not they're formally Adopted like on a cult level you know like um like i said some of the nubian deities did not get worshipped across egypt they're all recognized as gods they're all um there are multiple religious texts that talk about respecting gods where you are now if you go travel somewhere and they have different gods

then you need to be nice to their gods um i personally believe that that's part Of why christianity catches on so fast in egypt compared to other places um because egypt does not have any kind of idea that says that more gods isn't okay you know so it's like oh here here's another god this god's kind of cool we like him you know and and particularly in in egypt at the time that christianity comes in it's being colonized by rome and that's a that's not a very comfortable situation culturally and part of the frank Religion

they believe that heaven's going to be in a continuation of the current life well if the current life isn't so great and then your neighbor who's a christian tells you hey you know we believe in an afterlife where there aren't any romans and there isn't any tax and there's none of this terrible stuff of course you're going to convert it makes sense because there's no there's no betrayal there there's There's nothing in the egyptian mindset that says that's not an okay thing to do or a relationship with your god so egyptians really pick up christianity

they think it's very good and then they pick it up and then they also start sharing it with their neighbors um that's so helpful that will help protect it because yeah i mean uh and you probably know this too but um i mean you know i think that it's really helpful to Point out you know certainly in the total make and roman period there's more blending and influences um and even the hixos but that's usually acknowledged by many people in the black community that are that are some form of comedic uh practitioners but usually that's

often you know kind of still dismissed because there's still a belief that but before the foreign influences you know so there's still kind of this like mentality of like there's there's this Foreign pollution or this kind of foreign uh infiltration in egypt that's diluting the purity so i think this is really helpful you're pointing out that even before nubia conquered egypt or before the hixos did or before the ptolemies did there was already interchange and there was already conversation and and religious adoption even through egypt's own conquest that they willfully it wasn't like they were

being fought they willfully Incorporated canaanite or other other deities into their because there was no sense i mean if i'm understanding right there's yeah there's no sense of and this is maybe i would say christianity is very distinct actually from from egyptian religions that there's no just there's no sense of like um i have to worship or pray to this god only uh and no other god whereas for christians you know egyptian or or otherwise We only worship jesus jesus right we refuse to worship anybody else and so um yeah and that's i think that's

just really um i think that's really helpful i think another question that we we should probably dig into even more specifically because i think we're we're helping some helping in some broad conceptual ways uh again just how people should really think about uh egyptian religion and and antiquity um maybe you know now maybe we could drill Down in some more specifics about horus and jesus right because that's the that's where a lot of the conversation happens uh is basically again there's this you know and i'll just rattle off some of them like you can see

this in youtube videos and websites and uh i mean you know it's it's not i don't think it's uh a shocker that none of this is usually published in like actual serious scholarship but nonetheless it's extremely uh prominent in our community And so there's this whole thing that the christian gospel story was just completely plagiarized uh from egyptian religion um you know jesus uh was born of he was he's the son of god just like horses he was born of and i'm not saying these things are actually true similarities i'm saying that these these are

these are the the so-called similarities that are put out there that you know mary was a virgin and isis was a virgin Jesus was born in a manger and horus was born in a manger and that uh jesus was baptized and horus was baptized and uh and that jesus was um crucified and horus was crucified on the cross and that jesus rose again and horus rose again and uh you know jesus is the son of god and so there's an attempt to connect that with you know horus being connected to the s-u-n sun to say

nothing of the fact that these are english words and do not correlate at All to other words so but these are just some of the but this is extremely popular um this this this this mythology and this um this theory and so um yeah i wonder if we could just kind of talk about that a little bit what do we make of this idea that yeah that specifically the story of jesus is copied from the story of horus so it's interesting to me that The the god so we have a situation where there's an egyptian

god who gets compared to jesus earlier like a hundred years ago and it's not horus it's osiris horus father because he because this is a god who dies because he's considered to be a god of resurrection because he's considered to be the judge of the dead and the king of The dead very very early egyptologists latch onto this and you're like oh you know he's a dead god he's a resurrection god he's like jesus and for a long time that's what you read in the literature that osiris is a jesus like god or he is

actually some sort of prototype of jesus you read both things neither of which are are supported in a lot of ways you know other than the fact that i already mentioned that this Religion is much much much older um but you read that and then recently and and this is very recently this is probably in the last 20 years we've had this shift to identifying jesus with horus i think it has to do mostly like on youtube and things like that most recently i went down the rabbit hole i tried to figure out where it's

coming from and a lot of it's coming from a film There was there was a movie called zeitgeist that talked about a whole bunch of symbolism and how symbolic how these various symbols are proof of other things and has a very white very new age kind of background to it and they make a really cool pace about that and and it seems like some people latched on to that and then you know because they had other Agendas trying to compare religions that was a that was a really good thing to look at and say oh

well you know jesus isn't even original he's just this copy of this other thought um but the fit the even trying to fit the two gods together is not as good of a fit you know cyrus is actually dead you know he died And him in fact he was murdered he didn't just die and so there so there is a place where they have that in common but osiris does not necessarily die for salvation the story is that that people are dying you know death has come into the world and people are dying and the

dead don't have any gods because all of the gods are living the dead are all alone in the place that they are and so osiris Takes pity on them and he wants to be with them but it also turns out according to the rules of the universe that gods can't die so nobody knows how to fix this and then it turns out and then you know it goes a little bit further osiris's younger brother set who is the embodiment of strength and also of challenge and like boundaries and he's a trickster god he he Challenges

the rules of the universe and so he's a very very strong god and in fact is strong enough to kill gods so osiris and seth make an agreement and set murders him in order that he can die in order that can be he can be part of the world of the dead so this idea of compassion for humans is is certainly similar and the idea that you know he goes to the land of the dead to be with the dead Is similar but other than that no no osiris never embodies as a human there is

there is a myth that says that he does but it's very late and it's not actually egyptian he doesn't so he's not a human he's not born of a virgin he doesn't he doesn't do any of this you know there's there's no salvation story there so it's very different and then horus is is totally different you know He is a child who's born to you know his mother after his father is dead and his his entire story is one of vengeance that you know he needs to even though osiris agreed to become dead there has

still been a violation of the morals of the universe because gods can't die you know set did something very wrong and therefore there's punishment that has to happen so It's two things and a horus needs to make sure that that sin of murder has been punished and also set needs to challenge the child horus to make sure that he is good enough to be king and to take his father's place so his job is to be the challenger and the and the loyal opposition so they're both fulfilling their roles when we read the mythologies of

the two of them fighting again that's not at all like jesus jesus Doesn't fight anybody to be to be the king of anything you know jesus doesn't have an older brother who challenges him or not um he's not he's not incarnate on the earth in order to do any sort of vengeance the opposite he's there to to fix problems and to steal things and to give Salvation to people horus is called a savior absolutely that's true and actually one of his titles is paranoid means savior of his father but that's it he's the savior of

his father he's not the savior he's not the savior of sin he is specifically doing something to redeem the the evil that was done um But like i said earlier in the conversation you know it's you can say no but there are also these weird little nuances that complicate it um isis is not a virgin in the sense you know in in the sense that we think of it modernly but then of course virgin mary might not have been either no the word that we translate virgin is not necessarily someone who's never had sex it's

someone who is in charge of their own life you know a Woman who does not have to answer to a man as a parthenos so you know that's that's kind of a side um they both get called by that title you know it has a slightly different meaning and antiquity um isis is being called mother of god thousands and thousands of years before jesus is or i'm sorry before before jesus comes into being you know Before that before the christianity even happens she has this this place where she's being called mother of god and she

has imagery there's lots of iconography beautiful iconography beautiful statue paintings of isis with the baby horus on her lap sometimes she's breastfeeding him something he's just sitting on her lap this imagery is very influential among earlier You know they this image and they think certain things and so you know when they come into their new religion and they understand the story of the virgin mary that image comes back to them they're not seeing isis in it i don't i think they're just seeing the idea the idea that they're already familiar with i also think that

there's probably direct literal direct transmission Of that isis imagery into the mary imagery because of something interesting that happened at the temple of feli which is in the south of egypt at asman so on the nubian border there's a temple of isis which also has a church in it um i take people to use if we do tours and it's always interesting when you Take them into the first part of this temple when you go into the first room of this temple literally half of the first room the images of the phranic gods have been

crossed out and kind of scratched out or they're covered up with other writings or other things and there's a there's a christian altar and there's a niche in the wall where the host was kept and it's it's clearly Christian but only in half of the room and it's exactly half it's literally like the room got split in half that one side of the christian in one side of the room is not one side of the room has jesus and marry images one side of the room is all isis and her family mm-hmm and it's real

curious and you know people come in and and even tour guides will say oh well you know this is just proof that the evil christians came In and destroyed all of the or the pharaoh things or conversely this is just proof that the christians came in and cleaned up all of these evil pagan images you know depending on their own agenda they they characterize ways but what really happened and the fact that it's half and half you know if you if you were either destroying something or improving something you wouldn't do half of it and

stop But what happened and we have we actually have proof of this the priests of isis who ran the temple who were half millions and half egyptians um by the time that christianity comes to us one most of the practitioners of the isis religion are still nubians the egyptians pretty much all become christian pretty quickly because there are a bunch of monasteries in the area So it's something that happens pretty fast but the isis worshipers are still coming to this temple for holy days and it's very it's a very holy place for them a very

sacred place for them so what happens is the priests of isis and the local christian priests make a compromise and the priests of isis let the christian priests have half the room and they um alongside each other you Know it's like now where one church doesn't have a building and so another church lets them have a space it's exactly the same thing and they do this they put this for 500 years wow not like they did it for a week or you know until they built a new building they literally were worshiping right alongside each

other from christianity until theodosius shuts that temple down Mm-hmm that's the temple mostly for political reasons because he's worried about the number of nubians who all come up you know billions of thousands and thousands of them are coming up for these big isis festivals and he's getting very nervous about his southern border and so it's it's not you know they they counted as a religious decision well now we're not Going to have any more temples to the pagans that's that's a thing but it's also a political decision because the temple closes the movies don't come

anymore not supposed to come anymore it didn't quite work out that way they kept coming interestingly enough as the most recent year i was there which was 2011 there are still nubians coming up to worship isis at that temple it's still happening Very very quiet but it is still happening but in any case so when people talk about you know the connections between these two traditions and the interface between them and how they might influence each other that's a real obvious place where that's happening having women's devices on one wall and six feet over here

you have an image of mary on the other wall and they're almost the same Similar things going on there but similarity doesn't mean sameness people's things in common there are lots and lots and lots of religions that talk about mother gods that have children that's that's not an uncommon thing it doesn't mean they all come from the same root i mean we come from the same root in the sense that we're all humans and we all think motherhood is important But it doesn't it doesn't make them the same that's right no i wow that's just

i just i have to just highlight some of the amazing things you just laid down because i think that is so that's just such all of that is just such helpful information um i mean you know number one like the sources themselves uh show us i mean if we look at the bible And early post-biblical christian literature and then if we look at pyramid texts and pharonic texts and you know uh material from egypt we see these communities speaking for themselves showing us that they are not the same that i remember actually in our in

our discussion before this podcast you even made a comparison i thought was funny but but true said that the story of horus actually has more in common with The lion king in the gospels and the story you just laid out uh you know it proves that it demonstrates that um and of course there were similarities um but but i mean you know and i just want to say something about that as a not only as a as a you know scholar of egyptian christianity but also as a pastor and as a christian um is that

you know like um i think that i mean you know there's a Degree to which every religion um incorporates and excludes uh to certain degrees you know in different ways um and and you know for for for me as a christian um for me the the the boundary of exclusion is the is the bis rot the name of this uh podcast is the best rod it's the gospel message it is it is receiving grace by faith in the person and work of jesus christ that jesus is um he is he is god he is he's

Fully human but he is also god he's not one of many gods but but that the father son and holy spirit are one god and the creator of all things and that there are no other gods except for him and and and and and that by his crucifixion and resurrection and by faith in that we are saved from sin so exactly as you said that's a completely different agenda than horus or than what um you know marduk or or carlos or anybody else has in fact i Would personally say that the agenda so to speak

of jesus is probably more unique actually maybe even more different than and there would probably be more comparisons between maybe the agenda of horus and maybe other gods and god families in like babylonian or sumerian or or greek mythology or stories where oftentimes it more has to do with as you said kind of like um you know leadership of a certain realm of existence or leadership of a nation uh And and even kind of the way that those gods fall into that um and certainly often preservation of the dead um but but there's really no

concept like the christian concept of the curse of sin um and and the inability of humans by any good deeds to overcome that and the need for the the only god to come in and and the idea of like being a ransom or being a kind of a being as you said earlier like dying on the Cross to take on the sins of humanity that's not only very distinct from horus it's not only very distinct from egyptian gods and goddesses it's also very distinct from most other ancient religions uh in in the ancient world who

actually i would say are actually more similar to each other um and even the exclusivity that christians like myself and others have about you know that being the kind of the boundary and so we don't go outside of That um is also different because you know there you know there there might have been degrees of exclusivity with egyptian or nubian or or sumerian or babylonian religion but there was also a high degree of inclusivity like yeah we can we can pray to your god and pray to that god too we can you know pray to

isis and therapists at the same temple and it's all good and that's something that christians just do not do and like and that that we don't do and that That's also kind of a a distinction and but that that um and that that example you gave of the phylite temple i think is just such a powerful and visual um depiction that that really rebuts a lot of these common ideas um that i think i think of two things that it rebuts is number one that christianity was a copy of egyptian religion um because that shows

us right there that these religions were certainly influencing each other and we're certainly in Communication and we're neighbors but they also even by the fact that there was that half that there's also very distinct there's a lot and saying we you're doing this and we're doing that um and so uh but also i think it it also um helps to you know also clarify uh the reality that uh and we see the same thing happening in ethiopia we see the same thing happening in nubia i mean i know today we're talking about egypt and I

want to get off on a tangent but in the same way i mean you hear stories of tecla hymano going into you know uh the pagans so to speak or the practitioners of traditional religion in the axam area and and again calling them away from that there's a clear kind of christian quote-unquote pagan or traditional religious practitioner distinction same thing in nubia and so um and so um you know i think one point that's also interesting to bring out that a lot of People in the comedic community will say is that uh when you have

this destruction and this violent things from theodosius or you know uh the riot in alexandria in the mid 400's and you see this traditional religion uh in christian violence there's often this uh assumption that well that all came from the roman empire and and you know it was it was just kind of imposed but but um but actually a lot of times some of that violence from that christian violence uh Visited upon practitioners religion were done by african christians like egyptian nubian ethiopia it wasn't like they needed a roman empire to have them do that

they were doing it and i'm not saying that's a good thing in fact i would say that's a bad thing um you know but but it also dispels the myth that that that christianity only came and actually i i was wondering if we could go there next um you know for one of our and i'm kind of already answering it but I'd love your thoughts on it as well because another big um belief in in the black community and really a lot of communities um around the world and especially in the comedic community is that

christianity is a white man's religion right that that christianity comes from the white man and in this case uh i mean certainly we can look at uh i mean you know we can look at uh you know kind of the the white evangelical support of trump uh in our time or we Can look at uh white evangelical support of slavery or segregation uh land violation rights of indigenous peoples and we can go into slavery and colonialism uh go we can go all the way back to the crusades but you know going back into antiquity for

most people the imagination of this starts with constantine and that that but the idea is that christianity started with constantine uh and that it started by the roman empire and it was just a Vehicle from the beginning it was a vehicle of of oppression of roman colonization and that before that before constantine before he called the council of nicaea there was no christians that believed jesus was god there was no uh you know and it all came from the greco-roman world and then it was imposed upon you know african people and other non-european peoples this

is the this is the the idea um but but i think you know again a lot of this evidence We're seeing from christians in egypt uh which was part of the roman empire to be sure but even from independent you know nations like nubia and ethiopia or india or the persian empire uh to me clearly uh rebuts the idea that christianity is a is a white man's religion or in this context that it that it's an extension of the roman greco-roman empire um but that it was you know something that started in palestine um and

and you know started primarily with hebrews but then In acts two very quickly went in every direction it went and included romans uh but it also included a nubian in acts eight and it also included persians uh you know and it and and and you know so many and then at least by the third century it included indians in the subcontinent and so and this is all way before nicaea way before constantine but um i mean so anyway i would just love any other just yeah any thoughts you have on that about how we should

um you Know especially thinking about it in a committed context how many how we should think about this concept of you know that christianity is a white man's religion and just your you know your thoughts on that i really find that distressing honestly you know that that the black community would accept that uncritically because it it basically lets the white people win It lets the white supremacy win it rewrites the history of christianity to be something that only picked up values in the last 300 years it's it's it really bothers me um the reason you

know you talked about the people will define christianity as starting with constantine well the reason that they do that is because they've decided that constantine is White because constancine represents civilization in the roman empire and you know the official government religion um yes absolutely constantine is the person who is pretty much responsible for christianity becoming what he is now which is a global religion one wonders how far it would have gotten if that if the roman empire had gone in a different direction and had not Decided to adopt christianity as an official faith i mean

previous to that there were periods of time where they were killing christians lots and lots and lots of them and they had decided that christian christianity was a was a danger to the state um when christianity becomes the state everything changes that's absolutely true um but The modern understanding of whiteness and the definition of things as belonging to white people or not belonging to white people is only several hundred years old that's that's coming out of this 1600s coming on the 17th century idea like scientific racism the whole reason that that happens is because people

who are engaging in slavery of people coming from africa a number of Whom are actually christians because christianity was already in africa and had been there since the beginning they need to be able to morally justify what they're doing and so they have to figure out a way to make these people not people and so there's this very tortured sort of you know well only these people are actually human and everybody else isn't and and you know they're primitive and They don't know what they're doing and they need to be saved and they need to

be given you know and and not only does it become we need to impose our culture on them we need to impose our religion on them and so then yes there is absolutely a white supremacist christianity that is behind this and there is a white supremacist christianity that exists or maybe multiple again maybe multiple ones i Don't even know not something i study but it's something i notice um there are certainly christianities that are white men's religions but christianity as a whole is and i don't think it has to be and and i would argue

that the historical jesus and the people who founded that religion would be horrified the idea that that christianity belonged to any one group of people and that Everybody else was you know not not good enough to have it because that totally runs against the point christianity's whole entire approach in the beginning was that this is a religion of salvation for everyone and everyone is welcome that's why the roman state was scared of it i don't like the rest of their i mean they had a bunch of little savior cults going on you know you could

join a secret group and you Could get the special dispensation of a various you know various data like dionysus isis actually becomes that in rome you know her her worship from egypt changes into a celebific like a club basically you join a club you become a follower of isis you get isis protection this is the thing christianity is different from this christianity says no we're not going to be exclusive everybody can be a christian if they want to be all they Have to do is believe and so it it doesn't have any limits it can

get as big as it needs to get which makes sense because it teaches that it is for everyone i mean there's there's nothing in what christianity does that doesn't make sense according to its message until you get to a point where you start declaring that christianity is only for this group of people or only for that group people are only this way It's none yeah that's such a great point it really there's so again so many great points and it connects with actually another uh we had dr katherine gerberner on this podcast as well and

you know she makes a great point uh going into the like 17th and 18th centuries of you know of you know european uh so-called i call it So-called christian because i don't i don't call slave men human steelers christians um myself but you know uh so-called christian slavery um and it was so fascinating to see that there was actually these examples especially you know early on um where actually the europeans in the caribbean and north america were trying to stop black people from becoming christians because they actually that if they read the bible they would

understand that oh This thing says i could be free this thing says i'm supposed to be free except supposedly yeah and it's not so the 19th century like antebellum that you start to see this kind of argument oh christian is good for the slaves it keeps them you know civilized and so we need to impose it upon him but but actually for you know almost three centuries before that it's actually an attempt to like you know and there's this fascinating evidence of Christians of african slaves in the americas who are christians nonetheless and are actually

petitioning for their freedom and petitioning for their right to celebrate um you know the christian sacraments and and another great point you made that connects that i could not agree with more is that the the i mean the bible itself um refers to uh i mean it clearly teaches exactly what you're saying that that Christianity is not associated with any one religion and and if anything um i just had actually a friend of mine the new testament scholar the other day say this uh that that is that is perhaps maybe one of the single greatest

agendas of the entire new testament i mean if you look at the new testament the 27 books of the new testament over and over that is what the writers of the new testament are just so obsessed with of with with uh Communicating and just deeply concerned with is communicating the idea that was that was popular in the in the earliest years of christianity that oh this is a jewish thing and this is for for hebrew people only and all and peter and james and all of the early apostles are drilling it into the return no

it is not just for hebrews and you better get used to having these gentiles worshiping right next to you the people that acts 10 the people that we thought were Unclean actually they've been brought in to the household of god exactly like you said um you know it's for all people and the other thing that i think you know if we could just maybe um you know cover maybe two more quick questions um the other thing that i think you said is that exactly right that jesus uh not would be uh because jesus is alive

i believe and um and and jesus is horrified uh at the at the idea and that And yes the apostles and the early church i'm trying not to speak for him which is why yeah yeah yeah no no that's cool yeah i mean in the early church would i completely agree that ozil would be horrified because again that's what they fought to make clear in acts 10 and acts 15 this is for everyone it's not associated with one culture and it actually it's even in our theology to To incorporate to a degree there's a degree

to which we can incorporate i mean john calls jesus the logos that's not a hebrew concept that's not a he that's a that's a hellenistic concept so there's a degree of incorporation because we believe that that that god's presence and image is upon every human being and that the holy spirit has been speaking to all cultures so there are things in egyptian culture that are in agreement with with biblical teaching And and i mean a lot of the early egyptian christians use angst as crosses you know there's there's a there's an agreement there um and

certainly there's degrees to which we have you know that the early egyptian christians rejected a lot of what they did you know you read of pecomious uh you know kind of speaking against uh you know some of the egyptian practices and all that but um but there but that's that's the situation that we according to our Theology find ourselves in now that there that there should not be just one or another there shouldn't be a rejection of of our culture and our ancestry before we heard the gospel um but there also shouldn't be a wholesale

rejection or demonization of it but it's a both and process because we believe our cultures themselves are redeemed through jesus um and so and and and i mean and the problem though is that and the other thing too i mean we were Talking about white supremacy in christianity and white supremacists uh i didn't want to call it christianity but white supremacist christendom maybe we could say um is that there's a hypocrisy to it as well because there's a demonization of of african spirituality of indigenous spirituality um and and again there's some things about african spirituality

that as a believer i don't agree with but um but but there are a lot of things that are good i think Actually god's image is in it um and on the flip side there's all sorts of european pagan imagery in in dominant christianity and that just unquestioned like easter and and you know christmas trees and there's all kinds of things that come from european so-called pagan or traditional religion and we have no problem uh doing that but i mean you know if we if we instead of calling the resurrection sunday we call It easter

we call it by an anglo-saxon goddess we could just as easily call it horus or we could call it we could call it or you know we could we could call it a voodoo god and like that would be the same thing as calling it easter but everybody be like no no you can't do that i'm like well then why can't you call eastern yeah but there's a but there's a there's a flexibility to it to a degree um you Know that has to be critically and done for us has to be done according to

scripture and and the bis rot and the holy spirit but but again i just i just couldn't agree with you more that that yeah that the early church would be horrified at the state of thing that things have gotten to um and so i in li in line with that um i wonder uh you know if you know what what what do you think um what how would you feel that like um specifically an early egyptian Christian uh you know or and an early egyptian practitioner of traditional religion uh that how how would you like

how do you think that they would answer this the claims of modern comedic you know people saying christianity is you know it's a copy of egyptian religion it's a copy of horus and therefore it's it's illegitimate like how do you i mean of course we can't know you know you know but but just you know how do you think Based on your scholarship and uh you know what do you think they would say if they were in this conversation and seeing these youtube videos like how do you think they would respond to that i think

we actually can know how at least a few of them felt about it because because someone talked about it and some of them talked about it at length there is a lot of theological argument About origin and how much paganism influenced him or didn't and whether that was a good or bad thing um and clearly if if there's a controversy about that then there must be a difference between the things you know if you don't think of this pre-christian tradition as different from what you're doing you wouldn't have a problem with him having thoughts about

It or writing about it um in alexandria the uh the riots that you mentioned pagan temples get destroyed by groups of monks and you know and then groups of monks get attacked and returned by practitioners who are upset that that happens there's there's a back and forth that goes on for quite some time with various acts of violence of the various of the various groups of people against each other if it's the Same thing there doesn't that wouldn't happen it doesn't need to happen in the middle of egypt now this actually goes back to what

i was saying earlier about the temple of felix actually i'm glad you brought this up because i get to make the point that while yes at the temple of isis of feli they got along and they got along very well for a number of centuries that was not always the case in all parts of egypt and in some parts of egypt actually Christians and and polytheists did not get along at all and in fact they were actually warring with each other uh gives a whole lot of time in his letters to talk about how he

is personally going to destroy the temples in the town where his monastery is and goes out of his way and i mean it gets really graphic about how many things that he does to this man and to This man's temples and and he's very proud of this if he considered you know what that man was doing was the same as what he was doing that none of that would occur there would be no bragging there would be no attacks that you know none of that happens that it's very clear to these people that there's something

different i would argue that most of the difference comes from the christian side because the idea that christian is a Christianity as you mentioned earlier is exclusive now that you worship jesus that your focus is on jesus and jesus's message in the gospel um so there's not room in christianity for the other traditions whereas in the tradition if if somebody wanted to have an altered horse in their house and also an altar to jesus in their house that's their business no care you know because they're odds and You need to do what you need to

do with your guts i think that's the case with yes yes yes yeah there there are points where he goes to the temple and he tries to do stuff and chanuta totally blows that out of the water he's like no no you're so big and you're you're awful so it's the distinction is there and the decision comes out of the Christian theology i'm not passing a value judgment on that i really i really think that that is you know something that's between people and their god but it's there yeah and as a christian i'll pass

a value judgement i don't i do not i don't condone the violence that shadow was doing and um and or any christian i mean i didn't that wasn't when i wasn't passing it i'm not passing a judgment on How you decide which gods you worship or not that's what i mean i also think that what you were doing was pretty awful yeah yeah yeah but he was convinced that it was necessary right what he writes in his letters is that he thought theologically that what this man was doing was was demons and was satan and

he was bringing other people into evil and so it needed to be stopped and that you know that was his Justification yeah yeah well that that's that actually yeah just that um i mean i think on the one hand you know we can agree that that that the the unfortunate violence that happened you know oftentimes at the hands of the instigation of christians egyptian christians um that uh that on the one hand the fact that that was there disproves this idea that it was a copy Or seen as a copy in fact if anything this

tension uh and this and this distance that was there um you know oftentimes you know more pronounced by christians even more kind of i mean just that that rampant exclusivity and claimed exclusivity that could not be more different than traditional egyptian religion like that that's not you know a thing and so on the one hand that that tension um You know refutes the ideas and the claims of a lot of committed communities that oh they were all they you know it was a copy um and all that no no they were very distinct and saw

themselves that way but on the other hand it can be a cautionary tale for those of us that are christians and and and all of us really um you know the the negative examples of um sometimes the the violence that happened and so as we as we kind of bring it to a close i guess a Final um and i'd like you to just maybe close us out with some final words um about you know what what do you think maybe would be for today what some some tips or some suggestions or hopes that you

would have for how um you know in the black community but also more broadly as well in the white community as well that that christians and practitioners of traditional egyptian religion uh can can dialogue and and have conversations like this and and um You know and even disagree uh theologically or historically or whatever um but also that we can do that in a good way you know just what would be some closing thoughts you would have on on that well they these things are hard to put into english i think um well first of all

i don't i don't think either tradition Thinks that the that you know the creation and the deities sprang into being after the tradition right christianity christianity thinks that you know humans existed before christianity and therefore you know god must have created them um and and certainly the phranic religion also says that you know there was a time before time when the day the deities came together and decided to Make a world because they were lonely and they wanted to have friends um so there's there's always this idea that there's something higher and older than us

humans are not the height of things we might we might be the first children of the creator and we might have special responsibilities as humans towards creation but you know we are not the deities and And we shouldn't be trying to be following from that i think we have to remember what we have in common as created beings you know regardless of whether we think that you know the christian god created us or we created we think that you know martha created us or we think that apollo created us get you mounted to anything like

that however you are not comprehending that idea of creator That's something we have in common we we have in common that we believe that we were created it wasn't random we have in common that we were put into the creation for a reason and we we disagree on our instructions but that you know from the polytheistic standpoint that also makes sense we have the idea that everybody gets their own instructions depending on who they are um but So we're all creative beings we all have a purpose we all have a responsibility going further going further

than purpose we have a responsibility to be good in the creation and to not not leave it worse than we found it and you know whether that means we take care of animals we take care of people or we take care of climate or we take care of of our kids whatever that is for us you know every like i said a little bit Earlier than that everybody has instructions you have your divine instructions whether that's a gospel whether that's a prayer with it you know what you're supposed to be doing and i don't think

i think we all sat back and we and we you know went a step above the labels and the religious parts that we create to make sense of those instructions The instructions are divine how we interpret them is ours i don't i don't then this is probably somewhere where we may disagree i don't believe that christianity is all entirely coming straight from god and is not at all interpreted by people i think people are part of that process and to and to the extent that christianity and other religions are humanly created We have an obligation

to find places of commonality in order to figure out how to do what we've been put on the earth to do we're not going to be able to do that if we say oh well you know you're part of this other thing that's no good and and i can't and that kind of extends further out into the rest of the human sphere of these days it's like you're not nothing is going to change if we're all Going to sit in our own room and only talk to ourselves and people we like this is not this

is not how the world gets better this is not how we fix the problems that we have hiding from them declaring ourselves superior to them declaring ourselves you know this isn't my problem it's not my fault it doesn't matter the way that we solve the problems of the world that was created for us by the divine is together and in dialogue and We have to find the places that we can dialogue whatever they are it might not be everything it might we might ultimately have to say you know this is not a thing i can

do but one assumes that there are some things that we can do given that our religions have so many things in common there have got to be other things that we can do in common and and i would i for one would like to See more grace between life or just traditions not just these two but just to just sort of take a step back and remind ourselves you know hey these are also children of the creator [Music] yeah oh that's that's good stuff and i i definitely agree with you know a lot of That

um and i mean as as christians we definitely believe in grace so uh we're not we need to practice it more and like you said we can we can be up front about areas where we you know where we disagree um you know i believe jesus is the only god and the only one worthy of worship and and you know we we see that differently and we can we can be direct about that and honest about it but you know in a graceful and respectful you know and and even in the context of a Friendship

and and i think that um you know we uh we as christians need to get better at um you know really uh as showing that grace and that love i think sometimes we think that you know we you know we have to it's in our control but we christians understand that it's not our bis rod but it's jesus's bizrod and we're the uh we're the stewards and the proclaimers of it and i think about paul and areopagus who when he was engaging with practitioners Of of hellenistic religion you know you know he was very friendly

uh he was even affirming in areas where their religion agreed with the bible um with them and he also was invited into spaces that dialogue he didn't you know go in and you know tear up people's homes like shadow did and so uh you know we have we have our instructions here and so um so i agree with you and i hope that more people in our community and i just say that Because especially you know in the in the black men as much as i don't agree um not only with clearly with comedic uh

communities uh theology uh and their spiritual beliefs but also even in the in the in the black community community even people's historiography and as we both have shown that we don't agree with um but as much as i don't agree with those things i do think that um that we as black christians in the context of the black community um As christians we have a certain uh level of uh of privilege or social privilege or or dominance and i've heard stories from comedic african-american and other black comedic folks that have been um really discriminated against

and and um and treated badly by black christians and so yes you know we have to be faithful you know i'm you know as a black christian talking other black christians like we have to be faithful to the bis rod um and um and and all of That but we can do that with love and and with grace um and we are called to do that um and uh and because it's his this rod it's not it doesn't belong to us and exactly like you were saying it came before us and so um so again

i just um i really uh yeah i just i'm just agreeing with you but uh i just appreciate this time i wish we i feel like we could just talk all day and check out and also uh try to try to you know fix the world's problems but but i Just um i just appreciate dr sue to you coming on and before we before we dismiss um i just wanted to also ask if there was any um maybe things that you're doing things you're working on or just any ways that the audience can continue to

follow what the work your research are doing uh just anything you want to plug or or just ways people can stay connected with you um oh that's a good question i i actually do i have a patreon Where i every day i give out uh the dates and the religious holidays and the background of the egyptian calendar um which people find interesting and i also offer lessons in things like learning how to read hieroglyphs or or studying the wisdom literature which is the ethical text that we have and i also have an apprenticeship in ancient

egyptian magic for people are interested in that it's not it's not a Class it's actually a one-on-one training um i do that my temple is open to anybody who's interested in being part of it i'm not making a point very firm point this is something that you and i have separately we don't proselytize this is not we are not there is nothing in our tradition that says that we should witness or that people should join us so I'm saying that that thing exists but i'm not trying to get converts that's not what i'm doing um

but folks are welcome to come and learn and absolutely we actually have a there's a message form that's open that has several thousand members at this point and and people come to lots of different backgrounds and talk about all Kinds of things that have to do with ancient egypt and not just the religions that's the thing that does um i'm working on a book currently the manuscript is actually due at the end of june which is an encyclopedia of ancient egyptian deities called it's currently called 100 gods of egypt i don't know if we're going

to keep that title but that's what they're calling it um there Are actually more than 100 gods so that's why i'm not sure we're going to keep it and that should be out depending on depending on how long it takes to get edited and printed it'll be out you know the end of the year beginning of next year something like that i'm still working on getting my dissertation published um that's that's a problem that's a Process in progress so there's lots going on um wow well i might have to personally hit you up on those

hieroglyphic classes man that's because man i need i got the coptic but i need to go back and and see the connections there so i'm yeah um oh great yeah it helps learn learning how your bliss helps the coptic a whole lot oh man when people learn coptic they get told that it's so many percentage of Greek which it is it has lots of great long words but the entire grammar of it is hieroglyphic and if you come at it if you come at it from the hieroglyphic side it makes a lot more sense than

it does if you come back so a little bit more complicated because the script lots more letters oh man i'm i'm man i'm i'm i'm i'm geeking out already Man thank you again uh dr suda so much and again i just man i i could keep talking but um but we hopefully we can have you back again and and talk about more topics about early african christianity and civilizations in general but again thank you so much for being here uh we really appreciate it okay thanks yeah all right all right everybody well um Uh thank

you so much for tuning in um i was blessed by that uh again we talked about um you know a lot of uh you know we i think we've shown from different religious perspectives um but also as mutual scholars that again uh christianity is not a copy of egyptian religion the two were distinct uh have always been and in fact that's not even the way people thought about it um and part of that proof of that is that there was a lot of Tension uh but um at the same time you know there was um

some of that was really done in a bad way so uh it's really a blessing to be able to sit and talk with um a fellow image bearer uh of of the lord and um and also a fellow scholar and we can have respectful uh fruitful dialogue and so it's not even just um about the the knowledge and the resources but it's also about how we go about it and the spirit of about it and being faithful to the bishop and also Loving our neighbor and our fellow immigrants so it's uh such a blessing to

be able to have a a fruitful conversation and i hope folks will continue to in grace and in honesty and truth continue these conversations in our community um and so definitely um definitely follow the work of dr suda you can actually connect and learn more about her religious community uh at uh commet kmkemet.org Uh and also at netjairnetjer.org and then also you can follow some of her uh historical and language resources at patreon p-a-t-r-e-o-n dot com uh forward slash uh t suda t-s-i-u-d-a so definitely connect uh more and learn more about the um our our

neighbors uh in our community and connect and learn um and uh and um and and be a living witness of the bis rod in all these communities so uh and also Of course always continue to follow the uh all the work and ministry of the ju3 project uh and also the bizrod podcast this is one episode we have many more coming uh where we are going to continue to discuss uh various topics relevant to early african christianity so that we can continue to equip the black church and the black community to uh to proclaim the

bis rot in our community in word and indeed and so thank you so much again for being with us in this Conversation uh and we will see you on the next one and i will say today i'll use the egyptian word for god which is nuda and i will say to all of you nuda bless you all amen