History

Where did the Egyptians Get the idea of Reincarnation?

by Maurice A. Williams
10/21/22
Free to Share
Author requests article critique

  Message Writer
  Hire Writer

Tweet

Strange that the Egyptians got the idea that they could regain life after death if they practiced the elaborate skills of embalming the dead. Where did this idea come from? The Egyptians were one of the first peoples to build civilizations with huge cities after God created human beings. I contend that they remembered that God at first created human beings to be immortal and our first parents lost immortality when they disobeyed and ate the fruit.

Egyptian Civilization

Everybody knows that the world’s first truly civilized society, Egypt, believed in some form of resurrection. Their religious expectations caused them to go to extremes to prepare themselves for a better life in the next world. Where did they pick up this idea of reincarnation?

I searched The Internet to see if our scientific community had any teaching about it. I couldn’t find a scientist or Egyptologist who linked resurrection to Genesis where Scripture plainly reveals that Adam and Eve knew they were created to be immortal and lost immortality because they listened to Satan and disobeyed God.

When searching for the opinions of Egyptologists on reincarnation, the following passage is typical of what I found: “If cellular transmission is the all sufficient explanation, materialism is inevitable, and there is no necessity for the theory of the soul. If it is not a sufficient explanation, the theory of an individual soul bringing into this life the experiences of the past is absolutely true. There is no escape from the alternative, reincarnation or materialism. Which shall we accept?” It looks to me like; some Egyptologists are unable to take a position on this issue.

I found many articles claiming that devils and resurrection are based upon fables not reality. Modern research into near death experiences leads some scientists to reconsider their opinions about death. “For millennia, death was considered irreversible, and nothing could restore life, etc.” Here again, scientists, Egyptologists, evolutionists, anthropologists, virtually all of them, have no teaching on spiritual beings or on resurrection.

But the descendants of Adam and Eve would have known about what happened to their parents. It would have become folklore stemming from Adam and Eve’s sad experience of disobeying God. Why have so few scientists or Egyptologists recognized this? Not only Egyptians believed in resurrection; people in India and China believed it. Some Native American tribes believed it, even Eskimos believed it. Probably most races of man believe it. I certainly believe it because I believe Genesis.

Egyptologists

Ancient Egyptians buried their dead with the hope that their dead would rise immortal in the next life. We also bury our dead with the same hope. The next life won’t happen until this present world ends when God will raise every human being He created and judge them. The righteous will enter the kingdom of heaven with resurrected bodies, and the wicked will be confined in hell, also with resurrected bodies.

Egyptians, being human, are descendants of Adam and Eve and will share in the resurrection along with the rest of us. Has anyone reading this article ever been interested in Nefertiti or King Tut? Did it ever occur to you that you might one day meet them? That is, if both you and they wind up in God’s heavenly kingdom? Did you ever offer a prayer for the repose of their souls, like Blessed Mother encourages us to pray for all departed souls?

If they were not wicked enough to deserve hell, their souls have already experienced the first resurrection which the Church teaches happens immediately after death together with our particular judgment (CCC, 1022). They would have met Christ when He descended into hell and rescued all the righteous that were awaiting the resurrection, as He promised the good thief when He told him: “This day you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

The Spiritual World

When God created the angels, there was nothing else in existence except God. They are His first-born. There was no physical universe nor even the laws that govern the physical universe. Angels are pure spirits, just like God. They exist in the spiritual realm and do not need a physical body to do anything. They were all created at the same time. At one moment there was only God. In the next instant, a multitude of angels along with God.

Angels came into existence with full capacity of mind and will. They did not have to grow up and mature as physical creatures do. I’m sure they all knew they suddenly came into existence, and I’m sure – because of their great intelligences – they all wondered why and how they suddenly appeared out of nothing.

God identified Himself to them and gave them a situation to test their willingness to submit themselves to His will. Nobody knows exactly what that test was, although the Fathers of the Church had several plausible ideas based on the types of sins angels would have committed (pride, envy, greed). The evidence of scripture, however, is that one-third of them refused submission to God (Revelation 12:4).

Our spiritual nature is like that of angels but of a lower level because we are bound to the flesh. My point in this entire essay is that we never hear of any acknowledgement of our spiritual nature from the scientific community and those who control our culture. Instead, we hear all kinds of explanations about how human consciousness, human religious beliefs, human personhood simply evolved very slowly as our physical nature evolved.

But this is contrary to common sense let alone religious faith. Humans have a deep-seated longing to be united to God and to be in harmony with God and the rest of creation. All of this stems from our spiritual nature. I do not accept the speculation that our spiritual nature is nothing more than highly evolved physical nature.

Looking At This in More Detail

It seems very logical to me that Adam and Eve were created fully human when God breathed a spirit into them. They were able to commune with God right away. He warned them that they could eat from every tree except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This was undoubtedly a test to see how willing they were to obey God.

Lucifer right away seduced them. They must have known that they were immortal, because God told them that the punishment for disobeying was death. As an element of their punishment, God added exile into a world already compromised by the revolt of the devils where all humans would thereafter have to earn their food by the sweat of their brow. Contrary to Darwin, humans were able to speak with God, and they were tempted by devils from the beginning.

Back to Egypt

As we noted above, the first civilized empire humans built was Egypt. Early humans began gathering along the Nile River about sixty-five hundred years ago. Around nine hundred years later, the Egyptians had already established the Old Kingdom and built huge pyramids. By then they had learned much about the wandering of planets and the constellations of the night sky, and they developed engineering skills to build massive buildings. They also developed a written language and left a fairly detailed record of their civilization.

Being tempted by devils, however, they presumed the sun and planets were gods and worshipped them. Where did they get the intelligence to perceive these things and to accomplish the skills they developed so quickly? Such intelligence is innate to the human person. It is one of the God-given gifts of our spiritual nature.

Contrary to Darwinism, humans did not experience a slow progression from brute animals finally becoming human after thousands of years of evolution. Apes, on the other hand, have been on earth for several million years, and not a single ape, even today, thinks the planets are gods. And they don’t worship anything.

I think Darwinism made the mistake of trying to fit all forms of life: angels, devils, and human beings into the constraints of materialistic Darwinism. Spiritual beings obviously do not fit into this category.

Longing For Immortality

The punishment for defying God must have broken the hearts of Adam and Eve, losing immortality and being exiled into this world, so corrupted by the sin of devils and humans. I’m sure they told their children all about it, and their offspring had to wait thousands of years before God provided a permanent remedy for it in Christ. No wonder the Egyptians and so many other humans spent so much time and effort trying to regain immortality. They wanted some permanency in their lives. They wanted to rise again and live forever.

That’s what the Egyptians wanted. That’s what all humans want. There is only one way to get it. We don’t have to carve gigantic tombs within mountains or build impressive megalithic temples.

Conclusion

I had no idea, when I first started defending my conviction of God’s authentic revelation, that our culture is so steeped in denial of God’s revelation.

My concluding challenge to my readers is this: Are you able to recognize that the evil one is still trying to seduce humans to reject the very simple conditions God has placed in order for you and everyone else to achieve union with God and gain immortality in His heavenly kingdom?

All anyone has to do is believe God’s revelation, choose to love God and obey Him. And God will do the rest.