There are some incredibly important points to this next look at the time period of Abraham in Egypt. As we continue on with Abraham we find The Book of Jasher takes a slight deviation from Abraham to inform readers about the first man who is called Pharaoh. Interestingly he comes under Osiris’ reign. Because of his wisdom and cunning, he started taxing the families of the dead before they could put them in the sepulcher. At the time King Osiris, found out about Rikayon, Abraham was experiencing a famine in Canaan. Abraham moved his family to Egypt and lived there five years before Sarah was taken from him. Josephus mentions that Abraham wanted to know about their religion, if they had any more knowledge of the gods, or if he could teach them. Josephus goes on to say that he did teach them about astronomy and math, but Abraham taught them much more.
Jasher 14:1 In those days there was in the land of Shinar a wise man who had understanding in all wisdom, and of a beautiful appearance, but he was poor and indigent; his name was Rikayon and he was hard set to support himself.2 And he resolved to go to Egypt, to Oswiris the son of Anom king of Egypt, to show the king his wisdom; for perhaps he might find grace in his sight, to raise him up and give him maintenance; and Rikayon did so.3 And when Rikayon came to Egypt he asked the inhabitants of Egypt concerning the king, and the inhabitants of Egypt told him the custom of the king of Egypt, for it was then the custom of the king of Egypt that he went from his royal palace and was seen abroad only one day in the year, and after that the king would return to his palace to remain there.4 And on the day when the king went forth he passed judgment in the land, and every one having a suit came before the king that day to obtain his request.5 And when Rikayon heard of the custom in Egypt and that he could not come into the presence of the king, he grieved greatly and was very sorrowful.6 And in the evening Rikayon went out and found a house in ruins, formerly a bake house in Egypt, and he abode there all night in bitterness of soul and pinched with hunger, and sleep was removed from his eyes.7 And Rikayon considered within himself what he should do in the town until the king made his appearance, and how he might maintain himself there.8 And he rose in the morning and walked about, and met in his way those who sold vegetables and various sorts of seed with which they supplied the inhabitants.9 And Rikayon wished to do the same in order to get a maintenance in the city, but he was unacquainted with the custom of the people, and he was like a blind man among them. 10 And he went and obtained vegetables to sell them for his support, and the rabble assembled about him and ridiculed him, and took his vegetables from him and left him nothing.11 And he rose up from there in bitterness of soul, and went sighing to the bake house in which he had remained all the night before, and he slept there the second night.12 And on that night again he reasoned within himself how he could save himself from starvation, and he devised a scheme how to act.13 And he rose up in the morning and acted ingeniously, and went and hired thirty strong men of the rabble, carrying their war instruments in their hands, and he led them to the top of the Egyptian sepulchre, and he placed them there.14 And he commanded them, saying, Thus saith the king, Strengthen yourselves and be valiant men, and let no man be buried here until two hundred pieces of silver be given, and then he may be buried; and those men did according to the order of Rikayon to the people of Egypt the whole of that year.15 And in eight months time Rikayon and his men gathered great riches of silver and gold, and Rikayon took a great quantity of horses and other animals, and he hired more men, and he gave them horses and they remained with him.16 And when the year came round, at the time the king went forth into the town, all the inhabitants of Egypt assembled together to speak to him concerning the work of Rikayon and his men.17 And the king went forth on the appointed day, and all the Egyptians came before him and cried unto him, saying,18 May the king live forever. What is this thing thou doest in the town to thy servants, not to suffer a dead body to be buried until so much silver and gold be given? Was there ever the like unto this done in the whole earth, from the days of former kings yea even from the days of Adam, unto this day, that the dead should not be buried only for a set price?19 We know it to be the custom of kings to take a yearly tax from the living, but thou dost not only do this, but from the dead also thou exactest a tax day by day.20 Now, O king, we can no more bear this, for the whole city is ruined on this account, and dost thou not know it?21 And when the king heard all that they had spoken he was very wroth, and his anger burned within him at this affair, for he had known nothing of it.22 And the king said, Who and where is he that dares to do this wicked thing in my land without my command? Surely you will tell me.23 And they told him all the works of Rikayon and his men, and the king's anger was aroused, and he ordered Rikayon and his men to be brought before him.24 And Rikayon took about a thousand children, sons and daughters, and clothed them in silk and embroidery, and he set them upon horses and sent them to the king by means of his men, and he also took a great quantity of silver and gold and precious stones, and a strong and beautiful horse, as a present for the king, with which he came before the king and bowed down to the earth before him; and the king, his servants and all the inhabitants of Egypt wondered at the work of Rikayon, and they saw his riches and the present that he had brought to the king.25 And it greatly pleased the king and he wondered at it; and when Rikayon sat before him the king asked him concerning all his works, and Rikayon spoke all his words wisely before the king, his servants and all the inhabitants of Egypt.26 And when the king heard the words of Rikayon and his wisdom, Rikayon found grace in his sight, and he met with grace and kindness from all the servants of the king and from all the inhabitants of Egypt, on account of his wisdom and excellent speeches, and from that time they loved him exceedingly.27 And the king answered and said to Rikayon, Thy name shall no more be called Rikayon but Pharaoh shall be thy name, since thou didst exact a tax from the dead; and he called his name Pharaoh.28 And the king and his subjects loved Rikayon for his wisdom, and they consulted with all the inhabitants of Egypt to make him prefect under the king.29 And all the inhabitants of Egypt and its wise men did so, and it was made a law in Egypt. 30 And they made Rikayon Pharaoh prefect under Oswiris king of Egypt, and Rikayon Pharaoh governed over Egypt, daily administering justice to the whole city, but Oswiris the king would judge the people of the land one day in the year, when he went out to make his appearance.31 And Rikayon Pharaoh cunningly usurped the government of Egypt, and he exacted a tax from all the inhabitants of Egypt.32 And all the inhabitants of Egypt greatly loved Rikayon Pharaoh, and they made a decree to call every king that should reign over them and their seed in Egypt, Pharaoh.33 Therefore all the kings that reigned in Egypt from that time forward were called Pharaoh unto this day.
Meanwhile Jubilees writes:
Abram with Lot in Canaan and Egypt (cf. Gen. xii. 4-20).
XIII. And Abram journeyed from Haran, and he took Sarai, his wife, and Lot his brother Haran's son, to the land of Canaan, and he came into †Asshur†, and proceeded to Shechem, and dwelt near a lofty oak. 2. And he saw, and, behold, the land was very pleasant from the entering of Hamath to the lofty oak. . And the Lord said to him: "To thee and to thy seed will I give this land." 4. And he built an altar there, and he offered thereon a burnt sacrifice to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 5. And he removed from thence unto the mountain . . . 3 Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and pitched his tent there. 6. And he saw and behold, the land was very wide and good, and everything grew thereon--vines and figs and pomegranates, oaks and ilexes, and terebinths and oil trees, and cedars and cypresses and date trees, and all trees of the field, and there was water on the mountains. 7. And he blessed the Lord who had led him out of Ur of the Chaldees, and had brought him to this land. 8. And it came to pass in the first year, in the seventh week, on the new moon of the first month, that he built an altar on this mountain, and called on the name of the Lord: "Thou, the eternal God, art my God." 9. And he offered on the altar a burnt sacrifice unto the Lord that He should be with him and not forsake him all the days of his life. 10. And he removed from thence and went towards the south, and he came to Hebron, and Hebron was built at, that time, and he dwelt there two years, and he went (thence) into the land of the south, to Bealoth 2 and there was a famine in the land. 11. And Abram went into Egypt in the third year of the week, and he dwelt in Egypt five years before his wife was torn away from him. 12. NOW Tanais in Egypt was at that time built--seven years after Hebron. 11 And it came to pass when Pharaoh seized Sarai, the wife of Abram, that the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife. 14. And Abram was very glorious by reason of possessions in sheep, and cattle, and asses, and horses, and camels, and menservants, and maidservants, and in silver and gold exceedingly. And Lot also, his brother's son, was wealthy. 15. And Pharaoh gave back Sarai, the wife of Abram, and he sent him out of the land of Egypt, and he journeyed to the place where he had pitched his tent at the beginning, to the place of the altar, with Ai on the east, and Bethel on the west, and he blessed the Lord his God who had brought him back in peace. 16. And it came to pass in the forty-first jubilee, in the third year of the first week, that he returned to this place and offered thereon a burnt sacrifice, and called on the name of the Lord, and said: "Thou, the most high God, art my God for ever and ever."
CHAPTER 8.
THAT WHEN THERE WAS A FAMINE IN CANAAN, ABRAM WENT THENCE INTO EGYPT; AND AFTER HE HAD CONTINUED THERE A WHILE HE RETURNED BACK AGAIN.
1. NOW, after this, when a famine had invaded the land of Canaan, and Abram had discovered that the Egyptians were in a flourishing condition, he was disposed to go down to them, both to partake of the plenty they enjoyed, and to become an auditor of their priests, and to know what they said concerning the gods; designing either to follow them, if they had better notions than he, or to convert them into a better way, if his own notions proved the truest. Now, seeing he was to take Sarai with him, and was afraid of the madness of the Egyptians with regard to women, lest the king should kill him on occasion of his wife's great beauty, he contrived this device : - he pretended to be her brother, and directed her in a dissembling way to pretend the same, for he said it would be for their benefit. Now, as soon as he came into Egypt, it happened to Abram as he supposed it would; for the fame of his wife's beauty was greatly talked of; for which reason Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, would not be satisfied with what was reported of her, but would needs see her himself, and was preparing to enjoy her; but God put a stop to his unjust inclinations, by sending upon him a distemper, and a sedition against his government. And when he inquired of the priests how he might be freed from these calamities, they told him that this his miserable condition was derived from the wrath of God, upon account of his inclinations to abuse the stranger's wife. He then, out of fear, asked Sarai who she was, and who it was that she brought along with her. And when he had found out the truth, he excused himself to Abram, that supposing the woman to be his sister, and not his wife, he set his affections on her, as desiring an affinity with him by marrying her, but not as incited by lust to abuse her. He also made him a large present in money, and gave him leave to enter into conversation with the most learned among the Egyptians; from which conversation his virtue and his reputation became more conspicuous than they had been before. 2. For whereas the Egyptians were formerly addicted to different customs, and despised one another's sacred and accustomed rites, and were very angry one with another on that account, Abram conferred with each of them, and, confuting the reasonings they made use of, every one for their own practices, demonstrated that such reasonings were vain and void of truth: whereupon he was admired by them in those conferences as a very wise man, and one of great sagacity, when he discoursed on any subject he undertook; and this not only in understanding it, but in persuading other men also to assent to him. He communicated to them arithmetic, and delivered to them the science of astronomy; for before Abram came into Egypt they were unacquainted with those parts of learning; for that science came from the Chaldeans into Egypt, and from thence to the Greeks also.
First, let’s look at the King and Pharaoh. The King at that time was Osiris. You may remember the legends of Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Osiris was King when Abraham moved to Egypt. Abraham brought the teachings and knowledge of the stars to Egypt. We know that prior to Abraham, the Egyptians were already mummifying their dead in anticipation to a resurrection. How did they know about that? The Egyptians were primarily the sons of Ham, it is obvious that that knowledge was passed down to them from their forefathers, but Abraham throws a twist into their understanding. He adds the knowledge of the stars, the entire plan for God’s redemption for mankind is written in the stars. The Chaldeans had this knowledge, and Rikayon probably knew of these teachings as Abraham, Noah, and Shem all lived in the region. Abraham may have moved from Ur before Rikayon knew him personally or Rikayon may have moved before Abraham was thrown in the fire, but remember Abraham taught everyone about God while he was in Ur. Some knowledge of God’s redemptive plan was known from the time of Noah, Shem, and Ham but it may not have continued being taught until Abraham brought the knowledge back to Ur. If we remember Nimrod started to change things by introducing idols.
Somehow the parallels of the Egyptian myths and the bible story of Jesus’ anticipated birth are very close; in fact there are many comparative studies that people have done wondering how the stories from these two cultures could be so similar. Abraham was in Egypt five years before Rikayon took Sarah. He did a lot of teaching, but unfortunately some of it got a bit twisted. The people believed in a savior and made the story fit Osiris Isis and Horus. Once the people knew what was written in the stars, as Abraham taught them, it would have been easy to anticipate the events and apply them to the time they were in. Once Abraham left Egypt and Osiris died, the myths and mythology could easily have started. Mixing up of the heavenly events with their own previous King would have been understood as honorable to a King that the people admired so greatly. We do that today. The knowledge of the stars already in Chaldea, the Mesopotamia region between the Persian Gulf and the Euphrates, is why scholars think that this story was known and the god of the dead worshiped prior to Osiris’ actual existence. They were already preparing the dead for resurrection in their burials as we saw from Rikayon’s story.
Another point to look at is that Abraham taught the knowledge of the stars to the Egyptians. If we look at the star knowledge the Egyptians had we can see that the stars and the constellation names represent the story of the coming messiah, but as previously mentioned the Chaldeans had the understanding as well. I have to wonder, if people in several lands had this knowledge, Chaldea, Haran, Canaan, Egypt, then is it possible that there were other believers in God living at this time? I think our narrow view of the bible is that Noah was a believer in God and Abraham was a believer in God, but there weren’t any other people in the world that believed in God until we get to Isaac. I have to re-think my old perspective on this as there were people everywhere in the places Abraham lived that learned about God and his plan for redemption. If people in these places were expecting a Savior is it then possible that stories of the coming Messiah and redemption got misconstrued and applied to others in those particular places? Could this be why we find stories in every culture around the globe about a virgin giving birth to one who saves the world? Jesus is the one foretold of as he was the only one who fulfilled all the prophecies about him. In hindsight we can see that the list of other purported virgin births do not fulfilled the rest of the requirements of a Savior. Roman Emperor Augustus, Krishna, Dionysus, Buddah, Hertha, Frigga, Attis, Danae, Melanippe, Auge and Antiope all are stories of virgin births. Even later every roman Ceaser had decided that they were virgin born as well, long before Jesus was born. We can see the devil did a good job of confusing the coming Messiah’s birth. But again, as I’ve pointed out in a previous blog, if it is written in the stars it cannot be changed.
Rikayon defiled the priesthood by now taxing the dead. In Egypt the people were originally taught by the priesthood that to enter the afterlife your heart had to be as light as a feather. This idea was known and shown in pictures to remind people to live well, and be light hearted. Depicted in pictures by a heart on one side of a balance, and a feather on the other side, the heart was shown lighter or higher than the feather. This was their reminder on how to live. About seven hundred years later Akhenaten, the father of King Tut, had a very corrupt priesthood in the kingdom, where the priests were selling small dolls to the people, telling them if they bought enough dolls and their hearts were lighter than all the dolls, they could go into the afterlife. So the Egyptians went from telling people to live light hearted, to making people pay to entomb the dead, to selling dolls to pay their way into the afterlife. That is distortion and corruption.
One interesting side note is that there appears to be some papyrus hieroglyphs’ thought to be the book of Abraham that Joseph Smith bought. But as I looked at what I could find regarding it I had some contentions with the commentary. I don’t believe that Abraham was building pyramids in Egypt as firstly he was not there long enough and secondly the pyramids surmised to have been built by him are dated thousands of years before him. Also the logical expectation would be that there would be pyramids built in Chaldea, Haran, and Canaan as well. It was truly too hard to determine what was written and what was conjecture so I have left this aspect of Abraham un-researched.
Abraham taught the people about God but because there wasn’t a printing press, mass producing bibles, there was no way for the information not to get corrupted. Because Abraham was charged with telling people about God, it is safe to recognize that the people could have heard and learned about God from Abraham, but once he left Egypt, the people would have had to pass on the knowledge they had to the next generation. If the knowledge gets watered down or misconstrued, it gets passed along as misinformation. Then we have another problem, which is how do we not only instruct people to have a personal relationship with God, but how do we cultivate that in the lives of others? It is very difficult to teach others to have a personal relationship with God, and if someone doesn’t want to actively pursue that relationship with God, then there is nothing that can be done on their behalf. That is the charge of the Melchizedek priesthood to us, developing a personal relationship with God. Now we can see the need for the law of Moses, as more and more people came to know God, a written group of rules and regulations led people as close as they could get to God. Then they needed to cultivate their own personal relationship with Him. However as we pointed out in a previous blog Jesus fulfilled the Levitical law and is a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. Since we have really never been taught what the Melchizedek priesthood entailed we have to study the origins of people’s relationship with God like Noah and Abraham. We sum up this look at Egypt with the understanding that even though Abraham could teach the Egyptians about the stars and about God’s plan to redeem mankind, the people themselves had to individually have a personal relationship with God.
End Notes
Osiris
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris
