Did the Ancient Egyptians Prophecy the Death and Resurrection of Christ?

Author’s note: This article should be read with a pinch of salt, and with an openness to imaginative interpretation. The syncretisms discussed here—meaning the blending, overlap, or merging of religious ideas, symbols, and figures across different cultures—may suggest an early, proto-monotheistic form that later influenced Abrahamic religions. These parallels can resemble prefigurations of Christ found in various mythologies and pagan traditions. However, similar patterns also appear within the explicitly polytheistic culture of ancient Egypt, a tradition defined by many gods and diverse, sometimes contradictory beliefs. For this reason, these connections should be approached with curiosity and a light heart, free from rigid dogma, while also keeping in mind the biblical phrase, “Out of Egypt I called my son” (Matthew 2:15).

The most famous of Egyptian periods just happens to be the one that contains the Exodus, the 18^th dynasty. And the most famous religious artefact and depiction, from this the most famous of periods, is the Egyptian conceptualization of life and death, judgement and eschatology. What is known as “the weighing of the heart”.

The scenario is pretty straight forward: the deceased subject is led to a scale upon which the symbolic heart, one’s deeds, thoughts and intentions, are weighed against the equally symbolic weight of a feather. If the feather is outweighed by sins and deeds, then the further passage is shut; if they weigh less than the feather, the road continues towards the seated king, Osiris, and a latter, more private chamber. This is the general interpretation, that the scenario is an outlined eschatology for all individuals and, in simple terms, how the Egyptians looked at what happens after death. But what if there is more to this than meets the eye?

Let’s begin with a wild speculation but also, a somewhat informed one. Because if it now deals with death and resurrection, then what do we have in the Catholic faith that tells the same story? What if the scenario of the “weighing of the heart” is a reference to the cave and the crucifixion of Christ, his death and resurrection? What if the subject that is led through the obstacles and events is not just any individual, but a prophecy of Christ Jesus himself? Let’s take a look.

Begin from the top of the image, at what seems to be a row of people sitting in a rudimentary chronological order. Fourteen, to be precise, sitting in what seems as a descending or latter order towards one ancestral figure. A genealogical number not all too strange to a Christian narrative. As a matter of fact, the reference to fourteen generations is quite explicit and clear, as seen in the Genealogy of Jesus in Matthew: “Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah (Matthew 1:17).”

The predisposition of this genealogy, that it sits above the ceremonial scenario, might point to the fact that it claims the actual scenario itself: it is the premise of the whole thing, the ingress, if you will. In other words, if we are to look at the rest of the image, we might need to see it through the lens of genealogy. Furthermore, Osiris himself, just as Christ was the fourteenth generation, is said to have been separated into fourteen different dismembered pieces. Then before Isis, the Egyptian way of depicting Mary, manages to put him together again: before he after fourteen generations or “pieces” is incarnated in one piece or body again by his mother, Mary.

The fourteenth generational deceased is then led to a scale. Next to the scale stands Thot, also known as the “bull of the sky”. In Christian terminology, the scale is what symbolizes the Omega and the bull that oversees the scale would symbolize the Alfa: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” (Revelations 22:13). In the chart of Egyptian and subsequently Western astrology, the Omega represents the sign of libra, and the Alfa represents the sign of taurus. Which is relevant in terms of a birth chart. Even in the Tibetan version of The Book of the Dead, the Alfa or bull oversees the scales. Moving on.

By the scales we then have this strange little figure: a crocodile with weird, almost anthropomorphic features. But the latter is not due to simple artistic inability, no, it is actually supposed to be a crocodile-lion-hippo, hence its strange appearance. However, let’s not dwell too much on that. Here the crocodile is the only blatantly relevant aspect of the creature, then in the context of Jesus. This for the simple reason that the word for crocodile in ancient Egyptian mdw ntr is either mûs-hus or msch, a predecessor to the Hebrew word Mashiach, in its turn the ancestral form of the word Messiah. So, why this specific animal?

Well, at first glance, crocodiles seem to have this special quality to them: they are seemingly somewhat eternal. Crocodiles die because of starvation, injuries, lack of water or space. But left in the right conditions, theoretically, a crocodile has the biological potential to basically live forever. Which is of course not the case, eventually all crocodiles die, but as a biological creature in the flesh they come pretty close. They also embody a dual nature, as both protectors of the life-giving waters of the Nile, and as destroyers. So, what animal better to symbolize the eternal nature of Christ the Messiah, an eternal redeemer and warrior, than a crocodile? Making the colloquial image into an eternal symbol sitting next to a set of scales. Scales, which in Egyptian mythology, represented two truths expressed in one. Not unlike the two truths of the Son and the Father, or the two truths of both God and man coming together as one through the birth of Christ.

The subject of a sinless heart, someone without sin, then moves on towards the royal throne. There sits Osiris, right between Mary and Mary Magdalene, Isis and Nephthys, as the embodiment of libra or Omega, the end. Astrology then tells us that this is just that, Omega or libra, the O in the “Alfa and Omega”, seeing Osiris sits between the Virgin Mary, virgo, and the Mary Magdalene, scorpio. Just like libra in an astrological chart. Furthermore, he bears the epithet “King of the dead”, due to overcoming death. Not unlike Christ, with epithets like “firstborn from the dead”, “the son of the dead”, “The Resurrection and the Life”, “He who overcomes death” and so on: a royal epithet concerning death and resurrection. And when so, when deceased, resurrected and established as ruler – just as in the context of the biblical crucifixion and resurrection, he is again also joined by Mary and Mary Magdalene. Both who, in their turn, get their names from the Egyptian Maryamon, who later became Miriam and subsequently Mary.

In conclusion: the similarities do seem to accumulate, pointing towards a scenario and contextualization of the birth, death and Resurrection of Christ. At least if we allow ourselves to be a bit romantic. Ergo: could the imagery of “the weighing of the heart” represent the Egyptian way—within the narrative framework of their era—of depicting this emerging story? Could the scales, essentially a cross, have been their way of conceptualizing what the Christian tradition explicates as the Crucifixion? Seeing the latter is on the historical, not prophetically assuming, side of it? Was the Crucifixion the “weighing of the heart” for Christ Jesus Himself? To see if he, God, could keep his heart light as a feather, even in the obvious horror of his circumstances, and forgive humanity for all their sins.

In other words: did Christ Jesus come to pass the weighing of the heart for us all? And is the seated variation of him, the king, the Messiah fourteen generations after the exile or a more far reaching prophecy, a second coming?