The Egyptian Heaven and Hell: Volumes I, II & III (Forgotten Books) Paperback – January 12, 2008

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Ernest A. Wallis Budge has been stricken from the history of and ridiculed by Egyptology because he committed the heresy of saying that the founders of Ancient Egypt were of African origin (this is especially obvious in the Pre-Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods, which is why most Egyptologists tend to show the public things from the Middle Kingdom on up, to obscure this fact), specifically In his "001: Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, Vol. 1 Paperback – October 5, 2011" 001: Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, Vol. 1The following is from the Preface:" The Chapters printed in these volumes are the result of a study undertaken with the object of attempting todiscover the source of the fundamental beliefs of the indigenous Religion of Ancient Egypt, to trace theirdevelopment through a period of some two score centuries, and to ascertain what were the foreigninfluences which first modified Egyptian beliefs then checked their growth, and finally overthrew them.There is no doubt that the beliefs examined herein are of indigenous origin, Nilotic or Sudani in the broadestsignification of the word and I have endeavored to explain those which cannot be elucidated in any otherway, by the evidence which is afforded by the Religions of the modern peoples who live 'on the great rivers ofEast, West, and Central Africa. The central figure of the ancient Egyptian Religion was Osiris and the chieffundamentals of his cult were the belief in his divinity, death, resurrection, and absolute control of the destiniesof the bodies and souls of men. The central point of each Osirian's Religion was his hope of resurrection in atransformed body and of immortality, which could only be realized by him through the death and resurrection ofOsiris. I have therefore made Osiris, and the beliefs which grew up under his cult, the central considerationof this inquiry, and have grouped about the history of the god the facts in modern African Religions which are similarand which I consider to be cognate to the old beliefs."Even though he was a hardcore Anglophile, he couldn't ignore all of the historical, linguistic, and cultural evidence. His adversary Flinders Petrie has been given the title of founder of "Scientific Egyptology", and is put on a pedestal by most Egyptologists, even though the man was a Eugenicist and attempted to put forward a very unscientific theory of an unknown Caucasian people who mixed with the Inferior Egyptians and were the actual source of Ancient Egypt's greatness (and no, I am not making this up. Petrie believed this until the end of his life).No one currently In Egyptology has the breadth of knowledge that Budge had. Did he make mistakes? Of course. Is some of his information dated? Of course it is. But his work as a whole still stands the test of time.Anyone who says otherwise hasn't really looked at the evidence and is either unaware of the various arguments in early Egyptology that have been obscured over time, either intentionally or unintentionally, or is indiscriminately imitating what they were taught, which is what most people these days do, unfortunately.Buy all of Budge's books, especially the Dover editions. You won't be disappointed. Cheers!

There are no hieroglyphics in this book.

for those who are interested in one of the roots of Christianity, this is a must have volume. As it is mostly a translation, at times it can be hard to follow. One should have a grasp of ancient Egyptian beliefs and the ability to draw parallels. It doesn't follow the vein of Bauval or others who have a thesis to prove.The interesting notion is the spells and charms (early Christianity and ancient Judaism also had them), the theses is on the journey into the underworld to either heaven or there version of hell. If you area student of Egyptology, this is a must have ready reference.I must warn you, its not an easy read nor there concepts of the afterlife easily spelled out.

In my opinion, this was a very good book. The author knew what they were talking about. They made it clear to me about the beliefs of heaven and hell in ancient egypt. It was a good translation of the hieroglyphs and I would recomend it to anyone.

This is one of the constantly reprinted books by Budge from the first decade of the 20th century. I am by no means an expert on the translation of Egyptian, but I know Budge's translations are very poorly regarded; they weren't even up to the highest standard of their time, let alone now. In fact, the entry on Egyptology in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt says that Egyptologists commit a "grave injustice" when they think that all 19th-century translators of the language were as bad as Budge.This book translates the Amduat and the Book of Gates, the two major "netherworld books." They're New Kingdom funerary texts that describe the journey of the sun god through the underworld and thus, indirectly, the way the human soul is reborn like the rising sun in the afterlife. Budge precedes the two texts with an overview of Egyptian funerary texts (one that regards both the Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts as merely early versions of the Book of the Dead) and afterlife beliefs. He then translates the texts, presumably badly. The original texts are actually something like complex comic strips, with sections of text arranged within wall-filling images, so the translations are accompanied by illustrations excerpted from those larger images. Funerary texts are always cryptic and difficult to make sense of, and netherworld books are especially surreal. Budge isn't of much help in making sense of it all.There are many alternatives to this book. Good basic overviews of funerary texts, including the two contained here, are Hieroglyphs and the Afterlife and, particularly useful for the netherworld books, The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife. Translations of both the Amduat and Book of Gates are found in The Tomb of Ramesses VI from the 1950s, and Erik Hornung has translated the two separately in recent years: The Egyptian Amduat (with a less extensive, cheaper analysis of the text, Knowledge for the Afterlife) and The Egyptian Book of Gates. There's another recent analysis of the Amduat, The Sungod's Journey Through the Netherworld.

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