Humanities Assignment

For this response, you will choose two of the stories provided
from Greek, Norse, Egyptian, or Christian mythos to compare and contrast. You
are free to choose how you response and what you focus on.

1. Choose two readings from those read in class
2. http://www.maicar.com/GML/Flood.html
3. https://www.igreekmythology.com/creation-myth.html#L1
4. https://www.igreekmythology.com/zeus.html
5. https://thenorsegods.com/the-death-of-balder/

• Reading: Egyptian Creation

Creation

At first there was nothing but Nun, the
primal ocean of chaos which contained the seeds of everything to come. In this
jumble of waters the sun god reposed. Finally, by an exertion of will, he
emerged from chaos as Ra and gave birth to Shu and Tefnut by himself. In turn
Shu, the god of air, and Tefnut, the goddess of moisture, gave birth to Geb and
Nut, the earth god and sky goddess. Thus the physical universe was created.

Men were created from Ra’s tears. Eons passed and Ra grew
decrepit, so the ungrateful race of men plotted against Ra. When Ra learned of
these plots he angrily called a council of the gods. The gods decided that
mankind must be destroyed, and Ra despatched the goddess Hathor to wipe out
humankind. Hathor did an effective job of it, killing men by the tens of
thousands until only a tiny remnant was left. Then Ra relented, and men were
spared. But Ra was thoroughly sick of the world and retreated into the heavens,
leaving Shu to reign in his place. At that time the present world was
established.

Against the orders of Ra, Geb, the earth god, and Nut, the sky
goddess, married. Then Ra in his wrath ordered Shu, the air god, to separate
them. Shu defeated Geb and raised Nut aloft, separating them permanently.
However, Nut was pregnant, and Ra had decreed that she could not give birth in
any month of any year. Seeing her plight, the god of learning, Thoth, gambled
with the moon for extra light and thus was able to add five extra days to the
official Egyptian calendar of 360 days. On those five days Nut gave birth to
Osiris, Horus the Elder, Set, Isis, and Nepthys, successively. Osiris became
the incarnation of good, while Set became the embodiment of evil. In this
manner the two poles of morality were fixed once and for all.

Osiris

The first son of Geb and Nut, Osiris was tall, slender, and
handsome, with jet black hair. When his father, Geb, gave up the reigning power
over Egypt and retired into the heavens, Osiris took over the kingship and
married his sister, the beautiful Isis. Under his wise authority the Egyptians
were persuaded to renounce cannibalism. He taught them farming and the
pleasures of music, and he framed a just legal code for them. Egypt flourished
peacefully under his rule.

Then Osiris went off to civilize the rest of the world and brought
the same blessings to Europe, the Near East, and the Orient. In his absence
Isis reigned as queen of Egypt and the land continued to prosper.

However, Osiris had an ugly and evil brother with red, coarse hair
like an ass’s pelt. This was Set, a born plotter who envied the power and
attractiveness of his elder brother. Set had another reason for hating Osiris:
His own wife, Nephthys, had conceived a child by Osiris — the jackal-headed
Anubis. By bribery and cunning Set gained many allies during Osiris’ absence,
and together they devised a plan for the king’s death.

When it was announced that Osiris would return, Set held a banquet
and invited his brother. After the festivities Set had a beautiful chest
brought forth and said that it would belong to the person who fitted it
perfectly. After everyone had tried, Osiris stepped into the chest. Then Set
and his toadies slammed the lid shut and sealed the joints with lead. Osiris
suffocated, the chest was thrown into the Nile, and Set became king of Egypt.

When Isis learned of her husband’s death she traveled along the
Nile in the deepest grief, searching for the chest containing Osiris. She found
Anubis, who had been abandoned by Nephthys, and she nursed and educated him.
Isis continued looking for Osiris through repeated discouragements, until one
day she learned the chest had sailed to Phoenicia, where a tamarisk tree had
enveloped it within its trunk.

Isis went to Phoenicia and found the tree in the king’s palace
serving as a pillar. Isis taught the court ladies the art of perfumery and hair
dressing, and upon meeting the queen Ishtar, she was engaged as a nurse to
Ishtar’s infant son. At night she performed a magic ritual to make the infant
immortal by burning away his mortal parts, but Ishtar interrupted the ceremony
and the spell was broken. Then Isis revealed herself as a goddess in all her
glory and asked to have the chest in the palace pillar. Awed, Ishtar granted
the request, and Isis returned to Egypt with the chest.

Aided by Nephthys, Isis revived Osiris through magic and conceived
a son by him. And Set then put her in prison, from which she escaped with the
help of Anubis. Isis fled to the swamps of the Nile delta and, living like a
peasant, she gave birth to Osiris’ son, Horus the hawk, born to avenge his
father’s murder.

In fear of Set, Isis raised Horus in seclusion. The boy was bitten
by beasts, stung by a scorpion, and suffered intense pains throughout his
childhood, and only his mother’s witchcraft managed to save him. Often Osiris
would appear to the young Horus to instruct him in the arts of war in
preparation for the coming battle with Set. Horus grew to manhood as a valiant,
handsome young general.

In time Set learned of Horus’ existence and of his destiny to take
over the throne of Egypt. Set also learned that Isis possessed the chest
containing Osiris’ corpse, so at night Set would hunt through the Nile delta in
search of the chest. At length he found it and cut Osiris’ body into fourteen
pieces and threw them into the Nile.

Isis was appalled at this second calamity to befall her husband,
but with her customary patience she collected thirteen pieces of Osiris’ body
from the river. Horus, having learned the art of sorcery, was able to join his
father’s body together again. However, Osiris’ genitals had been eaten by some
fish, so Isis was obliged to make a model of them.

By this time Horus had gathered an army with which to attack Set.
Under Set’s reign Egypt had become parched and infertile, and many of Set’s
followers were deserting to serve Horus. After restoring his father’s body,
Horus set out to wreak vengeance on the dreadful king. Set and Horus fought
furiously for three days and nights in hand-to-hand combat, and Set was
defeated. Horus turned the wretched captive over to his mother Isis and went
off to pursue and kill Set’s followers.

Set seemed merely pitiable in chains, and using all his powers of
persuasion, he talked the forgiving Isis into releasing him. When Horus
returned and learned of this, his anger was so great that he chopped off his
mother’s head. The god Thoth then replaced Isis’ head with that of the
cow-goddess Hathor and brought her back to life.

Together Horus and Isis pursued Set, and when they met the
fighting was even more intense. Set managed to grab Horus’ eye and tear it out,
but Horus wrested it back and finally drove Set into the Red Sea forever.

Horus and Isis then returned to the temple where Osiris’ body lay.
Horus embraced the body and fed it his own eye that had been torn out, and
Osiris revived as a truly godlike personage. Next Horus prepared a ladder for
his father to ascend into heaven. By this means Osiris rose into the sky, with
Isis on one side of him and Nephthys on the other. The gods sat in judgment on
him, and with Thoth as his advocate Osiris was declared to have lived a pure and
truthful life. From there Osiris went to the Seat of Judgment, where he in turn
was allowed to judge the souls of the dead.

Horus was recognized by the gods as being Osiris’ legitimate son
and the rightful heir to the throne of Egypt. Under his dominion Egypt grew
fruitful again, and he sired four pure sons from whom the entire line of
Egyptian Pharaohs descended.

Reading: Egyptian Flood Myth

The Egyptian
flood myth begins with the sun god Ra, who feared that people were going to
overthrow him. He sent the goddess Hathor, who was his eye, to punish the people. But she killed so many that
their blood, flowing
into the Nile River and the ocean, caused a flood. Hathor
greedily drank the bloody water. Feeling that things had gone too far, Ra
ordered slaves to make a lake of beer, dyed red to look like blood. Hathor
drank the beer, became very drunk, and failed to finish the task of wiping out humanity.
The survivors of her bloodbath started the human race anew.

• Research your myths and find at least two outside sources to
  support your points. Your essay will have a total of four sources and
  each must be used as an in-text citation and cited on the works cited. Two are
  the stories and two are those that you find in the academic databases, books, etc.

• Write your assignment as a formal response that is a min of 2.5
  pages long (not including the Works Cited).

Paper formatting requirements:

• 2.5 pages min (not including works cited page)
• 5 paragraph format essay is
  required (clear intro, body and conclusion – a par. has 5
  sentences minimum.)
• 12pt font, times new roman,
  standard margins
• Follow MLA format
• Essay must have a unique title (not Response 1 or the name of the readings)
• No personal pronouns (I, me,
  my, you, your, us, we, one and our)
• A thesis statement should be
  present as the last sentence of the introduction so that it may be identified.
  Reference the thesis PowerPoint if you need a refresher on this
  topic. 

Research Requirements and Citation req.

• Use the resources in the folder
  below this assignment to help you complete your essay in an academic fashion.
• 4 total sources (2 outside sources min that are based on fact; such as library
  books, databases, and academic journals) and 2 are the stories.
• Do not use more than one source
  that says the same information
• In-text citations are required
  in all essays. An essay lacking a works cited
  or in-text citations is considered academic dishonesty.
• Citations should not be the
  bulk of your paper, no more than 20%. One source is the story and two other
  sources have been provided for you. You MUST use all three sources in your
  essay and no other sources are allowed. 
• Definitions of terms,
  characters, places, etc. are not counted

 

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