Book of the Dead

by Random House

Book Overview

"Book of the Dead" is the title now commonly given to the great collection of funerary texts which the ancient Egyptian scribes composed for the benefit of the dead. These consist of spells and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0517180456
• ISBN13: 9780517180457
• Release Date: November 1979
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing
• Length: 704 Pages
• Weight: 2.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Honesty on Budge

Budge's book is just as good as the others who claim to be experts. The only people who have a problem with Budge, are those who believe the altered noses, lips and sand blasted colors of the remaining Egyptian statues...represent the African people who were originally the Kamitians. Budge and other white European scholars who 'told it like it was' are constantly being ridiculed for not joining the bogus scheme of alterations and forgeries in the effort of 'whitewashing Egypt' as is the trend today. Egypt is a name given to it by Alexander the Great, when he conquered the land and defeated the Persians. It was known as Kamit for thousands of years prior to the newer term of Egypt. The natives of Kamit identified themselves with the color of the Black Land as well.

A FEW FACTS ..........

Budge's work is great. Yes, his style of English is out of date and his tranliterations are different. For example, modern writers prefer to transliterate "ntr" as: NEJER or NECHER. Budge uses NETER. Many points of Egyptian grammar remain very unclear and much of what passes for "modern translations" are more guess work than actual translations. The real reason Budge is trashed so often has nothing to do with his translations at all! After many, many years of study Budge abandoned the pure assertion that ancient Egypt was an "Oriental" or "Eastern culture". Based largely, I imagine, on Hegel's pure assertions that "The History of the World travels from East to West, for Europe is absolutely the end of History, Asia the beginning." These ideas have become part of European intellectual DOGMA. Africa is not a part of human history; Ancient Egypt belongs to Europe. This is pure DOGMA. But, perhaps we should expect Dogma from a German theologian! But on the other hand, after years of objective study of the language, religion, society and customs of the ancient Egyptians, Budge was led screaming and kicking, I might add, to the realization that the religion of the Egyptians was BLACK AFRICAN. The concept of the "ka" and the "ba" are found almost everywhere in Black Africa today! The language was a BLACK AFRICAN language and the customs were purely African. The ancient Egyptians were: "African negroes" or "Nilotic negroes" wrote Budge in several of his later works. In spite of the anti-African racism that we find in his earlier and even his later works, Budge rose above the prejudices of his time and followed the facts. The facts led to the heart of Africa, not to Asia. Many modern African scholars have confirmed that the language of ancient Egypt was a "typical Black African language. For example Dr. Theophile Obenga(ORIGINE COMMUNE DE L'EGYPTIEN ANCIEN DU COPTE ET DES LANGUES NEGRO-AFRICAINES MODERNES) has proven the genetic linguistic relationship between the language spoken by the ancient Egyptians, Coptic and modern Black African languages. No competent linguist can demonstrate that the language of ancient Egypt has any genetic relationship to the Semitic languages....it can not be done!!! When you study the language of ancient Egypt you study an ancient Black African language, like it or not!! In a nutshell, that is the real reason that Budge is so often trashed. And perhaps why he is so viciously trashed.......

Read the original first !!!!!!!!!

I gave this book 5 stars simply for the reason being that Budge was the first to translate the Egyptian Text and offered a literal translation. In contrast, if anyone wants to read a mystical interpretation of the text the best available for this would be: (The Egyptian Book of the Dead : The Book of Coming Forth by Day by: Muata A. Ashbi)

Erroneous, at best

Mr. Budge's ineptitude is a well-known shame; his translations (dare I call them that?!?) are notoriously inaccurate and full of blunders. In fact, most of his texts were regarded even in his day as outdated and flawed. Please, there are too many other splendid translations (I recommend Dr. Faulkner Raymond's "The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day" or Normandi Ellis' "Awakening Osiris : The Egyptian Book of the Dead" - both are gorgeous) available to justify wasting one's money on such a compilation of solecisms as this. [Disclaimer: no defamation of character is intended. That has already been accomplished by Mr. Budge himself. Anyone familiar with Budge's work is already aware of his incompetence.]

A great book.

This book was wonderful. It was a bit hard to understand so I would recommend that a experianced student of the Ancient Egyptian culture buy it.