Talk:Maat

37 - "blasphem[ing] God"

Is there any indication as to which god the thirty-seventh negative confession refers to? Clearly it is not the Judeo-Christian one, since that god was probably not invented for another several hundred years after the Papyrus of Ani was written. Ikjbagl (talk) 15:52, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

It's probably a general term that might better be translated as "a god"; see the point about wisdom literature at Ancient Egyptian deities#Unity of the divine in traditional religion. A more recent translation of the text might translate it that way, but unfortunately, more recent translations are probably copyrighted and can't be quoted at length here. A. Parrot (talk) 19:07, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Luckily, we don't have to quote at length to replace a single word. There is no point in keeping an obviously flawed translation simply because somebody wrote it in a book in the 1800s. The obvious solution is simply to replace it with "gods"; please revert and discuss if there is reasonable objection. Ikjbagl (talk) 03:53, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

The word used is "god" (netjer) and not "gods" (netjeru) in the hieroglyphic text. All modern translations using the papyrus of Ani use "god" i.e. singular and not plural. I have updated the article to conform with the citation and have similarly corrected #11. I have also deleted the interpolated "the" as the definite article is not used in the cited source although a modern translator may interpolate it. This is arguable as "God" is used as a name as far back as the pyramid texts and is translated as such in modern editions.

She is the creator Goddess

I would actually argue that Ma at is the creator Goddess in that she brought order from chaos. She is what we now call "God" Allanana79 (talk) 13:50, 8 December 2020 (UTC)