ORDENAMIENTO TERRITORIAL Y USO DE SUELO DEL CANTÓN CHONE

This criminalization of death corresponds to a moralization of (after)life. The forces of death are seen as criminal and condemnable;

the forces of life are seen as just and virtuous. The treatment of death consists mainly of restoring justice. Death, in the person of Seth, is brought to justice and condemned to death. Osiris is restored to life by being “justified against” (that is, triumphing over) Seth—or death. Jus-tice and virtue appear as principles that have the power to save, to res-cue a person from death and destruction. In the course of centuries, these mythic images developed into the idea of the judgment of the dead. Unlike Judaism and Christianity, the Egyptians did not conceive of this judgment as occurring collectively at the end of time but rather as being bestowed individually on each person after his or her death. It was believed that, following death, every person was summoned before a divine tribunal in order to be justified before God and rescued from death or to be condemned and surrendered to final death.

Within the framework of this idea, both Seth and the concept of evil undergo a transformation. Seth becomes the personification of evil not only in the form of violence and murder but as the epitome of all man-ner of vices and transgressions, such as lying, robbing, greed, adultery, fornication, blasphemy, and rebellion. Evil assumes the power of deadly sin, capable of causing one’s final death and destruction if brought before the divine tribunal. The moralization of death, in other words, makes eternal life dependent on a person’s moral behavior in this life.

The mythical concept of condemning Seth in order to conquer death and gain eternal life gives way to the moral principle of conquering death by leading a good life and avoiding evil in all its various manifesta-tions, especially vices and transgressions apt to give offense to the divine

judges. During the trial following death, the heart of the deceased was weighed on a scale against a figure of truth. Every sin would make the side with the heart sink a little deeper. If it were found to be too heavy and irredeemably charged with guilt, the heart of the culprit would be swallowed by a monster, which would then also annihilate the guilty one.

Through this process of moralization, Seth, the personification of death, comes to be seen as the embodiment of all the sins and vices that cause death and destruction and prevent a person who commits them from passing the test of the scales and entering eternal life. In the context of Osiris, Seth turns into a devil, the personification of evil. However, Seth remains a great god and never turns into an absolute devil. Death is an evil force of destruction to be feared, hated, and avoided as much as possible. Nevertheless, it is an inevitable force of nature, a part of this world and its continuous course. Despite its inevitability—and this is the Egyptian conviction—there is still a lot that can be done about it.

In the Christian context, this conceptual connection of death and evil survives in the notion of “deadly (mortal) sin.” Evil is defined as a kind of human behavior that prevents one from entering paradise and causes death, destruction, and eternal punishment, much the same way as in Egypt, where a sinful life that fails the test of the scales would be expelled from life and condemned to be swallowed up by the monster.

It may be useful to contrast the Decalogue of the Bible with those sins in the Egyptian Book of the Dead (especially the “Negative confes-sion” in chapter 125) that correspond to the biblical prohibitions.

Ramses IV: I did not swear by the ram of Mendes. I did not pronounce the name of Tatenen.¹⁴

Ramses IV: I did not contra-dict my father. I did not re-ject my mother.¹⁵

B5: I did not kill a human 1. Thou shalt have no other

gods before me.

2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images.

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

4. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

5. Honor thy father and thy mother.

6. Thou shalt not kill.

There are only three commandments—the first, second, and fourth—

that have no corresponding prohibitions in the Egyptian context. The Egyptians did not worry about worshiping “other gods,” their main concern being not to neglect any god worth worshiping. Worship re-quired images; for the Egyptians there was no other way to reach the gods. There was also no regular “Sabbath” in Egypt, although there were a great many festival days. To follow the god—that is, to partici-pate in the procession—was generally believed to be a great privilege, not an obligation. There was no need of a commandment here. The Egyptian commandments concerning god and the gods are not to blas-pheme and not to break the taboos.

The three Jewish and Christian commandments that have no par-allels in the Egyptian concept of sin—which can be neatly summarized as no other gods, no images, and keeping the Sabbath—represent the innovative and revolutionary core of biblical monotheism. The other commandments reflect the common wisdom of the Ancient Near East and were treated there—especially in Egypt—at a considerably higher level of moral sensitivity and elaboration. The prohibition against kill-ing, for example, is extended to not causing pain, not provoking tears, and not torturing animals. The prohibition against lying is extended to all kinds of communicative misbehaviors such as calumny, prattling, slander, winking, being deaf to words of truth, and the mysterious pro-hibition of “knowing the nonexistent,” whose meaning is still obscure.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

8. Thou shalt not steal.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness.

10. Thou shalt not covet.

being; A: I did not kill, nor ordered killing [A15–16];

B13: I did not kill the cattle of God (human beings).

B19: I did not make love to the wife of another man; B20:

I did not fornicate; B27: I did not have homosexual intercourse.

B2: I did not rob; B4: I did not steal.

B9: I did not lie.

B3: I was not greedy; B18:

I desired only my own possessions.

The other seven commandments are social norms common to most so-cieties and are not unique to monotheism. The commandments con-cerning the exclusive oneness of God, the prohibition of images, and the injunction to keep the Sabbath are charged with the particular sig-nificance of being distinctive features, identity-markers of this new form of religion by means of which Israel set itself apart from the other civil-izations and religions of the ancient world. To worship other gods, to fabricate and worship images, and to violate the Sabbath constitute

“sins” of a high order.

Despite the many parallels between Egyptian moral norms provid-ing the criteria for a person’s life followprovid-ing death and the Hebrew com-mandments as codified in the Torah, there is one decisive difference: in the Bible God acts as legislator, whereas in the Egyptian Book of the Dead the gods act only as judges. Moral norms are derived not from divine legislation but from traditional wisdom and custom. The idea of divine legislation is alien to ancient Egypt. The king and his counselors formulate the laws; the teachers of wisdom codify the social norms of acceptable behavior; and the gods merely extend the jurisdiction and so-cial evaluation of this world into the other world, acting as judges along the same lines and criteria as the social and judicial institutions on earth.