This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
Skeptics claim this is “the ‘ba’ of the deceased” individual on the lion couch. Egyptian funeral lion couch scenes typically showed a “human-headed bird that represents the soul of the deceased individual.” Also, we see written on the papyrus: “Hor, justified… May your ba live among them, and may you be buried on the west.” So it would make sense for Facsimile 1 to show this ba-bird, right?
No. This is the messenger of Horus in the Egyptian context who provides protection and deliverance into heaven. This matches Joseph Smith’s interpretation, “angel of the Lord,” and supports the idea that the sacrifice ritual Joseph Smith described was the basis for the Book of Breathing vignette in Facsimile 1.
Horus Bird
Wrong Position – Many Egyptian lion couch scenes have been found, but no lion couch scene places the ba bird here past the top of the couch or with the wings in this position. The only time a bird is located here is when it flanks the body in a protective stance with another bird symmetrically posed on the opposite side. One lion couch scene does show a bird in the same position with wings pointed downward, but that bird is located in the middle of the body, not poast the top of the couch. Also, each of these birds have bird heads, not human heads. So they aren’t ba-birds. All ba-birds with human heads are distinctly located in the middle of the bed and with either spread out wings, or one wing down and one wing forward. The location and position in of the bird in Facsimile 1 doesn’t make sense as a ba-bird. This position past the top of the couch is typically occupied by Isis or Horus, which would seem to indicate Figure 1 has something to do with Isis/Horus.
The ba-bird is also always shown holding the ankh, symbol of life, to symbolize the individual’s life continuing as his spirit proceeds to the afterlife. This ankh is missing from Facsimile 1. Why would it be missing if this bird were supposed to symbolize life? How would any ancient Egyptian recognize this as a ba-bird if the location is wrong, position is wrong, the ankh is missing, and there is no human head?
Bird Head – The recovered papyrus is missing the portion that would show the bird’s head, so we don’t really know if it was human or bird. But look how much space there is for the neck! A ba-bird’s human head was often shown with a beard that would be sticking down into what is blank papyrus. The head was often shown bowing down to look at the body on the couch which would likewise place it in blank papyrus. Most importantly, the head was absolutely never shown with a long neck like this. That’s why skeptics fill in the missing papyrus portion with a stubby domed head that looks sorta like a Mexican wrestling mask. The horizontal lines of the neck become some kind of weird mouth contraption (it reminds me of the head of Bumblebee from the Transformer movies.) What is that? Whatever it is, it doesn’t look anything at all like a ba-bird.
Most of the birds in lion couch scenes actually have bird heads, which means they don’t represent the ba-spirit. Some lion couch scenes show birds flying all over the place, this way and that. What do these birds represent? Well, they represent what falcons always represent in Egyptian literature: Horus.
A carving at the Dendera Temple shows the lion couch scene with “Osiris of Hermopolis of Lower Egypt rising from his bier at the command of Horus.” We see Horus as a human with a bird head located past the top of the –the same location as Figure 1 in the Facsimile. Here he is drawn as “Horus of the Horizon.” Sometimes Isis was instead shown in this position, because she was the wife (and mother) of Horus. Horus gave the command for rebirth because he was the god of resurrection. The papyrus with Facsimile 1 itself explains that it was written by Isis “to cause his body to live, to rejuvenate all his limbs” and to join “the horizon with his father, Re.”
Horus As A Messenger – In the Egyptian funeral context, the human-headed falcon represented the ba spirit of the deceased. But the bird-headed falcon was a symbol of Horus, a god similar to Jehovah in Egyptian theology (a star in the East heralded his birth, baptized, walked on water, healed the sick, etc.). Volumes have been written on the similarities between Horus and Jesus, so it is certainly not coincidence that the Horus bird shown here was claimed by Joseph Smith to represent an “angel from the Lord.” I also don’t think that it’s a coincidence that the same figure which Joseph Smith said rescued Abraham from death just happens to be providing protection and rebirth in the Egyptian context. The Facsimile 1 papyrus with requests: “Horus of Edfu, protect your body, and may he cause your body to be divine like all the gods do…. Horus, Great of Hearts, is protecting you… Horus of the Two Eyes is guarding your body… May you accompany Osiris and [Horus…]”
Often, the falcon was a messenger bird sent from Horus. In one story, the falcon-god Nectanebo, based on Horus, “thoughtfully sends a falcon as a dream messenger.” In the Book of the Dead, which is where Facsimile 1 and the Book of Breathings derives: “The messenger quotes the command of Horus: Horus as command of Horus: Horus has commanded: Lift up your faces and look at him; he has made his appearance as a divine falcon.” Other Egyptian texts speak of the Horus falcon as an angelic messenger: “The messenger speaks: I grew and waxed mightily… and appeared as a divine Falcon.” The Egyptian falcon was an angel of Horus, just like it was the angel of the Lord in the Abrahamic context, protecting and rescuing Abraham.
The falcon hovers in the air opposite Anubis, Seth’s son in Facsmile 1. This is visual opposition is significant because in Egyptian mythology Horus protected Egyptians from Seth who killed Osiris, Horus’ father. Each of these characters show up in the Facsimile 1 scene. The deceased is presented in this scene as Osiris, Isis (suggested with the Horus bird) rejuvenates Osiris, Anubis is presenting the sacrifice, and Horus provides protection on the opposite side of the lion couch. This opposition between Seth and Horus is described at the beginning of the Book of Breathings: “visits the temple of Horus and Seth.”
Downward Pointed Wings – Notice the odd position of the wings of Figure 1. Here is a similar example of a lion couch scene with the Horus bird with wings pointed downward. What did this mean? In Mesopotamia, it was symbolic of a diety from the underworld: “The motif of the downward pointing wings was used throughout Mesopotamia to indicate a deity or spirit-being associated with the underworld.” Egypt and Israel considered it a sign of the sun rather than below the earth, as sun rays fall down upon the earth like downward pointed wings in the sky. King Hezekiah of Judah adopted this solar bird for his insignia, with “two downward-pointed wings and six rays emanating from the central disk, and some are flanked on either side with the Egyptian ank (“key of life”) symbol.” The Horus bird likewise is often shown holding the ank symbol. This solar bird of King Hezekiah certainly looks very similar to Figure 1 to me.
Here is a drawing of King Hezekiah’s insignia. Malachi 4:2 references this sun bird: “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.” Jesus quotes this in 3 Nephi 5:2 but changes it to “Son of Righteousness… with healing in his wings.” Clearly it is talking about the Messiah–the same individual who sent the angel to rescue Abraham, performing the same exact role of healing and protection as the bird in the lion couch scene. The footnotes of the scriptures reference this verse to 2 Nephi 25:13, which reads: “Behold, they will crucify him; and after he is laid in a sepulchre for the space of three days he shall rise from the dead, with healing in his wings; and all those who shall believe on his name shall be saved in the kingdom of God.” The distinct position of this bird’s wings therefore references the Lord’s resurrection. Abraham’s rescue from sacrifice is thus compared to Jesus who was sacrificed to rescue the human race. We also see a reference to this in 1 Nephi 22:24: “And the time cometh speedily that the righteous must be led up as calves of the stall, and the Holy One of Israel must reign in dominion, and might, and power, and great glory.”
What is this symbolism of young calves in the stall, young cows following the governmental authority of the Messiah? Well, I’m glad you asked! This leads us to the Egyptian Sed-festival. In the Sed-festival, Egypt’s “king was then attired a short kilt with a bull’s tail in its back… the king ran a ritual race alongside the Apis Bull four times.” The young bull played a prominent role in the Sed-festival. Joseph Smith explained to us the symbolism of Facsimile 1 because it had derived from the Sed-festival. Abraham was being sacrificed in a Sed-festival, and this is what the Lion couch scene in the Book of Breathings was derived from to become the funeral scene we see in the Book of Breathings. The Sed-festival thus ties everything together. To be clear, I do not believe this Facsimile 1 vignette was drawn with the intention of representing the Sed-festival, but that it showed a ritual which had derived from the Sed-festival and which Abraham was involved in.
Horus In The Sed-Festival
Skeptics expect Facsimile 1 to literally portray Abraham, and they dismiss the idea that it could be a later derivative of a sacrifice ritual. But it is quite clear that the Egyptian lion couch scene derives from an old ritual called the Sed-festival, which was “the more ancient ritual of killing the king who became unable to continue his reign effectively because of ageing. The rituals represented a symbolic burial of the old king” and rebirth. This renewal of kingship was the purpose of the events we read about in the Book of Abraham chapter 1. Abraham was to be sacrificed in one of these Sed-festival events. He was one of these substitute sacrifices, and this was the same sacrificial ritual that Abraham talked about in the Book of Abraham.
Human Sacrifice – Why was Abraham to be sacrificed? He was chosen to be the proxy sacrifice for the king’s renewal. The king ritually “died” on the New Years festival upon a lion couch and was “resurrected” to reclaim his kingship and to reaffirmed his right to rule. Researchers have discovered animals and even humans which were sacrificed as substitutes for the king’s ritual “death.” In later versions of the Sed-festival, the king was merely carried “to the chapel of Horus, where he receives the crook and the flail.” But originally a human proxy was sacrificed on behalf of the king in the chapel of Horus. In early Sed-festivals, “a human substitute was chosen for the king.” We see Anubis performing the ritual in the later derivative portrayed in Facsimile 1, but originally it was his father Seth who sacrificed the proxy, known as “Seth sacrifices.” “In most of the temples of Egypt, of all periods, pictures set forth for us the principal scenes of a solemn festival called ‘festival of the tail,’ the Sed festival. It consisted essentially in a representation of the ritual death of the king followed by his rebirth. In this case the king is identified with Osiris, the god who in historical times is the hero of the sacred drama of humanity, he who guides us through the three stages of life, death, and rebirth in the other world. Hence, clad in the funeral costume of Osiris, which the tight-fitting garment clinging to him like a shroud, Pharoah is conducted to the tomb; and from it he returns rejuvenated and reborn like Osiris emerging from the dead. How was this fiction carried out? how was this miracle performed? By the sacrifice of human or animal victims.” ( M. Alexandre Moret via James Frazer)
Falcon Bird Shown As Ba Spirit – The falcon bird was explicitly recognized as the manifestation of the deceased person lying on the couch in the Orsokon Sed-festival, which would explain why the ba-bird came to be shown in this scene in later lion couch drawings. The Orsokon Sed-festival inscription reads: “Horus appears, he has received the two plumes, he is King Osorkon, given all life.” The ankh symbol typically held by the ba-bird represents the life which was given. So in this case, the ba and Horus bird were one and the same. This makes the question of whether Figure 1 in Facsimile 1 represented the deceased person’s ba spirit or whether it represented Horus. In the Orsokon Sed-festival it represented both.
Horus At Coronation – The Sed-festival involved a coronation recognizing the king as the son of Ra: “One important aspect of the coronation was that it involved a confirmation of the king’s solar status as ‘son of Ra.'” In the Book of Abraham, this sun god is called “Shagreel”, and in the Book of Breathings the deceased was likewise given this status: “that he might join the horizon with his father Re… May you enter into the horizon together with Re.” So details of the Sed-festival seem to appear consistently in the Book of Abraham and in the recovered Book of Breathings papyrus. In order to confirm the king as the son of Ra, the king was coronated on a sacred hill: “Insofar as the coronation dias symbolized the primordial hill that emerged from the ocean of Nun at the beginning of creation, the king in ascending it and being crowned upon it was reenacting on earth the primordial appearance of Atum-Ra.” (Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts, Jeremy Naydler)
The beginning text accompanying Facsimile 1 describes the same primordial hill, the sacred mountains of Manu: “The Osiris, God’s father, priest of Amon-Re… may you give to him beautiful and useful things on the west like the mountains of Manu… that his body might shine like Orion in the womb of Nut.” The typical Book of Breathings had the deceased to “circumamb the primordal hill… crosses the water to the Primal Hill” to join “the illumination” at dawn. In the Book of Abraham, the sacrifice ritual is performed before “Potiphar’s hill,” the same kind of sacred mound. So again, details of the Sed-festival appear consistently in the Book of Abraham and in the recovered Book of Breathings papyrus. At the site of Sed-festivals at the Niuserre temple, we see an altar lying before a large sacred mound that was dedicated to Re, proving that the Sed-festival involved a sacrificial altar and a sacred hill: “The upper block is circular (possibly representing the hieroglyph representing the sun god Ra) and the lower four blocks are carved to represent the hieroglyphs forming the word “hotep” (which can be translated as “offering”, “satisfied” and “peace”) so the altar itself could mean “Ra is satisfied”.” (Ancient Egypt Onlin, J. Hill)
Finally, Horus appeared as a bird during the Sed-festival to unite the king with his kingdom: “This union of heaven and earth during the coronation ceremonies was accompanied by these words, spoken by an attendant priest: ‘Horus appears resting on his souther throne / and there occurs a uniting of the sky to the earth.’ The same formula was repeated once for each of the four cardinal directions towards which the king duly turned.” (Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts, Jeremy Naydler)
The four idols below the altar in Facsimile 1 represent the four cardinal directions, the four sons of Horus.
In this coronation scene of the Sed-festival shown to the right, the Horus falcon is typically shown perched behind the king and his throne, standing atop a serekh (figure 11 in Facsimile 1) which represents the pillars of heaven, which unites the heaven and earth. An alabaster statue from the 6th dynasty likewise shows the Horus falcon perched above the serekh pillars alongside the king’s throne. Zig-zagged lines above the serekh represent the waters of Nun(figure 12 in Facsimile 1.) Notice that there are also two bird feathers between the serekh and the bird. These are ostrich feathers which enabled the king to join the Horus falcon in the heavens.
A fuller scene of these Sed-festival rituals is found on the mace head of King Narmer. Here we see the four cardinal directions represented by the four figures in the upper left corner, each holding a banner. Each of the four banners match the four idols below the lion couch in Facsimile 1, taking the images of the four sons of Horus: Imsety, Duamutef, Hapi, Qebehsenuef.
The mace head of King Narmer from the first Dynasty of Egypt shows the bird flying above the king and his throne in the upper right corner, with wings stretch downward like the bird in Facsimile 1. The really interesting thing about this Sed-festival illustration is the figure drawn facing the king and his throne. We see a seated figure on a lion couch. And this seated figure is a splitting image of the priest offering the sacrifice in Facsimile 1, figure 3. The same round head, the same eyes, and nose, but what’s most interesting to me is that he is positioned gazing to the right–opposite the enthroned king. To the left of the lion couch we see three semicircles which represent purifying waters. They look similar to the large water basins near the altar at Niuserre. Below the king and his throne are an array of sacrificial offerings that accompany the ritual (figure 10 in Facsimile 1). Perhaps this complex scene with the sons of Horus, the waters of purification, the lion couch, the Horus bird, the offering table, and the king on his throne was all combined and condensed into the single scene that was see in Facsimile 1? It really looks as if someone had taken this large and complicated drawing and simplified it to create Facsimile 1. Also, notice the two bulls in the circle above the lion couch figure. There is one full sized bull and one infant bull–which references back to the young “calves of a stall” mentioned in those Book of Mormon verses which were led by the Savior with healing in his wings. It is all here in this one illustration.
The Following Of Horus
Anthropologist Sir James George Fraze described this Sed-festival scene on the King Narmer mace head as a ritual procession which was being led by a jack-headed god (figure 3 in Facsimile 1): “The oldest illustration of the festival is on the mace of Narmer, which is believed to date from 5500 B.C. Here we see the king seated as Osiris in a shrine at the top of nine steps. Beside the shrine stand fan-bearers, and in front of it is a figure in a palaquin, which according to an inscription in another representation of the scene appears to be the royal child. A procession of standards is depicted beside the enclosure; it is headed by the standard of the jackal-god Up-uat, the “opener of ways” for the dead.” Similarly on a seal of King Zer, which is referred to 5300 B.C., the king appears as Osiris with the standard of the jackal-god before him. In front of him, too, is the ostrich feather on which “the dead king was supposed to ascend into heaven. Here, then, the king, identified with Osiris, king of the dead, has before him the jackal-god, who leads the dead, and the ostrich feather, which symbolizes his reception into the sky.” There are even grounds for thinking that in order to complete the mimic death of the king at the Sed festival an effigy of him clad in the costume of Osiris was solemnly buried in a cenotaph.” (Adonis, Attis, Osiris: Studies in the History of Oriental Religion)
Professor Flinders Petrie described this Sed-festival scene as a human sacrifice ritual: “The conclusion may be drawn thus. In the savage age of prehistoric times, the Egyptians, like many other African and Indian peoples, killed their priest-king at stated intervals, in order that the ruler should, with unimpaired life and health, be enabled to maintain the kingdom in its highest condition. The royal daughters were present in order that they might be married to his successor. The jackal-god went before him, to open the way to the unseen world; and the ostrich feather received and bore away the king’s soul in the breeze that blew it out of sight. This was the celebration of the ‘end,’ of the sed feast. The king thus became the dead king, patron of all those who had died in his reign, who were his subjects here and hereafter. He was thus one with Osiris, the king of the dead. The fierce custom became changed as in other lands, by appointing a deputy king to die in his stead… After the death of the deputy, the real king renewed his life and reign.” (Researches In Sinai)
The royal daughters, of course, show up in the Book of Abraham as the daughters of Onida, except they were sacrificed along with Abraham rather than married. And again, here we have Anubis (Up-uat) standing opposite the bird of Horus. This opposition becomes a balant display of antagonism in Facsimile 1. But this time, Anubis is shown heading up a procession rather than performing a sacrifice. What is this procession being described here?
Part Of Sed-Festival – This procession is the Following of Horus, a parade that the king put on to assert his popularity with the people, complete with royal banners. This parade led the king to the temples to undergo the Sed-festival rituals: “In these reliefs, the Following of Horus is shown participating in the rituals of the Sed-Festival, particularly as accompaniment to the enthroned king.”
This procession of the sacred falcon was held on the New Year’s day, and involved priests with Anubis and Horus masks: “After the Nehebkau Festival, children would stand anointed and in festival clothes at their doors, holding flowers and plants in honor of Horus (Sadek 181). Priests wearing falcon or jackal masks representing the royal ancestors as the soul of Nekhen (Hierakonpolis Magna) and Pe (Buto) carried an icon of Horus from his sanctuary on a special litter in silent procession (Fairman 189). Before the litter, priests carried the divine standards, and behind the litter, the other gods from Horus’ family processed in their own respective shrines. This procession ended at the Sacred Falcon Temple in the outer temple precinct, where living falcons were presented to Horus’ icon… By the New Kingdom, the festival was two days long and celebrated on I Peret 1 and 2. Seit I celebrated his Heb Sed on this day, which is noted in inscriptions located at Abydos and at Nuri in Nubia as ‘the beginning of eternity and the start of happiness for hundreds of thousands of years and millions of Sed festivals.’” (The Ancient Egyptian Daybook, Tamara L. Suida)
Greek ‘Horos’ Procession – This Following of Horus procession may have been the original religious procession and copied by many other cultures. Greek and other Mediterranean cultures later performed similar sacred processional rituals where they would dance and play music as they walked to their temples on feast days. In fact, the name Horus is the same as the Greek word “Horos” which means “dance.” The Greek “Horos” is also transliterated to mean “limit” or “boundary”, which speaks to Horus’s title as “Horus of the two horizons,” between heaven and earth. As the resurrected god, he had crossed the boundary of death and thus could provide either death or life for others.
Cosmology Of Horos – The Egyptian Sed-festival was always performed on the king’s 30th year of rule, and every three years after it, so the link to the Following of Horus procession is clear in what 2nd century bishop Irenaeus said about Christian Gnosticism: “And since the highest heaven, beating upon the very sphere, has been linked with the most rapid precession of the whole system, as a check, and balancing that system with its own pravity , so that it completes a cycle from sign to sign in thirty years,–they say that this is an image of Horus, encircling their thirty-named mother. And then, again, as the moon travels through her allotted space of heaven in thirty days, they hold, that by these days she expresses the number of the thirty aeons. The sun, who runs through his orbit in twelve months, and then returns to the same point in the circle, makes the Duodecad manifest by these twelve months; and the days, as being measured by the twelve hours, as a type of the invisible Duodecad. Moreover, they declare that the hour, which is the twelfth part of the day, is composed of thirty parts, in order to set forth the image of the Triacontad.” (Irenaeus , Against Heresies ch. 17)
There are also some cases of Sed-festivals occuring every 12 years: “Sed Festivals of twelve years each.” It was thus very likely that the Sed-festival lined up to the Egyptian calendar, which “consists of 12 months each 30 days long.” This would explain why there are twelve Sekh pillars of heaven in the Facsimile 1 scene. The numbers 12 and 30 are, of course, important in Christianity as Jesus was first went to the temple at age 12 to begin His Father’s work and began his ministry at age 30. Ancient people’s understood because of the Sed-festivals and its derivatives the importance of the numbers 12 and 30 in regards to kingship and authority, and would have immediately recognized that they associate Jesus as the Messiah, the son of God.
Oh, one more thing about the name “Horos”: The name of the person lying on the couch about whom the Book of Breathings was written? Horos. “The Book of Breathings was written for a certain Horos.” Considering Facsimile 1 was created very late in Egyptian times under Hellenistic influence, the word-play of “Horos” and “Horus” certainly would not have been missed by the readers of this Book of Breathings–Horos joining Horus on the horizon of the sky. Perhaps he was given this name because he had performed a role in the Following of Horus procession during his life as priest of the temple? I suspect this may be the case, as the text accompanying Facimile 1 call him “priest of Amon-Re… master of the secrets, god’s priest… May you give to him beautiful and useful things on the west like the mountains of Manu.” The Following of Horus proceeded to the temple through two massive pylon towers, like we see at the front of the temple at Luxor, which represented the twin towers of Manu. The temple was designed so that the sky rose between the pylon towers, like the king rising as Re in the morning of the day together with Horus. In any case, considering Egyptian Sed-festival texts identified the king’s ba-spirit with the Horus bird, it would have been obvious to anyone who saw the name “Horos” that this bird hovering in the upper right corner of Facsimile 1 associated with Horus. How could they not interpret this way?
It is unfortunate that Egyptologists shorten this name to “Hor” and downplay its significance. It’s almost as if they shorten the name in order to lend credibility to their shaky theory that the bird is merely a ba spirit. I also wonder how these Egyptologists exploring the Sed-festival could fail to see the obvious connection with Facsimile 1. But then I remember that Professor Flinders Petrie went out of his way to bash the Book of Breathings and portray Joseph Smith as a fraud. Why? Well, his white supremacist racism and work on founding the eugenics movement might have something to do with it. Too bad.
Book Of The Dead Explains Symbolism – The Book of the Dead, from which the Book of Breathings is derived, describes this scene in a question and answer ritual session. So don’t worry! If this is all a little confusing, it was confusing to people in ancient times and that is why they ritually explained what each of the figures in Facmsimile 1 means. So don’t take my word for it, they explicitly said what these figures represent. The temple initiate pointed at each figure and asked “What does it mean,” upon which the temple attendant gave these replies: “This Osiris has seen Ra born yesterday at the buttocks of Mehweret, the Osiris N is well, he is well, and vice versa. What does it mean? It means these waters of the sky-flood Another version: It means an image of the eye of Ra at dawn when he is born every day. As for Mehweret, it means the wedjat-eye of Ra, because (I am) one of those gods of the following of Horus, one who speaks as master, beloved of his lord. What does it mean? Imset, Hapy, Duamutef, Qebehsenuf” (Irenaeus , Against Heresies ch. 17)
To give a little understanding here, Mehweret translates to “great fullness” and refers to the primeval waters from which Re first arose, which we see as Figure 12 in Facsimile 1. Imset, Hapy, Duamutef, Qebehsenuf are the four idols below the altar in Facsimile 1. Mehweret is the zig-zag lines below the four idols and represents the waters of heaven and creation.
Notice that the person answering the questions in this ritual explains that the wedjat, symbol of life, can be delivered through the waters of creation, Mehweret, because they are “one of those gods of the Following of Horus, one who speaks as master.” The Folowing of Horus is what gives them authority to be resurrected. Being part of the Sed-festival ritual therefore gave one authority to take part in the revivification ritual. It was a prerequisite.
But Sed-festival wasn’t being practiced by the time the Facsimile papyrus was written! – My claim is not that Facsimile 1 was drawn to illustrate a Sed-festival. The accompanying text on the papyrus makes it clear that it is about a deceased person name Horos and his revivification. My claim is that the revivification ritual being illustrated was based on the Sed-festival, and that Joseph Smith described the symbolism of this Sed-festival because that’s what Abraham experienced. Joseph Smith labeled this bird figure number 1, the first element of the scene to be talked about, because he recognized the supreme significance of this figure. He correctly interpreted it as a protective divine being sent from the Lord. The symbolism we know of in the Egyptian context further suggests this figure’s connection to Jesus’ role as Savior and Redeemer.
See Also: Facsimile 1 Shows The Sed-Festival Which Involved Abraham