Wisdom of Amenemope

By Scriptural Research Institute

The Wisdom of Amenemope (also called the Wisdom of Amenemopet, Instruction of Amenemope, or Instructions of Amenemopet) is an ancient Egyptian text that has mostly survived to the present, dating to sometime between 1550 and 1350 BC. Egyptian wisdom literature served as an inspiration for several ancient Israelite books, including the Deuteronom

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digital Ink Productions
• Release date: Mar 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781989852064

Book preview

Wisdom of Amenemope

SCRIPTURAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Published by Digital Ink Productions, 2023

COPYRIGHT

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

Wisdom of Amenemope

Digital edition. November 6, 2023

Copyright © 2023 Scriptural Research Institute.

ISBN: 978-1-989852-06-4

The Wisdom of Amenemope was written by Amenemope son of Kanakht sometime between 1550 and 1350 BC in Egyptian. This English translation was created by the Scriptural Research Institute in 2020 and 2022.

The image used for the cover is an artistic reinterpretation of ‘City entrance along the Nile’ by Hermann David Salomon Corrodi, painted circa 1890.

Note: The notes for this book include multiple ancient scripts. For your convenience, fonts correctly depicting these scripts are embedded in the ebook. If your reader does not support embedded fonts, you will need to install Unicode fonts that cover the ranges for Akkadian Cuneiform, Coptic, Demotic, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Greek, Hebrew, Phoenicia, and Ugaritic Cuneiform on your reader manually, or you may see blank areas, question marks, or squares where the scripts are used. The Noto fonts from Google cover most of the scripts used, however, will not depict Egyptian hieroglyphs correctly due to current limitations in Unicode.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Forward

Amenemope’s Titles

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Available Digitally

Available in Print

FORWARD

The Wisdom of Amenemope is an ancient Egyptian text that has mostly survived to the present, dating to sometime between 1550 and 1350 BC. It is also called the Wisdom (or Instructions) of Amenemopet, depending on how the Egyptian name Amen-em-ope (𓇋㌁㎒) is rendered. Egyptian wisdom literature served as an inspiration for several ancient Israelite books, including Deuteronomy, Psalms, Proverbs, and the Wisdom of Joshua ben Sira. The most significant influence of Amenemope on the Israelite texts is found in the book of Proverbs, which appears to be directly influenced by Amenemope. The Wisdom of Amenemope was lost for over 2000 years, however, in the late 1800s, several copies were found by Egyptologists both on papyrus and tablets. The various copies all dated to the 21st through 27th dynasties of Egypt, circa 1170 to 500 BC, meaning the Wisdom of Amenemope was in circulation for over 600 years before being lost. It is not clear when exactly it was lost, but it was no longer in circulation by the time the Septuagint was translated at the Library of Alexandria circa 250 BC, and there is no evidence the Library ever acquired a copy of it.

Its date of origin is equally obscure, and a wide variety of dates have been proposed. The text refers repeatedly to Aten along with Ra, which strongly implies a pre-Akhenaten origin. During the 18th dynasty, circa 1350 to 1335 BC, Pharaoh Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten and mandated that everyone in Egypt had to worship Aten (𓇋㍙𓇳), the solar disk. Before this, Aten was worshiped as one of many gods, and viewed as one aspect of Ra (㌟㌠), the sun god, specifically the dawn. Once Atenism became the state religion, the other gods