The word Amen is a declaration of affirmation found in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. Its use in Judaism dates back to its earliest texts. The word was imported into the Greek of the early Church from the Jewish synagogue. According to a standard dictionary etymology, amen passed from Greek into Late Latin, and thence into English. It has been generally adopted in Christian worship as a concluding word for prayers and hymns. In Islam, it is the standard ending to Dua (supplication). Common English translations of the word amen include: "Verily," "Truly," and "So be it." It can also be used colloquially to express strong agreement, as in, for instance, amen to that. Popular among many theosophists, proponents of Afrocentric theories of history, and adherents of esoteric Christianity is the conjecture that amen is a derivative of the name of the Egyptian god Amun (also spelled Amen), the god of life and reproduction, represented as also a man with a ram's head. From old Egyptian texts we can see that people regarded the sun as the emblem of the Creator. They called the sun Ra, and all other gods and goddesses were forms of the Creator. One of these gods was Amen; a secret, hidden and mysterious god named variously Amen, Amon, Amun, Ammon and Amounra. Amen, the hidden one, a local creator deity later married to Mut after rising in importance. Among the gods who were known to the Egyptians in very early times were Amen and his consort Ament, and their names are found in the Pyramid Texts,(Unas, line 558). It is evident that even in the remote period of the Vth Dynasty Amen and Ament were numbered among the primeval gods, if not as gods in chief certainly as subsidiary forms of some of them.
Of the attributes ascribed to Amen in the Ancient Empire nothing is known, but, if we accept the meaning "hidden" which is usually given to his name, we must conclude that he was the personification of the hidden and unknown creative power which was associated with the primeval abyss, gods in the creation of the world, and all that is in it.
Amen is represented in five forms , when he is seen:
1. As a man, seated on a throne, and holding in one hand the scepter, and in the other the symbol of "life." In this form he is one of the nine deities who compose the company of the gods of Amen-Ra, the other eight being Ament, Nu, Nut, Hehui, Hehet, Kekui, Keket, and Hathor.
2. As a man with the head of a frog, whilst his female counterpart Ament has the head of a uraeus*.
3. As a man with the head of a uraeus, whilst his female counterpart has the head of a cat.
4. As an ape.
5. As a lion couching upon a pedestal.
Israelites settled in Egypt for around 400 years from 1847 B.C. and during this sojourn they would certainly have been fully exposed to the worship of Amen-Ra. By the time of their exodus from Egypt in 1447 B.C., the term 'Amen' would be in their language even if it was not their god. It would be a word that had associations with reverence and majesty.
Eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.) believe that amen shares roots with the Sanskrit word, aum, a mystical or sacred syllable, incantation to be intoned at the beginning and end of a reading of the Vedas or prior to any prayer or mantra.
“Finally, we may note that the word Amen occurs not infrequently in early Christian inscriptions, and that it was often introduced into anathemas and Gnostic spells. Moreover, as the Greek letters which form Amen according to their numerical values total 99 (alpha=1, mu=40, epsilon=8, nu=50), this number often appears in inscriptions, especially of Egyptian origin, and a sort of magical efficacy seems to have been attributed to its symbol.”
(Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 1; 1907)
So Amen was originally the name of a pagan god, who was considered a form of a Creator God. But he was certainly not the Most High El, Yahweh El Elyon neither Yeshua His begotten Son. (Dimitrios Toris)
5. As a lion couching upon a pedestal.
Israelites settled in Egypt for around 400 years from 1847 B.C. and during this sojourn they would certainly have been fully exposed to the worship of Amen-Ra. By the time of their exodus from Egypt in 1447 B.C., the term 'Amen' would be in their language even if it was not their god. It would be a word that had associations with reverence and majesty.
Eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.) believe that amen shares roots with the Sanskrit word, aum, a mystical or sacred syllable, incantation to be intoned at the beginning and end of a reading of the Vedas or prior to any prayer or mantra.
“Finally, we may note that the word Amen occurs not infrequently in early Christian inscriptions, and that it was often introduced into anathemas and Gnostic spells. Moreover, as the Greek letters which form Amen according to their numerical values total 99 (alpha=1, mu=40, epsilon=8, nu=50), this number often appears in inscriptions, especially of Egyptian origin, and a sort of magical efficacy seems to have been attributed to its symbol.”
(Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 1; 1907)
So Amen was originally the name of a pagan god, who was considered a form of a Creator God. But he was certainly not the Most High El, Yahweh El Elyon neither Yeshua His begotten Son. (Dimitrios Toris)
*The Uraeus plural Uraei or Uraeuses; from the Greek οὐραῖος, ouraīos, "on its tail"; from Egyptianj’r.t (iaret), "rearing cobra") is the stylized, upright form of an Egyptian cobra (vipera aspis, serpent, or snake), used as a symbol of sovereignty, royalty, deity and divine authority in ancient Egypt.
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