Egyptian Roots-Why We Say Amen After Prayer

Christianity is currently the largest religion on the planet, with an estimated 2.2 billion followers worldwide, making up a staggering 31% of the earth’s population. The overriding message of religion is that of peace, acceptance and love, although unfortunately many followers (and teachers) do not practice in this way.

One of the words that are most commonly spoken in Christianity is the word “Amen” this can be spoken after prayer, before and after meals or when someone says something holy. The agreed upon definition for the word “Amen” is “so be it” like an affirmation of your action or speech. However, many followers of the bible believe it has many meanings such as- to take care, to be faithful, reliable or established, or to believe someone or something.

If you go a little further back in time there is a very strong link to Amen and Egypt. Amen (Amun) is the Egyptian god known as “king of the gods” and it is believed he was later emulated by the Greek god Zeus.

Above is the typical depiction of Amun, with two plumes on his head, with the ankh in his left hand and the was sceptre in the right.

After the merging with the sun god “Ra” to become Amun-Ra he became the singular god for worship in the New Kingdom of Egypt.  This period was under the rule of Akhenaten and ran from 16th to 11th centuries BC. Amun-Ra was seen as the the manifestation of absolute perfection and Akhenaten elevated his position to that of the singular god for worship in the New Kingdom, meaning Amun-Ra was thought of as what Christians would now call “God”.

There is a heavily play on words that flow over into our current vocabulary of Ra- translated to Sun- and sun also being the word of a different spelling for a male child “Son” meaning the words of Amen and Ra combined represent the father (Amen) and the Son (Ra), with the holy spirit being the projection of Amen’s spirit to the son- making the holy trinity. To add to this the physical sun within our sky could be looked upon as the Son of God (Amen) being that it is a physical force that gives life to all of humanity. The sun being the ultimate manifestation of God’s giving.

Cross over in religion is certainly nothing new and much of that which exists within 1 religion flows over to the next. Maybe there is no right or wrong religion, but that each is a piece to a bigger puzzle that can only be put together through the acceptance and perhaps the crossing over of the many religions.

Amen as an affirmation to the Egyptian king of the gods should not put Christians off saying it, as in reality- what Christians call God actually represents the same thing. There are crossovers between the stories of Mother Mary and Jesus compared to Isis and Horus. Osiris and Set compared to God and Satan. Maybe the stories will continue to repeat in different ways for future generations, so that those with a different level of consciousness can understand the same metaphorical value in a more congruent way.

Luke Miller the author of this article