Egypt Book of the Dead Audio

The Egyptian Book of the Dead is a collection of spells which enable the soul of the deceased to navigate the afterlife. The famous title was given the work by western scholars; the actual title would translate as The Book of Coming Forth by Day or Spells for Going Forth by Day.

A more apt translation to English would be The Egyptian Book of Life as the purpose of the work is to assure one, not only of the survival of bodily death, but the promise of eternal life in a realm very like the world the soul had left behind. The spells provided this assurance through precise detail of what to expect after death and the kind of knowledge required to reach paradise.

Although the work is often referred to as "the Ancient Egyptian Bible" it is no such thing although the two works share the similarity of being ancient compilations of texts written at different times eventually gathered together in book form. The Book of the Dead was never codified and no two copies of the work are exactly the same. They were created specifically for each individual who could afford to purchase one as a kind of manual to help them after death.

The afterlife was considered to be a continuation of life on earth and, after one had passed through various difficulties and judgment in the Hall of Truth, a paradise which was a perfect reflection of one's life on earth. After the soul had been justified in the Hall of Truth it passed on to cross over Lily Lake to rest in the Field of Reeds where one would find all that one had lost in life and could enjoy it eternally. In order to reach that paradise, however, one needed to know where to go, how to address certain gods, what to say at certain times, and how to comport one's self in the land of the dead; which is why one would find an afterlife manual extremely useful.