Conversations in the House of Life: A New Translation of the Ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth

by Richard Jasnow, Karl-Theodor Zauzich

This is a new translation of a text first published as The Ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth (2005). The composition is a dialogue between a Master, perhaps the god Thoth himself, and a Disciple, named The-one-who-loves-knowledge. Originally written in Demotic, the text dates to the Graeco-Roman Period (ca. 300 B.C. to 400 A.D.). The dialogue covers everything from how to hold the writing brush and the symbolic significance of scribal utensils to a long exposition on sacred geography. The work may be an initiation text dealing with sacred knowledge. It is closely associated with the House of Life, the temple scriptorium where the priests wrote their books. Conversations in the House of Life is intended for the general public. The explanatory essays, commentary, and glossary help the reader explore the fascinating universe of the Book of Thoth. As a document of Late Period Egyptian thought it is of importance to all those interested in Graeco-Roman Period intellectual history; students of the Classical Hermetica will find the Book of Thoth especially intriguing.

Genres: Egypt, Esoterica

244 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2014

Reviews

[DAJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Book of Thoth, as Jasnow and Zauzich dubbed it, is a very cryptic text that was apparently used as an instruction or initiation for temple scribes in the Greco-Roman era. But it seems to have been popular within priestly circles, because there are at least thirty surviving copies of it, which is a remarkably high total for a text from 2,000 years ago. But all those copies are in fragments, and they're mostly in the difficult, blobby Demotic script. Recognizing them all as a single composition, and then piecing them together, has been the work of decades. By the time this book was published, the process was advanced enough that a semi-coherent translation could be written, but many passages are still missing, and the effect is pretty disorienting. A sample, from a fragmentary section and the beginning of a better-preserved one:

"…the nurses of the divine-images (?)… on account of a command… Great is their body, it being strong,… they punishing on account of scattering of the Ones-of-the-House-of-Life. They are difficult, namely, the writings." (No kidding!)

But Jasnow and Zauzich are well aware this text is hard to follow. So the introduction includes a summary of the text; an extensive glossary and further reading are at the end of the book; and each page of the translation is accompanied by a facing-page commentary. (The translation is on the right side and the commentary on the left, which feels counterintuitive.) On many points, the authors themselves are uncertain how to interpret the text, and in many places they suggest more than one possible understanding of a passage. According to the acknowledgements, they have drawn heavily on suggestions from other scholars, so they really seem to be presenting a range of opinions from across the papyrological community. That doesn't make their translation easier for the reader—the blurb that calls it "intended for the general public" must be using "general public" in the loosest sense. But it does make this book as authoritative as it can get without diving into the critical apparatus detailing differences between copies (for which there are two publications).

If this book has a hook, it's the possibility that it bears some relation to the Hermetica, the Greek mystical texts that purport to record the words of the legendary sage Hermes Trismegistus. Hermes Trismegistus is derived from the god Thoth, who seems to be the instructor in Jasnow and Zauzich's text (hence the title they gave it). But while the format of the Book of Thoth resembles the Hermetica in being a dialogue between master and disciple, the content is very different. The Hermetica are so philosophical-sounding that it was long believed they were basically Greek philosophical works with some Egyptian coloring thrown in. The Book of Thoth is aggressively Egyptian: a thicket of allusions to Egyptian mythological concepts, full of metaphors about jackals, ibises, baboons, barley fields, and waterways, dotted with paeans to the glory of hieroglyphic writing and the scribal tradition, culminating in a list of the regions of Egypt where each one is personified by a vulture. Moreover, unlike the Hermetica, the Book of Thoth doesn't seem to be about spiritual transcendence per se. But the text does liken the process of becoming a temple scribe and entering its library to the process of entering the Duat, the mysterious realm of the gods. The Book of Thoth is not a direct forerunner to the Corpus Hermeticum, merely one piece of evidence that something like the Hermetica could have come from an Egyptian priestly milieu. But both are initiation texts in which knowledge is a sacred force that prepares the initiate to encounter divinity, and in which Thoth/Hermes is the one who points the way.

[Muhammad · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have an understanding of Ancient Khemetian thought there are some useful items in here. The scholarly determinations for what some of the tractates mean are sometimes more helpful than the lines themselves because it is so fragmented. I was able to get some more understanding on the Eye of Ra that has to be brought back to Egypt. For that information I'm going 3 stars. Hopefully in the future they either find a more complete copy of the Book of Djehuti (I don't know why they still use Greek names when they know that's not the personages cultural name) and I can go up in the rating based off the information but out of almost 700 lines, it's probably (guessing) 3/7 of a complete text.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating esoteric work, but be aware that it's rather limited. That isn't the fault of the authors - you can't translate something that isn't there, or add content that never existed in the first place. This is a translation of some kind of scribal initiation ritual (well, the parts that have been preserved and identified, anyway), no more and no less. Evocative and useful to researchers, yes, but I can't imagine it being of much interest to most people.

[Aileen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Conversations in the House of Life is well researched and has a lot of thought and consideration put into understanding the of the conversations between Master & Disciple.The corresponding information to the translated lines on the opposite page helps provide insight to the translations and gives you an understanding of Ancient Egyptian thought.

[Alexandru · Rating 3 out of 5]

fascinating work in progress translation of an initiation text.
by work in progress i mean the whole thing is yet to be pieced together since there are a LOT of missing fragments.
the connections to later alchemical symbols are especially interesting
shoutout to the authors for making this accessible, the introduction was useful for a curious layperson

[Juju · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edition-wise very well done, the translations given are at times not necessarily without problems.

[Kaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read the earlier edition and was happy to find the more recent version. Well formatted and accessible.