But Egyptology, while thus aiding to sweep away the former conception of
our sacred books, has aided biblical criticism in making them far more
precious; for it has shown them to be a part of that living growth of
sacred literature whose roots are in all the great civilizations of
the past, and through whose trunk and branches are flowing the currents
which are to infuse a higher religious and ethical life into the
civilizations of the future.(496)

(496) For general statements of agreements and disagreements between
biblical accounts and the revelations of the Egyptian monuments, see
Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the Monuments, especially chap. iv. For
discrepancies between the Hebrew sacred accounts of Jewish relations
with Egypt and the revelations of modern Egyptian research, see Sharpe,
History of Egypt; Flinders, Patrie, History of Egypt; and especially
Maspero and Sayce, The Dawn of Civilization in Egypt and Chaldea,
London, published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,
1894. For the statement regarding the Nile, that about the middle of
July "in eight or ten days it turns from grayish blue to dark red,
occasionally of so intense a colour as to look like newly shed blood,"
see Maspero and Sayce, as above, p. 23. For the relation of the Joseph
legend to the Tale of Two Brothers, see Sharpe and others cited. For
examples of exposure of various great personages of antiquity in their
childhood, see G. Smith, Chaldean Accounts of Genesis, Sayce's edition,
p. 320. For the relation of the Book of the Dead, etc., to Hebrew
ethics, see a striking passage in Huxley's essay on The Evolution of
Theology, also others cited in this chapter. As to trinities in Egypt
and Chaldea, see Maspero and Sayce, especially pp. 104-106, 175, and
659-663. For miraculous conception and birth of sons of Ra, ibid., pp.
388, 389. For ascension of Ra into heaven, ibid., pp. 167, 168; for
resurrections, see ibid., p. 695, also representations in Lepsius,
Prisse d'Avennes, et al.; and for striking resemblance between Egyptian
and Hebrew ritual and worship, and especially the ark, cherubim, ephod,
Urim and Thummim, and wave offerings, see the same, passim. For a very
full exhibition of the whole subject, see Renan, Histoire du Peuple
Israel, vol. i, chap. xi. For Egyptian and Chaldean ideas in astronomy,
out of which Hebrew ideas of "the firmament," "pillars of heaven," etc.,
were developed, see text and engravings in Maspe