Adam & Eve & the Egyptian serpent

Ancient Egypt had an immense influence on the world, through trade links and cultural contacts, so it should be no surprise to see ancient Egyptian ideas being propagated into later civilizations. Many Biblical figures in particular had very significant links with ancient Egypt, spending important and formative years there imbibing Egyptian ideas. In the Book of Genesis, we read about Abraham and Sarah going to Egypt and staying with the royal court, presumably becoming steeped in Egyptian knowledge and culture.

On craft-worker gods and heroes

For ancient as well as modern people, God has been conceived of in a bewildering variety of ways. At one extreme, we see a wholly abstract and ineffable power, such as the Advaitic conception of Brahman, and on the other hand, we find an anthropomorphic god such as Krishna in the Mahābhārata, who is faced by the same moral dilemmas and limitations on his ability to act as the rest of us.

T.S. Eliot, the Vedas and the Concept of Time

The concept of time seems to have been a preoccupation for many leading figures of this generation across a variety of fields, stimulated perhaps in part by the linking of hitherto distant regions through railway and telegraphy during the nineteenth century, and likely also by the impact of Einstein’s work. Such figures might include Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, Marcel Proust, Salvador Dali and many others.