Just published in open access in Die Welt des Orients (52:2, December 2022) by team researcher Robert Kade: “The Many Paths into the Chamber of Darkness,” a review article about the newest volume in the critical edition of the Demotic Book of Thoth, which Robert calls “the most important text on the initiation into the scribal profession that has survived from ancient Egypt.” Read it here!

See especially pp. 293-297, where Robert considers the relevance of the Book of Thoth for the study of biblical wisdom literature.

Here’s the abstract for the article:

In 2021 Richard Jasnow and Karl-Theodor Zauzich concluded their 34 years long publication project of an important initiatory composition known from Ancient Egypt, the so-called Book of Thoth or (by its Egyptian title) Ritual for Entering the Chamber of Darkness. But even though the text is now known for more than three decades, the amount of critical reception is still very minor. This article can be read primarily as a review to the final volume of their edition, the Book of Thoth II, which offers an updated transliteration and translation alongside facsimiles of the manuscripts and a set of interpreting essays in two volumes. It is shown that it can only be efficiently used alongside the older publications, therefore a part of the study centers on the complicated history of research and its critical evaluation. In addition to that, this article aims to contextualize the potential for other disciplines to recognize and work with this exceptional composition. This is demonstrated by three case studies, viewing the text through the perspective of similar compositions known from the Ancient Near East, Ancient Greek and Ancient Israel. As a consequence, interdisciplinary researchers are encouraged, by using the now completed edition, to discover their own paths into the chamber of darkness.

Article DOI: https://doi.org/10.13109/wdor.2022.52.2.271