The everlasting interchange of life and death, flows throughout all the religious philosophy of the Ancient Egyptians; basing itself on the continual return of day from night and of day to night, and upon the apparent course of the sun, they seem to have formulated the idea of the immortality of the soul of man after death.
Herodotus tells us,[80] that the Egyptians believed, that the soul of the departed passed into an animal, and after having gone through all the ranks of the animal world, was at the end of three thousand years reunited to the human body; but from the remains of the Egyptian religion we have to-day, next to nothing has been found that will confirm this statement, but much that shows the Greek authors were frequently in error. In the realm of the dead, according to the texts of the Book of the Dead, (chapter LXXXIX. and other places,) the responsible soul or _Ba_ of the deceased, may become a sparrow-hawk, an adder, a crocodile-headed being, etc., but only to deceive its demon enemies;[81] not until after this, is the _Khu_, the intellectual soul, which accompanies the _Ba_, which is represented under the symbolized form of a sparrow-hawk with a human head, reunited to the _Ba_. This however all occurs, not on earth, but in the realms of the dead. The Ancient Egyptian believed, that as the setting of the sun was an actual separation of the body and soul of the sun-god; and its rising, a reunion of the two; so it happened to the future of the spiritual of man, and that after man's death on this earth, his spirit, as did that of the sun-god; would arise again to life, but it would be to a life of immortality in a higher sphere. I am inclined also to think, that they believed the spiritual body of the new-born child came down from the sun-disk or from some very exalted sphere.[82]
The following quotations from Eugène Grébaut's translation in French, of the Hymn to Ammon-Ra, are important for an understanding of the positions of Khepra and of Turn during the Theban Dynasties.
"Hail to thee Ra, lord of the _maat_, (the) mysterious in his shrine. Master (i.e., father) of the gods, Khepra in its boat, (it) sending forth the word (i.e., the creative word,) the gods came into existence. Hail god Tum, maker of intelligent beings, who determines their manner of existence, artisan of their existences; (and who) distinguishes (their) colors, one from the other."[83] "Author of humanity, making the form of all things to become (or, former who produced every thing;) it is in thy name of Tum-Khepra."[84] "Khepra is father of the gods and the producer of the _maat_."[85]