The great pyramid passages and chambers

5 John Taylor, remembering the idolatrous and immoral practices of the Egyptians, reasoned that these invaders whom they detested, were probably of purer worship and character; and he thought that the evidences pointed to their being members of God's chosen race in the direct line of, but preceding, Abraham,—possibly under Shem himself or Melchizedec, though he inclined to the belief that the master builders were the thirteen sons of Joktan, son of Eber, the great-grandson of Shem. I so, this would easily account for the Egyptians’ hatred of their rulers, because, not only were the Egyptians as a subject people forced to build the Pyramid and to close their own temples, but they must have seen the bulls, which they worshipped, sacrificed by these ‘‘men of an ignoble race.’ From that day every shepherd was ‘‘an abomination unto the Egyptians’ —-Compare Gen. 46: 32-34; Exod. 8: 25, 26; Gen. 43:32. Whether or not this surmise be correct, evidence will be given in the following pages that John Taylor was right when he declared that the Great Pyramid was of Divine origin.

6 Concerning the Shepherd Kings, the following extract from John Taylor’s work is full of suggestive interest :—‘t They came into the country as strangers; they were not of the same race nor of the same religion with the Mizraim [Egyptians], who preceded them in its occupation; they did not invade it as conquerors, though, as Manetho tells us, ‘they easily subdued it by their power without a battle. They must, therefore, have come either in such large numbers as to make opposition hopeless, or they must have been received as benefactors by the common people whom they employed ; and it was only after their departure that their memory was calumniated by the stories told of their oppression. They were evidently animated by a strong desire to perform a certain task, and when they had accomplished it they left the country of their own accord, confiding to the care of the original inhabitants those wonderful works by which they had enriched and ennobled the land. They never returned to claim any interest in the fruits of their labours, but occupied some other country, in which they erected no such monuments as these. They were so far like conquerors, or tyrants as they were called, that they were, for the time being, the ruling power of the country. They employed the common people in realizing their magnificent conceptions, for which they must have given them the most minute directions ; and this evident superiority of intellect may have caused the ignorant to envy and misrepresent them. But that they improved the condition of the people among whom they took up their abode during not less than 100 years, must be admitted by all who know how greatly an inferior race is benefited by the invasion of a superior.”

7 Before his death, John Taylor requested Professor C. Piazzi Smyth, at that time Astronomer Royal for Scotland, to go to Egypt and make a thorough scientific examination of the Great Pyramid. This Professor Smyth did during the winter 1864-5. In his Life and Work at the Great Pyramid, he has left on record minute measurements of every important part of the structure, except, on the exterior, the few remaining casing-stones, and, in the interior, the Subterranean Chamber or Pit, and the lower three-fourths of the Descending Passage. Large accumulations of rubbish prevented him from exploring these portions. With the exception of minute fractional differences in certain parts, these measurements have since been confirmed by other scientific investigators, prominent among whom is Professor Flinders Petrie, in spite of the fact that he ridicules the various scientific and religious theories warmly advocated by Professor Smyth.

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