Reevaluating My Te Velde Recommendation

Later Edit to “How do we know Set isn’t evil?”:

 I realize now that, ironically, I recommend Te Velde right after I definitively state my view that the Hyksos were primarily responsible for the later demonization of Set and destruction of the Setian cult. This is ironic because Te Velde spends several pages objecting to this perspective and attempting to debunk it.

Even more ironically, Te Velde probably won't improve anyone's opinion of Set if what they are hung up on is his homosexual advances/attacks on Heru. Te Velde also doesn't do much to dissuade the "Set is evil" crowd because he uses the word evil liberally throughout the book. However, in my estimation, a lot of the things Te Velde brings up do not correlate to our modern concepts of evil the way he seems to think. 

Note the publication and copyright date of the material is in the late 60’s: there is a lot of cultural bias in his work especially in his recounting of the homosexual interpretation of the contendings.  Also remember: Te Velde, like all professional Egyptologists, is concerned with science, not faith. He isn't attempting to understand Egyptian faith, he's attempting to describe Egyptian religion, which isn't exactly the same thing. He also has the same issue as Meeks in that he squeezes all the myths from across all the millennia together and merits them as a whole. He's better about pointing out the evolution of the myths over time, but is so obsessed with Plutarch being a superior source that many of his descriptions still treat the later evolutions of the myths as somehow "purer" forms of the earlier ones.

I'm second guessing my recommendation.

One would have to read a lot into Te Velde's work to find what I found in it. It's also worth noting that I read it concurrently with a number of other Egyptology texts and that influenced my opinion of it greatly--in a more positive direction than someone taking it on its own merits might. Despite my fondness for it, and allowing that there is a lot of good information to be found within, it's unlikely to change any minds about Set. 

At some point, I should probably do a write up, or at least an annotated guide to the Te Velde book. That might help explain where I'm coming from better than simply referencing the title does.