The opening of this book rightly lays the foundation of the meaning of the word. It is a scholarly start, which leads to some remarkable places.
The care and clarity of presentation of Amen leave no doubt that this is a book of profound enlightenment. With such a vast sweep of perspective, the author's modesty is engaging, yet his grasp of the subject has extraordinary depth and completeness: in a relatively few simple words Mr. Ginex sums up libraries of his own research, and learning and the assurance of his narrative will draw you in, whatever your previous beliefs.
We are guided through the vast stretch of Egypt's history, certainly a period of 4,000 years before the coming of Christ, with understanding and economy of words, supplemented by illustrations and tables, in a way which certainly gave me a better perspective than any of my previous readings.
The concepts of a creator God, soul, and an afterlife are successfully traced to ancient Egypt, and it is remarkable how well modern usage is related to ancient formulation. The variants of the name of God are sketched and tracked to “amen,” and this alone restores enormous meaning to the uses of the word in modern Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The Egyptian emphasis on truthfulness, maat, particularly struck a chord with me, in stark contrast to our present dissembling age of “spin.”
Not only does Mr. Ginex give a satisfying explanation of how Egyptian beliefs passed through Moses to Judaism, he also explains how these ideas passed into Christianity as a result of the war with Rome, which destroyed the Jewish nation. His insight into the central role of the Essenes goes a long way to explain the writing of the Gospels, indeed, the whole New Testament.
Mr. Ginex reveals the hidden power of “amen.” His book builds a careful and compelling story of the development of religion in the West, from ancient Egypt to the Christian era. His explanation of the book of Revelations, the most difficult and mysterious book of the Bible, is masterly and unanswerable. For me, this is the crescendo of the book, and its force of argument should leave no one in any doubt.
Above all, Nicholas Ginex's humanity shines through as with no other author. He leads us by the hand, allowing us to understand the great spiritual figures of our heritage; in this book he holds out not only his own hands but also theirs, offering God's greatest message—“Love one another.”
If you follow the practice of any religion, Amen will cause you to ask your rabbi, priest, preacher, or imam, “Have you read this book?”
