Amenemope (author) Quotes

Amenemope , the son of Kanakht, is the ostensible author of the Instruction of Amenemope, an Egyptian wisdom text written in the Ramesside Period. He is portrayed as a scribe and sage who lived in Egypt during the 20th Dynasty of the New Kingdom and resided in Akhmim , the capital of the ninth nome of Upper Egypt. His discourses are presented in the traditional form of instructions from father to son on how to live a good and moral life, but they are explicitly organized into 30 numbered chapters.Although once thought to be unique, the Instruction is now seen to share common themes with the wisdom literature of other ancient Near Eastern cultures including Babylonia and Israel, most notably the biblical books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Sirach, for which a Hebrew translation of the Instruction served as a source. Within the Book of Proverbs, verses Proverbs 22:17–23:11 closely parallel Amenemope's Instruction. The date of 1100 BCE places the authorship of the Instruction earlier than any part of the Bible, and egyptologists such as James Henry Breasted credit Amenemope with having a profound influence on Western ethical and religious development due to his Instruction being read by the Hebrews and portions of it being included, sometimes verbatim, in various books of the Bible. "It is likewise obvious that in numerous other places in the Old Testament, not only in the Book of Proverbs, but also in the Hebrew law, in Job, ... in Samuel and Jeremiah, Amenemope's wisdom is the source of ideas, figures, moral standards, and especially of a certain warm and humane spirit of kindness." Amenemope, in turn, was drawing on a much older text, The Maxims of Ptahhotep. Wikipedia  

Amenemope (author): 1   quote 0   likes

Amenemope (author) Quotes

“Do not move the markers on the border of the fields.”

Source: The Instruction of Amenemope, ch. 6

Similar authors

Naguib Mahfouz photo
Naguib Mahfouz 7
Egyptian writer
Aeschylus photo
Aeschylus 119
ancient Athenian playwright
Euripidés photo
Euripidés 116
ancient Athenian playwright
Hippocrates photo
Hippocrates 33
ancient Greek physician
Virgil photo
Virgil 138
Ancient Roman poet
Sappho photo
Sappho 16
ancient Greek lyric poet
Aesop photo
Aesop 36
ancient Greek storyteller
Xenophon photo
Xenophon 21
ancient Greek historian and philosopher
Juvenal photo
Juvenal 24
ancient roman poet
Isocrates photo
Isocrates 23
ancient greek rhetorician