Dr. Théophile Obenga and Atomist Philosophy in Ancient Egypt

The following clips are from lectures given by Dr. Théophile Obenga where he discusses the Ancient Egyptian Origin of Atomist Philosophy.  The points discussed in this lecture are expounded on more in his book entitled “African Philosophy: The Pharaonic Period: 2780-330 BC”.  It is important to note that the Ancient Egyptian Atomist Philosophy dates back to roughly 2400 BC, almost 2000 years before the Greek Philosopher Democritus’s Atomist Philosophy.  In the 2000 years since Democritus, Atomist Philosophy gave birth to Atomic Theory, and Atomic Theory gave birth to Electrical Technology.

Clip #1:
So this is the wisdom, the foundation of wisdom, it came from Kemet.  So in fact there was no Stolen Legacy, no, in antiquity they recognized...This is one of them too, He spent 5 years in Kemet studying, Who they call the “Father of Atomist Theory".  He spent 5 years in Kemet studying there physics and what they call Nature.

Clip #2:
Now the question that would arise is, “What would the Greeks learn in Egypt?”  And that’s why I would like to expand on the principle elements of Egyptian philosophy.  The main question really in all philosophical systems has always been, “What is?”  That is to say, an explanation of the world in general.  The Egyptian Philosophy postulates that you have a concept of a Nun in existence.  The Nun comes before creation,  Before God,  Before Man,  Before the Skies and the Earth,  Before all that could have existed before the existence of the Earth…And this principle called Nun had been seen by the Egyptians as a concept of “water”, of aqueous liquid…Therefore the Nun is a state of the world, before the world, before the world came into being.  And before the world came into being, as it is known today, existed a matter called Nun.  But this Nun is already a pre-configuration of the dimensions of the world as it existed before.  I’m reading here a Coffin Text now:
"The Nun whose dimension is one of the heavens and whose length is one of the earth
Therefore this primordial matter was widespread.  But it was not organized."
But another text of the temple of in Edfu, this is an Ancient Egyptian temple, it’s saying that everything was condensed in the Nun, and that the initial matter was inorganic, and that the Nun was condensed in one single form.
Another Coffin Text says “I am Nun, I am the unique, I am without equal, I have created myself”
But in this Nun, something will happen,  RA, the symbol of intellect, For spirit and understanding, The symbol for intelligence, for superior intelligence, like the Nous described by Anaxagoras.  And RA will come out of this primitive liquid through his own will and he will come out in a light all of the sudden.
And the text says, In The Book of the Dead:
“I am the Eternal, I am RA sprung from Nun, I am the master of the light”
Therefore you see that the Egyptians take the principle of matter at the beginning, and it is from this matter that the demiurge will come from.  In many explanations of the Genesis of the world, you have on the one hand, the God creator, and on the other hand, the matter that God is going to create,
In the Bible for example, Elohim, because Elohim is a plural form in Hebrew, So it should be Gods in plural, but the Bible translates God in singular,
So therefore you can see that in the Bible, God is separated from the being that he will create, In Plato’s Timaeus, the Demiurge is separated from the beings that he will create.  Egypt postulates the existence of matter first, and from that matter will come out life.  Therefore today’s debate between the contradiction of the debate of matter and spirit was unknown to the Egyptians.  And if we continue to philosophize, maybe in the 21st century, we will come with a synthesis between matter and spirit, but such a synthesis was already present in the Egyptian philosophical system centuries ago.  Therefore you will see that the first Philosophers in Greece, (Thales, Democritus, etc.)
The first Greek philosophers will philosophize on the Nature of the Universe, Because the ideas that I just explained were already widespread in Ancient Egypt, In Memphis, Heliopolis, or Thebes, it was already taught in the schools of Higher Learning.  And even the dead people, the mummies, you had on the cords that were used to mummify them, such references.  Therefore, the Greek students present in Egypt were aware of such ideas.  And that’s why one can say that the Greeks did not innovate compared to Ancient Egypt, because they refer to water, to air, to earth, and fire, as the main constituents, of their philosophical system, but this was already present in the Ancient Egyptian philosophical system.

This is a very brief explanation of a very important point in Egyptian philosophy.  I would like to talk about existence, and how the Sun came into being, which is a very important philosophical point in the history of philosophy...