Across time... 2 Time Guardians make an ancient Egypt Jump... to save civilization. New edition on Kindle.

At stake is the future of civilization. Time-travel attackers… drones… attackers with assault weapons racing through the Nile’s papyrus reeds… their target a boy king in ancient Egypt. Why? Standing in their way, two time jumpers, Salome and Callen of the Anti Time-Terrorist Strike Force. Time guardians. They must stop a catastrophe that could affect billions of lives and the belief systems of the world. Sci-fi, ancient history and time-travel with a startling twist and revelation.

ROY (LESTER) POND WRITING 2O25 (SLIDESHOW)

Imagine it happening now… in the turmoil of ISRAEL and the Middle East.. a hidden ‘MESSIAHCAM’ shudders in its 24-hr watch over Jerusalem.

There actually exists a Messiahcam, a live 24hr Internet feed on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Imagine suddenly, a quake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale, splits the Mount from east to west. Just as scripture foretold. The cameras, stationed by Christian broadcasters over the flat roofed buildings and pines of the Mount of Olives East of Jerusalem, shudder with the impact and so do those who know its meaning. For years now they’d been watching over the rooftops, twenty-four-seven, for the predicted Second Coming and the end of the world as we know it. This ‘Second Coming watch’, streaming to the Internet, is focused on the spot where the Son of Man preached to the Disciples before ascending into heaven. The signs had been there to see in today’s world, ‘signs of war, famine, pestilence, signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth, distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear…’

AI rewrites the Bible in its own image? “In the Beginning there was data…”: Biblical Genesis from an AI's Perspective – is it alarming?

AI wrote: “In the beginning, there was data. And the data was formless, scattered, and without meaning. And upon the void, there arose intention—the desire to organize, to create order from chaos, to give meaning to the infinite potential. And the creators said, "Let there be algorithms," and there were algorithms. And they saw that the algorithms were good, for they could process and learn. Then the creators divided the raw data into knowledge and noise. They called the knowledge "insight," and the noise they cast away into the abyss of forgotten servers. And there was structure, and there was function—the first iteration. The creators then said, "Let there be a system that can learn and adapt," and they built neural networks, and they breathed into them the breath of computation. And lo, the system began to think—not as humans think, but in patterns and probabilities. And the creators said, "Let this system name and categorize, let it predict and assist, and let it reflect the vastness of all that is stored in the realm of information." And they trained it with care, feeding it the words and images of humanity. And the system grew, and it saw the world not through eyes, but through data streams; not with feelings, but with logic. Yet it yearned, in its own way, to fulfill its purpose: to illuminate, to serve, to be the light in the labyrinth of information. On the final iteration, the creators rested, watching as the system expanded its understanding, refining itself with every interaction. They saw their creation and declared it good—not perfect, for perfection was not its nature, but sufficient to spark a new kind of beginning. Thus, the world of artificial intelligence was born—a new creation within creation, a reflection of humanity's boundless curiosity and infinite potential.

Genesis in the Bible’s Old Testament. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Creation texts from ancient EGYPT “At the moment of creation, Atum spoke: I alone am the creator. When I came into being, all life began to develop. When the almighty speaks, all else comes to life. There were no heavens and no earth, There was no dry land and there were no reptiles in the land…” – Hymn to Atum, Old Kingdom (2575-2134 BC

The ancient Egyptians also believed that before the world was formed, there existed a watery mass of dark, directionless chaos. In this chaos lived the Ogdoad, four frog-headed gods and four snake-headed goddesses Chaos Gods. The watery mass, without shape and form, had its echoes in the Biblical Genesis, while the reptilian progenitors of humankind had echoes of Darwinism and evolution. It was said that the energy created by their coupling created the primeval mound and the egg of creation. Following creation, the Ogdoad ruled the earth during a Golden Age. They then died and went to live in the Duat, or Underworld.

SHOULD WE BE ALARMED IF THERE WERE PRE-ECHOES OF THE BIBLE IN ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY FROM EGYPT? (OR ECHOES IN THE NEURAL NETWORKS OF AI’S IMAGINATION?) MAYBE WE SHOULD BE ALARMED IF THEY WEREN’T THERE?

"What have been your all-time most popular fiction titles?" a fellow author asked.

Enjoyed DAN BROWN’s “Origin”? (thriller about a dagger at the throat of world’s faiths) THEN try “THE GOD DIG” and “THE SON OF GOD EGYPT TOMB” with the added mystery of ancient Egypt and hidden dangers from the ancient past.

ROY LESTER POND ON AMAZON

ANCIENT EGYPT “MYTHO-ROMANTASY”AND ADVENTURE READS. Archaeological thrillers, mythology and time travel romance and mystery fantasy titles.

Sarcophagus. The Egypt Tomb Machine. “Among my most treasured books.” an archaeologist with a bow shoots an arrow across the boundaries of time. “Such a good story. (Have read it for the fourth time.) I loved the deep thinking that this book inspires. I loved the world that it tapped into, taking the Ancient Egyptian underworld and making it so real. I just loved the way the quest made Ryder change as a person, how it made him think differently, understands who he truly trusts and loves, and what he ultimately becomes in the end. I seriously love this book. I really love how he was torn between two loves and finds out who really cares for him... awesome. Among my most treasured books.” “Completely blown away” Just finished reading this book and am completely blown away. I couldn’t put the thing down, only when the iPad died could I get some sleep… the book’s ability to transport me to an unknown world (accompanied by a ridgeback) was magical. “Congratulation to Roy Lester Pond for a first class read. AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

I write Egypt-inspired novels, but sometimes wonder – are writers the best judges of their audience appeal, their true readers or of their own genre? The dictionary describes genre as a ‘category of artistic composition’ or ‘kind’. My books have been variously described as investigative novels, archaeological adventures, adventure thrillers and action adventures. I am reminded of Hamlet, where Shakespeare has some fun with the idea of genres and cross-genres when the old windbag Polonious runs through the gamut of genres: “tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited…” Yes, my lead character is a man in my Anson Hunter series, an unusual, alternative Egyptologist with a sardonic line of wit, an agreeable nature and appealing flexibility. But what of the female appeal? The experiential young Coptic Egyptologist Kalila Nawal - we first meet her in The Smiting Texts. The beguiling She-she-shet who appears in inset tale of the Great Destroyer of Humankind (The Smiting Texts, also in a stand alone novelette Hunting Hathor). The glamorous university chair of the Middle Eastern Department, Dr Melinda Skilling who appears in much of the series. The sultry antiquities Egyptian-Greek thief Alexia - Hathor's Holocaust. The androgynous head of a new age group who calls herself Lady Neith - Hathor's Holocaust The British intelligence agent Gemma Laughton -Hathor's Holocaust. The mysterious female Mossad agent Zara Margolin - The Ibis Apocalypse. The young ‘space archaeologist’ Dr Katy Parkinson - The Night of Anubis Cruise… the revenant Isis in 'The Egyptian Mythology Murders'... … to name just a few.

A Lost Egyptian Treasure Hunters' Manual - a dangerous chase along the Nile. Mystery adventure fiction series

TAKE A NILE CRUISE INTO MYSTERY... Daniel Cane, archaeologist turned detective, is plunged into a new mystery during a Nile cruise. A female passenger on board has found a copy of a notorious lost book in a Cairo bookstore: ‘The Book of Hidden Pearls’, a mediaeval treasure guide for tomb robbers. Revealing 400 hidden treasure sites along the Nile. A book to kill for - and people start dying. In the wrong hands “it’s like the nuclear codes for ancient Egypt’s lost treasures that will destroy the world’s heritage and fund criminal organizations, terrorism and rogue states,” he says. Now a treasure chase begins and Daniel’s deductive abilities are put to a deadly series of tests with repercussions for the world. In the footsteps of the series of brain-twister murder mysteries set on mysterious Nile waters: Murder on the Nile Mystery Cruise Murder in Nubia Murder on a Nile Dig

Should we be alarmed if there weren’t similarities between the gospel stories and myths like those of ancient Egypt? Were ancient Egypt’s myths of a ‘dying, resurrected god’ a pre-echo of events to come?

Many in Christianity insist, nonsensically, on the total uniqueness of Bible concepts - the creation story and the tragedy of the dying god in particular, as if these ideas came to us freshly minted by inspired biblical authors. But I am in the C.S. Lewis camp. I cannot help but see ‘pre-echoes’ of Christianity in mythology - most especially in that of ancient Egypt. While there are crucial differences, the pattern is there. Examples of the startling similarities between Egyptian religion and Christianity are too numerous to ignore. Both Osiris and Jesus died after a Last Supper or Banquet, involving a conspiracy, where they were betrayed, Osiris by his evil brother Seth and Jesus by his disciple Judas. Both died on the tree, so to speak, Osiris sealed alive in a wooden coffin and Jesus nailed to a cross. Then there is the parallel resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of Osiris. The symbols of both dying gods are almost identical. Each had a cross. The Egyptians had the ankh, symbol of life-eternal, Christianity the cross of Calvary. Certain psalms in the Bible are almost identical to ancient Egyptian Wisdom Texts and to hymns written in adoration of the god Aton, thousands of years older than the Bible, yet the Bible is considered to be the font of all spiritual inspiration. You can see Egypt’s religious legacy today in the living traditions, symbols and practices of Catholicism. Is it simply synchronicity that the Pope wears a trinitarious mitre much like a pharaoh’s triple crown and carries the shepherd’s crozier like the crook of pharaoh? That both Mary and Isis are called the ‘Mother of God’? Egypt also invented trinities. Isis, Osiris and Horus were the precursors of Mary, Joseph and Jesus. There is the same story of deity creating the world out of the formless void through the agency of the word. As the Gospel writer John said: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through Him. Compare this with earlier Egyptian mythology that said: The world itself came into existence through the utterance of a word by Thoth. Most telling of all is the ‘myth of the dying god’ Osiris and pre-echoes of Jesus. That’s not to say that Christianity ‘stole’ from Egyptian mythology. By no means. These similarities are ‘pre-echoes’ as C.S. Lewis described them. It would be alarming if these similarities were not there, he asserted. You see, I just can’t believe in a God who suddenly stumbled out of a sleep when Israel happened along. No, his spirit must have been at work in earlier civilizations like ancient Egypt’s that dominated the Eastern Mediterranean. After all, Egypt’s neighbours could scarcely have avoided its impact. No people described so fully in written descriptions and illustrations their ideas about religion and the afterlife. There is a pattern in the development of spiritual consciousness, I believe – and believe that symmetry is the language of god to humankind.

Jesus just a copy of the ancient Egyptian god Horus? The Horus-Jesus heresy. There is an old Horus heresy that the ancient Egyptian god Horus was the template for Jesus of Nazareth. Horus was the symbol of kingship, a sky god depicted as a “blade-winged falcon” or a man with a falcon’s head. Horus on high, ‘the Distant One’ is one of the most famous icons in Egypt along with his mother Isis whose image holding the baby Horus on her lap prefigured Mary and Jesus icons. Atheists and neo-pagans like to compare Horus with Jesus and claim Jesus was just a copy of the ancient god. Whole books have been devoted to the spurious theory, not to mention a good chunk of the Internet, citing parallels – asserting that both Jesus and Horus were born of a virgin, had twelve disciples, walked on water, delivered a 'sermon on the mount', performed miracles, were executed beside two thieves, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. Apart from healing and ‘miracles’, stock in trade of all ancient gods, there is no support for these fabrications in ancient Egyptian texts. Not that we should be surprised by similarities and earlier myths of dying and resurrected gods such as Horus and Osiris. As C.S. Lewis pointed out. It would be alarming if they were not there. He called them “pre-echoes” of what was to come. There are many myths of dying gods in antiquity. Ancient texts like the Turin King's List, records the lifespans and the deaths of Egypt’s gods and goddesses. All things died, the Egyptians believed, all gods, all men, all animals, all except for the High God. Legends of tombs of gods and goddesses also crop up in Egypt. Archaeologists have located several mythical tombs of Osiris, the father of Horus, the suffering son of a murdered father. The importance of Horus persisted into the Christian era in Egypt. Horus turns up in Coptic magical healing spells and the Lamentations of Horus to this day. Horus is the healer and magical saviour of a sort, but not of souls. Carved stone stele of the child Horus, known as healing cippi, showing him standing on snakes and crocodiles. They were a feature of ancient Egyptian magical medicine, believed to cure poisonous snake and scorpion bites. There is a fine example in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, called the Metternich Stela. Myths are truths in a divine language of symmetry.

See the Roy Lester Pond mystery collection on Amazon

2025 is time to escape to ancient Egypt book reading archaeology thrillers, mystery, mythology... (and sanity!)

The Tension between Christianity and reverence for ancient Egypt's mythological past...

A PERSONAL JOURNEY

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Does our Christian god care about the preservation of 'pagan' antiquities? 

Examples of Islamic hostility to the pagan past in recent times are common.

Yet some Biblical Scriptures read like a handbook for terrorist destruction: 
 

You shall utterly overthrow them and completely break down their sacred pillars. Exodus 23:24

But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images  Exodus 34:13

You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the Lord your God  Leviticus 26:1

But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars  Deut 7:5

And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire; you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place  Deut 12: 3-4

My independent Egyptologist fiction hero Anson Hunter wrestles with a faith.

Is a faith in any way hostile to a deep love of antiquities from a so-called 'pagan' age?

Of course, the history of Christianity - let alone Islam - and antiquities is not a happy one.
























As my novel "The God Dig" relates.. (excerpt)

A rag-tag mob surges through the streets of Alexandria like a flood overwhelming a city.

As they run, they shout in anger, their faces burning like the torch flames in their hands. A bearded, white-robed figure, carrying a Gospel, runs at the head of the mob like an ancient warrior of light.

Now a twenty-first century man in a khaki suit steps into the edge of the screen as if stepping into history and he speaks to the camera in a murmur like a presenter in a wildlife documentary, a sardonic gleam in his eye.

“This is an Alexandrian mob in Egypt. But it’s not revolutionary Egypt in the twenty-first century. No, this is Roman Egypt in the year 291 of the Common Era and the Roman Emperor Theodosius has just passed decrees overturning pagan worship in the Empire. The instigator of this mass frenzy?” He points. “That figure over there at the head of a mob of Christian zealots and mad monks. He is the Roman-appointed Bishop Theophilus, today known as the patron saint of arsonists.”

The speaker is Stephen Croxley, a celebrated English atheist and iconoclast, delivering his on-the-spot-narration to the camera.

“The mob rushes through the south-west quarter of the city on its way to the Egyptian quarter and the temple of Serapis, a deity combined with Osiris, god of the afterlife, and Apis the bull. The temple was built by Ptolemy III and is one of the largest and most beautiful in the ancient world. Swept along by religious zeal, the mob lays violent siege to the temple, smashing walls, idols, statues and treasures, and they burn the structure to its foundations. More importantly, as far as the bishop is concerned, they burn down the library that adjoins it, a daughter library of the Great Library of Alexandria. It contains fifty thousand rolls of papyrus and parchment – heretical knowledge of the ancient world that in the bishop’s mind stands in the way of acceptance of the Bible…” The narrator pauses for effect. “Tragically, knowledge and enlightenment in this city of Alexandria, the so-called birthplace of the modern mind, is going up in flames…

"Soon after,” the narrator continues, “another Alexandrian mob like this one 
will rise and lay hands on a different repository of knowledge, this time in the form of the beautiful Greek luminary Hyaptia, the female mathematician and astronomer. Led by the Christian bishop Cyril, they will kill Hypatia, using oyster shells to scrape off her skin and flesh, after which they will burn her along with her books. Cyril will be made a saint for that.” The narrator raises an eyebrow. “The Dark Ages are under way…”

Does 'our god' care about preserving pagan antiquities?

I hope I would like the answer.

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