Talk:Isis

Isis image

The image shown at the top is that of Isis, the (New Kingdom?) Egyptian goddess. But Isis has been a goddess and then an allegorical figure for good 2000-3000 years beyond, during which time she was not represented nor thought of as the original Egyptian Isis. May I thus suggest that the picture be replaced with a composite of perhaps 4 or 6 pictures showing various representations of Isis, e.g. one or two showing the original Egyptian Isis, another for the Roman or Greek one and finally one or two more recent ones, an 18th century or modern veiled Isis as a figure of nature (see the Wiki article on World War II for the kind of composite I have in mind). This would enable the reader to immediately identify the kind of representation to expect. The Isis you can see in the fountains of Paris or US statues looks nothing like the one from the Egyptian tombs and temples after all. In this respect, Isis is pretty special, contrary to other Egyptian divinities, she not just an Egyptian goddess and so I believe she should not be exclusively presented as such in the introductory image. Iry-Hor (talk) 07:40, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

When I first read Iry-Hor's suggestion, I thought about adding a second image underneath the first, but the problem here is the infobox, which can only incorporate one image at a time. The deity infobox has been standard on Egyptian deity articles since before I joined the project, and the established format—using User:Jeff Dahl's SVG image for each deity to indicate the more or less standard iconography of each one—has always seemed sensible and appealing to me. An infobox can use a single composite image, as Iry-Hor suggests, but I don't care for composite images because they reduce the readability of each image they incorporate. And adding a lead image under an infobox seems strange and awkward to me. I'm open to other opinions, though. A. Parrot (talk) 08:47, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Problematic wording

"Thus, like Hathor, she sometimes took the form of Imentet, the goddess of the west, who welcomed the deceased soul into the afterlife as her child.[27] But for much of Egyptian history, male deities like Osiris were believed to provide the regenerative powers, including sexual potency, that were crucial for rebirth. Isis merely assisted by stimulating this power.[26] "

This wording supports a patriarchal value system that is not a necessary interpertation of the myth. Could it not be even more accurate and less biased to value the masculine if stated something more like this?

""Thus, like Hathor, she sometimes took the form of Imentet, the goddess of the west, who welcomed the deceased soul into the afterlife as her child.[27] But for much of Egyptian history, male deities like Osiris were believed to provide the regenerative powers, including sexual potency, that were crucial for rebirth while Isis was a catalyst for stimulating this power.[26] "

This language gives Isis a more empowered role. Using wording like "merely assisted" downplays Isis' role and by extension downplays the female sexual/maternal contribution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.52.143.123 (talk) 23:35, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

78.52.143.123: I worded it that way because I'm trying to convey that goddesses' role was secondary. The source that supports this passage—a scholarly paper by Kara Cooney titled "Gender Transformation in Death: A Case Study of Coffins from Ramesside Period Egypt"—says as much. Her interpretation doesn't derive from the myth itself but from how deities are characterized in funerary texts. She says:

Isis provided sexual excitement, but it was Osiris who essentially raised himself from the dead. Isis created the enclosure for Osiris's rebirth—his mummy wrappings—and she acted as the vessel for the conception of his son, Horus. But Isis was not thought to bring Osiris back to life; instead, she manifested a situation in which he could bring himself back to life… In the same Osirian-solar mythologies of rebirth and creation, the female element took on the role of aggressive protector, helper, and empty vessel. Although the goddesses Isis, Nut, and Hathor excited the male with feminine presence, provided sustenance, protected him from harm, reconstituted his shape, and contained him in a womb, they were not believed to be responsible for the spark of creation that gave new life." (pp. 227–228)

After the New Kingdom, Egyptian theology came to emphasized goddesses more than it once did, and Isis benefited from that development most of all. Late funerary texts took a slightly different angle on the myth of Horus' conception, one that emphasized that Isis was the active partner in the act. Those texts thus made her more important in the rebirth of the deceased soul than early New Kingdom texts did. The passages in the article that follow the one you quote are meant to convey that idea, although they may need tweaking to make them clearer. A. Parrot (talk) 00:23, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 October 2018

plz accept and what is Isis the god of — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:7D30:FFD0:35F9:5576:6BFC:C24D (talk) 21:44, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

2600:1700:7D30:FFD0:35F9:5576:6BFC:C24D: Isis wasn't the goddess of a clearly defined aspect of the world, as some other Egyptian gods were. Therefore, she can't really be summed up as "goddess of such-and-such", and this article doesn't try to do so. Mourning, motherhood, and protection were her most important characteristics early on, but at the height of her popularity she was credited with—well, nearly everything positive in the world. Read the article for details. A. Parrot (talk) 00:18, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 May 2019

hi i was wondering if i can edit bc i have new info on isis that no one knows about MR.HACKERZ (talk) 21:11, 21 May 2019 (UTC)