Books of Breathing
The Books of Breathing are a collection of ancient Egyptian funerary texts with a name that carries more weight than it first suggests. "Breathing" here is not literal. It stands in for every dimension of life that the dead hoped to reclaim: sensation, movement, thought, connection. That single word holds the entire vision of an Egyptian afterlife.
The earliest known copy dates to around 350 BC. Later copies appear across the Ptolemaic Kingdom and, remarkably, as late as the 2nd century AD in Roman-era Egypt. Why did these texts endure for so many centuries? And what were they actually asking of the gods? The answers reveal something surprising about how the ancient Egyptians understood the boundary between the living and the dead.
The original titles of these texts name two of Egypt's most recognized deities directly. The first was called "The Letter for Breathing Which Isis Made for Her Brother Osiris, The First Letter for Breathing". A second companion text followed, bearing the title "The Second Letter for Breathing". These are not neutral administrative names. They frame the texts as personal correspondence, a letter written by a goddess to restore her dead brother to life.
By calling the texts letters, the authors made something formal into something intimate. The deceased is placed in the position of Osiris himself, the god who died and lived again. The papyri that contain the texts reached across many copies over the centuries, and scholars found them easy to confuse with one another. The variations between copies were significant enough to generate genuine scholarly debate about which text belonged to which tradition.
The Books of Breathing occupy a particular place in Egyptian funerary literature as a simplified form of the Book of the Dead. Where the Book of the Dead is long, elaborate, and steeped in ritual complexity, the Books of Breathing offer something more condensed. They still carry the essential purpose: to enable the deceased to continue existing in the afterlife.
The texts address various Egyptian gods directly, urging them to accept the dead person into their company. This is a form of divine petition, placing the deceased in the presence of the gods and asking that they be welcomed rather than turned away. The Arabic rendering of the title, Kitab al-Tanafus, which means Book of Breathing, reflects the long legacy of these texts and the cross-cultural scholarship that eventually surrounded them.
In the 19th century, some of the papyri that the American religious leader Joseph Smith, born in 1805 and died in 1844, used to create the Book of Abraham were identified as parts of the Books of Breathing. Smith's Book of Abraham became a text of significance in the Latter-day Saint tradition, and the question of what the underlying Egyptian papyri actually contained became a long-running subject of scholarly scrutiny.
The connection between ancient Egyptian funerary documents written centuries before the common era and a 19th-century American religious text is one of the more unusual threads in the history of biblical literature. The papyri brought these ancient texts into a new religious context entirely removed from the Nile Valley and from the Ptolemaic priests who originally commissioned them.
Common questions
What are the Books of Breathing in ancient Egyptian religion?
The Books of Breathing are ancient Egyptian funerary texts intended to allow deceased people to continue existing in the afterlife. The word "breathing" in the title is metaphorical, representing all aspects of life the dead hoped to experience again. They are a simplified form of the Book of the Dead.
How old are the Books of Breathing and when were they used?
The earliest known copy of the Books of Breathing dates to around 350 BC. Copies continued to be produced through the Ptolemaic Kingdom and into Roman Egypt, as late as the 2nd century AD.
What were the original titles of the Books of Breathing?
The original texts were titled "The Letter for Breathing Which Isis Made for Her Brother Osiris, The First Letter for Breathing" and "The Second Letter for Breathing". The letter framing tied the texts to the myth of Isis restoring the dead Osiris.
What is the connection between the Books of Breathing and Joseph Smith?
Some of the papyri that Joseph Smith (1805-1844) used to produce the Book of Abraham have been identified as parts of the Books of Breathing. This connection has made the ancient Egyptian texts a subject of ongoing scholarly discussion within Latter-day Saint studies.
How do the Books of Breathing differ from the Book of the Dead?
The Books of Breathing are a simplified form of the Book of the Dead. Both texts served Egyptian funerary purposes, but the Books of Breathing offered a more condensed version of the ritual petitions to the gods on behalf of the deceased.
What gods did the Books of Breathing address?
The Books of Breathing exhort various Egyptian gods to accept the deceased into their company. The texts function as divine petitions asking the gods to welcome the dead person rather than turn them away.