Editing Set (deity) (section)

==The demonization of Set==
[[File:Relief Herihor Seth obliterated.jpg|left|thumb|140px|Set on a late New Kingdom relief from Karnak: his figure was erased during his demonization.]]

According to Herman te&nbsp;Velde, the demonization of Set took place after Egypt's conquest by several foreign nations in the [[Third Intermediate Period|Third Intermediate]] and [[Late Period of Ancient Egypt|Late Periods]]. Set, who had traditionally been the god of foreigners, thus also became associated with foreign oppressors, including the [[Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt|Kushite]] and [[Persian Empire|Persian]] empires.{{sfn|te&nbsp;Velde |1967 |pp=138–140}} It was during this time that Set was particularly vilified, and his defeat by Horus widely celebrated.

Set's negative aspects were emphasized during this period. Set was the killer of Osiris, having hacked Osiris' body into pieces and dispersed it so that he could not be [[resurrection|resurrected]]. The Greeks would later associate Set with [[Typhon]] and [[Yahweh]], a monstrous and evil force of raging nature (being the three of them depicted as donkey-like creatures, classifying their worshippers as [[Onolatry|onolatrists]]).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Litwa |first=M. David |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1243261365 |title=The Evil Creator: Origins of an Early Christian Idea |date=2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-756643-5 |location=New York, NY |chapter=The Donkey Deity |oclc=1243261365 |quote=We see this tradition recounted by several writers. Around 200 BCE, a man called Mnaseas (an Alexandrian originally from what is now southern Turkey), told a story of an Idumean (southern Palestinian) who entered the Judean temple and tore off the golden head of a pack ass from the inner sanctuary. This head was evidently attached to a body, whether human or donkey. The reader would have understood that the Jews (secretly) worshiped Yahweh as a donkey in the Jerusalem temple, since gold was characteristically used for cult statues of gods. Egyptians knew only one other deity in ass-like form: Seth.}}</ref>

Set and Typhon also had in common that both were sons of deities representing the Earth ([[Gaia (mythology)|Gaia]] and Geb) who attacked the principal deities (Osiris for Set, [[Zeus]] for Typhon).{{citation needed|date=July 2020}} Nevertheless, throughout this period, in some outlying regions of Egypt, Set was still regarded as the heroic chief deity.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}

[[Ancient Egypt|Ancient Egyptologist]] Dr. [[Kara Cooney]] shot an episode called "The Birth of the Devil" in the "Out of Egypt" documentary series.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Out_of_Egypt | title=Out of Egypt - DocuWiki }}</ref> In this documentary, the scientist describes the process of demonization of Set and the positioning of the it as absolute evil on the opposite side, in parallel with the transition to [[monotheism]] in different regions from Rome to India, where God began to be perceived as the representative of absolute goodness.