I watched the Mummy again recently (the 1999 version, that is) and continue to be puzzled by one scene. When Beni Gabor (played by Kevin J. O’Connor) is translating what Imhotep is saying, he translates something as ‘forever’, at which Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) cries out ‘for all eternity, you idiot!’. This may be due to the fact that English is not my first language, but I fail to see the difference here. The thing is adressed in the trivia section of the IMDB here, and (as the trivia section says) something similar happens in Stargate. So what’s the difference between “forever” and “for all eternity” from an Egyptian point of view? Or is it just a joke I’m not getting?
If I can remember correctly (it’s been years since I’ve seen that movie) I think the whole joke was that Beni was supposed to be translating, and Evelyn proved him wrong. Maybe?
That’s part of the joke, anyway. But it does imply there’s an important difference between the two, and it still doesn’t explain why something similar is used in Stargate (which I don’t remember, by the way, I just saw it in the trivia section for the Mummy).
Husband aimed me over here; I don’t usually read Cafe Society. I’ll try to remember to check back and answer clarifying questions. 
First of all, I agree that it’s probably primarily a translator joke. However, I would not be surprised if there were some nuance of actual ancient Egyptian (hence ‘AE’) thought involved there; I’m told by people who have a much broader grasp of the language than I do that they did do good work with the linguistics (using actual Egyptian words appropriately).
The AE saw the universe as time-delimited, and time existing only within the universe that existed. In the beginning was the Nun, the primordial waters; within the Nun there is no time, no existence, just the vast blank slate of potentiality. At some point, the potentiality manifests as the first conscious being, the creator god (sometimes titled the Self-Created One); the creator god, feeling the lack of anyone to talk to, sifts through the Nun separating existence from nonexistence and thus brings matter, space, time, and other beings into the universe.
All of the absolutes and eternals in AE mythology only expand to the limits of creation, and not beyond; they are limited in space and time. All of eternity is a long time, I believe the commonest AE term was ‘millions of millions of years’, but eventually eternity ends, the separation between existent and nonexistent concludes, and everything, including the Self-Created One, folds up tidily and settles back into the sleeping potentiality of the Nun.
So if there’s a linguistic/cultural reference there, I’d guess that it’s probably the difference between the connotation of an unending universe, and one where time, as necessarily a part of the universe, is bounded on both beginning and end.
(If I’m remembering which book I pulled this stuff out of, by the way, it’s Erik Hornung’s Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many, in the John Baines translation. Someone who speaks German could read it in the original.)
Wow. That’s truly a comprehensive answer there, Lilairen. Thanks. Actually, my gut feeling was that “forever” might mean “within the boundaries of this life”, while “for all eternity” would mean “in the afterlife as well”, or something to that effect, but obviously there’s more going on here. My German is not altogether great, but that book you mentioned sounds fascinating.
Beautiful story, by the way. I’ve always liked Egyptian mythology, and I should definitely read more about it.
This mistranslation also happened in the film Stargate. Made me wonder if this is a common mistake for Egyptologists or something.