New user with an Apache installation that doesn't want to acknowledge PHP exists

I'm in the process of setting up a server on a system that runs Apache 2.0.40 and PHP 4.2.2 on RH8.0 The server serves up pure HTML pages perfectly, but any .php files or htm/html pages with php embedded in them ... well, the php code just gets ignore ... if its a pure PHP file, I just get a blank screen in the browser (running on a local network machine) ... if its a file with embedded php code, then the code is ignored. I've done the usual research .. looked at php.net, checked the manual, checked the documentation supplied with the installation, but to no avail. I'm stumped. I don't even know what info to send you to help you help me .. my httpd.conf file looks exactly like it is supposed to according to the manual etc. The only peculiar thing I've come across, is that running # httpd -l Compiled in modules: core.c prefork.c http_core.c mod_so.c ... so I don't see the php module as being compiled into Apache... but adding the line LoadModule php4_module modules/libphp4.so to the httpd.conf file, then restarting the server, results in a warning that the php module is already loaded???????? Can anyone please point me in the right direction? TD