'11-11-25, 04:32 Moses de la Montagne	Akhenaten Was Akhenaten, the Egyptian Pharaoh who instituted monotheistic worship in his kingdom, the inadvertent founder of Judaism and Christianity? For it to be so, the original Moses would've had to have been an Atenist, as proposed by Freud, who led a troupe of Hebrews out of Egypt and managed to exert influence on their cult of Yahweh. This doesn't seem implausible, and it goes some way towards explaining the queer career path of Yahweh: from coexisting as one of seventy to being worshiped exclusively by the Hebrews. It also would've imbued the liturgical scheme of the temple with notions that the Christians would later take up: the "High Priest" who is also a "son of God." Slightly outside the scope of relevance, he was an interesting-looking androgynous fellow.
'11-11-25, 05:53 spin	Re: Akhenaten Moses de la Montagne wrote: Was Akhenaten, the Egyptian Pharaoh who instituted monotheistic worship in his kingdom, the inadvertent founder of Judaism and Christianity? No. You're caught up in the claim that early Hebrew religion was monotheistic, but it wasn't. Yahweh was just one son of El. In the earliest form of Deut 32:6-9, the top god, referred to here as Elyon, apportioned then nations to the gods and the Lord got Jacob. Ps 82:1 has been obfuscated in translation and should read, "Elohim stands in the congregation of El. In the midst Elohim judges." Elohim would seem to be the Hebrew god who stands in the congregation of El. There is a plurality of gods and again the Hebrew god is not the top doggod. Although monotheism has been imposed on the religion, there are lots of signs of other gods. Gideon's name was actually Jerubbaal and Saul had a son called Ishbaal and a grandson called Meribaal, so there are traces of a Baal theophoric in Hebrew, ie naming people with reference to gods. There are even traces of the god of death, Mot. And of course later Jewish religion complains frequently about the Queen of Heaven. There are inscriptions from the 8th century BCE that call Asherah the consort of Yahweh. Mosaic monotheism is crap and the Akhnaten era had no direct influence on anybody. After a brief period of less than 20 years the ordinary Egyptians were glad that they had a religion again. Akhnaten merely closed all the temples and practised his religion without regard to anyone outside the court. The only effect he had was to confuse the ordinary people, who didn't have a clue why it was wrong to worship their gods, so, when Tutankhamen opened the temples again, whatever it was that Akhenaten was doing... well, who gives a damn? Things are back to normal. Moses de la Montagne wrote: For it to be so, the original Moses would've had to have been an Atenist, as proposed by Freud, who led a troupe of Hebrews out of Egypt and managed to exert influence on their cult of Yahweh. This doesn't seem implausible, and it goes some way towards explaining the queer career path of Yahweh: from coexisting as one of seventy to being worshiped exclusively by the Hebrews. It also would've imbued the liturgical scheme of the temple with notions that the Christians would later take up: the "High Priest" who is also a "son of God." Slightly outside the scope of relevance, he was an interesting-looking androgynous fellow. It was a medical complaint. He had several children, mainly daughters though perhaps one or two sons.
'11-11-25, 06:05 hackenslash	Re: Akhenaten Moses de la Montagne wrote: Was Akhenaten, the Egyptian Pharaoh who instituted monotheistic worship in his kingdom, the inadvertent founder of Judaism and Christianity? For it to be so, the original Moses would've had to have been an Atenist, as proposed by Freud, who led a troupe of Hebrews out of Egypt and managed to exert influence on their cult of Yahweh. This doesn't seem implausible, and it goes some way towards explaining the queer career path of Yahweh: from coexisting as one of seventy to being worshiped exclusively by the Hebrews. It also would've imbued the liturgical scheme of the temple with notions that the Christians would later take up: the "High Priest" who is also a "son of God." Slightly outside the scope of relevance, he was an interesting-looking androgynous fellow. There's at least one hypothesis that asserts that Moses may have been, in fact, Tuthmoses, son of Akhenaten, and brother of Tutankhamen (his birth name was, apparently, Tutankhaten). Not convinced myself, not least because there's no robust evidence that the exodus ever happened.
'11-11-25, 16:05 Destroyer	Re: Akhenaten Moses de la Montagne wrote: Was Akhenaten, the Egyptian Pharaoh who instituted monotheistic worship in his kingdom, the inadvertent founder of Judaism and Christianity? For it to be so, the original Moses would've had to have been an Atenist, as proposed by Freud, who led a troupe of Hebrews out of Egypt and managed to exert influence on their cult of Yahweh. This doesn't seem implausible, and it goes some way towards explaining the queer career path of Yahweh: from coexisting as one of seventy to being worshiped exclusively by the Hebrews. It also would've imbued the liturgical scheme of the temple with notions that the Christians would later take up: the "High Priest" who is also a "son of God." Slightly outside the scope of relevance, he was an interesting-looking androgynous fellow. I think that there is a real possibility that the concept of monotheism as introduced by Akhenaten, is where Moses derived his inspiration for that concept (we cannot know this, of course). But, the very fact that polytheism was endemically practiced throughout the ancient world meant that such a concept (monotheism) would have been very strange to the populace; and would have been contradictory to all of their traditions, and all that they had previously taken for granted. So, it is very likely that the concept of monotheism was initially ridiculed and rejected. That is why the Hebrews continued to worship other gods, whilst at the same time worshiping Yahweh... It took many centuries of struggle, and misfortune, before the Hebrews eventually became convinced that they needed to abandon all of these other gods and worship Yahweh exclusively. They arrived at that conclusion, not of their own accord (in the ancient world, if you became a conquered people, the inevitable conclusion was that the gods of the conquering nations were more powerful than your own; and so you would be inclined to give your allegiance to these more powerful gods) but because of a peculiar interpretation of events; which said that Yahweh Himself was the instigator of the misfortune because of the people's unfaithfulness to Him. Some of them believed that, and so decided - upon their return to the land - that they would never be unfaithful to Yahweh again by worshiping other gods. That spelled the end of polytheism amongst the Hebrews. Edit: fixed punctuation
'11-11-25, 16:35 smudge	Re: Akhenaten I rather thought the monotheistic shift probably grew from rubbing up against Zoroastrianism during the Babylonian exile? Whats the consensus on this?
'11-11-25, 16:44 Destroyer	Re: Akhenaten smudge wrote: I rather thought the monotheistic shift probably grew from rubbing up against Zoroastrianism during the Babylonian exile? Whats the consensus on this? The concept of monotheism was clearly around since Akhenaten. But there is no doubt that the Hebrews borrowed ideas from other peoples with whom they were closely associated.
'11-11-25, 17:16 smudge	Re: Akhenaten Destroyer wrote: smudge wrote: I rather thought the monotheistic shift probably grew from rubbing up against Zoroastrianism during the Babylonian exile? Whats the consensus on this? The concept of monotheism was clearly around since Akhenaten. But there is no doubt that the Hebrews borrowed ideas from other peoples with whom they were closely associated. Sure. What I was getting at was that I'd understood that the specific period of Babylonian Exile was probably particularly influential. (not wishing to derail the thread away from Akhenaten who was undoubtably interesting!)
'11-11-25, 17:39 Agrippina	Re: Akhenaten I thought that too. I don't believe that Moses existed, and that the Exodus actually happened, but I do think that the writers of the OT were aware of all the fashions in religion that were there for them to cherry-pick for ideas. I wouldn't be surprised if the first council of the elders of Judaism didn't have a conversation that went along the lines of: "Well there was that guy in Egypt who created a single-god religion. It didn't last very long and he wasn't terribly popular, but that's an idea we could play with." "Yes that would certainly stop all the arguments about which god is more important. How about we merge El, and Jahweh into a single deity, call him "the one who may not be named" and then make him all powerful over everything." "That would make our god stronger than everyone else's god, wouldn't it." "I think so." "OK let's see how that works out." And 3500 years later, people actually believe that that god created them instead of the other way around. I don't know. To be honest. Akhenaten is hidden behind the destruction of his history that happened after his death. Records were destroyed when the old gods were reinstated. Travel between Egypt and everywhere else was well-established, so the other civilizations would have known about it. Who knows, maybe someone did think it would make their god greater. I can look around for arguments from both sides. Here's something to read: http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320Hist&Civ/chapters/10AKHEN.htm Mostly websites talk about his monotheism, not whether it inspired the Judaic one. I've been looking for this for some time, so if someone's got papers I can read, please.
'11-11-25, 18:12 Destroyer	Re: Akhenaten smudge wrote: Destroyer wrote: smudge wrote: I rather thought the monotheistic shift probably grew from rubbing up against Zoroastrianism during the Babylonian exile? Whats the consensus on this? The concept of monotheism was clearly around since Akhenaten. But there is no doubt that the Hebrews borrowed ideas from other peoples with whom they were closely associated. Sure. What I was getting at was that I'd understood that the specific period of Babylonian Exile was probably particularly influential. (not wishing to derail the thread away from Akhenaten who was undoubtably interesting!) Yes, I do believe that that particular period was extremely influential to the Hebrews/Jews.
'11-11-25, 21:47 Moses de la Montagne	Re: Akhenaten spin wrote: You're caught up in the claim that early Hebrew religion was monotheistic, but it wasn't. Yahweh was just one son of El. In the earliest form of Deut 32:6-9, the top god, referred to here as Elyon, apportioned then nations to the gods and the Lord got Jacob. Ps 82:1 has been obfuscated in translation and should read, "Elohim stands in the congregation of El. In the midst Elohim judges." Elohim would seem to be the Hebrew god who stands in the congregation of El. There is a plurality of gods and again the Hebrew god is not the top doggod. Although monotheism has been imposed on the religion, there are lots of signs of other gods. Gideon's name was actually Jerubbaal and Saul had a son called Ishbaal and a grandson called Meribaal, so there are traces of a Baal theophoric in Hebrew, ie naming people with reference to gods. There are even traces of the god of death, Mot. And of course later Jewish religion complains frequently about the Queen of Heaven. There are inscriptions from the 8th century BCE that call Asherah the consort of Yahweh. Right. But like I conceded, somehow Yahweh went from being one of seventy gods to the one exclusive god. Why is Akhenaten's novel concept ruled out as an influence for this shift? spin wrote: Mosaic monotheism is crap and the Akhnaten era had no direct influence on anybody. After a brief period of less than 20 years the ordinary Egyptians were glad that they had a religion again. Akhnaten merely closed all the temples and practised his religion without regard to anyone outside the court. The only effect he had was to confuse the ordinary people, who didn't have a clue why it was wrong to worship their gods, so, when Tutankhamen opened the temples again, whatever it was that Akhenaten was doing... well, who gives a damn? Things are back to normal. It's certainly possible that the entire cult of the Aten died along with the pharaoh. But regardless of how confusing and avant garde it may've been for the hoi polloi, it's not unthinkable that it would've had a little bit of staying power with some thoughtful people in the pharoah's court. Monotheism, after all, is a provocative concept, and the essential "oneness" of God is, for the philosophically-minded, a fairly elegant idea. If anyone did keep to Atenism, though, they probably would've wandered off—an exodus!—rather than stick around where it was being systemically whitewashed in a return to the old polytheism. Hackenslash has offered the intriguing nugget that Akhenaten had a relative named Tuthmoses. I'm not sure how much an etymological similarity bolsters the theory, but it's not nothing. I wikipedia'd this: The idea that Thutmose himself was Moses has not received the same attention, although the previous cited examples point out that the Moses' name is possibly a common element of Egyptian names (e.g. Thut-MOSE, "Son of Thoth," Ra-MOSE, "Son of Ra"). The canonical Christian Acts of the Apostles (7:22) further claims that "Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" — such as a Priest of Ptah or Aten.
'11-11-25, 22:00 Moses de la Montagne	Re: Akhenaten hackenslash wrote: There's at least one hypothesis that asserts that Moses may have been, in fact, Tuthmoses, son of Akhenaten, and brother of Tutankhamen (his birth name was, apparently, Tutankhaten). Say, that's pretty interesting. Have you read Moses and Monotheism? I haven't myself, but Wiki tells me the Tuthmoses connection was originally mentioned there. hackenslash wrote: Not convinced myself, not least because there's no robust evidence that the exodus ever happened. Nor am I. At least not in the way it's related in the bible. But neither do I think the exodus was fabricated from whole cloth. There was probably something behind it; it seems almost too bizarre to have been thought up as a pure fiction. I think I'll have to read the Freud book. Apparently he reads the biblical account (which he finds neurotic and fractured) as a clue to how the Hebrews received Moses and his doctrine: the "out of Egypt" notion, for Freud, wasn't so much a grand march of the Jews as it was the migration of an idea.
'11-11-25, 22:03 ElDiablo	Re: Akhenaten
'11-11-25, 22:15 Moses de la Montagne	Re: Akhenaten Destroyer wrote: I think that there is a real possibility that the concept of monotheism - as introduced by Akhenaten - is where Moses derived his inspiration for that concept (we cannot know this, of course). But, the very fact that polytheism was endemically practiced throughout the ancient world meant that such a concept (monotheism) would have been very strange to the populace; and would have been contradictory to all of their traditions, and all that they had previously taken for granted. So, it is very likely that the concept of monotheism was initially ridiculed and rejected. That is why the Hebrews continued to worship other gods, whilst at the same time worshiping Yahweh... It took many centuries of struggle, and misfortune, before the Hebrews eventually became convinced that they needed to abandon all of these other gods and worship Yahweh exclusively. They arrived at that conclusion, not of their own accord (in the ancient world, if you became a conquered people, the inevitable conclusion was that the gods of the conquering nations were more powerful than your own; and so you would be inclined to give your allegiance to these more powerful gods) but because of a peculiar interpretation of events; which said that Yahweh Himself was the instigator of the misfortune because of the people's unfaithfulness to Him. Some of them believed that, and so decided - upon their return to the land - that they would never be unfaithful to Yahweh again by worshiping other gods. That spelled the end of polytheism amongst the Hebrews. Thanks for that, Destroyer. I'm learning from this. From what I gather, though, the Akhenaten theory concedes that monotheism was "initially ridiculed and rejected"—Freud, I believe, surmised that the Hebrews must've murdered the original Moses, the Atenist priest, and had him replaced with a more sanguine leader who wasn't so hell-bent on oneness. This, as the theory goes, accounts for the dualistic portrayal of Moses in the bible: as both an Egyptian noble and a shepherd of Midian. And from there, the Hebrews wrestled with their two concepts: monolatrous polytheism vs. monotheism. Why do historians favor a theory of "a peculiar interpretation of events" to the theory of a peculiar idea being introduced from Egypt?
'11-11-25, 22:25 Moses de la Montagne	Re: Akhenaten A question for those who know about ancient Judaism: how did early Temple liturgy compare to the practices of the Egyptian religion? I know that by Solomon's time there was the concept of a sanctuary (the "Holy of Holies") into which only the High Priests were admitted entrance. This is similiar to the design favored by the Egyptian pharaohs—but it would do little for the Akhenaten theory if it were also the scheme in other pagan temples.
'11-11-25, 23:35 Destroyer	Re: Akhenaten Moses de la Montagne wrote: Destroyer wrote: I think that there is a real possibility that the concept of monotheism - as introduced by Akhenaten - is where Moses derived his inspiration for that concept (we cannot know this, of course). But, the very fact that polytheism was endemically practiced throughout the ancient world meant that such a concept (monotheism) would have been very strange to the populace; and would have been contradictory to all of their traditions, and all that they had previously taken for granted. So, it is very likely that the concept of monotheism was initially ridiculed and rejected. That is why the Hebrews continued to worship other gods, whilst at the same time worshiping Yahweh... It took many centuries of struggle, and misfortune, before the Hebrews eventually became convinced that they needed to abandon all of these other gods and worship Yahweh exclusively. They arrived at that conclusion, not of their own accord (in the ancient world, if you became a conquered people, the inevitable conclusion was that the gods of the conquering nations were more powerful than your own; and so you would be inclined to give your allegiance to these more powerful gods) but because of a peculiar interpretation of events; which said that Yahweh Himself was the instigator of the misfortune because of the people's unfaithfulness to Him. Some of them believed that, and so decided - upon their return to the land - that they would never be unfaithful to Yahweh again by worshiping other gods. That spelled the end of polytheism amongst the Hebrews. Thanks for that, Destroyer. I'm learning from this. From what I gather, though, the Akhenaten theory concedes that monotheism was "initially ridiculed and rejected"—Freud, I believe, surmised that the Hebrews must've murdered the original Moses, the Atenist priest, and had him replaced with a more sanguine leader who wasn't so hell-bent on oneness. This, as the theory goes, accounts for the dualistic portrayal of Moses in the bible: as both an Egyptian noble and a shepherd of Midian. And from there, the Hebrews wrestled with their two concepts: monolatrous polytheism vs. monotheism. Why do historians favor a theory of "a peculiar interpretation of events" to the theory of a peculiar idea being introduced from Egypt? It is probably to do with Christianity, and wanting to believe that the concept originated with Moses... But, the introduction of the concept itself, and its eventual triumph over polytheism amongst the Hebrews, are two separate issues. So I guess, that historians are more concerned with the eventual triumph of the concept because they have the recorded historical accounts of what happened; whereas how exactly the concept came to be, would rest more upon speculation.
'11-11-25, 23:56 smudge	Re: Akhenaten Moses de la Montagne wrote: But neither do I think the exodus was fabricated from whole cloth. There was probably something behind it; it seems almost too bizarre to have been thought up as a pure fiction. Perhaps there was no mass Exodus, just a history of nomadic people moving to and from Egyptian territory over many years. There are interesting ideas in The Bible Unearthed;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_Unearthed Well worth a read (if you've not done so!).
'11-11-26, 02:03 spin	Re: Akhenaten Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: You're caught up in the claim that early Hebrew religion was monotheistic, but it wasn't. Yahweh was just one son of El. In the earliest form of Deut 32:6-9, the top god, referred to here as Elyon, apportioned then nations to the gods and the Lord got Jacob. Ps 82:1 has been obfuscated in translation and should read, "Elohim stands in the congregation of El. In the midst Elohim judges." Elohim would seem to be the Hebrew god who stands in the congregation of El. There is a plurality of gods and again the Hebrew god is not the top doggod. Although monotheism has been imposed on the religion, there are lots of signs of other gods. Gideon's name was actually Jerubbaal and Saul had a son called Ishbaal and a grandson called Meribaal, so there are traces of a Baal theophoric in Hebrew, ie naming people with reference to gods. There are even traces of the god of death, Mot. And of course later Jewish religion complains frequently about the Queen of Heaven. There are inscriptions from the 8th century BCE that call Asherah the consort of Yahweh. Right. But like I conceded, somehow Yahweh went from being one of seventy gods to the one exclusive god. Why is Akhenaten's novel concept ruled out as an influence for this shift? Because it happened over half a millenium before Jewish monotheism. We still seem to be working under the notion that the exodus was a real event, but it seems to me to have been a misunderstanding of the Egyptian ejection of the Hyksos rulers and their cronies who ended up thrown into Palestine. Josephus has traditions that tie the Jews to the expulsion of the Hyksos. However, the evidence in the exodus tale includes mention of the city of Pithom (Ex.1:11), a city built by the pharoah Necho at the time of Josiah. Ezekiel, supposedly a prophet of the exilic period is still complaining about altars "under every green tree" an allusion to worship of the goddess Asherah. Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: Mosaic monotheism is crap and the Akhnaten era had no direct influence on anybody. After a brief period of less than 20 years the ordinary Egyptians were glad that they had a religion again. Akhnaten merely closed all the temples and practised his religion without regard to anyone outside the court. The only effect he had was to confuse the ordinary people, who didn't have a clue why it was wrong to worship their gods, so, when Tutankhamen opened the temples again, whatever it was that Akhenaten was doing... well, who gives a damn? Things are back to normal. It's certainly possible that the entire cult of the Aten died along with the pharaoh. But regardless of how confusing and avant garde it may've been for the hoi polloi, it's not unthinkable that it would've had a little bit of staying power with some thoughtful people in the pharoah's court. This is true that the people who remained in court paid lip service to the Aten. They were a very small circle and there is a lot of evidence about the various people. After a short time Akhenaten secluded the worship at the city of Akhetaten. Not long after the accession of Tutankhamen the court moved back to Thebes all the temples were opened and no thought was paid to the Aten ever again. Try as hard as you can among the prolific Egyptian sources, you won't find any survival of Akhnaten's monotheism. Moses de la Montagne wrote: Monotheism, after all, is a provocative concept, and the essential "oneness" of God is, for the philosophically-minded, a fairly elegant idea. It was essentially a political development in which the pharaonic family attempted to assert their independence from the power of Amun, starting with Tuthmosis IV, Akhenaten's grandfather. Moses de la Montagne wrote: If anyone did keep to Atenism, though, they probably would've wandered off—an exodus!—rather than stick around where it was being systemically whitewashed in a return to the old polytheism. Hackenslash has offered the intriguing nugget that Akhenaten had a relative named Tuthmoses. Connecting the exodus Moses to a member of the pharaonic family is pure speculation. There is not a shred of evidence for the notion. The members of the royal family at the time were extremely limited given the options for succession that filtered to Tutankhamen, then the non-royal Ay who was a relative on the side of Akhenaten's mother, Tiye. And after his death his widow sent to the Hittites for a royal prince to marry her as there was no male of the royal line left. This is when the general Horemheb came onto the scene and staked his claim (and it was possibly he who caused Zannanza's assassination). Moses de la Montagne wrote: I'm not sure how much an etymological similarity bolsters the theory, but it's not nothing. I wikipedia'd this: The idea that Thutmose himself was Moses has not received the same attention, although the previous cited examples point out that the Moses' name is possibly a common element of Egyptian names (e.g. Thut-MOSE, "Son of Thoth," Ra-MOSE, "Son of Ra"). The canonical Christian Acts of the Apostles (7:22) further claims that "Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" — such as a Priest of Ptah or Aten.
'11-11-26, 04:29 Moses de la Montagne	Re: Akhenaten spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: But like I conceded, somehow Yahweh went from being one of seventy gods to the one exclusive god. Why is Akhenaten's novel concept ruled out as an influence for this shift? Because it happened over half a millenium before Jewish monotheism. We still seem to be working under the notion that the exodus was a real event, but it seems to me to have been a misunderstanding of the Egyptian ejection of the Hyksos rulers and their cronies who ended up thrown into Palestine. Josephus has traditions that tie the Jews to the expulsion of the Hyksos. However, the evidence in the exodus tale includes mention of the city of Pithom (Ex.1:11), a city built by the pharoah Necho at the time of Josiah. Ezekiel, supposedly a prophet of the exilic period is still complaining about altars "under every green tree" an allusion to worship of the goddess Asherah. Why, though, is this Ezekiel complaining about Asherah-worship if he was not already acquainted with some notion of Jewish monotheism to begin with? I am far from arguing for a real exodus: in an Akhenaten theory, the "exodus" would need only consist of an Egyptian Moses exiling himself and taking his Atenist priesthood and doctrine along with him—either hoofing it with a coterie of Jews, or happening upon them on his way. spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: Mosaic monotheism is crap and the Akhnaten era had no direct influence on anybody. After a brief period of less than 20 years the ordinary Egyptians were glad that they had a religion again. Akhnaten merely closed all the temples and practised his religion without regard to anyone outside the court. The only effect he had was to confuse the ordinary people, who didn't have a clue why it was wrong to worship their gods, so, when Tutankhamen opened the temples again, whatever it was that Akhenaten was doing... well, who gives a damn? Things are back to normal. It's certainly possible that the entire cult of the Aten died along with the pharaoh. But regardless of how confusing and avant garde it may've been for the hoi polloi, it's not unthinkable that it would've had a little bit of staying power with some thoughtful people in the pharoah's court. This is true that the people who remained in court paid lip service to the Aten. They were a very small circle and there is a lot of evidence about the various people. After a short time Akhenaten secluded the worship at the city of Akhetaten. Not long after the accession of Tutankhamen the court moved back to Thebes all the temples were opened and no thought was paid to the Aten ever again. Try as hard as you can among the prolific Egyptian sources, you won't find any survival of Akhnaten's monotheism. Right, but I'm not arguing for a re-emergence of Akhenaten's monotheism in Egypt. It seems, rather, to have passed on to the Hebrews. Egypt was not a closed society, devoid of cultural traffic. Pretty good odds that somebody heard of Atenism outside of Egypt. spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: If anyone did keep to Atenism, though, they probably would've wandered off—an exodus!—rather than stick around where it was being systemically whitewashed in a return to the old polytheism. Hackenslash has offered the intriguing nugget that Akhenaten had a relative named Tuthmoses. Connecting the exodus Moses to a member of the pharaonic family is pure speculation. There is not a shred of evidence for the notion. Well, it may be only a shred, but here it is: the Hebrew story of a guy named Moses who had a place in the Egyptian pharaoh's family; and the story is dressed up with all sorts of obvious mythological festoonery to have him intimately connected with the Hebrews. And the theme of the story is that this Moses person gave them a thorough refinement of their religion. If we both agree that the historical exodus as related in the bible never happened (feu!), then we have to account for what (if anything) the story is based on (since it was likely oral tradition before it was put down). You can argue that some ancient Jewish scribes pulled it all out of their bungholes one day, but Egypt is a real place and Akhenaten was a real person. There is room for educated guesswork.
'11-11-26, 04:38 Moses de la Montagne	Re: Akhenaten smudge wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: But neither do I think the exodus was fabricated from whole cloth. There was probably something behind it; it seems almost too bizarre to have been thought up as a pure fiction. Perhaps there was no mass Exodus, just a history of nomadic people moving to and from Egyptian territory over many years. There are interesting ideas in The Bible Unearthed;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_Unearthed Well worth a read (if you've not done so!). Thank you, smudge. I haven't read that, but will definitely add it to my reading list. My only acquaintance with biblical scholarship is Robin Lane Fox's The Unauthorized Version (a copy of which I picked up because it was name-dropped in The God Delusion). Lane Fox explains that the scholarly consensus favors, as Destroyer has argued, a gradual development of Hebrew monotheism. His summation of the issue, however, doesn't seem so confident as to entirely rule alternative theories out. I recently stumbled onto the Akhenaten theory in a Joseph Campbell book, Occidental Mythology.
'11-11-26, 05:56 spin	Re: Akhenaten Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: But like I conceded, somehow Yahweh went from being one of seventy gods to the one exclusive god. Why is Akhenaten's novel concept ruled out as an influence for this shift? Because it happened over half a millenium before Jewish monotheism. We still seem to be working under the notion that the exodus was a real event, but it seems to me to have been a misunderstanding of the Egyptian ejection of the Hyksos rulers and their cronies who ended up thrown into Palestine. Josephus has traditions that tie the Jews to the expulsion of the Hyksos. However, the evidence in the exodus tale includes mention of the city of Pithom (Ex.1:11), a city built by the pharoah Necho at the time of Josiah. Ezekiel, supposedly a prophet of the exilic period is still complaining about altars "under every green tree" an allusion to worship of the goddess Asherah. Why, though, is this Ezekiel complaining about Asherah-worship if he was not already acquainted with some notion of Jewish monotheism to begin with? I am far from arguing for a real exodus: in an Akhenaten theory, the "exodus" would need only consist of an Egyptian Moses exiling himself and taking his Atenist priesthood and doctrine along with him—either hoofing it with a coterie of Jews, or happening upon them on his way. In a polytheistic environment there are always favoured deities, some favour one god while others favour another. One can imagine the complaints of those who supported Asherah, though they were once paired together, as can be seen for example in the 8th c. BCE inscription from Kuntillet Ajrud. Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: It's certainly possible that the entire cult of the Aten died along with the pharaoh. But regardless of how confusing and avant garde it may've been for the hoi polloi, it's not unthinkable that it would've had a little bit of staying power with some thoughtful people in the pharoah's court. This is true that the people who remained in court paid lip service to the Aten. They were a very small circle and there is a lot of evidence about the various people. After a short time Akhenaten secluded the worship at the city of Akhetaten. Not long after the accession of Tutankhamen the court moved back to Thebes all the temples were opened and no thought was paid to the Aten ever again. Try as hard as you can among the prolific Egyptian sources, you won't find any survival of Akhnaten's monotheism. Right, but I'm not arguing for a re-emergence of Akhenaten's monotheism in Egypt. It seems, rather, to have passed on to the Hebrews. Egypt was not a closed society, devoid of cultural traffic. Pretty good odds that somebody heard of Atenism outside of Egypt. If the people outside court didn't know what was happening, what would make you think that someone outside the country would? The only way people learn much about the culture of a country is to live there for a length of time. Egyptians were quite xenophobic after their Hyksos experience, so one would have to think that against the odds some foreigner was able to pick up and understand something that manifested itself within the closed halls of the highest class in Egypt that endured less than 20 years. Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: If anyone did keep to Atenism, though, they probably would've wandered off—an exodus!—rather than stick around where it was being systemically whitewashed in a return to the old polytheism. Hackenslash has offered the intriguing nugget that Akhenaten had a relative named Tuthmoses. Connecting the exodus Moses to a member of the pharaonic family is pure speculation. There is not a shred of evidence for the notion. Well, it may be only a shred, but here it is: the Hebrew story of a guy named Moses who had a place in the Egyptian pharaoh's family; and the story is dressed up with all sorts of obvious mythological festoonery to have him intimately connected with the Hebrews. And the theme of the story is that this Moses person gave them a thorough refinement of their religion. The Jews liked these sorts of stories of Jews making good in foreign lands. Very uplifting. Daniel made good in Babylon. Esther achieved wonders in Persia. Josephus served in the courts of the pharaoh. Jewish romances. The best facts you can hope for regard Jews living in those places. Moses de la Montagne wrote: If we both agree that the historical exodus as related in the bible never happened (feu!), then we have to account for what (if anything) the story is based on (since it was likely oral tradition before it was put down). You can argue that some ancient Jewish scribes pulled it all out of their bungholes one day, but Egypt is a real place and Akhenaten was a real person. There is room for educated guesswork. Josephus holds the clues and I've alluded to it. In his work Contra Apion he talks of a priest called Osarsiph who changes his name to Moses. He leads a leper army that is expelled by the pharaoh and settle in Palestine. This is a muddled report of the expulsion of the Hyksos which confuses the Jews into the story, because a lot of Jews at the time of Nebuchadnezzar fled to Egypt. The story as we see it in Josephus blends the Jews into the Hyksos story as the Hyksos story ends up where the Jews live and they had a ready-made story to belittle the Jews in then in Egypt. That seems to me to be the most efficient understanding for the source of the exodus story, ie native Egyptians belittling the Jews that moved into Egypt. Akhenaten had been removed from history by Horemheb 800 years earlier. Jewish monotheism seems to reflect the Persian Ahura Mazda, the lord of heaven, a monotheism that had direct contact with the Jews, as the Persians were overlords of the Levant for a few centuries.