'11-11-26, 06:12 hackenslash	Re: Akhenaten Moses de la Montagne wrote: 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. No, I'm not much interested in what Freud had to say, not least because a good deal of it is bollocks. 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. We differ then. I do think it was fabricated out of whole cloth, just like most of the rest of the bible. Having said that, I think that most of what Freud wrote could be similarly classified.
'11-11-26, 09:12 smudge	Re: Akhenaten spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: [ 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. Thats more or less my understanding also. Though rather than 'misunderstanding', perhaps the story was 'sexed up', merged with tales of early nomadic tribes of the area, intentionally 'spun' to create an appealing story of heroism, persecution and entitlement. More likely that the early hebrews were influenced by the Zoroastrian scholars during their time in Babylon, incorporating appealing aspects of this religion into their own. Belief in Ahura Mazda (with other lesser 'powers') seems as monotheistic as the 'trinity'. The obvious opportunity to absorb these ideas during the Babylonian exile makes it a far more compelling argument than that of potential influence by Akhanaten. The timing is wrong, and Akhnaten's ideas were apparently systematically buried.
'11-11-26, 09:29 Agrippina	Re: Akhenaten The Moses story is a rewrite of the story of Sargon the Great who was also placed in a basket in the river, the basket coated with tar to make it waterproof and found by a princess. How is Moses connected to Sargon the Great, King of Akad? They were both placed in baskets and left to float in rivers, then found by noble people. From The Ancient Near East, edited by James B. Pritchard, The Legend of Sargon, "... My changeling mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast me into the river, which rose not (over) me. The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water lifted me out as he dipped his e[w]er. Akki the drawer of water, [took me] as his son (and) reared me." Sargon was appointed as gardener, granted love by Ishtar, and exercised kingship over the people. (Sargon dated to 2,279 - 2,334 BCE) Exodus 2:3, "... The woman conceived and gave birth to a son. She saw that he was good and she hid him for three months. She could not hide him any longer, so she took for him a wicker basket and smeared it with clay and pitch, she placed the child into it and placed it among the reeds at the bank of the river." Then Pharaoh's daughter saw the basket among the reeds. Later on the Bible says (Exodus 2:10), the boy grew up and she brought him to the daughter of Pharaoh and he was a son to her. She called his name Moses, as she said, " For I drew him from the water." (Moses dated to 1,250 - 1,350 BCE) http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/biblianazar/esp_biblianazar_22.htm#How%20is%20Moses%20connected%20to%20Sargon %20the%20Great,%20King%20of%20Akad From the website I linked to on page 1: Many today also assume that the earliest historical evidence for monotheism is to be found among ancient Hebrew scriptures, the accounts of a people who lived in the Near East during the second and first millennia BCE. It isn't. Not only did the Hebrews develop their monotheistic tenets slowly and over the course of several centuries—as we'll see in the next section of the class—but long before the Hebrews even existed as a coherent social group, the ancient Egyptians experimented with a form of single-deity worship. The guiding force behind this brief pause in polytheism was a mysterious pharaoh who gave himself the name Akhenaten. Whether or not his theological experiment influenced or in any way stimulated the religion outlined in the Old Testament is not clear. What is certain is that the ancient Hebrews were not the only nor the first people on record to adopt the notion of a single cosmic entity overseeing everything. And: IV. Conclusion: Akhenaten and Hebrew Monotheism In today's world, the pre-eminent issue surrounding Akhenaten is whether or not his religion did—or even could have!—influenced the development of Hebrew monotheism, a theology which the historical data suggest evolved several centuries later. The answer to that question depends on several factors. For instance, how alike are Hebrew and Egyptian monotheism? And is there any way in which the Hebrews could realistically have had significant contact with atenism, enough to borrow elements from it or, if not, even just have been influenced by it? To answer the first, Hebrew monotheism differs in several significant ways from Akhenaten's religion. While the aten is an omnipotent divinity, it's also present specifically in the light of the sun-disk and the pharaoh's family, so its divinity is limited in a way the Hebrew deity's is not. The God of Israel acts through all sorts of different media: angels, rainbows, floodwaters and, as biblical Egyptians ought to know perfectly well, frogs. Nor was there any real attempt by Egyptian monotheists to extend the aten's power beyond Egypt, the way God's power is seen by later Hebrew prophets to embrace all creation. So, while Akhenaten claims the aten is universal, he speaks of it more like it's a pharaoh at the center of some cosmic court full of fawning minions—that is, like him. Still, both cultures share the central notion, if not the details, of monotheism. Could the Hebrews have picked that up from the Egyptians somehow? Such a notion presumes, of course, that Hebrews existed in some form during Akhenaten's reign—the eradication by later pharaohs of all records of Akhenaten's religion and regime makes later cultural borrowing highly unlikely—and besides, many scholars would flatly say there weren't any Hebrews at all during that time, at least not Hebrews as such. Israel was definitely not an organized nation in the fourteenth century BCE, but then theological notions do not require a political state for their existence. Wandering patriarchs, as attested in the Bible during this age, could easily have borrowed the concept of monotheism from Egypt. But there's no evidence Egyptian monotheism spread beyond the borders of its native land, so if Hebrews borrowed the notion, they would have to have been living in Egypt around the time of Akhenaten's reign. That seems unlikely, except that biblical sources say they were. In the so-called Egyptian Captivity which the Bible claims lasted several centuries, Hebrews did, in fact, live in Egypt, enslaved by powerful New Kingdom pharaohs until the Exodus in which Moses led them to freedom in the Holy Lands. If that really happened, they must have been in Egypt when Akhenaten had his brief day in the blazing sun. But because a majority of scholars downplay the historicity of the Exodus—there is certainly no corroborating evidence massive numbers of Hebrews fled Egypt at any point in ancient history—again this seems unlikely. Still, it doesn't take huge crowds of Hebrews in Egypt to introduce the idea of monotheism into Israelite thinking. One "Joseph" is certainly enough. So, it's possible to weave together from the historical data a scenario in which the idea of monotheism threaded its way somehow out of Egyptian theology and into Israelite culture. But when one looks closely, it's not a very tightly woven tapestry, especially in light of where biblical scripture says the Hebrews were in Egypt. The city of Goshen in which the Bible says they lived as captives is probably synonymous with the Egyptian settlement called Pi-Ramesse ("City of Ramses") in the delta. If so, it's many miles from Akhetaten, and there's very little evidence to be found in Egyptian art or history that Akhenaten's revolutionary theology filtered that far north. Nor is it likely it would have fared well in this part of Egypt, a stronghold of Ramses' family. The Ramessids were staunchly opposed to atenistic thinking and later attempted to eradicate all traces it had ever existed. So, how is it even possible Ramses' construction slaves heard about a far-off, out-of-date religious tradition strongly proscribed by their tyrannical overseers? All in all, the evidence seems to weigh heavily against the argument that the Hebrews caught the monotheism bug from contact with the aten, or even just the simple conception there's only one god. With no obvious channels of communication on either side, it's improbable Akhenaten's revolution could in any way have influenced or even inspired Hebrew thought. Furthermore, how many of the world's great inventions have cropped up independently in different places? Writing and literature, for instance, arose in both the West and the East with no apparent connection between them, as did agriculture, drama and ship-building. The "Jews" in Egypt may or may not have been the actual descendants of a real Jacob. There are several candidates: The Sea People http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples The Hyksos, who may or may not have been the Sea People, but they were the rulers during Egypt's Second Intermediate Periods: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyksos The Habiru: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habiru The Egyptians are present in the whole area of the Near East. During the reign of the Rameses kings they were the controlling force in the Near East, so though the monotheism of Akehnaten was stricken from their records, it's not totally impossible that the story was known to the people of the area. Also monotheism is not unique to Judeo-Christian-Islamic religions as demonstrated here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotheism#Definition_and_varieties Sorry I do use Wikipedia as the base to search for other research. I have piles of papers on religions and their development, but haven't read all of them yet and i don't want to quote mine them. I'm getting there. My personal problems over the last three months have set my research back somewhat.
'11-11-26, 10:02 trubble76	Re: Akhenaten I'm sorry to say that I have nothing intellectual to add, I just wanted to say how interesting I'm finding this thread. Thank you all for your contributions.
'11-11-26, 10:05 Agrippina	Re: Akhenaten It is an interesting topic. I'll be able to not contribute more and with better references, with more reading, but also learn more opinions and ideas. So great that it was suggested.
'11-11-26, 12:59 spin	Re: Akhenaten Agrippina wrote: The "Jews" in Egypt may or may not have been the actual descendants of a real Jacob. An interesting fact to note about the Jews is that they are unaware of the arrival of the Sea Peoples down the coast of the Levant. They stopped on the coast to make preparations with the intention of moving into Egypt, but Ramses III (early 12th c. BCE) succeeded in driving them back from the borders of Egypt and they settled on the Levantine coast permanently known by perhaps the largest of the groups in the movement, the Peleset, or Philistines. The Philistines were already there on the coast when the Jews came into contact with them, as the legends in Genesis and Judges show. There was no Jewish tradition at this time to record the arrival of the Philistines, though the impact was so great that the Egyptians soon lost their Levantine possessions. No traditions suggests that the Jews didn't exist as an ethnos in the early 12th c. BCE, but Merneptah, son of Ramses II records having trounced a small tribal group fundamentally called "Israel" (though this could be a mistaken interpretation, given that there was no differentiation between "l" & "r" in the Egyptian language, so we may perhaps be dealing with a reference to Jezreel). Agrippina wrote: There are several candidates: The Sea People http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples The Hyksos, who may or may not have been the Sea People, The Hyksos had control of Egypt until about 1550 BCE. They were a mixed group of Semitic and Indo-Europeans (Hurrians). The Sea Peoples were a movement of various groups from about 1200 BCE onward out of Greece along the Mediterranean coastlines of Turkey and the Levant, mainly early Greek peoples, one group displacing the next in a domino effect, causing the downfall of the Hittites the fall of Carchemish and Ugarit, before getting halted in the southern Levant. Agrippina wrote: but they were the rulers during Egypt's Second Intermediate Periods: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyksos The Habiru: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habiru The Egyptians are present in the whole area of the Near East. During the reign of the Rameses kings they were the controlling force in the Near East, so though the monotheism of Akehnaten was stricken from their records, it's not totally impossible that the story was known to the people of the area. Akhenaten was in communication through his chancelry with many of the statelets in the Levant. But the Aten was long dead by the time of Ramses II. Horemheb made sure by destroying all the old temples and reusing the material as filler for his construction programs, explaining why so much of Akhenaten's legacy has recently been found within Horemheb's walls. His name was even expunged from all records. You can read all the letters sent between kings found at Akhetaten (now referred to as El-Amarna). (They've all been translated--most recently by Wm Moran.) You'll find nothing outside the fragments of artistic works from the workshops of Akhenaten about the Aten. (There is the wonderful tomb of Ramose among the tombs of the nobles at Gurnah that shows the best of the art of the period, though much of the other remaining examples is a rush job and not very good artisanship.)
'11-11-26, 13:04 Agrippina	Re: Akhenaten Yes. I don't disagree with any of that.
'11-11-26, 13:19 spin	Re: Akhenaten smudge wrote: Thats more or less my understanding also. Though rather than 'misunderstanding', perhaps the story was 'sexed up', merged with tales of early nomadic tribes of the area, intentionally 'spun' to create an appealing story of heroism, persecution and entitlement. Yep, I'd certainly agree with "sexed up". It's turning a slur into the best one could make of it. smudge wrote: More likely that the early hebrews were influenced by the Zoroastrian scholars during their time in Babylon, incorporating appealing aspects of this religion into their own. Belief in Ahura Mazda (with other lesser 'powers') seems as monotheistic as the 'trinity'. It was after the time of Xerxes I that the strict monotheism started to fail. The process attributed to Zoroaster was interesting, for supposedly in one fell swoop he demoted all the deities bar Ahura Mazda, the king of heaven. Whatever the origin it survived through the reigns of Cyrus, Cambeses, Darius I and Xerxes I, before the other gods began to re-emerge. At least Xerxes was known to have been quite emphatic in his monotheism. (Further note of interest: the good ex-deities were called ahuras and the bad ones daevas (and the head baddie, Ahriman would lead a war against A.M. and eventually lose), whereas in India it was the contrary--the good guys were the devas and the asuras were the baddies.) smudge wrote: The obvious opportunity to absorb these ideas during the Babylonian exile makes it a far more compelling argument than that of potential influence by Akhanaten. The timing is wrong, and Akhnaten's ideas were apparently systematically buried. Although I wouldn't restrict the monotheization of the early Jewish religion to the exile, it certainly would have started then--with the arrival of the anointed Cyrus (Isa 45:1).
'11-11-26, 13:29 Agrippina	Re: Akhenaten I agree. Remember when I opened the Bible to begin reading last June, it was my very first attempt. I started finding anachronisms almost immediately (apart from the talking snake and other mystical BS) and thought, "I'm sure this was written during the exile in Babylon, there's too much about this that sounds like it came straight out of their mythology." I don't disagree that some of the characters from around the time of David were real people, there's external evidence for them, but all the blathering about hundred of thousands being "slain" etc is all just, well I say "lies" although I'm told I have to say 'exaggeration." WIthout reading what Finkelstein and Silberman say about their discoveries and reading other people's papers on the subject, my feeling was that they were just minor players who took stories from the area around them and made it up as they went along. Yes, I agree that they couldn't have known any details of Akhenaten that were buried along with his wife's body that was never found, but I still think that it's possible that there were stories about a king of Egypt who worshipped the sun disk, as well as the examples above. That era, when the Persians were conquering the known world, was a time of kings being treated like gods and seeing themselves as gods, so it makes complete sense that a group of unsophisticated small-time people thought up creating a god that was like a king, and then making him the god of everything, and the only real god.
'11-11-26, 19:03 Moses de la Montagne	Re: Akhenaten Agrippina wrote: The Moses story is a rewrite of the story of Sargon the Great who was also placed in a basket in the river, the basket coated with tar to make it waterproof and found by a princess. I agree. That part of the Moses story is patently fanciful. But this brings us to a chicken-or-egg question: was the baby-in-the-basket bit tacked on to an account of an actual Egyptian who influenced the Hebrews, or did the Jews just enjoy borrowing stories? Because I don't know that King Sargon communed with God in a burning bush, or brought down an Almighty law code from a mountain. These are patently fanciful parts of the Moses story, too, of course, but they seem to be closer to explaining the kind of impact he had on the Hebrews and their theology. Agrippina wrote: From the website I linked to on page 1: Many today also assume that the earliest historical evidence for monotheism is to be found among ancient Hebrew scriptures, the accounts of a people who lived in the Near East during the second and first millennia BCE. It isn't. Not only did the Hebrews develop their monotheistic tenets slowly and over the course of several centuries—as we'll see in the next section of the class—but long before the Hebrews even existed as a coherent social group, the ancient Egyptians experimented with a form of single-deity worship. The guiding force behind this brief pause in polytheism was a mysterious pharaoh who gave himself the name Akhenaten. Whether or not his theological experiment influenced or in any way stimulated the religion outlined in the Old Testament is not clear. What is certain is that the ancient Hebrews were not the only nor the first people on record to adopt the notion of a single cosmic entity overseeing everything. And: IV. Conclusion: Akhenaten and Hebrew Monotheism In today's world, the pre-eminent issue surrounding Akhenaten is whether or not his religion did—or even could have!—influenced the development of Hebrew monotheism, a theology which the historical data suggest evolved several centuries later. The answer to that question depends on several factors. For instance, how alike are Hebrew and Egyptian monotheism? And is there any way in which the Hebrews could realistically have had significant contact with atenism, enough to borrow elements from it or, if not, even just have been influenced by it? To answer the first, Hebrew monotheism differs in several significant ways from Akhenaten's religion. While the aten is an omnipotent divinity, it's also present specifically in the light of the sun-disk and the pharaoh's family, so its divinity is limited in a way the Hebrew deity's is not. The God of Israel acts through all sorts of different media: angels, rainbows, floodwaters and, as biblical Egyptians ought to know perfectly well, frogs. Nor was there any real attempt by Egyptian monotheists to extend the aten's power beyond Egypt, the way God's power is seen by later Hebrew prophets to embrace all creation. So, while Akhenaten claims the aten is universal, he speaks of it more like it's a pharaoh at the center of some cosmic court full of fawning minions—that is, like him. Still, both cultures share the central notion, if not the details, of monotheism. Could the Hebrews have picked that up from the Egyptians somehow? Such a notion presumes, of course, that Hebrews existed in some form during Akhenaten's reign—the eradication by later pharaohs of all records of Akhenaten's religion and regime makes later cultural borrowing highly unlikely—and besides, many scholars would flatly say there weren't any Hebrews at all during that time, at least not Hebrews as such. Israel was definitely not an organized nation in the fourteenth century BCE, but then theological notions do not require a political state for their existence. Wandering patriarchs, as attested in the Bible during this age, could easily have borrowed the concept of monotheism from Egypt. But there's no evidence Egyptian monotheism spread beyond the borders of its native land, so if Hebrews borrowed the notion, they would have to have been living in Egypt around the time of Akhenaten's reign. That seems unlikely, except that biblical sources say they were. In the so-called Egyptian Captivity which the Bible claims lasted several centuries, Hebrews did, in fact, live in Egypt, enslaved by powerful New Kingdom pharaohs until the Exodus in which Moses led them to freedom in the Holy Lands. If that really happened, they must have been in Egypt when Akhenaten had his brief day in the blazing sun. But because a majority of scholars downplay the historicity of the Exodus—there is certainly no corroborating evidence massive numbers of Hebrews fled Egypt at any point in ancient history—again this seems unlikely. Still, it doesn't take huge crowds of Hebrews in Egypt to introduce the idea of monotheism into Israelite thinking. One "Joseph" is certainly enough. So, it's possible to weave together from the historical data a scenario in which the idea of monotheism threaded its way somehow out of Egyptian theology and into Israelite culture. But when one looks closely, it's not a very tightly woven tapestry, especially in light of where biblical scripture says the Hebrews were in Egypt. The city of Goshen in which the Bible says they lived as captives is probably synonymous with the Egyptian settlement called Pi-Ramesse ("City of Ramses") in the delta. If so, it's many miles from Akhetaten, and there's very little evidence to be found in Egyptian art or history that Akhenaten's revolutionary theology filtered that far north. Nor is it likely it would have fared well in this part of Egypt, a stronghold of Ramses' family. The Ramessids were staunchly opposed to atenistic thinking and later attempted to eradicate all traces it had ever existed. So, how is it even possible Ramses' construction slaves heard about a far-off, out-of-date religious tradition strongly proscribed by their tyrannical overseers? All in all, the evidence seems to weigh heavily against the argument that the Hebrews caught the monotheism bug from contact with the aten, or even just the simple conception there's only one god. With no obvious channels of communication on either side, it's improbable Akhenaten's revolution could in any way have influenced or even inspired Hebrew thought. Furthermore, how many of the world's great inventions have cropped up independently in different places? Writing and literature, for instance, arose in both the West and the East with no apparent connection between them, as did agriculture, drama and ship-building. Thank you for this. But I think it misses some of the points. The writer says that because there is nothing to support the biblical account of the Exodus, there is therefore nothing to support the notion of Hebrews in Egypt. And he says that they couldn't have been near where Akhenaten was because the bible places them elsewhere. But since when can we trust the bible for historical accuracy? These books were compiled piecemeal from all sorts of oral accounts. Just because the bible only has the Jews in Goshen doesn't mean they could never have been in Akhetaten. I'm not prepared to argue the Akhenaten theory from silence, of course, but I don't think we can use historically shaky stories to settle the matter. I think the Moses-Akhenaten idea is better extracted from Exodus in a more general sense: the story of an Egyptian theologian & thaumaturge who brings to the Hebrews a religious innovation, monotheism—and the subsequent trouble they had in accepting, implementing, and stewarding it.
'11-11-26, 19:12 Moses de la Montagne	Re: Akhenaten smudge wrote: More likely that the early hebrews were influenced by the Zoroastrian scholars during their time in Babylon, incorporating appealing aspects of this religion into their own. Belief in Ahura Mazda (with other lesser 'powers') seems as monotheistic as the 'trinity'. The obvious opportunity to absorb these ideas during the Babylonian exile makes it a far more compelling argument than that of potential influence by Akhanaten. The timing is wrong, and Akhnaten's ideas were apparently systematically buried. Were I to plump for the Akhenaten theory, I would probably suppose that the exilic influences merely helped to imbue the monotheism of the Jews with loftier, more transcendent qualities—they would probably even have been welcome influences in recovering some of what had been lost since Moses. I would still be curious as to why there were appeals for the worship of Yahweh only, even prior to the exile.
'11-11-26, 19:16 Agrippina	Re: Akhenaten I agree in principle. The thing with the Bible though is that it is just mythology even beyond David, and his descendants. Just like with Jesus, it's not so much important whether they were real people or not, it's the validity of the stories surrounding them. The Bible paints David as a king on a par with Xerxes,he wasn't. He wasn't even the equivalent of an ancient Sumerian "lugal" from what the archeologists say. He was a small fish in a small pond. But the Bible's history is full of exaggeration, so that they painted David and his line as equivalent to the sort of lineage of today's European royal families is understandable. In unravelling, or as I'm trying to do, rationalizing the bible, it is necessary to look at the mythology and the history, and somewhere in between the two, and with the actual evidence from all the available sources, including the Bible itself, finding something that one can posit as possibly having some basis in some reality. But because David and Solomon were real people, it doesn't follow that they actually had thousands of concubines and dozens of children. Just like with Jesus, if he might have been a real person, it doesn't follow that he did raise a man from the dead. This is the problem that theists have with historical and other analysis of the Bible. We say David was a real tribal leader, with a house bigger than other people's houses, they then say, there you go, he did write the psalms. Or Moses might have been a real prince of Egypt who ran away to join a tribe of wandering nomads, and you get "there you are, he did write the Pentateuch." Just like with Akhenaten. my opinion is that the Near East knew of him, and his funny religion, as they knew of all other rulers, historical figures, gods and myths, but that doesn't mean that the people who became the Jews, copied his idea, even if they did suggest it might be an idea. There were enough other myths for them to plagiarize, they didn't have to copy only one of them. On the Jahweh worship, there's another hypothesis, and I'd have to look up the details of who proposed it, that it came from a southern tribe who merged with the people who established the settlements that became Israel and who were worshippers of El. Which explains the confusion between Elohim and Yahweh in the writing of the first books of the OT.
'11-11-26, 19:18 spin	Re: Akhenaten Moses de la Montagne wrote: Were I to plump for the Akhenaten theory, I would probably suppose that the exilic influences merely helped to imbue the monotheism of the Jews with loftier, more transcendent qualities—they would probably even have been welcome influences in recovering some of what had been lost since Moses. I would still be curious as to why there were appeals for the worship of Yahweh only, even prior to the exile. The situation is called henotheism: you worship only one of the gods. But there's not much evidence of that prior to the exile.
'11-11-26, 19:25 Agrippina	Re: Akhenaten In the absence of actual objective written evidence (outside the OT) before 500 BCE, we have only supposition and archeological evidence to go on. The archeological evidence says the exile didn't happen, there's no evidence that it did, therefore we assume it didn't happen and that the story was manufactured to give antiquity of enormous proportions to the people who the Babylonians removed from Judeah.
'11-11-26, 19:37 Moses de la Montagne	Re: Akhenaten spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: 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. That's fine. But if, in this environment, it was well-accepted that some people favored one god and others merely favored a different one, from where did the Jews get their notion that only one god should be worshiped and that none other would be tolerated? Surely other peoples with other gods suffered disappointment and misfortune, but they didn't decide it was because their deity wasn't adored as the one & only. Why did the Jews? What was in their religious thinking from before their being conquered and exiled that made them decide this? spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: 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. It's not being alleged that the Jews became astute Egyptologists, or that they snuck into the pharaoh's palace and stole his hieroglyphs. It's merely being offered that an Egyptian came along and offered them an Egyptian religious idea. spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: 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. Ah, but Moses is a very different kind of character than Esther or Daniel. Moses is epic. Not that that makes him real, but this is the most influential prophet in the whole religion, and the guy who gives them their Law. There's a lot of theology introduced in his portion. I agree that his story has been mythologized, but I'm unconvinced that a Moses never existed.
'11-11-26, 19:46 Moses de la Montagne	Re: Akhenaten Agrippina wrote: I agree in principle. The thing with the Bible though is that it is just mythology even beyond David, and his descendants. Just like with Jesus, it's not so much important whether they were real people or not, it's the validity of the stories surrounding them. The Bible paints David as a king on a par with Xerxes,he wasn't. He wasn't even the equivalent of an ancient Sumerian "lugal" from what the archeologists say. He was a small fish in a small pond. But the Bible's history is full of exaggeration, so that they painted David and his line as equivalent to the sort of lineage of today's European royal families is understandable. In unravelling, or as I'm trying to do, rationalizing the bible, it is necessary to look at the mythology and the history, and somewhere in between the two, and with the actual evidence from all the available sources, including the Bible itself, finding something that one can posit as possibly having some basis in some reality. But because David and Solomon were real people, it doesn't follow that they actually had thousands of concubines and dozens of children. Just like with Jesus, if he might have been a real person, it doesn't follow that he did raise a man from the dead. This is the problem that theists have with historical and other analysis of the Bible. We say David was a real tribal leader, with a house bigger than other people's houses, they then say, there you go, he did write the psalms. Or Moses might have been a real prince of Egypt who ran away to join a tribe of wandering nomads, and you get "there you are, he did write the Pentateuch." Just like with Akhenaten. my opinion is that the Near East knew of him, and his funny religion, as they knew of all other rulers, historical figures, gods and myths, but that doesn't mean that the people who became the Jews, copied his idea, even if they did suggest it might be an idea. There were enough other myths for them to plagiarize, they didn't have to copy only one of them. On the Jahweh worship, there's another hypothesis, and I'd have to look up the details of who proposed it, that it came from a southern tribe who merged with the people who established the settlements that became Israel and who were worshippers of El. Which explains the confusion between Elohim and Yahweh in the writing of the first books of the OT. Can you (or spin) comment on the etymology of Elohim? Is it, in fact, a term that can connote both a singular god and a plurality of gods?
'11-11-26, 19:51 Agrippina	Re: Akhenaten I don't think you're saying that the Jews became monotheistic because of the Egyptians. My opinion is that they'd heard of monotheism from all sorts of different people, not only Akhenaten's version. For me the reason that they chose to make their religion monotheistic, even though it wasn't in the early stages was to do with power more than anything else. Having a god that was the creator, the designer of everything, the lawgiver, the ruler of land, air, water, fire, everything by association made them powerful as well. It also made the priests of the religion more powerful than other priests because they served this mighty god. I think it had more to do with an inferiority complex because they were less powerful than their neighbours that they made their god, and by association, themselves more powerful. Just my opinion from reading their book. On the "elohim" yes, I think they were pluralists to start with. A group of people with no real tribal, ethnic or cultural identity and they borrowed the Elohim and Nephalim etc from their neighbours or even their own origins when they settled in the region that eventually grew to become Israel. Initially, I do think they worshipped more than one god, and I know my reading is only in English from the KJV, but why would they say "create man in our own image" and why would the existence of other gods be acknowledged if they weren't aware that other gods existed. There is also the question of Moloch, the god of child sacrifice. Child sacrifice is mentioned several times in the OT, and it's prohibited in the law, so they must have worshipped the god "Moloch" or "Molech" at some time.
'11-11-26, 19:55 Agrippina	Re: Akhenaten I'm sorry but my memory is a little fractured. I have to consult notes to come up with absolute references and verses etc. I'm about to go to bed now. I can look through my manuscript for sources and references. Part of my problem is remembering names, dates etc. A symptom of approaching old age unfortunately which is why I have my manuscript open most of the time when I write these replies. I'm not at my desk now so I don't have access to the other screen. Spin's very knowledgeable on this subject, he can help. I've done the reading and I do the writing and I know the content, but not the exact places where the information can be found. Sad, because I find this subject unbelievably interesting.
'11-11-26, 21:59 Moses de la Montagne	Re: Akhenaten Agrippina wrote: I don't think you're saying that the Jews became monotheistic because of the Egyptians. I am saying that, but mostly for the sake of discussion. I don't find the theory implausible. And it would be nice to be able to tell Christians that their God might well've been incubated in the pharaonic court of a broad-hipped Egyptian heretic. Agrippina wrote: My opinion is that they'd heard of monotheism from all sorts of different people, not only Akhenaten's version. For me the reason that they chose to make their religion monotheistic, even though it wasn't in the early stages was to do with power more than anything else. Having a god that was the creator, the designer of everything, the lawgiver, the ruler of land, air, water, fire, everything by association made them powerful as well. It also made the priests of the religion more powerful than other priests because they served this mighty god. I think it had more to do with an inferiority complex because they were less powerful than their neighbours that they made their god, and by association, themselves more powerful. Just my opinion from reading their book. Fair enough. But Freud, like you, had his own opinion on the matter, and he was a pretty clever guy. His hypothesis does harmonize with a reading of Exodus as a folkloric account of an actual Egyptian Moses. Fair enough again, though, if people want to read it as pure fairy tale. Agrippina wrote: On the "elohim" yes, I think they were pluralists to start with. A group of people with no real tribal, ethnic or cultural identity and they borrowed the Elohim and Nephalim etc from their neighbours or even their own origins when they settled in the region that eventually grew to become Israel. Initially, I do think they worshipped more than one god, and I know my reading is only in English from the KJV, but why would they say "create man in our own image" and why would the existence of other gods be acknowledged if they weren't aware that other gods existed. There is also the question of Moloch, the god of child sacrifice. Child sacrifice is mentioned several times in the OT, and it's prohibited in the law, so they must have worshipped the god "Moloch" or "Molech" at some time. Is Elohim derived from (or related to?) El, the allegedly supreme god of whom Yahweh was originally said to be a son? Agrippina wrote: I'm sorry but my memory is a little fractured. I have to consult notes to come up with absolute references and verses etc. I'm about to go to bed now. I can look through my manuscript for sources and references. Part of my problem is remembering names, dates etc. A symptom of approaching old age unfortunately which is why I have my manuscript open most of the time when I write these replies. I'm not at my desk now so I don't have access to the other screen. Spin's very knowledgeable on this subject, he can help. I've done the reading and I do the writing and I know the content, but not the exact places where the information can be found. Sad, because I find this subject unbelievably interesting. I don't know what your definition of "approaching old age" is, Agrippina, but your profile says you're already 100!
'11-11-27, 03:21 spin	Re: Akhenaten Moses de la Montagne wrote: But if, in this environment, it was well-accepted that some people favored one god and others merely favored a different one, from where did the Jews get their notion that only one god should be worshiped and that none other would be tolerated? Surely other peoples with other gods suffered disappointment and misfortune, but they didn't decide it was because their deity wasn't adored as the one & only. Why did the Jews? What was in their religious thinking from before their being conquered and exiled that made them decide this? When the Assyrians barged their way into the Levant, their kings were patronized by Asshur, the Babylonians by Marduk. Henotheism seems to have been a common enough thing and the divorce between Yahweh and the queen of heaven took a long time, still in progress at the time of Ezekiel. From the bible we learn of nation gods like Molech ("the king") of Ammon, Chemosh of Moab. It's not difficult to see JUdah go that way. Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: 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. It's not being alleged that the Jews became astute Egyptologists, or that they snuck into the pharaoh's palace and stole his hieroglyphs. It's merely being offered that an Egyptian came along and offered them an Egyptian religious idea. If you want to maintain that possibility you need to provide a serious trajectory. I've shown that it was unlikely to have got out of Akhetaten and that I've indicated that it was incomprehensible to the common Egyptian. Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: 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. Ah, but Moses is a very different kind of character than Esther or Daniel. Moses is epic. That doesn't change the fact that Moshe stories contain elements of Jew making good in goy circumstances. Esther is different from Daniel, but still contains the same trope, the trope I was dealing with, a trope which seemed quite popular in exilic/diaspora times. Moses de la Montagne wrote: Not that that makes him real, but this is the most influential prophet in the whole religion, and the guy who gives them their Law. There's a lot of theology introduced in his portion. I agree that his story has been mythologized, but I'm unconvinced that a Moses never existed. Scholars analyzing the torah have turned it into an alphabet soup of sources, retrojecting theology, retrojecting laws, retrojecting families, developing more Moshe traditions. Who knows what the earliest state of those traditions was?