'11-11-27, 05:30 Moses de la Montagne	Re: Akhenaten spin wrote: 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. But did Asshur, Marduk, and Molech make a fuss over other gods being worshiped? Were they jealous gods whose name was Jealous? Henotheistic though they may've been, the Jews seem to have been given a different appreciation of their nation god than the surrounding nations had going. We can surmise that they either developed it (in which case, why didn't anyone else develop it?) or that it was taught to them by Moses. spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: 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. But how similar was the popular religion of the Egyptians (an established society, long & happily polytheistic) to that of the fickle, fledgling, nomadic Hebrews, whose religion tended to the henotheistic? The latter were better primed to receive it. And why is it not likely to have gotten out of Akhenaten's court? Following his death, and with the restoration of the old cults, a loyal Atenist priest could simply read the signs of the times, take up his serpent staff, and wander off. Like old Moshe. The trajectory is this: Akhenaten → Tuthmoses / Moses → Hebrews. spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: 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. Then I guess it could go either way. They could've wanted a story about Moses doing well in Egypt (not that he really does; he gets adopted all right, but he ends up being exiled over a killing) or they could've already had a story about a guy who came out of Egypt with some intense religious ideas—"from out of Egypt I called my son."
'11-11-27, 05:51 spin	Re: Akhenaten Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: 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. But did Asshur, Marduk, and Molech make a fuss over other gods being worshiped? Were they jealous gods whose name was Jealous? Henotheistic though they may've been, the Jews seem to have been given a different appreciation of their nation god than the surrounding nations had going. When were they given this different appreciation? Certainly not before the 8th century, but then the Assyrians arrived. Moses de la Montagne wrote: We can surmise that they either developed it (in which case, why didn't anyone else develop it?) or that it was taught to them by Moses. spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: 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. But how similar was the popular religion of the Egyptians (an established society, long & happily polytheistic) to that of the fickle, fledgling, nomadic Hebrews, whose religion tended to the henotheistic? You might buy into the nomadic Hebrews, but all their festivals are sedentary, reflecting a stable agriculture, harvests, first fruits, lambing. Moses de la Montagne wrote: The latter were better primed to receive it. And why is it not likely to have gotten out of Akhenaten's court? Following his death, and with the restoration of the old cults, a loyal Atenist priest could simply read the signs of the times, take up his serpent staff, and wander off. Like old Moshe. The trajectory is this: Akhenaten → Tuthmoses / Moses → Hebrews. You are connecting dots rather than providing a real trajectory. It's easy to connect dots but the results have no tangible value. Where is the evidence of a particular Tuthmoses related to Akhenaten? There isn't any. It's just a reverie based on the fact that Moshe could be part of an Egyptian name, rather than what the Hebrews supplied for the etymology, as seen in Ex 2:10, she named him Moshe because she drew him out [mashah] of the water. We'll never know why Moses was called Moses. I also pointed out that the Hebrews apparently had traditions before they became aware of the Philistines, because they were unaware of the arrival of those Philistines, but ostensibly notions about Akhenaten's monotheism reached the Hebrews before they had developed traditions. That's not going to have much impact, is it? spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: 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. Then I guess it could go either way. They could've wanted a story about Moses doing well in Egypt (not that he really does; he gets adopted all right, but he ends up being exiled over a killing) or they could've already had a story about a guy who came out of Egypt with some intense religious ideas—"from out of Egypt I called my son."[/quote] We know that Moses was a late addition to the Hyksos tradition used by Manetho and cited by Josephus. Do we have any indications that were prior to those Egyptian libels, dating no earlier than the time of Nebuchadnezzar, that reflect on Moses?
'11-11-27, 05:56 Landrew	Re: Akhenaten Does it seem implausible, or merely unpalatable? If we could send an investigator back in time, I'm certain that the actual events would bear little resemblance to the legends and historical accounts as we know them today. Archaeological evidence seems to suggest that most of the tenets of modern religions first appeared in various cultures scattered around in different regions, and migrated into other cultures and religions over time. It's not implausible to me at all, that some elements of the Hebrew religion were previously present in the religion of Akhenaten.
'11-11-27, 06:25 Agrippina	Re: Akhenaten Spin said: 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? I'm with Spin on this one. I really do think that the stories before David were derived from ancient folklore, some of which was perhaps written down and that the stories were "cut and pasted" together by a redactor as explained in the Documentary Hypothesis. The reason I say that some of the stories were "perhaps" written down is because of the difference in the style of writing in the "E" and "J' portions of the DH. I've done a significant amount of reading of different books on the subject, to the extent of creating my own digital copy of Richard Friedman's book. I downloaded a copy which I found difficult to read, so I split it up and recreated the colour splits, in a way that I could analyze what he was saying. So I was able to deduce that the earlier portions were written by the a writer who lived during the period when the people were worshipping "El" (which I see as the singular of Elohim): From Rationalising the Bible: The Persians, Babylonians and all the people who settled the Near East, had their origins in the fertile plain. It is from this region, where small settlements developed into organised cities with "kings" (called "lugals") that people spread out, creating new settlements with other people who they met. I want to draw particular attention to the kings' list from Sumeria. Information about Sumerian Gods and Goddesses is found on the Sumerian King List as well as Sumerian clay tablets and cylinder seals.[This Wikipedia page has links to further research on the subject of gods' names: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_religion] The Sumerian King List records all the rulers of Earth back over 400,000 years. This huge stretch of time coupled with reigns into the thousands of years has caused most historians to reject its accuracy. However all the early rulers were allegedly gods - demi-gods or immortals. These Gods were called the Nephilim Nefilim, Elohim, the Anunnaki - "Those who from Heaven to Earth came.[http://www.crystalinks.com/sumergods.html]" In the dualistic Persian or Iranian cosmogony, the good and wise lord Ahura Mazda began creation by sending beams of light into an abyss where Ahriman, lord of evil and sin, lived. Ahura Mazda cast Ahriman into hell for 3,000 years. This gave Ahura Mazda time to create spirits of virtue, angels, and the creatures of earth, including Gayomart, the first man. When Ahriman's time in hell ended, he created flies, germs, pests, and other evils. One of his wicked followers brought disease and death to Gayomart, but a plant that grew from Gayomart's remains bore fruit that became the human race. http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Ca-Cr/Creation-Stories.html Hurrian and Hittite mythology also stems from that of the region. In their religion, Anu, is the chief god, his sons create three lesser deities from his genitals. In the above quote, we see the name "Elohim," the term used in some of the Genesis text, in the original Hebrew, for God. The word "Elhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_(deity)" was the generic term for the senior god in these cultures, particularly that of the Canaanites.http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Dr-Fi/El.html The use of this term for "God" also identifies the writer which the Documentary Hypothesis calls "E." More from my text: ...[according to] Dr Israel Finkelstein, the truth of the origins of the people of Canaan is simply that they were the people who lived in the area, and who had done so since people first settled in the area. His examination of the Highlands of Israel revealed that there were city states of some wealth in the area up to 1200 BCE, when there was an apparent general destruction, for which there is no definite, unequivocal explanation. The most logical explanation seems to be that there was some sort of citizen revolt because between 1200 and 1000 BCE there appeared some twenty-five settlements of "Jewish houses" simple homes and small groups of people who used less decorated pottery and who did not build the palaces of the earlier city-states. People from all over the region appear to have migrated to the region and the Shasuhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shasu could have been among these people, and there might even have been some small group of slaves who escaped from Egypt, which may have given rise to the story of great conquest. Remembering that stories were not written down at this time, and that most news, and stories were handed down by word of mouth, even Finkelstein agrees these stories could have grown over time to become the familiar mythology we know today. The rise of early Israel appears to have been the result of the collapse of Canaanite society not an invasion
'11-11-27, 08:00 gleniedee	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? You win one internet for the pithiest ,most likely explanation (which is also deceptively profound) Oh,Moses almost certainly did not exist and the exodus is pure myth.
'11-11-27, 10:45 smudge	Re: Akhenaten spin wrote: 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). Thanks Spin. The religious beliefs and ruling dynasties of the Persian empire are so confusing and convoluted. What are the best sources for info on this (if thats not a mind blowingly vast question!)?
'11-11-27, 10:55 smudge	Re: Akhenaten spin wrote: The situation is called henotheism: you worship only one of the gods. But there's not much evidence of that prior to the exile. Is there 'any' that we can rely on which we are certain pre-dates the exile?
'11-11-27, 11:21 smudge	Re: Akhenaten Agrippina wrote: 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. I'm sure there were stories. But what kind? I'm stuck on the point that I'd understood Akhenaten's time to be disastrous. Plague and famine, misery and death! He'd imposed his new way of worship and it had proved disastrous. People of the time would be hard pushed to spin it as as 'good idea' to ditch old gods in favour of 'one' on the back of this example. Superstition was the norm and natural events were believed to be acts of gods. Add to this a concerted effort by subsequent pharaohs to bury the memory of the whole affair and I find it unlikely any Aten cult would be much of an influence on anyone! Contrast this with the hebrew experience of the Babylon exile. A vast successful empire, well educated people (relative to the hebrews) AND being allowed to return to their homeland. Much more reasonable to expect this experience would have an influence. Yes, some egyptian experiences after Akhnaten's time may mirror this. But when relating experience to worship the monotheism of Ahura Mazda must have easily trumped that of Aten if indeed Aten was mentioned at all. It's like the fading memory of your great great great great grandmother of staying in a cheap flea ridden hotel with no breakfast or central heating VERSES being put up for a luxury weekend in a modern top notch hotel with all expenses paid! No contest! Which would influence you more?
'11-11-27, 12:42 Agrippina	Re: Akhenaten I think it would depend on how romantically you view deprivation. The old joke from Monty Python about how "we lived in a box in the middle of the road" demonstrates this. People who have family histories of dire poverty might see the poverty as "character building" and luxury as "materialistic self-indulgence." The Jews are hung up on their persecution, due, according to their religion, to their neglecting to serve Yahweh in the was that their god dictates, so they might have been inclined to adopt the religion of a story about a king who built a new capital in an unfriendly desert environment rather than the one from the more wealthy luxury of the Babylonian kings. I'm guessing here but I would say in the case of the Jews, the decadence of the Thebes/Babylon court would have driven them more towards the disaster of the failure of Ahketaten. If you read the Bible it's all about not learning the frivolous learning of heathens but rather following the harshness of the horrors that Yahweh inflicts on his "whoring" followers. (The whoring applying to their following of false gods, rather than the sexual one).
'11-11-27, 13:25 smudge	Re: Akhenaten Agrippina wrote: I think it would depend on how romantically you view deprivation. The old joke from Monty Python about how "we lived in a box in the middle of the road" demonstrates this. People who have family histories of dire poverty might see the poverty as "character building" and luxury as "materialistic self-indulgence." The Jews are hung up on their persecution, due, according to their religion, to their neglecting to serve Yahweh in the was that their god dictates, so they might have been inclined to adopt the religion of a story about a king who built a new capital in an unfriendly desert environment rather than the one from the more wealthy luxury of the Babylonian kings. I'm guessing here but I would say in the case of the Jews, the decadence of the Thebes/Babylon court would have driven them more towards the disaster of the failure of Ahketaten. If you read the Bible it's all about not learning the frivolous learning of heathens but rather following the harshness of the horrors that Yahweh inflicts on his "whoring" followers. (The whoring applying to their following of false gods, rather than the sexual one). Yes..... But my understanding was that hebrew religious leaders would have argued that they had deserved to be punished, deserved to be exiled in Babylon, precisely for 'whoring with false Gods'. If they'd done as they were told the exile would not have happened. When released and supported in rebuilding the Jerusalem temple by Cyrus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_(Bible))they would have felt forgiven, and sympathetic to the 'wise, merciful Babylonians'. We've already agreed how much myth they did pick up and incorporate into their own story from the experience. I just can't see any evidence or strong argument for Aknenatan having much influence, nice idea though it is. Happy to be shown otherwise!
'11-11-27, 15:14 Agrippina	Re: Akhenaten I must admit that Akhenaten was my first knee-jerk reaction when trying to figure out the origin of the monotheistic god. Since I started reading other literature though I realized that for one thing their monotheism isn't real in the proper sense of the word. "Heaven" where God lives is full of other beings, angels, Satan and various strata of angels, so in that sense it's not monotheistic. Although believers will say that angels are merely messengers. When you come to Christianity, they pretend that it's monotheistic by making a "trinity" of God, but then you have saints and Mary and still Satan, so it's not monotheism. I'm still figuring it all out myself though. My writing is in its first edit, this for grammar, spelling, some corrections to the text and added information, and making sure the links work, next I'm doing more reading to add more, including the information from this thread and others on the forum, and then another read through again for errors before I'll pass it on to an editor and to people I hope will be objective to give me an opinion. So there's still a lot of work to be done.
'11-11-27, 21:39 Moses de la Montagne	Re: Akhenaten spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: 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. But did Asshur, Marduk, and Molech make a fuss over other gods being worshiped? Were they jealous gods whose name was Jealous? Henotheistic though they may've been, the Jews seem to have been given a different appreciation of their nation god than the surrounding nations had going. When were they given this different appreciation? Certainly not before the 8th century, but then the Assyrians arrived. And what did the Assyrians give them? An ass-whupping? Or monotheism? Lots of henotheists had gotten their asses whupped before the Jews did, but none of those seem to have suddenly decided it was because they didn't put all their eggs into one basket and really mean it. There's room for hypothesizing that the Jews were supposed to have been good monotheists from the time of Moses, and that they turned away from their original monotheism under the influence of their Canaanite neighbors (hence stories like that of Jezebel, who induces her Jewish husband to recognize Ba'al). spin wrote: You might buy into the nomadic Hebrews, but all their festivals are sedentary, reflecting a stable agriculture, harvests, first fruits, lambing. Well, I buy into the notion of nomadic Hebrews, sure—but that doesn't mean I refuse to admit that they ever settled down. A likely scenario for their apostasy from Atenish monotheism would've been that they put down roots among pagan neighbors and let their heathen practices rub off on them (as is illustrated in numerous bible stories). spin wrote: You are connecting dots rather than providing a real trajectory. It's easy to connect dots but the results have no tangible value. Where is the evidence of a particular Tuthmoses related to Akhenaten? There isn't any. It's just a reverie based on the fact that Moshe could be part of an Egyptian name, rather than what the Hebrews supplied for the etymology, as seen in Ex 2:10, she named him Moshe because she drew him out [mashah] of the water. We'll never know why Moses was called Moses. If we'll never know, then we'll never really know. In that case, connecting dots is something we can do. There's no reason why the Hebrew etymology can't also be a pun on the Egyptian name. Isn't the Torah supposedly riddled with such double meanings of words? There does seem to be evidence of a Tuthmoses related to Akhenaten (if you care to believe what you read on Wikipedia, at least). The sarcophagus of such a person's cat has been found, but the man himself vanished from the record. As a cat lover myself, I can discern some emotional logic in this. If my cat died and my religion was being destroyed, I'd be half-inclined to think to myself, "fuck this shit!"—and go off on an extended walkabout. spin wrote: I also pointed out that the Hebrews apparently had traditions before they became aware of the Philistines, because they were unaware of the arrival of those Philistines, but ostensibly notions about Akhenaten's monotheism reached the Hebrews before they had developed traditions. That's not going to have much impact, is it? This one went over my head. What does an awareness of the Philistines' arrival have to do with Akhenaten's monotheism?
'11-11-27, 21:50 Moses de la Montagne	Re: Akhenaten smudge wrote: I'm stuck on the point that I'd understood Akhenaten's time to be disastrous. Plague and famine, misery and death! He'd imposed his new way of worship and it had proved disastrous. People of the time would be hard pushed to spin it as as 'good idea' to ditch old gods in favour of 'one' on the back of this example. Superstition was the norm and natural events were believed to be acts of gods. Add to this a concerted effort by subsequent pharaohs to bury the memory of the whole affair and I find it unlikely any Aten cult would be much of an influence on anyone! Contrast this with the hebrew experience of the Babylon exile. A vast successful empire, well educated people (relative to the hebrews) AND being allowed to return to their homeland. Much more reasonable to expect this experience would have an influence. Yes, some egyptian experiences after Akhnaten's time may mirror this. But when relating experience to worship the monotheism of Ahura Mazda must have easily trumped that of Aten if indeed Aten was mentioned at all. I can definitely appreciate your logic here, smudge, but doesn't the story of Josiah's priests finding the Book of the Law predate the exile? That, for me, evinces a pretty strong monotheistic tendency already in existence before the sojourn in Babylon. Josiah, if the text tells us anything, went on a wicked bender to eradicate as much of the Jews' extra-Yahwhicular worship as he could manage—and that he did it because he sincerely believed the original Law of Moses proscribed it.
'11-11-27, 21:56 Moses de la Montagne	Re: Akhenaten smudge wrote: But my understanding was that hebrew religious leaders would have argued that they had deserved to be punished, deserved to be exiled in Babylon, precisely for 'whoring with false Gods'. If they'd done as they were told the exile would not have happened. Okay, but doesn't the very fact that they thought a punishment was deserved for whoring with false gods make them different from their neighbors? I can accept that the various Semitic nations had their favored and preferred gods, but whence the Hebrew notion that theirs must be worshiped as the one & only?
'11-11-28, 05:09 spin	Re: Akhenaten Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: Moses de la Montagne wrote: But did Asshur, Marduk, and Molech make a fuss over other gods being worshiped? Were they jealous gods whose name was Jealous? Henotheistic though they may've been, the Jews seem to have been given a different appreciation of their nation god than the surrounding nations had going. When were they given this different appreciation? Certainly not before the 8th century, but then the Assyrians arrived. And what did the Assyrians give them? An ass-whupping? Or monotheism? Lots of henotheists had gotten their asses whupped before the Jews did, but none of those seem to have suddenly decided it was because they didn't put all their eggs into one basket and really mean it. There's room for hypothesizing that the Jews were supposed to have been good monotheists from the time of Moses, and that they turned away from their original monotheism under the influence of their Canaanite neighbors (hence stories like that of Jezebel, who induces her Jewish husband to recognize Ba'al). spin wrote: You might buy into the nomadic Hebrews, but all their festivals are sedentary, reflecting a stable agriculture, harvests, first fruits, lambing. Well, I buy into the notion of nomadic Hebrews, sure—but that doesn't mean I refuse to admit that they ever settled down. A likely scenario for their apostasy from Atenish monotheism would've been that they put down roots among pagan neighbors and let their heathen practices rub off on them (as is illustrated in numerous bible stories). Supposedly they celebrated agricultural festivals during the exodus. This is merely retrojection. The archaeological evidence is that the people who were in Palestine were in Palestine continuously through the iron age, as the continuity of dwelling in archaeological surveys of thousands of locations illustrates. If you want to believe that Jewish monotheism came from Akhenaten, that's your prorogative, but it in no way reflects the reality of a polytheistic religion that was still polytheistic in the 8th c. BCE and it's in the bible in the story of Joshua 24:26 where the hero set up a pillar (the early symbol of Yahweh) under and oak (symbol of Asherah). It is only later that the Jews made the move to monotheism. How do you envisage the survival of latent solar monotheism from the days of Akhenaten through at least 6 centuries of silence and polytheism? Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: You are connecting dots rather than providing a real trajectory. It's easy to connect dots but the results have no tangible value. Where is the evidence of a particular Tuthmoses related to Akhenaten? There isn't any. It's just a reverie based on the fact that Moshe could be part of an Egyptian name, rather than what the Hebrews supplied for the etymology, as seen in Ex 2:10, she named him Moshe because she drew him out [mashah] of the water. We'll never know why Moses was called Moses. If we'll never know, then we'll never really know. In that case, connecting dots is something we can do. There's no reason why the Hebrew etymology can't also be a pun on the Egyptian name. Isn't the Torah supposedly riddled with such double meanings of words? There does seem to be evidence of a Tuthmoses related to Akhenaten (if you care to believe what you read on Wikipedia, at least). Akhenaten even had an older brother called Tuthmoses who died before him. But this load of musing is based on a flight of fancy concerning the linguistic connection of the name Moses to Tuthmoses. It's just wild speculation. If you wanna believe it, that's fine, but realize what you are doing is unrelated to the past in any direct sense. Moses de la Montagne wrote: The sarcophagus of such a person's cat has been found, but the man himself vanished from the record. As a cat lover myself, I can discern some emotional logic in this. If my cat died and my religion was being destroyed, I'd be half-inclined to think to myself, "fuck this shit!"—and go off on an extended walkabout. Very romantic. Moses de la Montagne wrote: spin wrote: I also pointed out that the Hebrews apparently had traditions before they became aware of the Philistines, because they were unaware of the arrival of those Philistines, but ostensibly notions about Akhenaten's monotheism reached the Hebrews before they had developed traditions. That's not going to have much impact, is it? This one went over my head. What does an awareness of the Philistines' arrival have to do with Akhenaten's monotheism? The Hebrews know nothing about the arrival of the Philistines. They have no tradition that goes back that far, despite the anachronous reference to the land of the Philistines in Gen 21:32. The Philistines invaded the coast of Palestine at the beginning of the twelfth century. To the Jews they seem to have been there always. Hopefully you can see that they don't have a tradition that goes back to the beginning of the twelfth century. How can you expect any tradition supposedly several centuries earlier to have been preserved by the Jews? Everything points to Jewish traditions having been developed much later, as in the case of Pithom in Ex 1:11 built by the pharaoh Necho in Josiah's time. There's fuck all chance that Akhenaten's solar monotheism got carried out of the court of an ephemeral king and transported to Palestine where the notion lingered for several centuries to be picked up by the Jews when their traditions started taking form, though not picked up by anyone else. No-one but Akhenaten was interested in Aten. His court was obsequious, but Aten died immediately after the demise of Akhenaten and no-one was interested in preserving the tradition in Egypt.
'11-11-28, 05:15 spin	Re: Akhenaten Moses de la Montagne wrote: doesn't the story of Josiah's priests finding the Book of the Law predate the exile? That, for me, evinces a pretty strong monotheistic tendency already in existence before the sojourn in Babylon. Josiah, if the text tells us anything, went on a wicked bender to eradicate as much of the Jews' extra-Yahwhicular worship as he could manage—and that he did it because he sincerely believed the original Law of Moses proscribed it. Isn't this just the rewriting of tradition in Hasmonean times to justify John Hyrcanus's eradication of "extra-Yahwhicular worship" (AJ 13.254-258) in order to centralize worship in Jerusalem? We keep coming back to using the bible as a literal historical source and that's like walking on quicksand.
'11-11-28, 12:12 smudge	Re: Akhenaten Moses de la Montagne wrote: I can definitely appreciate your logic here, smudge, but doesn't the story of Josiah's priests finding the Book of the Law predate the exile? That, for me, evinces a pretty strong monotheistic tendency already in existence before the sojourn in Babylon. Josiah, if the text tells us anything, went on a wicked bender to eradicate as much of the Jews' extra-Yahwhicular worship as he could manage—and that he did it because he sincerely believed the original Law of Moses proscribed it. If we all accepted the veracity of the Bible you'd have a point. But that is not the case! The tale may be about priests concerned with control or may have been added/tampered with during/post exile (or any combination!). It is unclear. Either way, there is no evidence of an Akhenaten connection.
'11-11-28, 12:25 smudge	Re: Akhenaten Moses de la Montagne wrote: smudge wrote: But my understanding was that hebrew religious leaders would have argued that they had deserved to be punished, deserved to be exiled in Babylon, precisely for 'whoring with false Gods'. If they'd done as they were told the exile would not have happened. Okay, but doesn't the very fact that they thought a punishment was deserved for whoring with false gods make them different from their neighbors? I can accept that the various Semitic nations had their favored and preferred gods, but whence the Hebrew notion that theirs must be worshiped as the one & only? We don't know if they thought it at the time or just decided that was a possible explanation for bad fortune at a later date and edited texts to suit. I suspect the later. For 'whoring with false gods' read 'not doing as priests would like'. I think you are hung up on the 'why' move towards monotheism. Perhaps it is just logical if you accept one god as more powerful than another to end up with one 'above' all others....and then 'one' only. A direct link to Akhenaten would make it easy and comfortable but that does not make it true! And evidence seems lacking. If a link was found it still leaves the question why Akhenaten himself chose monotheism! And why the drift towards it in Persian belief also....
'11-11-28, 16:43 Destroyer	Re: Akhenaten spin wrote: There's fuck all chance that Akhenaten's solar monotheism got carried out of the court of an ephemeral king and transported to Palestine where the notion lingered for several centuries to be picked up by the Jews when their traditions started taking form, though not picked up by anyone else. No-one but Akhenaten was interested in Aten. His court was obsequious, but Aten died immediately after the demise of Akhenaten and no-one was interested in preserving the tradition in Egypt. As far as I am concerned, Akhenaten's solar monotheism is not what got transported to Palestine: But the idea of monotheism, which he introduced, could very well have become familiar to at least One Hebrew.
'11-11-28, 17:20 spin	Re: Akhenaten Destroyer wrote: spin wrote: There's fuck all chance that Akhenaten's solar monotheism got carried out of the court of an ephemeral king and transported to Palestine where the notion lingered for several centuries to be picked up by the Jews when their traditions started taking form, though not picked up by anyone else. No-one but Akhenaten was interested in Aten. His court was obsequious, but Aten died immediately after the demise of Akhenaten and no-one was interested in preserving the tradition in Egypt. As far as I am concerned, Akhenaten's solar monotheism is not what got transported to Palestine: But the idea of monotheism, which he introduced, could very well have become familiar to at least One Hebrew. How could the idea of monotheism have been transported to Palestine circa 1335 BCE and lain dormant for half a millennium or more before the Jews even took henotheism on board? The short answer seems to be, "it couldn't". There is not a shred of evidence to allow one to contemplate the issue. It's just butterfly logic. "Oooo, look, Akhenaten introduced monotheism." "Hey, but the Jews were montheists. I bet they're related!" "Yeah, but the Jews copied it from Akhenaten. Moses probably brought it with him to Palestine." "You're on to something there, I think." "Umm, sorry, but there doesn't seem to have been an exodus." "Don't be a wet blanket. Ya don't need an exodus. Some disgruntled prince or priest probably brought it with him to the promised land." "And the Jews weren't monotheistic at the time." "Haven't you heard of osmosis? Monotheism eventually filtered through, so of course it goes back to Akhenaten who had the idea first."