© Charles Chandler

 

'11-01-25, 02:58   Charles Chandler Baltimore, MD	comments from Steven Zapiler   [many more comments have already been incorporated into the body of the text]   The oldest "Hebrew" writing ever found is the "priestly benediction" which blesses someone by having the "light of God shine on their face". At the very least, Ra was the most important god in their faith, it this was not, in fact, Atenism, in which the Sun-god was the only god.
'11-04-28, 20:52   Charles Chandler Baltimore, MD	Comments from Dov Henis   We traditionally credit Moses (i.e., Ramose?) as the inventor of monotheism, meaning the acknowledgement of only one god. This was true of Akhenaten's faith. But Dov Henis points out, it is more accurate to say that the early Hebrews practiced monolatry, which accepts the existence of other gods, while putting one god above all others. Henis makes some interesting points on how the tolerant monolatry evolved into intolerant monotheism.   Gods in ancient times were provincial, where each town had its favorite, and the priests also functioned in the capacity of town council. Moving to another town involved coming under the domain of a different power structure, and thus (possibly) into the worship of another god. The ancients took this for granted.   Now we should consider how people would think of their provincial god once they began a migration. Are they still under the domain of their old god, or do they adopt the god of whatever region they happen to be passing through? Moses then says to them in Deuteronomy 6:14, "You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you." So the migration itself forces the shift from the concept of a regional god to an all-present god, which then discredits all other regional gods.   But only in Islam can we see monotheism fully evolved into the belief that there is but one god. The Christian love of patron saints has been likened to polytheism (or, more properly, monolatry), and even the Holy Trinity can be seen as an attempt to mold the multiplicity of ancient theology into the singularity of monotheism, without requiring a clean break.   The theological, cultural, and historical study of such issues makes an interesting study.
'13-08-10, 18:10   Charles Chandler Baltimore, MD	Tacitus and Other Early Accounts   http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot.com/2010/09/tacitus-and-jews-part-ii.html       Maps:   http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_of_the_ancient_Near_East
'13-10-10, 19:46   Lloyd St. Louis area	Re: Comments Charles, you have another rather plausible sounding theory there, but I think Simcha Jacobovici has a good theory too, and maybe a few others do. I recommend checking out Simcha at http://www.simchajtv.com/ Some of the more relevant articles there should be these: Mount Sinai Found? Last of the Minoans Destruction Layer Confirms Biblical Conquest I saw his theory on tv a few years ago, so that's where I know most of it. The only one of the articles above that I've read is the last one. I think the one about the Minoans is likely to have his evidence that the Minoans were contemporaries of Moses and that they had a depiction of the Red Sea or Reed Sea catastrophe that destroyed the Egyptian army pursuing the Israelites. Simcha thinks that the plagues that preceded the Exodus were caused by the eruption of Santorini on the island of Thera. His tv show also showed that a lake in Africa turned red some years ago and gave off a gas that killed people near it. He figured that if first-born Egyptian children slept in the lowest beds at night, they would have been selectively killed by a similar gas from the Nile. In the last article above he says he thinks the Exodus occurred around 1500 BC and explains why. Otherwise, much of your theory seems potentially compatible with his.
'13-10-10, 20:38   Charles Chandler Baltimore, MD	Re: Comments   Simcha Jacobovici is a cool guy, and yes, there are other theories of when the Exodus occurred. I favor the Ramose/Akhenaten thing because it supplies a reason. If people are going to leave their homes and march across the desert in search of a new place to live, they need a powerful reason. All of the other theories are just archeological/literary dots that can be connected to outline a certain picture. If you pick different dots, you get a different picture. ;) But the Ramose/Akhenaten theory has all of that, and it has a more inspiring, humanistic religion getting founded (i.e., the Amarna heresy), which has a lot in common with early Judaism, and which supplies the reason to accept exile instead of going back to the old ways under Tutankhamun and Horemheb. So that supplies the "why".   Then, we also find the "how" behind deeply engrained Jewish customs, such as cleanliness and kosher cooking. The fact that these customs noticably reduced the fatality rate of Jews during the Black Death in Europe (1348~1350) suggests that the customs were originally formulated during an outbreak of the same disease. This is really starting to make sense.   To look at it the other way around, what would be the bare minimum spiritual, social, economic, and/or political motives behind a mass migration into a new land? Now, how much of that would, of necessity, show up in the historical and archeological records? That's what we're looking for. If this were a murder mystery, we'd be looking for a motive, a means, and an opportunity. ;) Just remember that we can also infer the size of the motive/means/opportunity by the size of what resulted, and use that as a constraint. The reasons were not trivial. The Ramose/Akhenaten theory has all of this. The other theories don't even conduct this kind of analysis. There was only one major heresy in ancient Egypt, which was similar to early Judaism. There were a variety of calamities, but only one plague big enough to get mentioned by Tacitus (who called it leprosy, which of course is a different disease, but which is still a skin condition), and who also said that the plague resulted in the expulsion of a bunch of people, led by Moses, who settled in Canaan, and eventually built a temple. The plague supplies the reason for the downfall of the Amarna heresy, but in so doing, it also supplies the reason for a small group of fanatics to continue on in their beliefs, and defined how they did it (by adopting customs that protected them).
'13-10-12, 03:43   Lloyd St. Louis area	Re: Comments Did you read those three articles on Simcha's site that I mentioned? I thought they might have some new info to add to your theory. I said your theory seems very plausible. In your replies to my comments, did you add anything that wasn't mentioned in your paper?*11262 If so, that's what would likely be most useful for me to notice now. The Exodus story is interesting, but even more interesting to me would be Genesis and comparing it with the Egyptian creation myths, esp. since you have the Israelites being largely Egyptians, I think. I'm interested in those comparisons, because I think Talbott's Alien Sky video has good evidence for the ancient Saturn configuration with Venus and Mars etc.
'13-10-12, 05:13   Charles Chandler Baltimore, MD	Re: Comments Lloyd said: In your replies to my comments, did you add anything that wasn't mentioned in your paper? No, I didn't add anything — I was just band-standing. :))) I didn't get much factual information out of Jacobovici's articles. One of these days, I'd like to list the various points in support of the various theories. Like I said, you have so many dots. Connect them one way, you get one picture. Connect them another, you get a different picture. But there are a lot of different theories!!! :/