Sargon the Great and Moses
June 7, 2010 10 Comments
Sargon of Akkad / Mesopotamia (c.2300BC to 2215BC)
His birth story from Wikipedia Here
“My mother was a high priestess, my father I knew not. The brothers of my father loved the hills. My city is Azupiranu, which is situated on the banks of the Euphrates. My high priestess 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 over me. The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me. Akki, the drawer of water, appointed me as his gardener. While I was a gardener, Ishtar granted me her love, and for four and […] years I exercised kingship.”
The river would have been the Euphrates.
Moses of the Hebrews / Egypt / Promised Land / Israel (c. 1396 BC+- to Feb-Mar 1271 BC+-
His birth story From the Jewish Encyclopedia Here
In the Exodus account, the birth of Moses occurred at a time when an unnamed Egyptian Pharaoh had commanded that all male Hebrew children born be killed by drowning in the river Nile. Jochebed, the wife of the Levite Amram, bore a son and kept him concealed for three months. When she could keep him hidden no longer, rather than deliver him to be killed, she set him adrift on the Nile River in a small craft of bulrushes coated in pitch. Moses’ sister Miriam observed the progress of the tiny boat until it reached a place where Pharaoh’s daughter (Bithiah, Thermuthis) was bathing with her handmaidens. It is said that she spotted the baby in the basket and had her handmaiden fetch it for her.
Hmmm…Sargon the Great, who we know was real, was born in secrecy and his mother built a small craft and set it / him free on the river. Story from somewhere around 2300-2200 BC in the Babylon / Mesopotamian area. Sargon is the first individual in recorded history to create a multi-ethnic, centrally ruled empire, and his dynasty controlled Mesopotamia for around a century and a half.
Moses whom many Biblical scholars now think may be a mythical character who lived around a thousand later than Sargon…if he (Moses) were real, has the same birth myth as a great historical character who lived a lot earlier. Also to be considered in this story is that those same Biblical scholars think that the story of Moses and his writings was a pious fraud, written by Hebrews who were exiled in Babylon (Mesopotamia) in around 587 BC to help bring the Hebrews tribes together in faith.
One could reasonably conclude that parts of the birth myth of Moses was “borrowed” from Mesopotamian writings they came into contact with in Babylon.
Also one could look at the mythical Gilgamesh flood story (circa 2700 BC), the greatest surviving work of early Mesopotamian literature, and see some mighty close similarities with the story of Noah and his Ark…which was part of the Pentateuch that Moses was supposed to have written around 1270 BC, but was probably written by Hebrew scribes in the 6th century BC.
I think this part of Biblical myth can also be reasonably thought of as another Hebrew “borrowing” of storyline from the Mesopotamians. Boy those Hebrew’s are sharp…
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Here’s a little more for your theory … Mose (no s) is the back end of an Egyptian theophoric name meaning “is made present” or “born of” … the “s” is added when the name is later translated into Greek ca 250 BCE. The 18th dynatsy (which evicted the Hyksos (“Eastern Princes”) was founded by Ahmose I … followed by a string of Tutmose (s) and ending with our old friend King Tut. Tutmose IV changed his name to Akhenaten and tried to change Egyptian religion to a purely solar monotheism…then came a strange pharaoh who was possibly none other the Nefertiti (whose bust is in Berlin) ruling as a man (not unprecedented) and then Tut … tyhen Rameses I then his chief of staff Seti I .. then Seti’s son Rameses II (the great) who is believed to be the pharaoh of the Exodus. And the Exodus is led by someone with alleged royal connections who does not get along with the new Rameside dynasty. Do you suppose there is a connection here?
Hello Frank Kehoe, thanks for writing.
The most common theory going around now is that Moses was a fictional character made up by the Hebrews who were in exile in Babylon or shortly after their exile ended. the purpose of the story was to help bind the Hebrews back together after their ordeal in captivity.
In other parts of my blog I tell of the archaeologists who have been scouring the Sinai desert for over a hundred years in search of ANY proof that a million +- people passed through there anywhere from 1200 to 1500 BC. There is absolutely none, nada, zilch.
Also there is no record in any Egyptian writing or glyph’s indicating such a thing. The population of Egypt was thought to be around 2 to 3 million at that time and a third to a half of the people leaving would be a tremendous deal…yet nothing is said of this outside the Bible.
So, like the myths of Adam and Eve and Noah’s flood I think the Exodus falls into this category…purely myth
“So, like the myths of Adam and Eve and Noah’s flood I think the Exodus falls into this category…purely myth.”
Not myth, allegory. The story of Adam and Eve is certainly allegorical, and Exodus might fall under that rubric as well.
Today’s Jews find in these biblical stories many life-lessons–instructions that offer guidance and comfort. Yet these stories do more than that: They reveal truths about our relationship with God and with all of existence, providing crucial information about the human condition and how best to alter those conditions, and do so from a place of “dominion” rather than chance.
For one, the problematic existence of an Adam and Eve has nothing to do with our ancestral parents, or with two persons per se, but is revelatory of how we humans are constructed, how the three parts of our being–our body, our mind, and our soul–interact in ways that allow us to use the physical realm to create multidimensional realities.
This information isn’t secreted away, but is hiding in plane sight, but to see it requires a certain “innocence,” a putting away of all preconceived notions about what’s there.
The Bible is a Metaphysical Manual for he or she (the adept) who knows where to look, how to look, and what to look for.
If you focus primarily on the historical accuracy of the Bible, you’ll miss what Bruce Lee referred to in his movie, “Enter the Dragon,” as “all that heavenly glory”:
“Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory,” said Bruce Lee’s character.
You’re concentrating on the “finger.”
Hello daylightworker, thanks for your response.
You write:
“Not myth, allegory. The story of Adam and Eve is certainly allegorical, and Exodus might fall under that rubric as well.”
It’s myth in the respect that it is an old story of a fictional event…as is most of the Old Testament. The circumstantial evidence for this is pretty overwhelming. The New Testament is based on the Old. The present day Christian God comes from the Old Testament, if this book is mythical then so is the God it describes.
So, we can prove that the earth is FAR older than 6,000 or 10,000 years old; we can prove that Adam and Eve are mythical, we can prove that the Noachian flood is mythical, we can prove that the ‘Tower of Babel’ is mythical, we can prove that the Exodus is mythical, we can prove that Joshua never captured all those cities listed, we can now prove that man is related to other Homo species that are now extinct…so we ARE actually descended from the great apes.
By getting rid of the Adam and Eve story we also get rid of the need for Jesus. What effect does this have on Christianity?
ALL of this combines, and along with other evidence, says to me that the Bible is nothing more than an ancient book of mythical stories, and absolutely nothing more.
You write:
“The Bible is a Metaphysical Manual for he or she (the adept) who knows where to look, how to look, and what to look for.”
I don’t feel a need for a ‘Metaphysical Manual’…never have. I get everything I need from the world around me. There is no magic, no supernatural, no need to think there is any kind of God floating around somewhere. I don’t depend on a unproven phantom…I am responsible to myself only.
You write:
“If you focus primarily on the historical accuracy of the Bible, you’ll miss what Bruce Lee referred to in his movie, “Enter the Dragon,” as “all that heavenly glory”
The historical accuracy of the Bible doesn’t really concern me. We know that the Bible was written by people that were immersed in a certain time and culture, and that they wrote of real kings and phony gods…and for the most part the geography is true and real (big discrepancy in one of the Gospels however). As far as the ‘glory’ goes, I find no glory at all in a man-made religion that has no observable proven ‘god’ behind it.
Regarding the ‘other’ historicity of the Book and the religion itself; does it even bother you a little bit that the whole thing is nothing more than unproven words? Does it bother you that we know for a fact that much of it is untrue?
How do you feel about the real facts that we have discovered about the times and the stories…that the writers of the Bible had NO idea we could prove or disprove. One just doesn’t accept these things…they have to be proven…and by NO stretch of the imagination are they proven.
That’s why they call it faith…
“I am responsible to myself only.”
No truer words ever spoken, but the “self” to whom you’re responsible, and is responsible for you, is not the human self, but one grander in every way–God-like in all its attributes–spiritual and eternal.
You cannot accept this now, and it may take a long sleep before you can, and that’s something you may wish to avoid–for to be asleep is not to be awaken to who you are, and who you may become.
Frankly, it’s a postponement of the inevitable–the full knowledge of who you are, so that you might return whence you came, a place of superlative beauty and knowing.
“It’s myth in the respect that it is an old story of a fictional event…as is most of the Old Testament.”
Characterize them anyway you choose, yet these stories still remain a fount of knowledge and wisdom for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
“So, we can prove that the earth is FAR older than 6,000 or 10,000 years old.”
Actually, the earth is not “old” at all. It has always existed in the Holy Moment we call Now. Time is the “myth,” if we must call something a myth. It doesn’t exist except in our human constructs. God created All That We See in the Holy Moment of Now, and it remained in that state, although it appears that it took billions of years of evolution to arrive at our current state.
From God’s perspective, our universe–including our human selfhood–was all created in a Holy Instant, but from our limited perspective it took billions of years of evolution for the universe to evolve into what it is now.
Further, the physical Universe, including corporeal man, sprung forth from that which is not seen, as that which is not seen gave rise to that which is seen. The ancient Greeks knew this, and wrote about it, but we chose to put that knowledge in the same place as Biblical lore, classifying it as myth.
You should see the you that’s YOU. It’s unsurpassed for its grandeur and its perfection.
“[W]e can now prove that man is related to other Homo species that are now extinct…so we ARE actually descended from the great apes.”
Your human body is not you. It’s merely an avatar, hat tip to James Cameron, and the movie by the same name. You’re using your physical body (your avatar) to navigate and explore the physical realm. Your true home is not in this universe. You (the physical you) and this material universe is undergirded by another body and another universe or realm.
“By getting rid of the Adam and Eve story we also get rid of the need for Jesus. What effect does this have on Christianity?”
You can discount the story all you wish, but it changes nothing. The Adam and Eve story is an accurate statement of how we humans came to be, and how we use who we are–our soul, our mind, and our body–to create our daily existence and our daily experience.
Here’s something upon which to cogitate: We human were not the first intelligent inhabitants of the planet (notwithstanding those species that are now extinct). Those entities have since moved on. Perhaps in time, signs of these early beings may surface.
“As far as the ‘glory’ goes, I find no glory at all in a man-made religion that has no observable proven ‘god’ behind it.”
That’s because you’re looking in all the wrong places. Look to yourself if you would find God, for there is no God beyond you, no God other than you, and no God that you need find but you.
Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish scientist, theologian, and mystic said of the Bible: The Bible has an interior meaning, as well as an exterior one.
I tell you this: Not only does the Bible have an interior meaning, but that meaning is infinite, as the Word of God is infinite, and can’t be circumscribed.
“[D]oes it even bother you a little bit that the whole thing is nothing more than unproven words? Does it bother you that we know for a fact that much of it is untrue?”
You remind me of those who were blindfolded and were told to describe an elephant after touching only certain parts of the pachyderm. I’ve been allowed to touch more of the elephant, as it were, than you, so I can describe with a great deal more accuracy and detail what we’ve both been allowed to touch and to experience–you in one way, and I in another.
The Bible, I reassert, and aver, is accurate in ways you can’t understand. That’s neither good nor bad, it’s just what is, even as one with a microscope sees more than what those with their naked eyes may see, and what those with a telescope may see, than those without one.
No, I’m not “bothered” that you see “untruths” were I see truths. It’s a matter of how we arrived at our conclusions, not who’s right and who’s wrong. It all comes down to perspective–what part of the elephant you’ve been allowed to touch.
“That’s why they call it faith…”
Those who rely on “faith,” rather than on an actual God experience–the ongoing experience of God–have the comfort of their “faith” to sustain them. They who rely on their communion with God–as one with whom they dialog and frequently experience–have the comfort of their intimate knowledge of God to sustain them.
The choice is theirs. As it’s your choice not to believe at all.
Biblical scholars who think Moses is a myth? Hmmm….never heard that one–a biblical scholar that thinks the Bible is in error?
“A few years ago, Rabbi David Wolpe raised a storm in the Jewish world by airing the same question my uncle did and concluding, based on available archaeological evidence, that it had never happened.
I think that Rabbi Wolpe is right–the Exodus is not a historical event and the Torah’s depiction is not (and does not in fact seek to be) a factual account. The Torah, after all, is not a book of history, as Professor Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi and others have argued, the idea of ‘history’ comes much later than the Torah itself. Rather, the Torah is sacred story, a telling that forges and shapes the Jewish people. As Rabbi Richard Hirsh writes in the introduction to the Haggadah “A Night of Questions”:
Is the story true? No, not if we mean an accurate account of events that happened more or less the way they are told… We do not tell the story of the Exodus because it is historically accurate; we tell the story because it is our story and we need to recover and uncover the eternal ideas that this story conveys.”
Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/virtualtalmud/2007/03/truth-of-exodus.html#ixzz29csx3i9z
If there was no Exodus there was no need for Moses to lead it.
Also you might read “Jesus Interrupted” by Bart Ehrman, Professor of religion at The University of North Carolins, Chapel Hill. Pretty interesting stuff about what religious scholars think and know nowadays
The story of Moses being a myth does not mean the Bible contains an error. Jesus told many parables, and who’s to say that the myth that is the moses story could not yield valuable lessons? metaphor does not make a work flawed.
I agree with you 100% that metaphor does not make a work flawed. However there are about 30,000,000 plus Christians who are what we call Young Earth Creationists, or YEC’s, who believe the Bible is 100% true….no Metaphors, parables, or allegory allowed.
The main problem I / we (we agnostics or atheists) have with this is that we can prove that there was never an Adam and Eve as portrayed in the Bible, never a Noachian Flood, never a Tower of Babel, never an Exodus, and never a Joshua capturing all those cities. And with no Adam and Eve to pin ‘Original Sin’ on….what need was there for Jesus??
To word of me. Most myths have a basis of truth, the truth here though is the Hebrew(Habiru) scribes “wording”, to dispel Sumerian/Akkadian/Babylonian origins.
In the Bible version it states at the end of the basket story,with EMPHASIS, she named him Moses because “I drew him out of the water”, & even the Bible reference refers to “Moseh” means to draw out.
The links to Akki the “water drawer” are obvious. As its obvious the scribes have tried to hide all links to an Akkadian water drawer> irrigator, & as you mentioned,& deny an Egyption lineage with the Suffix “mose” as in Thutmose. There was an Egyption moon god called Iah, so it may have been Iahmose, but I prefer Ptahmose or Ahmose, because he was a creator god in a white gown with a serpent staff, & the Bible uses the prophecies of “AMOS” to push monotheism.
Another reason is the name of God revealed to Moses. I am who I am, tell them I am sent you.
Hebrew reads ehyeh , asher ehyeh (pronounced e-yah), so interperated differently it could have said “E-yah who I am, tell them, E-yah sent you”. Yah or Yahweh (halleluyah) is often thought to be the Hebrew name for God, & you can immediately see the problems if Moses had been called Eyahmose, or Yahmose > any Egyption would have queried who is this Son of a God.?
Getting back to the bullrush basket with bitumen, I suggest reading a very good book called “The Flood Before Noah”. This British museum cunieform expert has analyzed all the tablets mentioning the flood & ark story, stating in the 1st Ziasudra version(oldest), Enki/E.A.(E-yah) tells Ziasudra(Noah) to build a boat of REEDS covered in bitumen & in a “circular” shape.(lifecraft).& save all of the livestock & “SEEDS”.
So he researched in depth, Iraqi reed boats.
Scouring museum photos of early explorers he found right up until the early 1900s,the locals made reed coracles,coated in bitumen, & a boxy/coffin shaped reed boat called a TUBBA!
The Hebrew word Tevah,from Taba’t, appears twice in the bible in reference to Noah’s Ark & Moses baby basket.
Even the Hebrew theological scholars dont know the origins of the word, & here again I suggest the scribes of the Babylonian exile asked the locals what a Tubba on the Tablets meant & were obviously shown these reed boats. They could understand the baby basket, but changed the Flood Ark into a timber one with the same rectangular dimensions………