That’s an interesting theory that splitting the red sea could be a tsunami, but how do you explain the part where all those people walked right next to that wall of water? People that close to a tsunami usually die. And your burning bush explanation is effectively saying that the story is allegory. But, you don’t explain how you separate truth from allegory. Your explanations are “just so” stories.
Sorry, these posts are TLDR, so I’m not going to respond to all the random details. Are you familiar with Bayesian analysis? I have a rudimentary understanding of it, but it starts with something called a “prior probability”. Take Jesus. We have scripture that describes a man, born of a virgin as the son of God. We now have lots of other things written about him and claims of eye witnesses and a following that continues today. To determine if he is real, you start by looking at all the other scriptures about sons of gods, their supposed miracles and legacies. They all fair pretty poorly. People gave up supporting their beliefs in them. So, what is the probability that this one is true?
“It would be an almighty big coincidence for all of the myths to independently tell the same story.”
Actually, that’s why they are in the myth category. A myth is a story that gets passed around, adopted by other cultures, changed by each generation and claimed as a source when convenient. Your points of connection are interesting, but I don’t see them as evidence of events. I see them as evidence of cultures sharing ideas.
Just a quick response to your first reply. A tsunami had definitely struck Egypt, but this had nothing to do with the path through the sea. The Red Sea is actually the Sea of Reeds, which is the Nile Delta. The Israelites as the Hyksos escaped from Avaris, some time after the tsunami had struck, by marching day and night through the reeds, with only Thera’s plume (white by day, soft glow by night), determining their course. Once they reached the coast, they turned east and walked along the sand bars (up to 300m wide, if I recall correctly) which separate the waters of Lakes Manzala and Bardawil from the sea. Parts of this ‘path through the sea’ still exist today - could become a major tourist attraction.
For people who have supposedly never witnessed the aftereffects of a volcanic eruption, the 'miracles' of Moses describe in uncannily well. The walls of water would of course be a tsunami, in plague six Moses takes ash from a fireplace and blows it over Egypt, resulting in all kinds of diseases to break out. The darkness was, of course, caused by the volcanic ash blocking out the sun. Only the death of the firstborn was man made - the sacrifice, in fires, of the firstborn children of humans and animals, at precisely the same moment in time. Moses must have been rescued from the sacrificial fires in the nick of time, hence the 'burning bush' episode in the Bible. It should be mentioned that the religious revolution of Egypt against the god Amun, in favour of Akhenaten's god the Aten, is usually attributed to Akhenaten. A much more sensible explanation would be that Amenhotep III, on the advice of the High Priest of Amun, ordered the sacrifice of the firstborn. When they complied, but it did free Egypt from the deadly plague which was decimating the population, the rejected Amun straightaway. When the population realized that CP Tuthmosis, who would have been first in line to be sacrifice, they would really have been upset with the A3. In the end A3 decided not to fight his own son, with his rebel army, and retreated into Nubia. How else would you explain the similarity between the plagues and the eruption of a volcano? The Koran even records a sonic boom and a 'flood'.The likelihood of all these things happening together is very low. What's most likely going on here is the authors of these religious texts taking events that happened many years apart and plugging them into a narrative created for a specific purpose at that time. Let's not forget the social and political role that religion still continuously plays that has very little to do with actual events. In a sense Moses and the Exodus is the creation myth of the Jewish nation, there will be kernels of truth contained within but after several thousands of years it becomes almost impossible to find out what they are and at what point they actually took place. Just as it is almost impossible to determine which ancient massive flood in the region gave rise to the story of Noah's flood. Was it the flooding of what is now the Black Sea which was almost certainly heavily populated in ancient times until the thin land bridge separating it from the Mediterranean gave way. Or was it the flooding of the Persian Gulf which underwent a similar flooding around that time as well. It is safe to say that the Egyptian culture had a major influence on ancient Israel as it did on cultures throughout the region. I was probably the origin of much of what came to be religion and society throughout the ancient world and many bloodlines can likely be traced back to Egypt. So the idea of early leaders of Israel having Egyptian blood is quite possible.
The likelihood of all these things happening together is very low.I have no idea why you would say that. In fact, the only way all these narratives can be linked together is if they all describe the same event.
I can’t even reconcile two things you said just today. This
“For people who have supposedly never witnessed the after effects of a volcanic eruption, the ‘miracles’ of Moses describe in uncannily well. The walls of water would of course be a tsunami, in plague six Moses takes ash from a fireplace and blows it over Egypt, resulting in all kinds of diseases to break out.”
Then this
“Just a quick response to your first reply. A tsunami had definitely struck Egypt, but this had nothing to do with the path through the sea.”
So, what “wall of water” were you talking about in the first one?
How would the ancient scribes have described a tsunami, other than ‘a wall of water’? I think you’ll get a better idea of what I mean here] (Sections 20 and 21).
The likelihood of all these things happening together is very low.I have no idea why you would say that. In fact, the only way all these narratives can be linked together is if they all describe the same event. I'm saying it because I'm looking at it from a viewpoint based on our best current understanding of how the natural world actually works, not how things are described in a religious text. As I've already stated I don't think the purpose of religion is to describe in objective terms events and processes in the natural world. Religion is allegory and metaphor intended to describe an inner human reality not readily understood by any other means. This was the goal of early groups that gave rise to modern religions such as the Egyptian mystery cults. They were an esoteric exploration of the inner nature of human consciousness and spirituality, not an exoteric examination of events, that is easily communicated to the masses but loses almost all meaning. Modern religions take the figurative story of figures like Christ - who is clearly based on early mythical figures - and turns them into literal history with no foundation in literal fact. Were there volcanic eruptions, plagues, massacres and more contained in books such as Exodus? Certainly. Did they happen in the sequence contained in the Bible with the characters described. Almost certainly not, the Bible or any religious text is not a factual record of events. As I've already stated, the intent of religion is to build and maintain faith in followers, not accurately record facts.
How would the ancient scribes have described a tsunami, other than 'a wall of water'? I think you'll get a better idea of what I mean here] (Sections 20 and 21).But then you switch to completely different explanation of parting the Red Sea. Thats what I'm asking about.
The traditional belief is that for a path through the sea to have existed (which they remembered), there must have been walls of water on both sides. In practice there could never have been walls of water standing upright and frozen in time. I have nowhere advocated or supported this belief. As stated, the Koran specifically mentions a flood, but makes no mention of a path through the sea. I think we’re somehow talking past each other.
The traditional belief is that for a path through the sea to have existed (which they remembered), there must have been walls of water on both sides. In practice there could never have been walls of water standing upright and frozen in time. I have nowhere advocated or supported this belief. As stated, the Koran specifically mentions a flood, but makes no mention of a path through the sea. I think we're somehow talking past each other.That is almost certain. Doug is doing a better job sorting you out. Here you essentially admit the Bible story is a mix of observed nature and actual events. Elsewhere you stick to a more literal reporting of facts. So, I'm not following.
The Bible is a religious tract not a historical document, trying to "prove" any part of it is highly problematic. It was created for short term religious purposes not to accurately record events from that time. Even the existence of someone much more prominent in the religious world like Jesus Christ is proving very difficult, the further back researchers go the less evidence there is he even existed. So basically what we're dealing with here is mythological figures that have been literalized for religious and political reasons. Would you begin a search for the literal origins of Zeus or Odin, doing so with Moses is approaching that scale. Trying to turn the metaphorical into the literal produces meaningless results and anyone who understands what religion actual is understands it is almost entirely metaphorical in nature.It would be an almighty big coincidence for all of the myths to independently tell the same story. The Megiddo ivory is very real and can't be argued away. How would you interpret the scene on the ivory? Amenhotep III did spend a very long time in Nubia (why?) and probably died there. Your opinion that all biblical figures are mythological figures is just that - your opinion. And you'll stick to that belief no matter what evidence to the contrary might surface. As far as Jesus Christ is concerned, I am convinced that there are enough references to real people, like for instance Gaius Vibius Pansa, a Roman consul, to prove that a person that became known as Christ did exist. The Romans believed that Christ's father was a Roman soldier called Pandira, and also that he was 'of the Treasury'. In my book Barbelo I argue that Christ was born to Joseph, Herod's treasurer, and Mariamne I, Herod's second wife. Joseph was also known as the Old Man (Sabbas) and reference is made to a Joseph barsabas of the Flat Feet. Joseph, the son of (bar) the Old Man, of the Flat Feet. I could not find any information about the Flat Feet, until I read a bit about Cicero's Pro Ligario speech, in which he defended a Roman soldier called Ligarius before Caesar. The Roman consul Gaius Vibius Pansa was also involved. I had by then developed a habit of trying to translate, to satisfy my own curiosity, all interesting-looking Latin words I came across (I had Latin for 5 years at school and loved every bit of it). It turns out that Pansa means 'having broad flat feet', no less, and it is one of the tenses of pando, pandere. The word Ligarius has no direct translation, but again, by an almighty coincidence, the Latin word Lignarius means 'a carpenter'. So, here we have in a single context the Flat Feet, a Roman soldier called Pandira (Pandere) and a carpenter (the NT relates that Joseph was a carpenter). Joseph and his friend Sohemus were supposed to guard Mariamne during Herod's absence, but on on occasion he discovered that Joseph and Sohemus must have had intimate conversations with Mariamne, and had Sohemus promptly executed. It would seem that Joseph (sabas) 'of the Flat Feet' had some relationship with the Roman consul, perhaps having married his daughter, and Herod dared not touch him. As I point out in my book Barbelo, there are many stories about Christ and his disciples that point to conclusions that scholars simply seem to be unable to reach. For instance, the fact that the physical descriptions of Christ and Paul match to a T. And the sayings and deeds of Christ and Simon Magus are identical. Can't they connect the dots? It is the very controversy that this information seems to be pointing at, that convinces me that a person called Jesus Christ did exist, but that he was anything but the Son of God. What is all this fuss? Everyone today knows Charlton Heston was Moses.
What is all this fuss? Everyone today knows Charlton Heston was Moses.Exactly and the Israelites kicked Philistine butt because they all had handguns and AR-15s. Moses from the Mount]
I always was suspicious of the name “Moses”. The King James Bible tried to make out that it was from the Hebrew “masheh”, but that always seemed far-fetched.
I think the confusion is arising from the fact that we generally think of Moses as a mythical folk hero invented by the Israelites. The “exodus” never really happened, at least the way it was described in the Bible (a million slaves rebelling against Egypt and leaving for the Promised Land).
Wasn’t Thutmose an Egyptian, not a Hebrew? You seem to be talking about the Thera volcanic eruption, and then some kind of exodus. Where did Thutmose go on his exodus? If he was following the light and ash cloud of Thera, he’d be going North toward the delta, wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t he want to go AWAY from the tsunami? I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that I’m not sure what you’re proposing.
Now… if you’re suggesting is that the Israelites heard stories about Thutmose and used that story to create their own folk hero to explain their mythical “exodus” to the Promise Land, that could be plausible. But to say that Thutmose and Moses were literally the same person, that’s what I’m not sure about.
It seems that I have been kicked off this topic, so I cannot reply.
It seems that I have been kicked off this topic, so I cannot reply.We can't kick people off topics, and indeed if you're posting in the thread then you can post in the thread. I'm not sure what you're seeing but it's most likely a glitch in the website software.
Thanks Doug, I tried to reply to earlier posts without success and eventually gave up.
Advocatus, there is no short answer to your questions. Osman argues that the biblical Joseph and Yuya, Amenhotep III’s highest official, were one and the same person. This seems to be confirmed by the Story of Joseph and Asenath, in which Joseph and Asenath ruled Egypt for 48 years. It was not Joseph’s wife, but his daughter, who was queen of Egypt for several decades. Amenhotep III married the daughter of Yuya, Tiye, and their firstborn son was Crown Prince Tuthmosis. He would, therefore, have been half-Jewish. Justin, for example, claimed that Moses was the son of Joseph. CP Tuthmosis was the grandson, and not the son, of Joseph.
Manetho mentions two exoduses of the Hebrews (he identifies them as the Hyksos). The ancients also remembered two floods which devastated the Mediterranean, namely the flood of Ogygus, which they place during the reign of Ahmose I, and the flood of Deucalion, which they place 250 years later. Some Hebrew historians associated Moses with the flood of Ogygus, and others associate him with the flood of Deucalion. Modern dating techniques place the first eruption around 1600 BCE, which is close to Ahmose’s reign, and 250 years later would take us to 1350 BCE, towards the end of the reign of Amenhotep III.
Exodus I: The Hyksos were already at war with Egypt and the first eruption with its tsunami would have weakened their defenses too such an extent that they realized they had to abandon Avaris. The vast majority of them (240 000 according to Manetho/ Josephus, 600 000 according to Exodus) escaped by wading through the Sea of Reeds (not the Red Sea) away from Avaris, in a north-western direction. The only way they would have been able to maintain direction would have been to walk towards the eruption cloud of Thera on the horizon, a white cloud by day and a red glow by night. Once they reached the coast, they turned eastward (actually confirmed as such in Exodus) and walked all the way along they beach, specifically along the sand ridges which separate Lakes Manzala and Bardawil from the sea. These would have been the ‘path through the sea’ which Moses supposedly created. These sand ridges were approximately 300-600 m wide, easily allowing thousands of people to escape to freedom.
Exodus II: By this time many Hebrews had been enslaved by Egyptian rulers (Ahmose I, those who remained at Avaris to allow the bulk of the population to escape), and others captured and brought to Egypt by for instance Tuthmosis III. He, specifically, used to bring entire peoples with everything they had to serve as slaves to the Egyptian people. Thera erupted a second time, leading to a plague which devastated Egypt (Amenhotep III for example had hundreds of statues erected in honour of Sekhmet, the goddess of destruction, with the obvious intent of placating her). When this did not work, he ordered the sacrifice of the firstborn of Egypt in fires (a heathen practice, but probably seen as the only way out), and CP Tuthmosis would have been first in line to die. He nevertheless escaped (the burning bush episode), and when the sacrifice had no effect on the plague, Egypt rejected the priesthood of Amun and rebelled against Amenhotep III under the leadership of CP Tuthmosis / Moses. In the original post (see above) I argue that CP Tuthmosis must have been the biblical Moses for a number of reasons which in my opinion cannot be refuted, and that is what most of the discussions have been focused on. Hope this clarifies the issue. PS: The rebels had control over Egypt for about 13 years, after which the EGyptian army returned from Ethiopia and Moses with his rebels had to flee Egypt.
It seems that I have been kicked off this topic, so I cannot reply.We can't kick people off topics, and indeed if you're posting in the thread then you can post in the thread. I'm not sure what you're seeing but it's most likely a glitch in the website software. Or it could be a glitch in his computer or server. Lois
Thanks Doug, I tried to reply to earlier posts without success and eventually gave up. Advocatus, there is no short answer to your questions. Osman argues that the biblical Joseph and Yuya, Amenhotep III's highest official, were one and the same person. This seems to be confirmed by the Story of Joseph and Asenath, in which Joseph and Asenath ruled Egypt for 48 years. It was not Joseph's wife, but his daughter, who was queen of Egypt for several decades. Amenhotep III married the daughter of Yuya, Tiye, and their firstborn son was Crown Prince Tuthmosis. He would, therefore, have been half-Jewish. Justin, for example, claimed that Moses was the son of Joseph. CP Tuthmosis was the grandson, and not the son, of Joseph. Manetho mentions two exoduses of the Hebrews (he identifies them as the Hyksos). The ancients also remembered two floods which devastated the Mediterranean, namely the flood of Ogygus, which they place during the reign of Ahmose I, and the flood of Deucalion, which they place 250 years later. Some Hebrew historians associated Moses with the flood of Ogygus, and others associate him with the flood of Deucalion. Modern dating techniques place the first eruption around 1600 BCE, which is close to Ahmose's reign, and 250 years later would take us to 1350 BCE, towards the end of the reign of Amenhotep III. Exodus I: The Hyksos were already at war with Egypt and the first eruption with its tsunami would have weakened their defenses too such an extent that they realized they had to abandon Avaris. The vast majority of them (240 000 according to Manetho/ Josephus, 600 000 according to Exodus) escaped by wading through the Sea of Reeds (not the Red Sea) away from Avaris, in a north-western direction. The only way they would have been able to maintain direction would have been to walk towards the eruption cloud of Thera on the horizon, a white cloud by day and a red glow by night. Once they reached the coast, they turned eastward (actually confirmed as such in Exodus) and walked all the way along they beach, specifically along the sand ridges which separate Lakes Manzala and Bardawil from the sea. These would have been the 'path through the sea' which Moses supposedly created. These sand ridges were approximately 300-600 m wide, easily allowing thousands of people to escape to freedom. Exodus II: By this time many Hebrews had been enslaved by Egyptian rulers (Ahmose I, those who remained at Avaris to allow the bulk of the population to escape), and others captured and brought to Egypt by for instance Tuthmosis III. He, specifically, used to bring entire peoples with everything they had to serve as slaves to the Egyptian people. Thera erupted a second time, leading to a plague which devastated Egypt (Amenhotep III for example had hundreds of statues erected in honour of Sekhmet, the goddess of destruction, with the obvious intent of placating her). When this did not work, he ordered the sacrifice of the firstborn of Egypt in fires (a heathen practice, but probably seen as the only way out), and CP Tuthmosis would have been first in line to die. He nevertheless escaped (the burning bush episode), and when the sacrifice had no effect on the plague, Egypt rejected the priesthood of Amun and rebelled against Amenhotep III under the leadership of CP Tuthmosis / Moses. In the original post (see above) I argue that CP Tuthmosis must have been the biblical Moses for a number of reasons which in my opinion cannot be refuted, and that is what most of the discussions have been focused on. Hope this clarifies the issue. PS: The rebels had control over Egypt for about 13 years, after which the EGyptian army returned from Ethiopia and Moses with his rebels had to flee Egypt.About the Hyksos. I have read where Avaris was the winter location for the Hyksos king. And also the capital for the land of Goshen. Worth noting, but not to have full backing due to lack of evidence. Never have I heard that the Hyksos were not more advanced than the Egyptians. The questions I have is, what land did the Hyksos come from? One of the main forms of money before and after coins come into play in the area was the Cowry Shell. Did the Hyksos control the Cowry Shells from India? The big item is the leprosy. I have read where the Hyksos left Avaris because of leprosy. Moses was said to have covered his face because of leprosy. Any thoughts. If Moses did have leprosy, wouldn’t that eliminate Egyptian lineage?
Another point. I am not buying the parting of the water or sea of reeds story due to logistics. The main city of the area was Pi-Ramesses, the new capital. I would guess that capital cities have roads to all trading areas. Including going to the trade areas of the Red Sea. The roads would have connected to the older Avaris roads that must have been thousands of years old. The distance between Avaris and Pi-Ramesses was only 9-12 miles by the bible. There are many unanswered questions about the canals and waterways of the time. Waterways were known as the main trade routes to the seas going from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. The big question is the location of the Port of Perunefer. If it was at Avaris, why in the world would the people take to walking across swamps when they could go to the port and load belonging and sail off?
Moses could very well have had leprosy - Egypt was being devastated by a deadly plague (the boils and blisters on humans and animals). The path through the sea of reeds would have been an escape route, not a trade route. The point of this post, is, however, that there are three pieces of evidence which independently link Moses to CP Tuthmosis (through the messengers to Jerusalem, and the invasion of Egypt by the Asiatics/Israelites/Hyksos, and also the disappearance of the Egyptian army), and also the first burial of the Apis bull. It is up to you to decide whether this is all just a coincidence.