Origins of the bible, monotheism in Egyptian history

by digderidoo 8 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  digderidoo

  I have been watching a documentary tonight on Moses, Rameses and the plagues of Egypt. One thing that mentioned was how monotheism was taking hold in Egypt and how transcripts from Egypt had an influence upon bible writers.

  The following is a comparison of Akhenaten's Hymn to the Sun with Psalms 104

  Hymn to the Aten	Psalm 104
  Your dawning is beautiful in the horizon of the sky, O living Aten, Beginning of life! When You rise in the Eastern horizon, You fill every land with Your beauty. You are beautiful, great, glittering, high above every land, Your rays, they encompass the lands, even all that You have made.	1 Bless Yahweh, my soul, Yahweh, my God, how great you are! Clothed in majesty and splendour, 2 wearing the light as a robe! You stretch out the heavens like a tent, 3 build your palace on the waters above,
  You are Re, and You carry them all away captive; You bind them by Your love. Though You are far away, Your rays are upon the earth; Though You are on high, Your footprints are the day.	making the clouds your chariot, gliding on the wings of the wind, 4 appointing the winds your messengers, flames of fire your servants.
  When You set in the western horizon of the sky, The earth is in darkness like the dead;	20 You bring on darkness, and night falls, when all the forest beasts roam around;
  They sleep in their chambers, Their heads are wrapped up, Their nostrils are stopped, And none see the other, While all their things are stolen Which are under their heads, And they know it not. Every lion comes forth from his den,	21young lions roar for their prey, asking God for their food.
  All serpents, they Sting. Darkness ... The world is in silence, He that made them resteth in his horizon. Bright is the eareh when You risest in the horizon. When You shinest as Aten by day You drivest away the darkness.	The sun rises and away they steal, back to their lairs to lie down,
  When You sendest forth Your rays, The Two Lands are in daily festivity, Awake and standing upon their feet When You have raised them up. Their limbs bathed, they take their clothing, Their arms uplifted in adoration to Your dawning. (Then) in all the world they do their work.	23and man goes out to work, to labour till evening falls.
  All cattle rest upon their pasturage, The trees and the plants flourish, The birds flutter in their marshes, Their wings uplifted in adoration to You.	12 The birds of the air nest by the waters; they sing among the branches.
  All the sheep dance upon their feet, All winged things fly, They live when You have shone upon them. The barques sail up-stream and down-stream alike.	26there ships pass to and fro, and Leviathan whom you made to sport with.
  Every highway is open because You dawn. The fish in the river leap up before You. You rays are in the midst of the great green sea. Creator of the germ in woman, Maker of seed in man, Giving life to the son in the body of his mother, Soothing him that he may not weep, Nurse (even) in the womb,	29Turn away your face and they panic;
  Giver of breath to animate every one that He makes!	take back their breath and they die and revert to dust.
  When he comes forth from the body ... on the day of his birth, You open his mouth in speech, You supply his necessities.	27 They all depend upon you, to feed them when they need it. 28 You provide the food they gather, your open hand gives them their fill. they gather it up; when You open Your hand, they are satisfied with good things.
  When the fledgling in the egg chirps in the shell, You give him breath therein to preserve him alive. When You have brought him together To (the point of) bursting it in the egg, He comes forth from the egg To chirp with all his might. He goes about upon his two feet When he has come forth from there.
  How manifold are Your works! They are hidden from before (us),	24How countless are your works, Yahweh, all of them made so wisely!

  The structure of Psalm 104 has led some to argue that it has it's origins in the hymn. It wouldn't be surprising really that Eyptian history has an influence on bible writers. It certainly would have had an influence on Moses.

  Paul
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  BurnTheShips

  There was a pharaoh that rejected the Egyptian pantheon and worshipped a single god. Some have surmised that Joseph influenced him. Akhenaten, he wanted only the worship of Aten. Some say that Joseph was his grandfather. The pharaohs that followed restored the old Egyptian religion and presumably enslaved the Hebrews.

  BTS
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  Narkissos

  There are quite a few parallels between Egyptian texts and Bible Wisdom literature (cf. especially Amenemope and Proverbs 22:17--23:11 as another striking example). But the emergence of monolatry and monotheism in Israel is actually much later than Akenaton and happened in a period where Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian and Persian influence on Judah was much stronger than its connections to Egypt.
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  PrimateDave

  I was under the impression that the actual state of Israelite worship for most of the pre-exile period, Josiah's reign being a possible exception, was polytheistic. The earlier writings are certainly rife with mentions of other gods being worshipped and rampant idolatry even by the Patriarchs. Even the story of Moses and the Exodus doesn't deny that other gods existed, only that Yahweh was stronger than the Egyptian deities. During the period of the kings, Yahweh was seen as a territorial god, one among others worshipped by surrounding nations. Strong monotheism was a product of the Babylonian Exile.

  Dave (correct me if I'm wrong!)
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  Leolaia

  I think a good case could be made for a historical relationship between the Levite priesthood and native Egyptian priests. If you look at the exodus-wilderness traditions in the Pentateuch, Levities are the main players throughout. And curiously, unlike the other tribes Levities commonly had Egyptian names or names based on a blend of Hebrew and Egyptian (e.g. Moses, Aaron, Merari, Miriam, Phinehas, Assir, Hori, Hophni, Harnepher, On, Putiel, Ahira, etc.). This suggests that Levites had assimilated somewhat to Egyptian culture, adopting names with theophoric elements referring to Egyptian deities and mingling the Egyptian language with the Hebrew. My hunch is that the story of the exodus is really the story of the tribe of Levi, not the entire nation that was to become Israel. There is a lot of evidence, both biblical and extrabiblical, that the other tribes were in place in Palestine (mostly descended from native Canaanites) at the time of the exodus of the Levites (which I am increasingly suspecting occurred in the twelfth century BC). This explains why the tribe of Levi had no tribal allotment in Israel; it was dispersed throughout the other tribes because the land was already claimed by the other tribes and Levi found its place in the population only as a social class of priests.

  What makes this hypothesis particularly compelling are the striking similarities between the Levites and Egyptian priestly cults. The inordinate focus on purification and cleanliness in the levitical legislation resembles the constant physical purification that the lower-caste wa'eb priests (servants of the hem-netjer priests, only the latter had direct access to the god's sanctuary), who as "pure ones" underwent circumcision, abstained from fish and pork, shaved their heads, washed themselves with water before servicing the temple, and wore white linen and sandals. The priests also carried a chest as a portable throne for the king which strikingly resembled the form and function of the Israelite ark of the covenant carried by Levite priests (see this relief depicting Amenhotep I who reigned from 1526-1506 BC, and compare with the concept of Yahweh, the king of Israel, being borne on the ark of the covenant, and notice the presence of Horus on the cover of the chest -- corresponding to the winged cherubim). The name of the Levite clan of Korah comes from a word meaning "bald, shaved head", which may suggest the kind of head shaving found in Egyptian priestly cults. Moreover, there are additional Egyptian parallels with the priestly prayer in Numbers 6:23-26 and the terminology in Leviticus 14:37.

  Yahwism itself is not very Egyptian but could conceivably be traced to Midian and Edom and was quite compatible to native Canaanite cults, and there were cult centers in Egypt for certain Canaanite gods. Interesting, Manetho mentions a legend concerning the expulsion of a caste of defiled priests from Egypt in the late New Kingdom which he (or a later editor) links to the Israelite exodus, so there may be an interesting connection (particularly since leprosy and plagues are common features of the exodus-wilderness traditions, especially concerning Moses and Miriam) although one must recognize the very late date of the Egyptian legend and its dependence on Typhonic ideology.
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  PrimateDave

  As for the use of Elohim (literally translated as "gods" but often rendered as "God") in Priestly passages of the Pentateuch, could this be seen as a sign of early polytheism relating to the Egyptian religious tradition? It is one thing for ancient Hebrews reading their own language to make a mental transition between "gods" and "God" based possibly on context, but quite another for translators raised in a monotheistic tradition to decide that for their readers in another language.

  Dave (can't sleep, at least I don't have to work today)
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  Leolaia

  Where 'elohim is usually translated "God", the form is grammatically distinct -- occurring with singular agreement (as opposed to plural) on the verb and usually lacking a definite article. Thus 'elohim is most often grammatically singular while being morphologically plural, and thus is rendered as "God". There are however ambiguous cases where agreement itself cannot settle things, such as in Genesis 3:5 ("You (plural) will be like God/gods ['elohim], knowing (plural) good and evil"), where the plural agreement in the subordinate clause pertains to the subject in the main clause (plural "you", i.e. the man and the woman). Then there are clear instances where 'elohim occurs with plural agreement on the verb, and where it refers to a plurality of gods. Usually it is qualified (as in "other" gods) under a henotheistic or monotheistic scheme, but there are traces of archaic henotheism or polytheism in the Covenant Code (e.g. in Exodus 21:6, 22:7-8), which dovetails very nicely the use of ilani "gods" in Nuzi legal texts referring to analogous situations. Otherwise a plurality of "gods" under henotheism (i.e. as members of the divine council presided over by Yahweh) is more often referred to as bene ha-'elohim, bene 'elohim, bene 'elim, which is usually translated as "sons of God" but which more accurately means "members of the class of gods" (just as ben 'adam, lit. "son of man", actually has the sense of "a human being"). It is important to keep in mind that belief in a plurality of gods is not polytheism per se; the latter is more properly the case if worship, prayers, etc. are given to multiple gods in quasi-egalitarian polylatry. Henotheism is an intermediate step towards monotheism, which recognizes a supreme god within the pantheon that is the focus of worship; the Atenism of Akhenaten is properly henotheism and not monotheism. Monolatrous henotheism is a further step towards monotheism, which reserves all praise and worship to one god. This is the predominant scheme in the OT, which criticizes the polylatry of popular religion. Only in post-exilic works, such as Deutero-Isaiah, does one encounter genuine monotheism (which denies the very existence of other gods).

  Also there is nothing in the use of 'elohim that points to any "Egyptian religious tradition". And the henotheism of Iron Age Israel was anticipated by the henotheism of Late Bronze Age Canaan, which already reduced the number of gods in the pantheon from the diversity it was even earlier (cf. the book The Earliest Semitic Pantheon by JJM Roberts for a list of all the gods in Early Bronze Age texts). The process that led to Jewish monotheism was a very gradual one, covering many hundreds of years. Similar polytheism-to-henotheism trajectories can be found in ancient Greco-Roman religion and in contemporary Hinduism. When Christianity was introduced to Viking-age Scandinavia, it led immediately to a sort of polylatrous henotheism; Jesus Christ became the main deity worshipped openly, while the older Norse gods continued to be reverenced privately.
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  Justitia Themis

  just bookmarking :)
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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Digderidoo, I think Akhenaten's Hymn to the Sun is more engaging than Psalms 104.

  Leo, I think Amenhotep's chair looks awesomer than the ark.

  Those ancient Egyptians were something else, weren't they?