Damian Walter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> JimLewandowski Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > If I'm writing a creation story, by nature
> it's
> > going to have anthropomorphism in it
> (otherwise
> > the readers would have a hard time understand
> it).
> > So, I decided to have a character named Jim
> > Lewandowski in it. Is Jim Lewandowski
> remotely
> > important to the INTENT of writing a
> creation
> > story? IOW, does the belief of creation
> take
> > primacy in the story or does this character
> named
> > JL?
>
> I agree with Roxana. There's nothing 'logical'
> about your claim that "virtually all biblical
> characters are mythical (ie. no INTENDED
> historical basis). The characters in the NT and OT
> are present to support a subjective creation
> story". This is nothing more than your own opinion
> based on your own subjective (and selective?)
> reading of the available evidence.

***
Let's pretend that Moses, actually, empirically did not exist as a human. Does that in any way change the import of the story of Moses going up Mt. Sinai to meet God?

Let's pretend that Moses was a bonafide flesh/blood human. Does that in any way change the import of the story of Moses going up Mt. Sinai to meet God? Just because Moses may have been a real person, doesn't mean that God is "real".

Remember, the reader can take the story in a literalist way or in a symbolic way.


>
> > Again, in a book purported to be the word of
> God
> > or inspired by the word of God, having Moses
> birth
> > story mimic Sargon is a BIG red flag as to
> the
> > historicity of Moses.
>
> Talking about subjective opinions (or should that
> be selective memory?), I posted the following in
> reply to a post you made on this same topic back
> in March 2005. It obviously didn't make much of an
> impression at the time, so I thought I'd introduce
> it again here ...

>
>
>
> Hi Jim,
>
> What's your evidence that "Sargon II (or I?)'s bio
> was 'lifted and borrowed' for Moses"?
>
> Donald Redford drew attention to a number of
> similarities and (equally significant) differences
> between Moses birth story and the 'Legend of
> Sargon' in an article written way back in 1967
> ("The Literary Motif of the Exposed Child", Numen,
> 14: 209-228).
>
> More to the point, the surviving fragments of the
> 'Legend of Sargon' are Neo-Assyrian and
> Neo-Babylonian in date (seventh to sixth centuries
> BCE). Admittedly, the legend itself is set in the
> life of King Sargon of Akkad (2371-2316 BCE), but
> as James K. Hoffmeier pointed out in 1996 (writing
> in Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the
> Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition):
>
> "[...] A further problem for those wishing to find
> a correlation between the Sargon legend and the
> Moses birth story is [...] that the earliest
> surviving copies of the Sargon text date from
> Neo-Assyrian or later times. This factor, along
> with others, suggests that the legend may have
> been recorded by (or for) the late eighth century
> BC Assyrian king, Sargon II, who took the name of
> his great Akkadian forebear and identified himself
> with that monarch. This possibility diminishes the
> case for the Sargon legend influencing Exodus
> because, if we allow that J or E (usually dated to
> the tenth and eighth centuries repsectively) is
> the source behind Exodus 2:1 through 10, and
> follow the traditional dating for these sources,
> both would predate the reign of Sargon II (721-705
> BC)" (pp. 137).

***
Next questions. Seeing that the OT is a political book (i.e. completely reversing the order of male/female creation order, creating a history for the semites), do you think the writers who are creating history would choose a real flesh/blood person? Or, would they CREATE a character to fit the political philosophy/motivation (i.e. patriarchal)?



>
> Damian
>
> **********
>
> And while we're on the subject, here's a little
> more detail from Hoffmeier's Israel in Egypt:
>
> "[...] In a very thorough study, Donald Redford
> collected all the known tales using the 'exposed
> child' motif from the ancient Near East. In all
> thirty-two examples were produced, which he
> divided into three categories based upon the
> reason for the exposure: 1) the child is exposed
> owing to shameful circumstances; 2) a king or some
> powerful figure is trying to kill the child who
> poses a threat to his rule or dynasty; and 3) a
> massacre is introuced that threatens the life of
> the child along with others. According to
> Redford's scheme, the Sargon legend fits into the
> first class, whereas the Moses birth story fits
> into the third. Placing the two tales in very
> different circumstances illustrates that while
> there are some intriguing similarities between the
> two, there are fundamental differences. Hence, he
> concludes 'they are not true parallels' [...].
>
> "While many distinguished scholars have been
> convinced of some sort of literary dependence of
> the Moses story on the Sargon legend, there are a
> significant number who have questioned this
> connection [...]. Tremper Longman III, in a recent
> study of the genre 'fictional Akkadian
> autobiography' comes to a similar conclusion
> about the proposed relationship between the two
> birth stories after reviewing details of both:
> 'Thus while there is a definite similarity between
> Exodus 2 and the Sargon Birth Legend, the
> differences in detail between them caution
> qagainst a too easy identification of the two and
> against the idea that the Moses story is borrowed
> directly from Akkadian literature' [...]" (pp.
> 136-137).
>
> **********

***
The larger point is: is it probable that one writer borrowed the story from the other? If so, WHY would this be done when one's writing intrument can write down anything the scribe wants.

Or, as I have read, BOTH stories are archetypes. Why would that be? Hint: beliefs.


>
> All that aside, there's one final little detail
> that scuppers your insistence that "having Moses
> birth story mimic Sargon is a BIG red flag as to
> the historicity of Moses". I think Kenneth Kitchen
> says it best in his book, On the Reliability of
> the Old Testament (2003):
>
> "[...] Many times over, has been compared to an
> analogous story about the future Sargon of Akkad,
> of great renown. He too was left in a caulked
> basket on a river, found by a stranger, who
> brought him up; and later he became a mighty king
> [1]. People have usually dismissed both tales as
> legendary, and therefore sometimes Moses likewise.
> But the latter does not follow; legendary infancy
> or not, Sargon of Akkad was a real king, and
> inscriptions are known from his reign both in the
> originals and in Old Babylonian copies. So a
> 'birth legend' (even of a popular kind) does not
> automatically confer mythical status.

***
Having a face shine because of looking at the backside of God DOES confer mythical status (in more ways than one).


Even today,
> many an infant is abandoned by its despairing
> mother (mentions in the media are all too
> frequent), and in antiquity it was no less so in
> tragic reality [2]. Hence Moses' historicity
> cannot be judged on this feature; and the story
> could in fact be true, but not provable [...]" (p.
> 296).
>
>
> [1] "[...] The Moses birth narrative in one short
> passage has at least six words that are of
> Egyptian origin (New Kingdom period); thus, it is
> not directly taken from the Mesopotamian story of
> Sargon (cf. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt, 138-40).
> One may add the totally different literary format:
> Sargon is cast as a first-person address to the
> reader, while Exod. 2 is a retrospective narrative
> [...]".
>
> [2] From A Biblical History of Israel by Iain
> Provan, V. Philips Long, and Tremper Longman III
> (2003): "[...] In the case of the Sargon legend,
> the high-priestess was apparently not supposed to
> have children. In both cultures, the idea behind
> the basket on the water was the commission of the
> child into the care of the deity who controls the
> waters (in the case of Exodus, Yahweh himself) -

***
Why is water/rivers so common an element in religious writings. That is the big question. Hint: it's not because of the Nile or other REAL rivers nearby. We're talking beliefs here.

JL

> the ancient cultural equivalent to the modern
> practice of leaving an unwanted child on the
> threshold of a house or hospital" (p. 126).
>
>
>




Shephard of Hermas - 2[79]:2 Now this rock was ancient, and had a gate hewn out of it; but the gate seemed to me to have been hewed out quite recently. And the gate glistened beyond the brightness of the sun, so that I marvelled at the brightness of the gate.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2006 03:06PM by JimLewandowski.