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  • From: Brian Roberts <formoria AT carolina.rr.com>
  • To: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Akhenaten and Hebrew religion
  • Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 09:20:37 -0400


On Friday, July 16, 2004, at 05:50 AM, Peter Kirk wrote:

On 16/07/2004 00:47, Walter R. Mattfeld wrote:

Dear Tony,

Here's a quote illustrating that "some" individuals thought pharaoh was a
"god" in a clay tablet letter written in Akkadian (Babylonian) to Pharaoh
Akhenaten by one of his vassals :

"Say to the king, my lord, my GOD, my Sun, the breath of my life: Thus
Zimreddi, the mayor of Sidon. I fall at the feet of my lord, GOD, Sun,
breath of my lfe,...7 times 7 times." (p. 230. EA 144. "Zimreddi of Sidon."
William L. Moran. _The Amarna Letters_. Baltimore. John Hopkins University
Press. 1987)


Akhenaten was hardly a typical Pharaoh, certainly from a religious perspective. He may have claimed divine titles, but that certainly does not prove that other Pharaohs did.


Akhenaten's henotheism has been suggested as providing insight into the framework-inspiration of some of the earliest Hebrew henotheism. "The Hymn to the Aten" which dates to his reforms (14th century B.C.E.)  praises the beneficence of the sun in language that is echoed in Psalm 104 regarding the Hebrew God. Can this coincidence of religious synchronicity be interpreted (without much danger of over-extension) as a genesis (pardon the pun) for Hebrew religion? John Day (a Jehovah's Witness scholar, which I disclose so you can judge for yourself how much this plays into his research) posits that the creation Hymn to the Aten served as a source for the biblical writer P. He also sees linguistic connections between the two traditions.

"The expression l-mw'dym "for seasons" is found in the OT only in Psalm 104:19 and Genesis 1:14, and both are mentioned in reference to luminaries. Similarly, chytw "beast" is found in Psalm 104:11-12 and Genesis 1:24, and is elsewhere restricted to poetry in the OT. This suggests at minimum that P is dependent on a poetic passage, and probably Psalm 104.

The greater mythological character of the psalm clearly establishes the direction of dependence. In Psalm 104:7 we actually have an allusion to the divine conflict with the sea, whereas in Genesis 1:6-7, God's control of the waters is merely work, and in Psalm 104:26 we encounter God's creation of Leviathan while Genesis 1:21 speaks in demythologized terms of "great sea monsters". The allusion to thwm "deep" in Genesis 1:2 can thus be traced to Psalm 104:6 which specifically refers to the waters by this name." (see http://www.jehovahs-
witness.com/10/73734/1.ashx )

Any thoughts?

R. Brian Roberts




-- Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/

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