Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

Hi,

I agree there are weaknesses in the theory but...

2010/2/11 George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>

> James Christian wrote:
>
> > what do you think about Akhenaten being the younger brother of the
> > first born that died during the Exodus.
>
> That's a theory that is almost impossible to test, James, and therefore
> pure speculation. We can't really do anything with it.
>
>
Are there any other Pharoah's that only came to power because his older
first born brother died before daddy kicked the bucket?


> However, I think there are some things which militate against it. First of
> all, is there any evidence from Egypt that an exodus event occurred in the
> generation prior to Akhenaton?


None that I know of. However, this doesn't surprise me. How many of Egypt's
defeats do we see self documented? Exactly! None that I know of.


> Is there any evidence from Egypt at all?


Of what? Of cattle grazing in fields? Even if we were to find fossilised
manure how could we prove they belonged to Hebrews? And I doubt that we
would ever find a fossilised male manliness completely intact all but the
missing foreskin that would be required to make the identification. Finally,
just how important could this loss of slaves possibly have been to Egypt? It
surely wouldn't have taken them long for them to kidnap a sufficient number
of nomads to make up for the loss. Why even bother making a fuss over it and
carving the story into palace walls? Especially when this would go against
their very nature.

However, there are mention of Shashu and Apiri in Egyptian texts in contexts
clearing associating them with nomads, lawless wanderers etc. I'm not
identifying this term with the Hebrews, Just nomads in particular. Which at
least shows an amount of contact between Egypt and these types of people for
them to consider them worth a mention for the various troubles they cause.
In fact some in the Amarna letters in Akkadian complain to the King about
these kind of invaders causing all kinds of trouble. This would show that no
kingdom of Isreal yet active at this time as the area was clearly still
under Canaanite control. I'm not saying the invaders were the Hebrews but
they certainly are candidates and if Akhenaten's dad was the Pharoah whose
Yhwh butt kicked then the time scale of 40 years later for an invasion
certainly fits.


> Secondly, Akhenaton was a worshiper of the Sun-disk Aton, not of Yahweh or
> even another Canaanite deity. So, according to your theory, he still didn't
> learn his lesson.
>
>
Yes, yes. I'm not suggesting he became a fully fledged worshipper of Yhwh.
Just that he became a believer in the superiority of a single almighty god.
There are many such even in today's world. There are almighty single gods
worshipped by every variety of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Are they are
different gods or the same one revealed to his followers in different ways?
Each will have his own view but believe he is worshipping the one true
almighty god. Of course, not being properly educated about Yhwh it would
make sense for Akhenaten to pick the biggest baddest Egyptian god and
elevate him to status of the one true almighty deity. I won't pass judgement
on whether his form of worship was acceptable to Yhwh but one thing is
clear.

He was a completely innovative pioneer to Egyptian culture. Monotheism had
never even been heard of. In fact, the Egyptians were so embarassed by this
episode that they attempted to cover up this 'dark' period in Egypt's
history, He couldn't have been inspired by neighbouring nations to make such
a radical change because all his neighbours were doing the normal thing of
worshipping pantheons of gods so that they could approach different gods for
all of their different problems. He couldn't have been inspired by the
neighbouring nation of Isreal because the Amarna letters of this period
clearly show Canaanites still in control in Canaan (albeit with problems
from nomadic skirmishes). The only place he could possibly have learned it
from was from direct contact with monotheistic nomads. The only ones we have
any testimony of are the descendants of Abraham of which the only ones we
have any testimony of being in direct contact with Pharoahs of Egypt where
the descendants of Jacob.

And finally, there must of been some stimulus and that would have had to
have been a significant one at the very least. Pharoahs don't just wake up
in the morning and say "I know what I'll do today. I'll make all of the
Egyptians hate me and revolt against me by forcing a monotheistic religion
on them and building a new capital and temple which denegrates all of their
patriotic polytheistic traditions associated with the greatness of Thebes.
Yes, I'll p*ss them off so much that they would rather let one of my
generals take over after I'm gone rather than somebody of true royal blood."
His actions are truly shocking. There are only a few instances which I could
see that an Egyptian pharoah could have had such a dramatic experience to
risk such a shocking move:

1) Moved by the miracles when he wanted to touch Abraham's wife
2) Moved by the power Yhwh showed through Joseph the dreamer
3) Moved by a series of many powerful miracles including the denigration of
just about every Egyptian god, the defeat of this father at the Red Sea by
the hand of God and by the witness of every firstborn miraculously dying
including his older brother

Of all of these I find the third the most likely because having been
eyewitness to his only receiving the throne because big brother kicked the
bucket because dad wouldn't listen to the one true god this would have been
truly shocking enough for him to risk changing Egyptian lifestyle so
dramatically. Further, of the three life changing events to three different
Pharoahs this is the only one we have a testimony of that would account for
the Egyptian population being so affected and shocked by the events
themselves that he would actually stand a minimal chance of getting away
with this for some time without being immediately usurped.

Your suggestion is intriguing, but I fear it's trying to draw lines between
> dots when there is no real indication that the dots are even related.
>
>
>
Agreed. This is of course true of any theory. What we need to do is attempt
to quantify the lines and the number of dots that need to be joined between
them. As lines we have:

1) The only ever monotheistic Pharoah
2) He only managed to come to power because big brother kicked the bucket
(pretty big line)
3) Something must have happened in his life to stimulate such a change
4) This something must have sufficiently affected the populace of Egypt for
him to manage to pull it off
5) No neighbouring monotheistic nations
6) Isreal clearly doesn't exist yet, Amarna letters confirm Canaan to be
under the control of the Canaanites
7) Inhabitants of Canaan are sending letters to the King complaining about
nomadic skirmishes to some of their towns
8) Akhenaten could only have learned about monotheism from monothestic
nomads
9) We have an eyewitness report of 8 spoke chariot wheels in the Red Sea
(albeit in a non traditional location). These could only be from the 18th
dynasty. Even more reliable an identifier than different types of Greek
pottery shards.

And so George it would seem that the lines are pretty long and the dots that
join them really aren't that big at all.

The only other explanation we could think of (ones that minimalists would
prefer) is that Akhenaten was the inventor of monotheism and the nomads
copied him and eventually because the monotheistic nation of Isreal. But
this is just being plain silly. A bit like the kind of yawn stories we hear
about how the Noah flood account is an adapation of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
To people who think that a story being written on stone automatically makes
it older than later manuscripts which claim to be copies of copies of older
ones this kind of logic is favourable. To those of us who find these kind of
claims completely ignorant to the phenomenon of faithful copying which has
let to the great literary works such as the Torah, the Oddesy, the Iliad and
the Quran this kind of line of reasoning is at the very least, not very
convincing, but to be quite frank, completely baseless and only showing
ignorance of the phenomenon of faithful copying show by many a different
culture with a sufficient stimulus for doing so.

In conclusion, of all the Pharoahs I've checked out Akhenaten's dad seems to
be the best candidate for the Pharoah of the Exodus.

James Christian


GEORGE ATHAS
> Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
> www.moore.edu.au
>
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