The Bible, An ancient record of events, twisted?

cfuserkildare

Just sitting thinking about a few books I read recently,


And thought, what if the tale of Moses coming back down the mountainside with the two tablets,

upon seeing that his followers have reverted to revering a Sacred Bull statue,


Is this a written account of how Akenaten discovered that his followers had reverted back to worshipping the great god Appis?


Just a thought.

pauldla

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Just sitting thinking about a few books I read recently,


And thought, what if the tale of Moses coming back down the mountainside with the two tablets,

upon seeing that his followers have reverted to revering a Sacred Bull statue,


Is this a written account of how Akenaten discovered that his followers had reverted back to worshipping the great god Appis?


Just a thought.

Curious, what have you been reading, OP..?

Peregrinus

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Just sitting thinking about a few books I read recently,


And thought, what if the tale of Moses coming back down the mountainside with the two tablets,

upon seeing that his followers have reverted to revering a Sacred Bull statue,


Is this a written account of how Akenaten discovered that his followers had reverted back to worshipping the great god Appis?


Just a thought.

I think the answer is probably (a) you can speculate this, but (b) you're drawing a fairly long bow.

Akhenaten is dated to the 14th century BC. The written traditions recorded in the Exodus text can be traced to about the 8th century BC. Obviously, there are earlier antecedents, involving both written and oral transmission, but they are lost to us, and you have a 600-year gap to bridge. So, no that basis, the Exodus story could be a development of a story from Akhenaten's time and, therefore, of a story about Akhenaten himself, but we have no reason to think that it is.

Plus, SFAIK your suggested story about Akhenaten is itself conjectural; the Egyptians reverted to older religious traditions after Akhenaten had died. We have no reason to think there was ever a story about a moment when Akhenaten confronted reverters in the way that Moses confronts the Israelites who have made the Golden Calf.

Odhinn

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Just sitting thinking about a few books I read recently,


And thought, what if the tale of Moses coming back down the mountainside with the two tablets,

upon seeing that his followers have reverted to revering a Sacred Bull statue,


Is this a written account of how Akenaten discovered that his followers had reverted back to worshipping the great god Appis?


Just a thought.

I might recommend
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient/dp/0684869136/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1547129429&sr=1-1&keywords=bible+israel+finkelstein
well worth a read.

cfuserkildare

Peregrinus wrote: »

I think the answer is probably (a) you can speculate this, but (b) you're drawing a fairly long bow.

Akhenaten is dated to the 14th century BC. The written traditions recorded in the Exodus text can be traced to about the 8th century BC. Obviously, there are earlier antecedents, involving both written and oral transmission, but they are lost to us, and you have a 600-year gap to bridge. So, no that basis, the Exodus story could be a development of a story from Akhenaten's time and, therefore, of a story about Akhenaten himself, but we have no reason to think that it is.

Plus, SFAIK your suggested story about Akhenaten is itself conjectural; the Egyptians reverted to older religious traditions after Akhenaten had died. We have no reason to think there was ever a story about a moment when Akhenaten confronted reverters in the way that Moses confronts the Israelites who have made the Golden Calf.

So you are saying that because we have not found a written record ( other than Biblical stories ) then it couldn't have happened?
Even although there are quite a few events from this one story that Do tie in chronologically with Akhenaten's reign?

smacl

cfuserkildare wrote: »

So you are saying that because we have not found a written record ( other than Biblical stories ) then it couldn't have happened?
Even although there are quite a few events from this one story that Do tie in chronologically with Akhenaten's reign?

I, and I suspect others in this forum, would tend to be more interested in significant levels of probability than with possibility, where the former is a tiny subset of the latter. You need some reasonably hard evidence to shift something from the realms of possibility and supposition to those of credible or likely. When it comes to ancient history, this evidence may simply not exist so it gets very difficult to progress an argument either way. Which events are you talking about specifically, and what references to them are you using?

Hotblack Desiato

The old inversion of proof, and prove a negative, fallacies rearing their heads already!

Odhinn

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The old inversion of proof, and prove a negative, fallacies rearing their heads already!

...for those of us who forget which is what these days (if we even knew in the 1st place)..........
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies