There is a common theory that other religions may not have the full truth, but that they have pieces of truth or that they have picked up elements from other religions. One hypothesis is that the Egyptian god Seth was an Egyptian version of the Biblical story of Seth. Another hypothesis could be that it is an Egyptian perception of Israelite religion. Years ago on the forum's World Religions section, someone suggested to me that the Egyptian Seth seemed to him to be the closest figure to the Israelite concept of God.
- Baal as the Canaanite counterpart of Seth and the Israelite Jehovah as possibly sharing Baal's typology in Exodus 15.
In his essay "Earliest Israelite Religion: A Study of the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1-18)," Peter Craigie sees Baal as the Canaanite counterpart of Seth and sees the Israelite Jehovah as having Baal's typology in Exodus 15.
He writes:
- The Israelite Patriach Joseph's rule as Vizier of Egypt as a possible allusion to the rule of the Sethian Hyksos, or as preceding the Hyksos invasion.
One theory goes that the story in the Bible of Joseph becoming Pharaoh's Vizier alludes to the Semitic Hyksos conquest of Egypt in the 2nd millenium BC. The Hyksos were associated with the Egyptian god Seth. On the other hand, Paul J. Ray Jr. theorizes in his article "The Duration of the Israelite Sojourn in Egypt" that Joseph's fath-in-law was an Egyptian priest of the Egyptian god Ra, and that this implies that Joseph came to Egypt before the Hyksos invasion. Ray writes:
- Yahweh's connection with the Israelite Seth's grandson Enosh:
Prof. Lewis Paton theorizes in his article "The Origin of Yahweh-Worship in Israel" that the Hebrew reverence for Yahweh most go back further than Moses himself, because he think that Moses wouldn't have been able to introduce a foreign or new god to the Israelites as being their own. He notes that the Bible connects recognition of "Yahweh" by name with Seth's grandson Enosh:
- The theory that Baal and Seth both came from an earlier Afro-Asiatic deity
The Israelites were a Semitic people, and in turn, the Semitic languages belong to the "Afro-Asiatic" family of languages. Ancient Egyptian was another language belonging to the Afro-Asiatic family, also called "Afrasan." In his essay "The Ascension of Yahweh: The Origins and Development of Israelite Monotheism from the Afrasan to Josiah," Andrew Halladay notes that Baal was associated with the Egyptian Seth and was the principle Canaanite deity around 1200 BC. He writes:
- The Sethian Gnostics' dedication to Adam's son Seth and their association of of him with the god Seth:
In The Secret History of the Gnostics: Their Scriptures, Beliefs and Traditions, Andrew Phillip Smith writes that the Sethian Gnostics of the early Christian period were dedicated to Adam's son Seth. He writes:
Smith writes:
As I understand it, the Sethian Gnostics also were dedicated to the Greek god "Typhon," who was associated with the Egyptian god Seth.
Of course, just because 1st century AD Sethian Gnostics may have been dedicated to both the Hebrew Seth and the Egyptian god Seth does not mean that those two figures were associated with each other in the 2nd millenium BC during the time of the Torah's writing.
- Baal as the Canaanite counterpart of Seth and the Israelite Jehovah as possibly sharing Baal's typology in Exodus 15.
In his essay "Earliest Israelite Religion: A Study of the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1-18)," Peter Craigie sees Baal as the Canaanite counterpart of Seth and sees the Israelite Jehovah as having Baal's typology in Exodus 15.
He writes:
Among [the] forces in Egyptian thought both during andafter the Hyksos period, were the tendencies to worship Asiatic gods in their national shrine abroad and also to introduce the Asiatic gods into Egyptian domestic religious life. The reason for the former tendency was probably related to the belief that an Asiatic campaign could not be won without the help of the Asiatic gods. The latter tendency was apparently well under way by the fourteenth century. The following extract from J.A. Wilson's remarks makes the point which is significant for the present purpose:
- From the end of the Eightsonth Dynasty on (14th century B.C.), there is an abundance of evidence on Asiatic gods worshipped in Egypt. The most frequently mentioned deity was Baal. As the god of the heavens, the mountain tops, and of thunder-- the Semitic Baal-Shamaim -- who is the counterpart of the Egyptian god Seth, and his name was used in figures of speech relating to the pharaoh in battle:- 'His battle-cry is like that of Baal in the heavens.' In this terrorizing capacity the texts equate him with the Egyptian war-gods Montu and Seth. Baal had his own priesthood in Egypt from the late Eighteenth Dynasty on.
The Egyptian typication of Baal is presumably along the lines of the current Canaanite conceptions. This is likely to be the case in vlew of the fact that the 'storm-god and the war-god are closely related concepts (see the Hittite example above). Hence there are good grounds to affirm that the Cannanites conceived of Baal as a war-god, among other aspects of his character. But there are two points of significance which emerge from Wilson's observations. First, the presence of a Baal priesthood in Egypt, when taken with the apparent presence of a Canaanite Baal temple, gives further weight to the earlier thesis that the Hebrews could have known of the Baal myth. But second, the quotation concerning the pharaoh is of particular interest ("his battle cry is like that of Baal in the heavens"). It calls to mind verse 3 of the Song of the Sea. where it was suggested that "Yahweh is a Man of War" may have been a battle-cry. In the Canaanite pattern which is present in the Song, the equivalence of Yahweh with Baal in the typology is all the more marked in the light of the warlike character of Baal which is known from the Egyptian religious texts.
- The Israelite Patriach Joseph's rule as Vizier of Egypt as a possible allusion to the rule of the Sethian Hyksos, or as preceding the Hyksos invasion.
One theory goes that the story in the Bible of Joseph becoming Pharaoh's Vizier alludes to the Semitic Hyksos conquest of Egypt in the 2nd millenium BC. The Hyksos were associated with the Egyptian god Seth. On the other hand, Paul J. Ray Jr. theorizes in his article "The Duration of the Israelite Sojourn in Egypt" that Joseph's fath-in-law was an Egyptian priest of the Egyptian god Ra, and that this implies that Joseph came to Egypt before the Hyksos invasion. Ray writes:
Joseph's marriage to the daughter of a priest of On (Heliopolis), as arranged by the Pharaoh (Gen 41:45), is also significant. On was the center of worship of the sun-god Re, and Joseph's father-in-law was no doubt a priest of Re. Although the Hyksos did not suppress the worship of Re, they venerated Seth, who was their primary deity. If Joseph had lived during the Hyksos Period, he probably would have received a wife from the family of a priest of Seth, rather than of Re.
- Yahweh's connection with the Israelite Seth's grandson Enosh:
Prof. Lewis Paton theorizes in his article "The Origin of Yahweh-Worship in Israel" that the Hebrew reverence for Yahweh most go back further than Moses himself, because he think that Moses wouldn't have been able to introduce a foreign or new god to the Israelites as being their own. He notes that the Bible connects recognition of "Yahweh" by name with Seth's grandson Enosh:
He notes that modern critics don't believe that the Bible is right that Yahweh worship went back as far as a historical Seth, but that they think that nonetheless, worship of Yahweh predated Moses. He writes:The Judean Document of the Hexateuch (J), which is characterized by a constant use of the divine name "Yahweh (Jehovah)," states in Gen. 4: 26 that the cult of this god was introduced by Enosh, the grandson of Adam: " To Seth also was born a son, and he called his name Enosh; he was the first to call llpon the name of Yahweh." (So LXX and Sam. text.) A later stratum of J (Gen. :3 f.) represents Cain and Abel, children of "the man" and Eve, as bringing sacrifices to Yahweh.
For the majority of modern critics the patriarchs are not individuals, but personifications of tribes. The stories concerning them are reminiscences of migrations before the entrance into Canaan and of experiences in the land of Canaan. They are largely mised with legends of the Canaanites. That we have an authentic record of a revelation of Yahweh to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to say nothing of Adam, Seth, and Noah, would be denied by these critics; and yet they still maintain that in some way Yahweh was a preMosaic god of Israel.
- The theory that Baal and Seth both came from an earlier Afro-Asiatic deity
The Israelites were a Semitic people, and in turn, the Semitic languages belong to the "Afro-Asiatic" family of languages. Ancient Egyptian was another language belonging to the Afro-Asiatic family, also called "Afrasan." In his essay "The Ascension of Yahweh: The Origins and Development of Israelite Monotheism from the Afrasan to Josiah," Andrew Halladay notes that Baal was associated with the Egyptian Seth and was the principle Canaanite deity around 1200 BC. He writes:
“Baal” was not his proper name however, but instead a common word in Hebrew and other Semitic languages for “master” or occasionally “husband.” His real name was Hadad, and around the fifteenth century “Baal” (master) became the preferred appellation for the deity, much as “Adonai” would supercede “Yahweh” in vernacular parlance. He was often associated with the Egyptian storm-god Seth, and the two deities may have actually derived from an earlier Proto-Afrasan deity.
- The Sethian Gnostics' dedication to Adam's son Seth and their association of of him with the god Seth:
In The Secret History of the Gnostics: Their Scriptures, Beliefs and Traditions, Andrew Phillip Smith writes that the Sethian Gnostics of the early Christian period were dedicated to Adam's son Seth. He writes:
Smith notes that Turner theorizes that the Sethians may have begun as a non-Christian sect of Gnostics in the 1st century BC and anticipated an apocalyptic return of sect. Turner theorizes that the Sethians became a Christian Gnostic sect, possibly identifying Seth with Jesus Christ. According to Turner's theory, after the orthodox Church rejected the Sethians, the Sethians accepted a classical Platonic system of philosophy.Sethians were members of a closed society that considered its members to be the seed of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, and they were the portion of humanity that had received gnosis and could thus have a different fate to the rest of mankind who followed the pattern of Cain and Abel, murderer and victim.
Seth was also an important figure in heterodox Jewish literature around the same period, and his life story and significance is amplified and expanded in Jewish apocryphal and rabbinical literature. Sethian texts contain phrases such as 'the seed of Seth', or 'the children of Seth', or the race or 'generation' of Seth. The Sethians also referred to themselves as 'the immovable race' or 'unshakeable race', possibly meaning that, whatever the other vagaries of history, Gnostics always existed.
...John Turner, an academic who is the leading expert on the Sethians, has suggested that they, like the Mandaeans, may have originated as a baptismal sect along the lines of John the Baptist's disciples, or the Essenes.
Smith writes:
This conjectural history is not incompatible with the notion that the Sethians originated in Egypt, which had a large Jewish population and its own temple. In one of those suggestive muddles of history, Seth/Set was an Egyptian God too, who was sometimes associated with the Jewish people. (16) ... The Sethians, in contrast [to the Valentinian Gnostics], wrote sprawling epics that reinterpreted the Bible, reinterpreted Platonism, and finally reinterpreted their own interpretations.
As I understand it, the Sethian Gnostics also were dedicated to the Greek god "Typhon," who was associated with the Egyptian god Seth.
Of course, just because 1st century AD Sethian Gnostics may have been dedicated to both the Hebrew Seth and the Egyptian god Seth does not mean that those two figures were associated with each other in the 2nd millenium BC during the time of the Torah's writing.