Aron-Ra said:
It wouldn't matter. As I said, I expected the whole of the OT to exist by the time of the Dead Sea scrolls. But the fact remains that Akenaten's monotheism still precedes the projected time of Moses, as do the legends of Hammurabi's receipt of the Law code, given to him on a mountain by the sun-god, Shamash. This is another parallel that definitely precedes the legends of Moses, again by several centuries, and still written by the same culture, by the ancestors of the Biblical authors. So Moses' version cannot be the original.
But you and I both know that Moses wrote down the belief system that had been in place and stories thereinof since Abraham's time of around 1900 BC or earlier.
There were several codes of law written in the time frame of Moses I know of another that is similiar to the Mosesic and the hammurabi's but each have distinct differences which would have been unecessary if they were just copys of the other ones.
The same goes for the story of the Pharaoh Seneferu ordering the red sea to be parted, again hundreds of years before the mythic exodus. That fact, along with the triviality of the reason why the sea was parted, is another reason that it couldn't have been based on the story of the Exodus, and must be the other way around. This is evidently true of much of the OT, if not all of it.
You might find this interesting:
The whole article can be read Here:
http://www.consciousevolution.com/Rennes/pyramidchapter4.htm
Already we have seen that the catastrophe described so vividly by Sneferus lector-priest Neferty, as well as by other Pessimistic writers such as Ipuwer, provide fairly striking agreement with what we read of in the Book of Exodus. As might be expected, the correspondences between the words of Neferty and Ipuwer on the one and the Book of Exodus on the other were noted early by scholars; but once again the chronology, which placed the Egyptian scribes roughly seven centuries before Moses, forced the abandonment of any attempt to make them contemporary. Released from the straightjacket of that system, we can now, for the first time, begin to make sense of the period. Plunged into primeval chaos, with the ruling pharaoh and half his army drowned, an able and gifted leader known to posterity as Sneferu seized his chance. In the chaotic weeks following Huni/Ka-nefer-ras death, Sneferu took the reigns of government, legitimising his position by marrying Hetepheres, the daughter of Hunis chief wife.
As a contemporary of the Exodus, Sneferu cannot have been ruler of the quiescent and placid land so often portrayed in the textbooks; nor was he.
We are told that, The founder of the Fourth Dynasty was
a considerable warrior,1 and his martial exploits, evidently early in his reign, saw him engage the enemies of Egypt on all three frontiers. Nonetheless after what seems to have been a relatively short period of chaos and lawlessness the new pharaoh succeeded in restoring order. According to Velikovsky, the departure of the Hebrew slaves coincided with the arrival in Egypt of a horde of Amalekites from the Arabian desert, uprooted by the same catastrophe. The Book of Exodus tells us how just two weeks or so after their departure from the Land of the Nile, the Amalekites, apparently moving in the opposite direction, attacked the Israelites at Rephidim.2 This was the famous engagement during which the children of Israel were successful as long as Moses held his hands aloft (evidently a position of prayer). Growing tired, his arms were said to have been supported by Aaron and Hur. This attack upon the traumatised Israelites gave rise to an enduring animosity between the two peoples.
Velikovsky believed the Amalekites, recognised by the Arabs as one of their tribes, to be the notorious and feared Hyksos, whose conquest of Egypt was long told and lamented. But the Amalekites were not the Hyksos. They did not conquer the Nile Kingdom.3 They may well have entered Egypt to plunder. Certainly this is hinted in the Pessimistic Literature, but their sojourn was short-lived. They were quickly driven from the Delta by the new pharaoh and pushed eastwards across the desert. Sneferu himself records his victory on an inscription at Wadi Maghara, in the Sinai Peninsula.4 Attempts by Nubians and Libyans to take advantage of Egypts moment of weakness (mentioned also by Neferty) were met with equal vigour, as the Annals of Sneferu, recorded on the famous Palermo Stone, make clear.5
Probably within months peace and security was restored. But now all things were different. The very heavens themselves had changed. A new World Age had been inaugurated. The bloody rituals to appease the gods, which had hitherto been enacted atop the sacred mounds that formed the centrepiece of the mastabas, and quite possibly atop the stepped pyramids, were no longer required. Human sacrifice was a thing of the past. So Sneferu busied himself with raising a new type of pyramid; one with steep smooth sides. A new age required a new architecture for a new religion. Historians comment on the abandonment of star- and planet-worship at the time to be replaced by an almost monotheistic adoration of the sun.6 The epoch that now began was ever afterwards looked upon as a Golden Age, the classical period of Egyptian civilisation; the epoch that all later generations sought to emulate. And the pattern was set by its first pharaoh. The Egyptians were tireless in their praise of Sneferu. He was famously regarded by subsequent generations as a paragon, a veritable Messiah. (Not incidentally unlike the way the Jews regarded his contemporary, Moses). His exalted status was reflected in his royal titles; thus the name Sneferu itself means the Gladdener, whilst his Horus name Neb-maat implies Lord in Truth. We are informed that Sneferu, was revered throughout the length of Egyptian history; his reign was always regarded as one of the high points of the Egyptian Golden Age. Virtually uniquely amongst the Kings of Egypt he was remembered by a sobriquet; he was the Beneficent King and his cult was sustained down to Ptolemaic time
His cult was practised as far away as the mines of turquoise in Sinai, and as late as the Middle Kingdom a little shrine to his memory was maintained at Dahshur. A simple dish with the charcoal for an offering of incense, was found still on the modest altar which was consecrated there to his memory7 Why Sneferu should have been recalled with such fondness is a mystery to conventional historians, though for us it would be a mystery were he not.
In keeping with his reputation for wisdom, Sneferus reign coincided with the life of one of Egypts greatest sages: this was the famous Kagemni, who is said to have addressed to his children a book of maxims which took its place as one of the classics of Egyptian literature. We are told that Kagemni,
having become thoroughly acquainted with mens characters, sent for his children to come to him, and they came, full of wonder (as to why he had summoned them). Then he said to them: Pay attention to everything that is written in this book, just as if I myself were telling it to you; and his children thereupon laid themselves down on their faces (on the floor around him), and recited these maxims as they were written, and, in their opinion, these maxims were more beautiful than anything else in the whole land, and they continued to recite them both standing up and sitting down (all their life long). Then His Majesty King Huni died, and King Snofru became the gracious king of all this land, and Kegemni was made Prime Minister.8
Before moving on, one very interesting legend recounted on the Westcar Papyrus may well represent a distant echo of the parting of the Sea of Passage during the Exodus. The tale describes how a bored king Sneferu is persuaded by the magician Djadjaemankh to seek some diversion by sailing on the lake in the palace gardens. A crew of girls, dressed in fishing nets, is commissioned to row for the king, and one of these loses her hair-ornament in the water. Before the voyage can continue therefore the magician is required to turn back (or, we might say, part) the waters to reveal the ornament, a malachite fish-pendant, which is lying on a potsherd at the bottom of the lake.9
No one could pretend that the above is a precise Egyptian version of the story of the parting waters of Yam Suf. A much more exact rendering is found, as Velikovsky demonstrated, on the El Arish shrine.10 Nevertheless, it is clear that the wondrous event of the sea-waters parting could not but have been incorporated into Egyptian legend. Though the Egyptians did not benefit from the incident, as an unprecedented divine miracle it could scarcely be ignored. The boat which Sneferu uses is evidently symbolic of the vessel employed by Egypts great gods, and the connection with the ship-like Ark of the Covenant, which the fleeing Israelites carried before them on their journeys after traversing the Sea of Passage, should not be ignored. The placing of the event in the time of Sneferu is precisely correct.
Christianity is founded upon Judaism, as Islam and Baha'i are also. But Judaism is a distinctly separate belief system from any of the offshoots based on it, just as Zoroastrianism is distinctly different from Vedic belief even though they both employ some of the same terms, concepts, or even gods. And since Judaism is itself evidently based on the ancient pagan religions of the Bronze-age Near East, so Christianity, Islam and Baha'i must be as well.
I think that I have shown evidence that supports the opposite.
I should note that in the Bacchae, Dionysus didn't just make wine flow instead of water, but also white milk as well, both at the same time. He had the land saturated with it, so that both flowed from natural springs. At the same time he also had ivy vines dripping with honey. Now where else have we heard of this land of milk and honey? And when again would we hear of someone conjuring wine in this way?
Dionysus was after the Gospels were written.
Not only that there is no mention of Dionysus making water into wine as in the event of Jesus.
Milk and honey was Old Testament written long before this.
http://www.dhushara.com/book/diochris/dio2.htm
The former concept could have could from the Old Testament, of course. But the latter one now found in the New Testament was not an original concept as it had already been attributed to a different resurrected god more than 400 years earlier.
But the Old Testament precedes that.
