by
Damien F. Mackey
“The mission of Mohammed”,
perfectly reminiscent of that of Moses,
and later of Nehemiah, was “to
restore the worship of the One True God,
the creator and sustainer of
the universe, as taught by Prophet Ibrahim [Abraham] and all Prophets of God,
and complete the laws of moral, ethical, legal, and social conduct and all
other matters of significance for the humanity at large”.
M. O’Hair
Moses
The great Lawgiver in the Bible, and hence in
Hebrew history, was Moses, substantially the author of the Torah (Law).
But the history books tell us that the Torah was probably dependent upon
the law code issued by the Babylonian king, Hammurabi (dated to the first half
of the 18th BC). I shall discuss this further on.
For my ancient Egyptian historical identifications
of Moses, see e.g. my article:
Moses, not Joseph, pertains to
Egyptian Fifth-Twelfth dynasty
(3) Moses, not
Joseph, pertains to Egyptian Fifth-Twelfth dynasty
The Egyptians may have corrupted the legend
of the baby Moses in the bulrushes so that now it became the goddess Isis who
drew the baby Horus from the Nile and had him suckled by Hathor (the goddess in
the form of a cow - the Egyptian personification of wisdom).
In the original story, of course, baby Moses
was drawn from the water by an Egyptian princess, not a goddess, and was weaned
by Moses’ own mother (Exodus 2:5-9).
But could
both the account of the rescue of the baby Moses in the Book of Exodus, and the
Egyptian version of it, be actually based upon an Akkadian original, as the
textbooks say; based upon the story of king Sargon of Akkad?
Sargon tells, "in terms reminiscent
of Moses, Krishna and other great men", that [as quoted by G. Roux, Ancient
Iraq, Penguin Books, 1964, p. 152]:
.… My changeling mother conceived me, in secret she bore
me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast
me into the river which rose not over me. The river bore me up and carried me
to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and
reared me ….
Given that Sargon is conventionally dated to
the C24th BC, and Moses about a millennium later, it would seem inevitable that
the Hebrew version, and the Egyptian one, must be imitations of the Sargonic one.
Such is what the ‘history’ books say, at
least, despite the fact that the extant Sargon legend is very late (C7th BC);
though thought to have been based upon an earlier Mesopotamian original.
Dean
Hickman has re-dated king Hammurabi of Babylon to the time of kings Solomon and
David (mid-C10th BC), re-identifying Hammurabi’s older contemporary,
Shamsi-Adad I, as king David's Syrian foe, Hadadazer (2 Samuel 10:16) (“The
Dating of Hammurabi”, Proceedings of the Third Seminar of Catastrophism and
Ancient History, Uni. of Toronto, 1985, ed. M. Luckerman, pp. 13-28).
For more on this, see e.g. my article:
Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim as Contemporaries of
Solomon
(3) Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim
as Contemporaries of Solomon
According to this new scenario, Hammurabi
could not possibly have influenced Moses.
(a) Greek
and Canaanite ‘Moses-like Myths’
Michael Astour believes that Moses, a hero of
the Hebrew scriptures, shares "some cognate features" with
Danaos (or Danaus), hero of Greek legend.
He gives his parallels as follows (Hellenosemitica, p. 99):
Moses grows up at the court of the Egyptian
king as a member of the royal family, and subsequently flees from Egypt after
having slain an Egyptian - as Danaos, a member of the Egyptian ruling house,
flees from the same country after the slaying of the Aigyptiads which he had
arranged. The same number of generations separates Moses from Leah the
"wild cow" and Danaos from the cow Io.
My Comment: The above parallel might
even account for how the Greeks managed to confuse the land of Ionia (Io)
with the land of Israel in the case of the earliest (‘pre-Socratic’) philosophers.
Michael Astour continues (pp. 99-100):
Still more characteristic is that both Moses and Danaos
find and create springs in a waterless region; the story of how Poseidon, on
the request of the Danaide Amymona, struck out with his trident springs from
the Lerna rock, particularly resembles Moses producing a spring from the rock
by the stroke of his staff.
A ‘cow’ features also in the legend of Cadmus, son of
Agenor, king of Tyre upon the disappearance of his sister Europa, who was sent
by his father together with his brothers Cilix and Phoenix to seek her with
instructions not to return without her. Seeking the advice of the oracle at
Delphi, Cadmus was told to settle at the point where a cow, which he would meet
leaving the temple, would lie down. The cow led him to the site of Thebes
(remember the two cities by that name). There he built the citadel of Cadmeia.
Cadmus married Harmonia, the daughter of Ares, god of war, and Aphrodite and,
according to the legend, was the founder of the House of Oedipus.
Michael Astour believes that "even
more similar features" may be discovered if one links these accounts
to the Ugaritic (Canaanite) poem of Danel, which he had previously identified
as "the prototype of the Danaos myth" (p. 100):
The name of Aqht, the son of Danel, returns as Qehat,
the grandfather of Moses. The name of the locality Mrrt, where Aqht
was killed, figures in the gentilic form Merarî as the brother of Qehat
in the Levite genealogy. The name of P?t, the daughter of Danel and the
devoted sister of Aqht, is met in the Moses story as Pû'ã, a
midwife who saved the life of the new-born Moses. The very name of Moses, in
the feminine form Mšt, is, in the Ugaritic poem, the first half of
Danel's wife's name, while the second half of her name, Dnty,
corresponds to the name of Levi's sister Dinah.
Michael Astour had already explained how the
biblical story of the Rape of Dinah (Genesis 34) was "analogous to the
myth of the bloody wedding of her namesakes, the Danaides".
He continues on here with his fascinating
Greco-Israelite parallels:
Dân, the root of the names Dnel, Dnty
(and also Dinah and Danaos), was the name of a tribe whose priests claimed to
descend directly from Moses (Jud. 18:30); and compare the serpent emblem of the
tribe of Dan with the serpent staff of Moses and the bronze serpent he erected.
…
Under the same name - Danaë - another Argive heroine of
the Danaid stock is thrown into the sea in a chest with her new-born son - as
Moses in his ark (tébã) - and lands on the serpent-island of Seriphos
(Heb. šãrâph, applied i.a. to the bronze serpent made by Moses). Moses,
like Danel, is a healer, a prophet, a miracle-worker - cf. Danel's staff (mt)
which he extends while pronouncing curses against towns and localities, quite
like Moses in Egypt; and especially, like Danel, he is a judge….
(b) Roman ‘Moses-like
Myth’
The Romans further corrupted the story of the
infant Moses, following on probably from the Egyptians, Babylonians, Canaanites
and Greeks. I refer to the account of Romulus (originally Rhomus) and Remus,
thought to have founded the city of Rome in 753 BC.
Both the founders and the date are quite
mythical.
Did the Romans take an Egyptian name for
Moses, such as Musare (Neuserre), and turn it into Rhomus and Remus
(MUSA-RE = RE-MUS), with the formerly one child (Moses) now being doubled into
two babies (twins)?
According to this legend, the twins were put
into a basket by some kind servants and floated in the Tiber River, from which
they were eventually rescued by a she-wolf.
Thus the Romans more pragmatically opted for
a she-wolf as the suckler instead of a cow goddess, or a lion goddess, Sekhmet
(the fierce alter ego of Hathor).
The Romans may have taken yet another slice
from the Pentateuch when they had the founder of the city of Rome, Romulus,
involved in a fratricide (killing Remus); just as Cain, the founder of the
world’s first city, had killed his own brother, Abel (cf. Genesis 4:8 and
4:17).
(c)
Mohammed: Arabian ‘Moses-like Myths’ ...
An Islamic lecturer, Ahmed Deedat ["What
the Bible Says About Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him) the Prophet of Islam"]
www.islamworld.net/Muhammad.in.Bible.html
told of an interview he once had with a
dominee of the Dutch Reformed Church in Transvaal, van Heerden, on the
question:
"What does the Bible say about
Muhummed?"
Deedat had in mind the Holy Qur'an verse
46:10, according to which "a witness among the children of Israel bore
witness of one like him…".
This was in turn a reference to Deuteronomy
18:18's "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like
unto thee, and I will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them
all that I shall command him." The Moslems of course interpret the "one
like him [i.e. Moses]" as being Mohammed himself.
Faced with the dominee's emphatic response
that the Bible has "nothing" to say about Mohammed - and that
the Deuteronomic prophecy ultimately pertained to Jesus Christ, as did "thousands"
of other prophecies - Deedat set out to prove him wrong.
For some of my own views on Mohammed, see my
series:
Biography of the Prophet Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously Mangles History
(3) Biography of the Prophet
Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously Mangles History
….
Some Conclusions regarding Mohammed (c. 570-632 AD,
conventional dating)
Whilst Mohammed supposedly lived much later
than Moses, there nevertheless do seem to be Arabic borrowings of the Moses
story itself (and even appropriations of certain very specific aspects of the
life of Jesus) in the legends about Mohammed, who especially resembles Moses in
(i) the latter's visit to Mount Horeb (modern Har
Karkom) with its cave atop, its Burning Bush, and angel (Exodus 3:1-2),
possibly equating to Mohammed's "Mountain of Light" (Jabal-an-Nur),
and 'cave of research' (`Ghar-i-Hira'), and angel Gabriel;
(ii) at the very same age of forty (Acts 7:23-29), and
(iii) there receiving a divine revelation, leading to his
(iv) becoming a prophet of God and a Lawgiver.
Mohammed as a Lawgiver is a direct pinch I
believe from the Hebrew Pentateuch, and also from the era of Jeremiah.
Consider the following by M. O’Hair
("Mohammed", A text of American Atheist Radio Series program No. 65,
first broadcast on August 25, 1969:
www.atheists.org/Islam.Mohammed.html
"Now the Kaaba or Holy Stone at Mecca
was the scene of an annual pilgrimage, and during this pilgrimage in 621
Mohammed was able to get six persons from Medina to bind themselves to him.
They did so by taking the following oath.
Not consider anyone equal to Allah;
Not to steal;
Not to be unchaste;
Not to kill their children;
Not willfully to calumniate".
This is simply the Mosaïc Decalogue, with the
following Islamic addition:
"To obey the prophet's orders in
equitable matters.
In return Mohammed assured these six
novitiates of paradise.
The place where these first vows were taken
is now called the first Akaba".
"The mission of Mohammed", perfectly reminiscent of
that of Moses, and later of Nehemiah, was "to restore the worship of
the One True God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, as taught by
Prophet Ibrahim [Abraham] and all Prophets of God, and complete the laws of
moral, ethical, legal, and social conduct and all other matters of significance
for the humanity at large."
The above-mentioned Burning Bush incident
occurred whilst Moses
(a)
was living in exile (Exodus 2:15)
(b) amongst
the Midianite tribe of Jethro, in the Paran desert.
(c)
Moses had married Jethro's daughter, Zipporah (v. 21).
Likewise Mohammed (also partly applicable to
Jeremiah and to Nehemiah)
(a)
experienced exile;
(b) to Medina,
a name which may easily have become confused with the similar sounding, Midian,
and
(c)
he had only the one wife at the time, Khadija. Also
(d) Moses,
like Mohammed, was terrified by what God had commanded of him, protesting that
he was "slow of speech and slow of tongue" (Exodus 4:10). To which
God replied: "Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf,
seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be your mouth and
teach you what you are to speak' (vv. 11-12).
Now this episode, seemingly coupled with
Moses’s (with Jeremiah’s) call, has come distorted into the Koran as Mohammed’s
being terrified by what God was asking of him, protesting that he was not
learned.
To which God supposedly replied that he had
'created man from a clot of congealed blood, and had taught man the use of the
pen, and that which he knew not, and that man does not speak ought of his own
desire but by inspiration sent down to him'.
Ironically, whilst Moses the writer
complained about his lack of verbal eloquence, Mohammed, 'unlettered and
unlearned', who therefore could not write, is supposed to have been told that
God taught man to use the pen (?). But Mohammed apparently never learned
to write, because he is supposed only to have spoken God's utterances. Though
his words, like those of Moses (who however did write, e.g. Exodus 34:27), were
written down in various formats by his secretary, Zaid (roughly equating to the
biblical Joshua, a writer, Joshua 8:32, or to Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch).
This is generally how the Koran is said to
have arisen.
But Mohammed also resembles Moses in his
childhood (and Tobit also) in the fact that, after his infancy, he was raised
by a foster-parent (Exodus 2:10). And there is the inevitable
weaning legend (Zahoor, A. and Haq, Z.,
"Biography of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)", http://cyberistan.org/islamic/muhammad.html
(1998.): "All
biographers state that the infant prophet sucked only one breast of his
foster-mother, leaving the other for the sustenance of his
foster-brother".
There is
even a kind of Islamic version of the Exodus. Compare the following
account of the Qoreish persecution and subsequent pursuit of the fleeing
Moslems with the persecution and later pursuit of the fleeing Israelites by
Pharaoh (Exodus 1 and 4:5-7) [O’Hair, op. cit., ibid.]:
When the persecution became unbearable for most
Muslims, the Prophet advised them in the fifth year of his mission (615 CE) to emigrate
to Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) where Ashabah (Negus, a Christian) was the
ruler. Eighty people, not counting the small children, emigrated in small
groups to avoid detection. No sooner had they left the Arabian coastline
[substitute Egyptian borders], the leaders of Quraish discovered their flight.
They decided to not leave these Muslims in peace, and immediately sent two of
their envoys to Negus to bring all of them back.
The Koran of Islam is basically just the
Arabic version of the Hebrew Bible with all its same famous patriarchs and
leading characters.
That is apparent from what the Moslems
themselves admit. For example [ibid.]:
The Qur'an also mentions four previously revealed
Scriptures: Suhoof (Pages) of Ibrahim (Abraham), Taurat ('Torah') as
revealed to Prophet Moses, Zuboor ('Psalms') as revealed to Prophet David, and
Injeel ('Evangel') as revealed to Prophet Jesus (pbuh). Islam requires belief
in all prophets and revealed scriptures (original, non-corrupted) as part of
the Articles of Faith.
Mohammed is now for Islam the last and
greatest of the prophets.
Thus, "in the Al-Israa, Gabriel (as)
took the Prophet from the sacred Mosque near Ka'bah to the furthest (al-Aqsa)
mosque in Jerusalem in a very short time in the latter part of a night. Here,
Prophet Muhammad met with previous Prophets (Abraham, Moses, Jesus and others)
and he led them in prayer" [ibid.].
Thus Mohammed supposedly led Jesus in prayer.
The reputation of Ibn Ishaq (ca 704-767), a
main authority on the life and times of the Prophet varied considerably among
the early Moslem critics: some found him very sound, while others regarded him
as a liar in relation to Hadith (Mohammed's sayings and deeds). His Sira
is not extant in its original form, but is present in two recensions done in
833 and 814-15, and these texts vary from one another.
Fourteen others have recorded his lectures,
but their versions differ [ibid.]:
It was the storytellers who created the tradition: the
sound historical traditions to which they are supposed to have added their
fables simply did not exist. . . . Nobody remembered anything to the contrary
either. . . . There was no continuous transmission. Ibn Ishaq, al-Waqidi, and
others were cut off from the past: like the modern scholar, they could not get
behind their sources.... Finally, it has to be realized that the tradition as a
whole, not just parts of it as some have thought, is tendentious, and that that
tendentiousness arises from allegiance to Islam itself. The complete
unreliability of the Muslim tradition as far as dates are concerned has been
demonstrated by Lawrence Conrad. After close examination of the sources in an
effort to find the most likely birth date for Muhammad--traditionally `Am
al-fil, the Year of the Elephant, 570 C.E.--Conrad remarks that ["What
Historians have Deduced about the Historical Mohammed.
(http://jeromekhan123.tripod.com/enlightenment/id11.html; -
currently not online).
See also Barnes, T. D. "The Byzantine and Early
Islamic Near East II: Land Use and Settlement Patterns, ed. Averil Cameron and
G. R. D.; King [Papers of the Second Workshop on Late Antiquity and Early
Islam. Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 1], volume II (Princeton: The
Darwin Press, 1994)" (1996-1997), IX: 191-199.; "The Byzantine and
Early Islamic Near East III: States, Resources and Armies, ed. Averil Cameron
[Papers of the Third Workshop on Late Antiquity and Early Islam. Studies in
Late Antiquity and Early Islam 1], volume III (Princeton: The Darwin Press,
1995)" (1996-1997), IX: 191-199.; "Albrecht Noth's The Early Arabic
Historical tradition. A Source-Critical Study, trans. Michael Bonner, in
collaboration with Lawrence I. Conrad [Studies in Late Antiquity and
Early Islam 3] (Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1994)", (1996-1997), IX:
191-199.]:
"'Well into the second century A.H.
[A.H. is the muslim time reckoning and means 'Asahhus-siyar'.] scholarly
opinion on the birth date of the Prophet displayed a range of variance of
eighty-five years. .. . . . Muhammad, as Prophet and mouthpiece for the
universal deity Allah, is an invention of the ulama of the second and third
centuries A.H".
My own estimation of the historical
dislocation of the Prophet Mohammed would involve far more than a mere
“variance of eighty-five years”. The fact is that we now have a
‘Mohammed’ who is a semi-legendary version of the original Prophet. Mohammed, a
composite figure, seems to have likenesses even to pre-Mosaïc patriarchs, and
to Jesus in the New Testament. Thus Mohammed, at Badr, successfully led a force
of 300+ men (the number varies from 300-318) against an enemy far superior in
number, as did Abraham (Genesis 14:14); and, like Jacob (Genesis 30, 31), he
used a ruse to get a wife (in Jacob's case, wives). And like Jesus, the
greatest of all God's prophets, Mohammed is said to have ascended into heaven
from Jerusalem.
(d) Modern
Myths about Moses
From the above it can now be seen that it was
not only the Greeks and Romans who have been guilty of appropriation into their
own folklore of famous figures of Israel. Even the Moslems have done it and are
still doing it. A modern-day Islamic author from Cairo, Ahmed Osman, has - in
line with psychiatrist Sigmund Freud's view that Moses was actually an
Egyptian, whose Yahwism was derived from pharaoh Akhnaton’s supposed monotheism
[Out of Egypt. The Roots of Christianity Revealed (Century, 1998)] -
identified all the major biblical Israelites, from the patriarch Joseph to the
Holy Family of Nazareth, as Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian characters. Thus
Joseph = Yuya; Moses = Akhnaton; David = Thutmose III; Solomon = Amenhotep III;
Jesus = Tutankhamun; St. Joseph = Ay; Mary = Nefertiti.
This is mass appropriation! Not to
mention chronological madness!
I was asked by Dr. Norman Simms of the
University of Waikato (N.Z.) to write a critique of Osman's book, a copy of
which he had posted to me. This was a rather easy task as the book leaves
itself wide open to criticism. Anyway, the result of Dr. Simms’] request was my
article, “Osman’s ‘Osmosis’ of Moses” article [The Glozel Newsletter,
5:1 (ns) 1999 (Hamilton, N.Z), pp. 1-17], in which I argued that, because Osman
is using the faulty textbook history of Egypt, he is always obliged to give the
chronological precedence to Egypt, when the influence has actually come from
Israel over to Egypt.
This article, modified, can now be read as the
two-part series:
Osman’s ‘Osmosis’ of Moses. Part One: The Chosen People
(4) Osman's
'Osmosis' of Moses. Part One: The Chosen People | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
and:
Osman’s ‘Osmosis’ of Moses. Part II: Christ the King
(4) Osman's
'Osmosis' of Moses. Part Two: Christ The King | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
The way that Egyptian chronology is
structured at present - thanks largely to Eduard Meyer’s now approximately one
century-old Ägyptische Chronologie
(Philosophische und historische Abhandlungen der Königlich preussischen
Akad. der Wissenschaften, Berlin, Akad. der Wiss., 1904).) could easily give
rise to Osman's precedence in favour of Egypt view (though this is no excuse
for Osman's own chronological mish-mash).
One finds, for example, in pharaoh Hatshepsut’s
inscriptions such similarities to king David’s Psalms that it is only natural
to think that she, the woman-pharaoh - dated to the C15th BC, 500 years earlier
than David - must have influenced the great king of Israel.
Or that pharaoh Akhnaton’s Hymn to the Sun,
so like David's Psalm 104, had inspired David many centuries later. Only a
revision of Egyptian history brings forth the right perspective, and shows that
the Israelites actually had the chronological precedence in these as in many
other cases.
It gets worse from a conventional point of
view.
The ‘doyen of Israeli archaeologists’, Israel
Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University, frequently interviewed by Beirut hostage
victim John McCarthy on the provocative TV program “It Ain't Necessarily So”, has,
together with his colleagues, virtually written ancient Israel right off the
historical map, along with all of its major biblical characters. This horrible
mess is an inevitable consequence of the faulty Sothic chronology with which
these archaeologists seem to be mesmerized.
With friends like Finkelstein and co., why
would Israel need any enemies!
The Lawgiver Solon
Whilst the great Lawgiver for the Hebrews was
Moses, and for the Babylonians, Hammurabi, and for the Moslems, supposedly,
Mohammed, the Lawgiver in Greek folklore was Solon of Athens, the wisest
of the wise, greatest of the Seven Sages.
Though Solon is estimated to have lived in
the C6th BC, his name and many of his activities are so close to king Solomon’s
(supposedly 4 centuries earlier) that we need once again to question whether
the Greeks may have been involved in appropriation.
And, if so, how did this come about?
It may in some cases simply be a memory
thing, just as according to Plato’s Timaeus one of the very aged
Egyptian priests supposedly told Solon (Plato's Timaeus, trans. B.
Jowett, The Liberal Arts Press, NY, 1949), 6 (22)) and/or Desmond Lee’s
translation, Penguin Classics, p. 34]:
‘O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes [Greeks] are never anything
but children, and there is not an old man among you. Solon in return asked him
what he meant. I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young; there
is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science
which is hoary with age. …’.
Perhaps what the author of the Timaeus
really needed to have put into the mouth of the aged Egyptian priest was that
the Greeks had largely forgotten who Solomon was, and had created their own
fictional character, “Solon”, from their vague recall of the great king Solomon
who “excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom” (1 Kings
10:23).
Was it not King Solomon himself, rather than
some supposed ancient Egyptian priest, who had proclaimed that what has gone
before has been forgotten? (Ecclesiastes 1:10-11):
“Is there anything of which
one can say,
‘Look! This is something new’?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
No one remembers the former
generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them”.
Solon resembles Solomon especially in roughly
the last decade of the latter’s reign, when King Solomon, turning away from
Yahwism, became fully involved with his mercantile ventures, his fleet, travel,
and building temples for his foreign wives, especially in Egypt (10:26-29;
11:1-8).
Now, it is to be expected that the pagan
Greeks would remember this more ‘rationalist’ aspect of Solomon (as Solon)
rather than his wisdom-infused, philosophical, earlier years when he was a
devout Jew and servant of Yahweh (4:29-34).
And Jewish Solon apparently was!
Edwin Yamauchi has studied the laws of Solon
in depth and found them to be quite Jewish in nature, most reminiscent of the
laws of Nehemiah (c. 450 BC) (“Two reformers compared: Solon of Athens
and Nehemiah of Jerusalem”, Bible world. New York: KTAV, 1980. pp.
269-292).
That date of 450 BC may perhaps be some sort
of clue as to approximately when the Greeks first began to create their
fictional Solon.
Solomon was, as I have argued in my “Solomon
and Sheba” article (“Solomon and Sheba”, SIS C and C Review, 1997:1, pp.
4-15), the most influential Senenmut of Egyptian history, Hatshepsut’s mentor;
whilst Hatshepsut herself was the biblical Queen [of] Sheba. This article (Now
updated) can now be read at:
Solomon and Sheba
(2) Solomon and
Sheba
I have also identified Hatshepsut/Sheba as
the biblical Abishag, who comforted the aged King David (I Kings 1-4), and,
likewise, as the beautiful virgin daughter of David, Tamar.
The Spartan Lawgiver par excellence is
Lycurgus, who seems to have been taken from the Hebrew Moses.
On this, see my article:
Moses and Lycurgus
(4) Moses and
Lycurgus | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Professor Henry Breasted had made a point
relevant to my theme of Greek appropriation - and in connection too with the
Solomonic era (revised). Hatshepsut’s marvellous temple
structure at Deir el-Bahri, he said, was “a sure witness to the fact that the
Egyptians had developed architectural styles for which the Greeks later would
be credited as the originators” (A History of Egypt, 2nd ed., NY
(Scribner, 1924), p. 274).
One need not necessarily perhaps always
accuse the Greeks of a malicious corruption of earlier traditions, but perhaps
rather of a ‘collective amnaesia’, to use a Velikovskian term; the sort of
forgetfulness by the Greek nation as alluded to in Plato's Timaeus.
There is also to be considered that the Levantines
and/or Jews had migrated to Greece.
In 1 Maccabees 12:21 [Areios king of the
Spartans, to Onias the high priest, greetings: “A document has been found
stating that the Spartans and the Jews are brothers; both nations descended
from Abraham”. Areus, der König zu Sparta, entbietet Onias, dem Hohenpriester,
seinen Gruß. "Wir finden in unsern alten Schriften, daß die von Sparta und
die Juden Brüder sind, dieweil beide Völker von Abraham herkommen." 1.
Macc. 12:20, 21, The New American Bible, 1970], for instance, the Spartans
claim to have been, like the Jews, descendants of Abraham. By this late stage
the earlier histories would already have been well and truly corrupted. The
Abrahamic emigrants would naturally have carried their folklore - not to
mention their architectural expertise - to the Greek archipelago where it would
inevitably have undergone local adaptation.
Now, concerning a supposed C5th BC deputation from Rome that brought
back the laws of Solon to be embedded into the Twelve Tables, we read this by
Ken Moore:
2019-5-2-3-Moore.pdf
Athens Journal of History - Volume 5, Issue 2 – Pages 123-134
Rome’s Decemviral Commission to Greece: Fact,
Fiction or Otherwise?
….
However, by the late 18th century, Gibbon had taken up Vico’s cause,
writing that due to “national pride, both Livy and Dionysius are willing to
believe that the deputies of Rome visited Athens under the wise and splendid
administration of Pericles, and the laws of Solon were transferred into the
Twelve Tables”. ….
Damien Mackey’s comment: So-called ‘Pericles’ may well have post-dated the C5th BC:
Pericles
thought to have preceded, by centuries, Hadrian, a ‘second Pericles’
(3) Pericles thought to have preceded, by
centuries, Hadrian, a ‘second Pericles’
He went on to point out there was no Greek evidence of such a deputation
and that any similarity between the Roman laws and those of Solon were only
"some casual resemblance". In the early nineteenth century, Livy’s
accuracy became a subject of wider debate and it was concluded that there was a
general absence of notable Greek elements in the Twelve Tables. In his first
edition of his History of Rome, Niebhur argued that the commission to
Athens had never taken place, eventually admitting (in the second edition of
this same opus) that it might have occurred but that it had little
observable impact on the final Roman legislation.
….
Mommsen agreed with that view and his position remains dominant to this
day, with more limited debates still arising from time to time. …. Wilhelm
Ihne, referencing Gibbon, argued that "the whole story of the Greek
embassy was a fiction". …. Gruen, quoted above, illustrates a typical
stance on the matter in the current historiography.
Even so, some scholars such as Ellmore, in the
early twentieth century, sought to rehabilitate the view that the commission
did, in fact, happen (or could have happened) and they did so with recourse to
considerations of constitutional matters versus legal ones, e.g. a politeia
(res publicae) in contrast to nomoi (leges). The issue comes down to
whether or not the Decemvirs were just producing a code of laws or whether
their actions marked a fundamental constitutional change. If the former, then
there would have been little need to send a deputation to Athens or anywhere
else. If the latter, then such a commission would have been not only desirable
but potentially quite necessary. …. The distinction between laws and
constitution was recognised both by Plato in the appropriately titled Republic
(Politeia) and Laws (Nomoi) as well as later by Cicero, with clear
homage to Plato, in his On the Republic (De re publica) and On the
Laws (De legibus).
Metaphysics and morality aside, the one is clearly about the laws
themselves and the other about the theoretical, structural and operational
principles of the state. In his Laws, Plato describes two phases of
forming a constitution: the establishment of government officials and the laws
which govern their conduct and function (675a). Aristotle goes into greater
detail in the Politics, also describing the organisation of the state with
regard to the public offices and the rules by which they must govern. …. Of
course, Plato and Aristotle were producing 4th century articulations that would
have been unavailable to any deputation sent from Rome to Athens in the early
5th century, if there was one; but, they do illustrate that such ideas had been
in circulation since at least the time of Solon.
Ihne’s argument against the "embassy to
Athens" bears some further consideration, entailing several key points. He
asserted that "no nation of antiquity ever dreamt of forming its civil law
after a foreign model" and, as with Gibbon and Mommsen, that there is no
resemblance between the laws of the Twelve Tables and the laws of Solon. As
Niebhur succinctly agreed, the "laws of Solon did not contain what the
Romans wanted". …. As well as the lack of any evidence from Greece, Ihne
pointed out that the Solonian laws were no longer in effect at that time,
rather the Cleisthenic reforms were in place. …. His last objection can be
countered if we assume that the Romans were specifically interested in Solon’s
laws, regardless of the fact that those of Cleisthenes were then in place. News
travelled slowly in the ancient world and the Romans may have been unaware of
Cleisthenes but perhaps had heard of Solon and how he had dealt with a crisis
similar to their own. Or they may have been aware of Cleisthenes’ reforms and
preferred Solon’s nevertheless for reasons of their own. The reforms of Solon,
which Livy states were being studied by the alleged commission, were
definitively of a constitutional type, and indeed the Romans were reportedly
experiencing comparable issues having to do with debt, representation and
inequality.
In terms of the lack of similarity between the
Roman laws and those of Solon, Cicero reported that at least one of Solon’s was
actually adopted by the Romans, that concerning expressions of grief and wealth
at funerals. …. It is only a single case of parallelism, of the sort that
Gibbon had dismissed as circumstantial with "some rules which nature and
reason have revealed to every society". …. And he too had cited a lack of
Greek evidence for the embassy. But this bears some closer scrutiny. Table Ten,
insofar as we have it intact, states:
1.
A dead person shall not be buried or burned in the
city.
2.
... More than this one shall not do: one shall not
smooth a funeral pyre with an axe.
3.
... Expenses of a funeral shall be limited to three
mourners wearing veils and one mourner wearing an inexpensive purple tunic and
ten flutists...
4.
Women shall not tear their cheeks or shall not make
a sorrowful outcry on account of a funeral.
5a. A dead person’s bones shall not be collected that one may make a
second funeral.
5b. An
exception is for death in battle and on foreign soil.
6a. ... Anointing by
slaves is abolished and every kind of drinking bout ... there shall be no costly sprinkling, no long
garlands, no incense boxes...
6b. ... A myrrh-spiced
drink...shall not be poured on a dead person.
7. Whoever wins a crown
himself or by his property, by honour, or by valour, the crown is bestowed on
him at his burial...
8. ... Nor gold shall be
added to a corpse. But if any one buries or burns a corpse that has gold dental
work it shall be without prejudice.
9. It is forbidden...to
build a new pyre or a burning mound nearer than sixty feet to another’s
building without the owner’s consent.
10. It is forbidden to
acquire by prescriptive right a vestibule of a sepulchre or a burning mound. ….
Solon’s laws on funerary matters are rather more
complete, as we have them preserved from a 5th century inscription and
canvassed elsewhere in other primary sources, and there are many notable
resemblances with Table Ten. …. They state:
These are the laws concerning the dead. Bury the dead person as follows:
in three white cloths-a spread, a shroud, and a coverlet-or in fewer, not worth
more than 300 drachmas. Carry out [the body] on a wedge-footed bed and do not
cover the bier with cloths. Bring not more than three choes of wine to
the tomb and not more than one chous of olive oil, and bring back the
empty jars. Carry the shrouded corpse in silence all the way to the tomb.
Perform the preliminary sacrifice according to ancestral customs. Bring the bed
and the covers back from the tomb inside the house.
On the next day cleanse the house first with sea water, and then cleanse
all the rooms with hyssop. When it has been thoroughly cleansed, the house is
to be free from pollution; and sacrifices should be made on the hearth.
The women who come to mourn at the funeral are not to leave the tomb
before the men. …. There is to be no mourning for the dead person on the
thirtieth day. Do not put a wine-cup beneath the bed, do not pour out the
water, and do not bring the sweepings to the tomb. In the event that a person
dies, when he is carried out, no women should go to the house other than those
polluted [by the death]. Those polluted are the mother and wife and sisters and
daughters, and in addition to these not more than five women, the daughters’
children and cousins; no one else. The polluted when washed with water poured
out [from jugs] are free from pollution. [The next two lines are damaged].
This law has been ratified by the Council and the People. On the third
day those who mourn on the anniversary of the death are to be free from
pollution, but they are not to enter a temple, and the house is to be free from
pollution until they come back from the tomb. ….
The original laws from the Roman Tenth Table will
have been more elaborate; but even the version that we have reveals remarkable
similarity with the Solonian ones.
….
Babylonian,
Greek, Roman, Islamic, Laws, all appear to have been heavily influenced by the
Hebrews (Moses, David and Solomon, and Nehemiah).
