Origins

[Halfcentaur]

The Hebrews borrowed heavily from the texts of the Assyrians, who in turn borrowed them from the Babylonians, who in turn borrowed them from the Akkadians who in turn borrowed them from the Sumerians.

I am not saying they didn't in their mythologies, but not in these basic moral tenants.

 

[Marduk]

One also has to wonder about how judaism, christianity, and islam (Sikhism may as well)end prayers with amen which appears to be a plea or request for the Egyptian god Amun (also spelt Amon, Amoun, Amen) to accept and take their prayer to the heavens.
.

Popular among some theosophists,[11] proponents of Afrocentric theories of history,[12] and adherents of esoteric Christianity [13][14] is the conjecture that amen is a derivative of the name of the Egyptian god Amun (which is sometimes also spelled Amen). Some adherents of Eastern religions believe that amen shares roots with the Sanskrit word, aum.[15] [16][17][18] There is no academic support for either of these views. Note that the Hebrew word, as noted above, starts with aleph, while the Egyptian name begins with a yodh

I am not saying they didn't in their mythologies, but not in these basic moral tenants.

To us they are mythology, to them they were stories that were used by the priesthood to teach "basic moral tenets". Enuma Elish for instance was read aloud to the populace during every Akitu festival (twice yearly) and the Enuma Elish is the Babylonian cosmology which tells of the creation of the earth and the character of the one true God (they were practicing proto monotheists 500 years before Akhenaten was in nappies)
"the fact that this is overlooked by some in this thread is an indication of a lack of ancient history knowledge, or just plain biasing against an idea that isn't their own. "

 

[Delvo]

The fact that certain biblical names are not mentioned in Egyptian archives isn't an issue as much as those that are (Thutmose,sometimes read as Thutmosis or Tuthmosis where mose, mosis, means "son of") and I would like any of the most learned to explain how there isn't a connection there for the name.

Phonetic similarity isn't all there is to it. Different languages can have very similar words develop independently to mean different things. And usage alone shows a big difference between "Moses" and those Egyptian names; just the word "son" by itself doesn't make much of a name.

...the carry over of basic religious philosophy from Akhenaten to Judaism along with many known ancient Egyptian customs, terms, and traditions that preceded the 18th Dynasty.

What customs, terms, and traditions are you talking about? I've heard about monotheism itself being borrowed from Egypt but no other details beyond that. (And I don't consider just the fact that they were both monotheist at some point in time to be enough to establish a connection all by itself; it's a simple idea that any culture could think of.)

One also has to wonder about how judaism, christianity, and islam (Sikhism may as well)end prayers with amen which appears to be a plea or request for the Egyptian god Amun

According to Jews, "amen" is a Hebrew word with a translatable meaning, not just "that thing we say at the end of a prayer". Do they also have such an explanation for "Moses"?

Enuma Elish is the Babylonian cosmology which tells of the creation of the earth and the character of the one true God (they were practicing proto monotheists

If they believed in only one true God, how is that "proto" monotheism instead of just monotheism? (I've never heard before that they were anything like that anyway...)

 

[Akhenaten]

The fact that certain biblical names are not mentioned in Egyptian archives isn't an issue as much as those that are (Thutmose,sometimes read as Thutmosis or Tuthmosis where mose, mosis, means "son of") and I would like any of the most learned to explain how there isn't a connection there for the name. The other names like Joseph and Abraham do not concern me as much as the carry over of basic religious philosophy from Akhenaten to Judaism along with many known ancient Egyptian customs, terms, and traditions that preceded the 18th Dynasty.
That Akhenaten refined his father's religious views to just one of the 42 gods (Atun) and specified what he would do for the people upon his death, speaks a lot for both the basis one one sect of Judaism and for christianity in general. One also has to wonder about how judaism, christianity, and islam (Sikhism may as well)end prayers with amen which appears to be a plea or request for the Egyptian god Amun (also spelt Amon, Amoun, Amen) to accept and take their prayer to the heavens.
People who ignore torahic (and later biblical) references may be missing another translation of earlier texts with which to base against rosetta stone type translations.

Are you making this up as you go or did you make it all up some time ago and you're just now publishing it?

 

[Akhenaten]

Enuma Elish is the Babylonian cosmology which tells of the creation of the earth and the character of the one true God (they were practicing proto monotheists 500 years before Akhenaten was in nappies)

If they believed in only one true God, how is that "proto" monotheism instead of just monotheism? (I've never heard before that they were anything like that anyway...)

Perhaps "proto" monotheism is another way of saying "nothing like" monotheism. although it seems a strange claim to make.

Does this sound like monotheism?

Enûma Eliš - The First Tablet

When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them both
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being,
And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained;
Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven,
Lahmu and Lahamu were called into being . . .​

​

- Enuma Elish: The Epic of Creation by L.W.King, Kessinger Publishing, 2004​

​

An online translation of the tablets is available at:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/enuma.htm​

Here is a synopsis of the first tablet from the CRI/Voice Institute:

The stage is set for the story. The various gods represent aspects of the physical world. Apsu is the god of fresh water and thus male fertility. Tiamat, wife of Apsu, is the goddess of the sea and thus chaos and threat. Tiamat gives birth to Anshar and Kishar, gods who represented the boundary between the earth and sky (the horizon). To Anshar and Kishar is born Anu, god of sky, who in turn bears Ea. These "sons of the gods" make so much commotion and are so ill-behaved that Apsu decides to destroy them. When Ea learns of the plan, he kills Apsu and with his wife Damkina establishes their dwelling above his body. Damkina then gives birth to Marduk, the god of spring symbolized both by the light of the sun and the lightning in storm and rain. He was also the patron god of the city of Babylon. Meanwhile Tiamat is enraged at the murder of her husband Apsu, and vows revenge. She creates eleven monsters to help her carry out her vengeance. Tiamat takes a new husband, Kingu, in place of the slain Apsu and puts him in charge of her newly assembled army.

Or as good ol' Wikipedia says:

The epic names two primeval gods: Apsû (or Abzu) and Tiamat. Several other gods are created (Ea and his brothers) who reside in Tiamat's vast body. They make so much noise that the babel or noise annoys Tiamat and Apsû greatly. Apsû wishes to kill the young gods, but Tiamat disagrees. The vizier, Mummu, agrees with Apsû's plan to destroy them. Tiamat, in order to stop this from occurring, warns Ea (Nudimmud), the most powerful of the gods. Ea uses magic to put Apsû into a coma, then kills him, and shuts Mummu out. Ea then becomes the chief god, and along with his consort Damkina, has a son, Marduk, greater still than himself. Marduk is given wind to play with and he uses the wind to make dust storms and tornadoes. This disrupts Tiamat's great body and causes the gods still residing inside her to be unable to sleep.

Source​

"the fact that this is overlooked by some in this thread is an indication of a lack of ancient history knowledge, or just plain biasing against an idea that isn't their own. "

Indeed.

 

[stevea]

The only ones which are generally upheld nowadays are the ones about killing, stealing, adultery, and bearing false witness.

Well I'll grant killing and stealing are regularly prosecuted. Adultery and false witness seem pretty commonplace and unenforced.

 

[Akhenaten]

The fact that certain biblical names are not mentioned in Egyptian archives isn't an issue as much as those that are (Thutmose,sometimes read as Thutmosis or Tuthmosis where mose, mosis, means "son of") and I would like any of the most learned to explain how there isn't a connection there for the name.

Perhaps you recognise this cartouche?

50 points for Gryffindor if you said Queen Ahmose.

I think I've spotted a flaw in your Thutmose = Moses theory.

 

[Marduk]

Are you making this up as you go or did you make it all up some time ago and you're just now publishing it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_Christianity

Perhaps "proto" monotheism is another way of saying "nothing like" monotheism. although it seems a strange claim to make.

Thats only because you have never studied the culture, unless you want to pretend otherwise

Does this sound like monotheism?

No, it sounds like cherry picking on your part, you deliberately didn't bother to mention that at the end of the Epic there are fifty titles/names given for Marduk which previously were titles held by other Gods, this syncretization of deities is exactly the same as the creation of YHWH from the syncretization of other deities deeds and actions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marduk#The_fifty_names_of_Marduk
When you add to the well known and established truth that many aspects of Hebraic Monotheism are taken directly from the beliefs prevalent in Babylonia at the time of the Diaspora it leaves your claim of understanding the origins of monotheism looking a little flat. You know full well for instance that the idea of Angels is derived from Babylonian mythos because I have posted you that information at least three times already, it even featured heavily in a thread I started which I know you read. Perhaps you should read it again
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152198&highlight=mesopotamian+facts
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=5049133#post5049133

2. A credible Hebrew source claims that all the specific names for the angels were brought back by the Jews from Babylon.

Now I could post here attestation after attestation to this fact of proto monotheism from numerous well known and recognised scholars, but as I have determined that you only bothered to post that misunderstood nonsense and attack my claim because of your personal vehemence against me you can do it yourself with this if you really do have an interest,
www.google.com
otherwise, whatever

Indeed.

Right back atcha

Perhaps you recognise this cartouche?

[qimg]http://www.yvonneclaireadams.com/HostedStuff/CartoucheAhmose.jpg[/qimg]​

50 points for Gryffindor if you said Queen Ahmose.

I think I've spotted a flaw in your Thutmose = Moses theory.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the two most common translations for Moses are along the lines of "drawn out" or "born from"

Then, of course, there is the Hebrew verb (masha 1253), which is identical to the name save for the Masoretic additions. It means draw, draw out and is used only two times in Scriptures: 2 Sam 22:17 in a Psalm of David that was copied into the Psalter as Psalm 18 (see verse 16), "He drew me out of many waters". The other occurrence of the verb is in Ex 2:10, where Moses is named, "And she named him Moses, and said, "Because I drew him out of the water"."

Since it is highly unlikely that the Egyptian princess was speaking Hebrew when she said it, Moses was probably known by the Egyptian word for Draw Out. Then, when he began to play a role in a Hebrew text, his name must have been subsequently translated into Hebrew.

http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Moses.html
and you must have known that
so why bother to knock down someones claim without telling them the facts at the same time
Are you trying to be funny ?
or just not interested in the E in JREF
Anyway as her daughter was all for wearing a beard on ceremonial occaisons we can take it as said that the Egyptians didn't see the seperation of the sexes in quite the same black and white manner that you do.

 

[refamat]

Perhaps you recognise this cartouche?

[qimg]http://www.yvonneclaireadams.com/HostedStuff/CartoucheAhmose.jpg[/qimg]​

50 points for Gryffindor if you said Queen Ahmose.

I think I've spotted a flaw in your Thutmose = Moses theory.

never was an implication that there was a connection between thutmose and moses and there is no theory. names are names and mose, mosis, moses means "son of", as if the person who portrayed moses, if real, thought of himself the son of a god. the thutmose was showing the various spellings possible...not that thutmose was moses..

 

[refamat]

Are you making this up as you go or did you make it all up some time ago and you're just now publishing it?

actually, it's common knowledge in archaeology

 

[refamat]

Phonetic similarity isn't all there is to it. Different languages can have very similar words develop independently to mean different things. And usage alone shows a big difference between "Moses" and those Egyptian names; just the word "son" by itself doesn't make much of a name.

Are you really that bad of a reader and know so little about Egyptology and the biblical references?

 

[Akhenaten]

One also has to wonder about how judaism, christianity, and islam (Sikhism may as well)end prayers with amen which appears to be a plea or request for the Egyptian god Amun (also spelt Amon, Amoun, Amen) to accept and take their prayer to the heavens.

One does not have to wonder about this because it's nonsense. The reason has been explained to you.

. . . the Enuma Elish is the Babylonian cosmology which tells of the creation of the earth and the character of the one true God (they were practicing proto monotheists 500 years before Akhenaten was in nappies)

The the Enuma Elish itself, quoted above for your convenience, describes a number of gods. This is not, by definition, monotheism.

 

[refamat]

What customs, terms, and traditions are you talking about? I've heard about monotheism itself being borrowed from Egypt but no other details beyond that. (And I don't consider just the fact that they were both monotheist at some point in time to be enough to establish a connection all by itself; it's a simple idea that any culture could think of.)

Do you know so little of jewish history/legend, not to mention Egyptology?
The Egyptians practiced circumcision, qualifying which cuts and parts of meat as suitable to eat, and that it is commonly believed by scholars that the word hebrew was derived from a word that may have meant the peoples who moved into the Nile region during the period between dynasties when there wasn't a consolidated leadership.

 

[Marduk]

The the Enuma Elish itself, quoted above for your convenience, describes a number of gods. This is not, by definition, monotheism.

As it describes a number of Gods who are no longer worshipped you'll need to do some more revision before youre on a level where you can actually respond to my posts with any kind of competence. Or are you going to say that the Bible doesn't mention any other gods either
perhaps you could read this for a full list
http://www.palmyria.co.uk/superstition/biblegods.htm
so by your standard, the bible isn't a monotheistic text at all, I'm sure everyone whos actually read it will be surprised to hear you say that
Fail

The Egyptians practiced circumcision, qualifying which cuts and parts of meat as suitable to eat.

Remind me not to eat any strange looking meat next time I'm in the Near east, thats just not kashrut

 

[Akhenaten]

The fact that certain biblical names are not mentioned in Egyptian archives isn't an issue as much as those that are (Thutmose,sometimes read as Thutmosis or Tuthmosis where mose, mosis, means "son of") and I would like any of the most learned to explain how there isn't a connection there for the name.

never was an implication that there was a connection between thutmose and moses and there is no theory. names are names and mose, mosis, moses means "son of", as if the person who portrayed moses, if real, thought of himself the son of a god. the thutmose was showing the various spellings possible...not that thutmose was moses..

One of these things is not like the other thing.

 

[Marduk]

One of these things is not like the other thing.

disconnection dilemma
Ouch

 

[refamat]

According to Jews, "amen" is a Hebrew word with a translatable meaning, not just "that thing we say at the end of a prayer". Do they also have such an explanation for "Moses"?

You are truly ignorant of the ancient Egyptian , when a people claim an origin within a culture and use words from that culture, they can call it whatever they want, but it's a good bet, they have been told to say that word, in that context for a purpose they may be unaware of...the muslims also have many translations for the word amen. this many meanings for one word the 1st clue that they have no idea what it means and have assigned meaning to suit their own purposes

 

[Marduk]

You are truly ignorant of the ancient Egyptian,

I thought it was a very valid point, and one that you have yet to answer properly.

when a people claim an origin within a culture and use words from that culture, they can call it whatever they want, but it's a good bet, they have been told to say that word, inthat context for other purposes...

The Hebrews do not claim an origin from Egyptian culture, just the opposite in fact, I could recommend the bible here as a good source material, but as you missed all the relevant facts the last time you read it, I don't think there'd be much point suggesting anything to you, you've already (incorrectly) made up your mind

the muslims also have many translations for the word amen. that is the 1st clue that they have no idea what it means and have assigned meaning to suit their own purposes

ahem

Muslims use the word "ʼĀmīn" (Arabic: آمين‎) not only after reciting the first surah (Al Fatiha) of the Qur'an, but also when concluding a prayer or dua, with the same meaning as in Christianity.[29] The Islamic use of the word is the same as the Jewish use of the word.

In Arabic ʼĀmīn simply means "so be it".

I am detecting here some animosity towards any belief but your own,
This precludes you from any understanding of the subject matter as you have an obvious bias towards esoteric christianity and will ignore any contrary facts.

 

[refamat]

To us they are mythology, to them they were stories that were used by the priesthood to teach "basic moral tenets". Enuma Elish for instance was read aloud to the populace during every Akitu festival (twice yearly) and the Enuma Elish is the Babylonian cosmology which tells of the creation of the earth and the character of the one true God (they were practicing proto monotheists 500 years before Akhenaten was in nappies)
"the fact that this is overlooked by some in this thread is an indication of a lack of ancient history knowledge, or just plain biasing against an idea that isn't their own. "

so how do you come to conclusion that there was one true god in the Enuma Elish when others do not (not to mention all the gods named in the epic who were parents or siblings or offspring) but others do say the 18th dynasty did see the foundation for the first monotheistic religion?
In other words, with all the gods and their history listed, there cannot be a one true god, they did not ascribe and distill all the powers and purposes of all the gods down to one god as the 18th dynasty did.

 

[Akhenaten]

You are truly ignorant of the ancient Egyptian , when a people claim an origin within a culture and use words from that culture, they can call it whatever they want, but it's a good bet, they have been told to say that word, in that context for a purpose they may be unaware of...the muslims also have many translations for the word amen. this many meanings for one word the 1st clue that they have no idea what it means and have assigned meaning to suit their own purposes

Is it a good bet that you'll be providing some references for all of these assertions?