Significant Find by the Israel Antiquities Authority

[Minimalist]

http://www.antiquities.org.il/about_eng.asp?Modul_id=14

A 3,300 Year Old Coffin was Exposed Containing the Personal Belongings of a Wealthy Canaanite – Possibly an Official of the Egyptian Army

Among the items discovered – a gold signet ring bearing the name of the Egyptian pharaoh Seti I

The rare artifacts were uncovered during excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority near Tel Shadud, prior to the installation of a natural gas pipeline to Ramat Gavriel by the Israel Natural Gas Lines Company

What is most important is:

The discovery of the coffin at Tel Shadud is evidence of Egyptian control of the Jezreel Valley in the Late Bronze Age (thirteenth century BCE). During the period when the pharaohs governed the country, Egyptian culture greatly influenced the local Canaanite upper class.

Somehow the fucking bible manages to miss this period of history altogether.

[Anomalocaris]

Somehow the fucking bible manages to miss this period of history altogether.

You expect originators of OT myth - a bunch of provincial, wishthinking, wife beating, illiterate, self-important, self-righteous, thuggish, sheep fucking yokels - to keep an accurate account of someone else's history?

[Minimalist]

Nope but it is good to have tangible evidence that they are full of shit!

Annoys the piss out of the fundies.

[Confused Ape]

I've been trying to find out more.

The Battles of Armageddon

The link leads to P37 which says -

The details of Labayu's attempt at empire building are known from ten letters sent to Pharaoh Amenhotep 111 and his son and successor, Akhenaten ..

I then ended up on wikipedia - Akhenaten - International Relations

This letter shows that Akhenaten paid close attention to the affairs of his vassals in Canaan and Syria. Akhenaten commanded Aziru to come to Egypt and proceeded to detain him there for at least one year. In the end, Akhenaten was forced to release Aziru back to his homeland when the Hittites advanced southwards into Amki, thereby threatening Egypt's series of Asiatic vassal states, including Amurru.[39] Sometime after his return to Amurru, Aziru defected to the Hittite side with his kingdom.[40] While it is known from an Amarna letter by Rib-Hadda that the Hittites "seized all the countries that were vassals of the king of Mitanni" (EA 75)[41] Akhenaten managed to preserve Egypt's control over the core of her Near Eastern Empire (which consisted of present-day Israel as well as the Phoenician coast) while avoiding conflict with the increasingly powerful Hittite Empire of Suppiluliuma I.

Akhenaten was the Pharaoh who imposed a monotheistic religion on Egypt.

Back to the Israel Antiquities Authority article.

http://www.antiquities.org.il/about_eng.asp?Modul_id=14

Nobody knows if the body is of a Canaanite or an Egyptian person who was buried in Canaan but ....

During the period when the pharaohs governed the country, Egyptian culture greatly influenced the local Canaanite upper class. Signs of Egyptian influence are occasionally discovered in different regions and this time they were revealed at Tel Shadud and in the special tomb of the wealthy Canaanite.

What does this all mean? Haven't a clue other than it might have something to do with the origins of the Moses myth.

[Brian37]

Wait, so finding evidence of polytheism of both Egypt and the Canaanites, should prove that the Hebrew cult was a spinoff. But somehow Jews will spin this to mean they got it right despite the fact the other two were around prior. Still doesn't make their Lilith story or an other fantastic claim in their texts true.

They simply found a man who believed in the superstitions of his time.

---

They shoehorned Moses in after the fact. There were no Jewish slaves in Egypt. There certainly would have been mixing of Egyptian and Mesopotamian polytheism considering the close geographical proximity.

The idea of a "rebel" slave is not new to Hebrews. Humans like the idea of an underdog and "Moses" would have been a character name based upon the myths of polytheism that got filtered through time ending up in Hebrew Text.

No different than El, Elohim and Yahweh all being names taken from the Ugartic text from the Canaanite Polytheism to be later used by the Hebrews.

[truthBtold]

They will have better luck finding one of the passengers earrings from the missing plane then they will find anything left over in the dessert from the flight from Egypt. .

[The Valkyrie]

This is an awesome find. I was reading about it on the train this morning

Love archaeology

[Minimalist]

You have some great questions in there, Ape. Amenhotep III was one of the most powerful Egyptian rulers, ever. His son, initially Amenhotep IV was something of a nut who moved the capital to Amarna, began worshiping the Aten (sun) and changed his name to Akhenaten. At the end of his rule his reforms were overturned, the capital returned to Thebes, and his infant sun, Tutankhamun - originally Tutankhaten - became pharaoh at about the age of 8-9. Obviously, he was under the control of his handlers, notably Ay who became pharoah on Tuts' death. Ay reigned for only a short time and was succeeded by Horemheb who was the last king of the 18th dynasty.

So what we see is a period of internal weakness in Egypt during which the Hittites took advantage and moved south into Syrian (or Hurrian as it was then known) regions. Egyptian hegemony over Canaan remained intact however. Subsequently, the 19th Dynasty pharaohs, Seti I and Ramesses II, stabilized the border, Ramesses fought the Hittites to a draw at Kadesh and subsequently a peace treaty was worked out which established the respective spheres of influence between the Hittites and Egypt. Said treaty remained unbroken until the Hittites were overrun by the Sea People, local enemies or internal rebellion....or a combination of the 3.

By the way, the Amarna tablets also give us the name of the ruler of Jerusalem in the 14th century BC: Abdi Heba(t) The name is a theophoric. meaning "Servant of Heba(t)." Hebat being a goddess from the aforementioned Hurrian region. Thus, it appears that as is customary with empires, a commander from another region was brought in to rule. The Russian Tzars used to do that with the Cossacks all the time! It does give some suggestion of the cosmopolitan nature of the Egyptian Empire in Canaan, though.

[Confused Ape]

Wait, so finding evidence of polytheism of both Egypt and the Canaanites, should prove that the Hebrew cult was a spinoff. But somehow Jews will spin this to mean they got it right despite the fact the other two were around prior. Still doesn't make their Lilith story or an other fantastic claim in their texts true.

They simply found a man who believed in the superstitions of his time.

The only thing we can say is true is that the people who became the Israelites were once ruled by Pharaohs. They didn't have to be in Egypt for that, however, because they lived in an area which was part of the Egyptian empire.

There's a thread somewhere in these forums where Minimalist and I were discussing the Hyksos who took over Lower Egypt. They were finally driven out by Ahmose 1. (Avaris in the following quote was the Hyksos capital in their part of Egypt).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyksos#Under_Ahmose

After the fall of Avaris, the fleeing Hyksos were pursued by the Egyptian army across northern Sinai and into southern Canaan.

Then there's the idea that the plagues of Egypt were the result of the Santorini eruption.

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/24/scienc...xodus.html

Egypt didn't have to suffer all the effects because the rest could have been heard about from travellers' tales.

If you want a good myth for religious and political purposes you could take bits and pieces from various sources and cobble them together into the story of Moses and the Exodus. It wouldn't matter that the different sources were events which happened hundreds of years apart.

[Minimalist]

"Moses" would have been a character name based upon the myths of polytheism

Amusingly, the root form "mss" (moses, messes, or mosis) in Egyptian meant "born to" or "son of." Thus, Thutmoses meant "Born to Thoth," Ramesses meant "Born to Ra" and Ahmoses meant "Born to Ah."

"Moses" by itself, in Egyptian, would mean "Born to Fucking Nobody!"