"... through this original sacrifice of Abraham a perspective opens up down the millennia"



The Eucharist: Heart of the Church

The Wellspring of Life from the Side of the Lord, Opened in Loving Sacrifice

by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI

....

In all ages, and among all peoples, the ultimate aim of men in their festivals has been to open the door of death. For as long as it does not touch on this question, a festival remains superficial, mere entertainment to anesthetize oneself. Death is the ultimate question, and wherever it is bracketed out there can be no real answer. Only when this question is answered can men truly celebrate and be free. The Christian feast, the Eucharist, plumbs the very depths of death. It is not just a matter of pious discourse and entertainment, of some kind of religious beautification, spreading a pious gloss on the world; it plumbs the very depths of existence, which it calls death, and strikes out an upward path to life, the life that overcomes death. And in this way the meaning of what we are trying to reflect on, in this meditation, becomes clear, what the tradition sums up in this sentence: The Eucharist is a sacrifice, the presentation of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross.
 

Whenever we hear these words, inhibitions arise within us, and in all ages it has always been so. The question arises: When we talk about sacrifice, do we not do so on the basis of an unworthy picture of God, or at least a naive one? Does this not assume that we men should and could give something to God? Does this not show that we think of ourselves as equal partners with God, so to speak, who could barter one thing for another with Him: we give Him something so that He will give us something? Is this not to misapprehend the greatness of God, who has no need of our gifts, because He Himself is the giver of all gifts?
 

But, on the other hand, the question certainly does remain: Are we not all of us in debt to God, indeed, not merely debtors to Him but offenders against Him, since we are no longer simply in the position of owing Him our life and our existence but have now become guilty of offenses against Him? We cannot give Him anything, and in spite of that we cannot even simply assume that He will regard our guilt as being of no weight, that He will not take it seriously, that He will look on man as just a game, a toy.
 

It is to this very question that the Eucharist offers us an answer.
 

First of all, it says this to us: God Himself gives to us, that we may give in turn. The initiative in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ comes from God. In the first place it is He Himself who comes down to us: “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son” (Jn 3:16). Christ is not in the first instance a gift we men bring to an angry God; rather, the fact that He is there at all, living, suffering, loving, is the work of God’s love. He is the condescension of merciful love, who bows down to us; for us the Lord becomes a slave, as we saw in the previous meditation.
 

It is in this sense that, in the Second Letter to the Corinthians, we find the words in which grace calls out to us: “Be reconciled to God” (II Cor 5:20). Although we started the quarrel, although it is not God who owes us anything, but we Him, He comes to meet us, and in Christ He begs, as it were, for reconciliation. He brings to be in reality what the Lord is talking about in the story of the gifts in the Temple, where He says: “If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Mt 5:23f). God, in Christ, has trodden this path before us; He has set out to meet us, His unreconciled children — He has left the temple of His glory and has gone out to reconcile us.
 

Yet we can already see the same thing if we look back to the beginning of the history of faith. Abraham, in the end, does not sacrifice anything he has prepared himself but offers the ram (the lamb) that has been offered to him by God. Thus, through this original sacrifice of Abraham a perspective opens up down the millennia; this lamb in the brambles that God gives him, so that he may offer it, is the first herald of that Lamb, Jesus Christ, who carries the crown of thorns of our guilt, who has come into the thorn bush of world history in order to give us something that we may give.
 

Anyone who correctly comprehends the story of Abraham cannot come to the same conclusion as Tilman Moser in his strange and dreadful book Poisoned by God; Moser reads here the evidence for a God who is as dreadful as poison, making our whole life bitter.3
 

Even when Abraham was still on his way, and as yet knew nothing of the mystery of the ram, he was able to say to Isaac, with trust in his heart: Deus providebit — God will take care of us. Because he knew this God, therefore, even in the dark night of his incomprehension he knew that He is a loving God; therefore, even then, when he found he could understand nothing, he could put his trust in Him and could know that the very one who seemed to be oppressing him truly loved him even then.
 

Only in thus going onward, so that his heart was opened up, so that he entered the abyss of trust and, in the dark night of the uncomprehended God, dared keep company with him, did he thereby become capable of accepting the ram, of understanding the God who gives to us that we may give. This Abraham, in any case, has something to say to all of us.
 

If we are only looking on from outside, if we only let God’s action wash over us from without and only insofar as it is directed toward us, then we will soon come to see God as a tyrant who plays about with the world. But the more we keep Him company, the more we trust in Him in the dark night of the uncomprehended God, the more we will become aware that that very God who seems to be tormenting us is the one who truly loves us, the one we can trust without reserve. The deeper we go down into the dark night of the uncomprehended God and trust in Him, the more we will discover Him and will find the love and the freedom that will carry us through any and every night.

....

Taken from: http://www.adoremus.org/0913Ratzinger.html

Noah and Herakles (Nimrod)

Re our post:

Herakles (Nimrod) Threatens Nereus (Noah)
 

http://westerncivilisationamaic.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/herakles-nimrod-threatens-nereus-noah.html
 

John R. Salverda has commented:
 

Dear Damien,

Here is a remark on the Noah and Nimrod as Nereus and Herakles post, it was too long for a regular comment:

OK, there may have been some "Nimrod" in Herakles. There was certainly some Gilgamesh in him. "The story of Heracles was an early variant of the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic which reached Greece by way of Phoenicia. Gilgamesh has Enkidu for his beloved comrade, Heracles has Iolaus. Gilgamesh is undone by his love for the goddess Ishtar, Heracles by his love for Deianeira. Both are of divine parentage. Both harrow Hell. Both kill lions and overcome divine bulls; and when sailing to the Western Isle Heracles, like Gilgamesh, uses his garment for a sail. Heracles finds the magic herb of immortality as Gilgamesh does, and is similarly connected with the progress of the sun around the Zodiac." (the quote is from Robert Graves "The Greek Myths"). And I'm certainly not opposed to connecting Nereus with Noah. Many ancient "sea gods" can probably be traced back to Noah. Including the Philistine god Dagon, a form of Enki. Which leads me back to the old standby identification with Herakles, Samson. The Philistine fish god was the famous nemesis of Samson, and this enmity is, in my view, also a very likely origin for the icon of Heracles confronting the Merman. Furthermore, many of the enemies of Heracles are characterized as the "son of Poseidon" another famous god of the sea and likely candidate for identification with Dagon.

The story of the death of Samson, seems to occur in the Greek myth of Heracles, in more than one place. Samson, of course, was led a captive to the temple of Dagon where he pushed apart the pillars, killing all who were present. Heracles has the story of Busiris, a son of Poseidon, who tries to offer him up in a temple Herakles summons up his strength and kills the thousands who were there as attendees. Herodotus tells us - which he himself did not believe possible; “The Greeks tell many tales without due investigation, and among them the following silly fable respecting Hercules:- Hercules, they say, went once to Egypt, and there the inhabitants took him, and putting a chaplet on his head, led him out in solemn procession, intending to offer him as a sacrifice to Zeus. For a while he submitted quietly; but when they led him up to the altar and began the ceremonies, he put forth his strength and slew them all. ... Besides this, how is it in nature possible that Heracles, being one person only and moreover a man (as they assert), should slay many myriads?" (“Histories” Book II, p. 45). In this story the land of "Egypt" is plausibly a corruption for the land of "Jacob" and Heracles is Samson.

The story of pushing upon the pillars was also known to the Greeks as a story of Hercules; "But since we have mentioned the pillars of Heracles, we deem it to be appropriate to set forth the facts concerning them. When Heracles arrived at the farthest points of the continents of Libya and Europe which lie upon the ocean, he decided to set up these pillars to commemorate his campaign. And since he wished to leave upon the ocean a monument which would be had in everlasting remembrance, he built out both the promontories, they say, to a great distance; consequently, whereas before that time a great space had stood between them, he now narrowed the passage, in order that by making it shallow and narrow he might prevent the great sea-monsters from passing out of the ocean into the inner sea, and that at the same time the fame of their builder might be held in everlasting remembrance by reason of the magnitude of the structures. Some authorities, however, say just the opposite, namely, that the two continents were originally joined and that he cult a passage between them, and that by opening the passage he brought it about that the ocean was mingled with our sea. On this question, however, it will be possible for every man to think as he may please." (Diodorus Siculus, "Library of History" 4. 18. 4,5). Notice how Diodorus gives Herakles the motivation of protecting us from sea-monsters (again Dagon?) in his manipulation of the pillars.

For all the images of Heracles vs. Nereus, there is very little story about it. But, of what story there is, I must admit that it is very reminiscent of the story of Gilgamesh; "Herakles took hold of him as he lay sleeping, and bound him fast as Nereus changed himself into all sorts of shapes; he did not let him loose until Nereus told him where the apples and the Hesperides were." (Apollodorus, The Library 2. 114). Take note that Herakles like Gilgamesh confronts Nereus as Ut-Napishtim in order to find a way to Hesperidies as Eden.

Now, I do realize that there is a large school of thought that identifies Gilgamesh with Nimrod. However, I am unaware of any legends in which Nimrod confronted Noah.
 

-John R. Salverda

Herakles (Nimrod) Threatens Nereus (Noah)

Taken from: http://www.theparthenoncode.com/features/37NoahsPartIII.htm

....

HERAKLES/NIMROD THREATENS NEREUS/NOAH, BRINGS HIS RULE TO A HALT, AND PUSHES HIM OUT OF THE WAY
PLUS: WHAT THE REBEL HERAKLES—NIMROD—GILGAMESH IS AFTER, AND WHAT HE FEARS

---

Now we’re going to take a look at how Greek vase-painters pitted Herakles/Nimrod against Nereus/Noah in various scenes to depict the takeover of Zeus-religion—the Greeks’ contrary, man-centered religious outlook.

In the above scene, Herakles/Nimrod threatens Nereus/Noah with his club. It’s as if Herakles is saying, “Stay out of the way, Noah, or you’ll get some of this.” Note the serpent attached to Herakles’ belt in the back. The desire to get back to the serpent’s enlightenment is literally “behind” what is going on here.

In the above vase-scene, Nereus/Noah is headed somewhere, but Herakles/Nimrod, who leads the rebellion against his rule, surprises him from behind, making him turn his head. Herakles is literally “strong-arming” Nereus/Noah. Herakles grabs the wrist that holds the scepter, because that is what this is about: taking Noah’s authority and putting a stop to his rule.

In this larger view of the same vase-scene, it looks as if Herakles/Nimrod is saying to Noah as he grabs him from behind, “Hey, where do you think you’re going? It’s over for you. I’m in charge now.”

The scene on this black-figure cup expresses the same theme in a different way. Herakles/Nimrod comes from behind Nereus/Noah and brings his momentum to a halt. Notice how Herakles/Nimrod is leaning back and using his feet for brakes. He’s putting a stop to Noah’s rule. Poseidon, a “brother” of Zeus, advances. He will take over—as Nereus/Noah is stopped and pushed out of the picture. Note that Poseidon now has the trident, once an attribute of Nereus/Noah.

Here we see Nereus/Noah depicted as an old man carrying a trident, a symbol usurped by Poseidon, a “brother” of Zeus and son-in-law of Nereus (Poseidon married his daughter, Amphitrite) who replaced Nereus/Noah as Zeus-religion grew.

This polychrome relief from a small altar again carries the message that Herakles/Nimrod is bringing the momentum of Nereus/Noah to a stop. Herakles comes from behind and grabs Noah by his hair, figuratively bringing Noah and his rule to a halt.

In this scene, Herakles ushers an unresisting Nereus/Noah out of the way. Note again the serpent coiled into Herakles’ belt.

In this similar scene by a different artist, Herakles again pushes an unresisting Nereus/Noah out of the way.

In this scene, Herakles pushes Nereus/Noah out of the way, knocking loose the fish he held in his hand as a symbol of his authority as the one who brought humanity through the Flood. Herakles doesn’t care what Noah has done. His only concern is what he himself is going to do now. What does Herakles want? What is he after?

This ancient shield-band panel tells us what Herakles/Nimrod is after. On it, Noah is called “Halios Geron” meaning “The Salt-Sea Old Man.” He has a snake and a flame emanating from his head, telling us what Herakles is demanding to know—where he can find the enlightenment of the serpent.
Herakles could be saying to Noah, "You tell me where to find the enlightenment of the serpent or else!"

According to Greek “myth,” Nereus/Noah told Herakles where he could find the enlightenment of the serpent that the hero so desperately craved. That place, the serpent-entwined tree with its golden apples, symbolizing the serpent’s enlightenment, is depicted on the above vase. This is the ancient paradise called Eden in Genesis and the Garden of the Hesperides in Greek art (See Chapter 18 of TPC). The women represent the peace and pleasure of paradise. From left to right: Hygeia (Health), Chrysothemis (Golden Order), Asterope (Star Face), and Lipara (Shining Skin).

As we look further to the right in the scene, we see that Herakles has made it there. Of course, Herakles didn’t really get back to the ancient garden; it is a figurative artistic statement: the Greeks will not live under Noah and his God any longer, but will re-embrace the “enlightenment” of the ancient serpent, and live by the fruit of its tree. Zeus-religion celebrates the great change in the post-Flood religious paradigm. Noah and his God are out. The serpent and its enlightenment are back in. Humanity has decided this: man is now the measure of all things.

The eleventh and final tablet (pictured above) of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Mespotamian hero (pictured above), tells the story of a Deluge very similar to the Genesis account of Noah’s Flood. In great fear of death and in search of the meaning of his life, Gilgamesh seeks after the one human believed to be immortal, Utnapishtim, survivor of the world-engulfing Flood. Utnapishtim is the Noah of Genesis and the Nereus of Greek religion. The hero Gilgamesh is the Nimrod of Genesis and the Herakles of Greek religion.
In Genesis 6:9, we read, "Noah is a just man." The ancient Greek poet Hesiod wrote in his Theogony, "And Sea begat Nereus, the eldest of his children, who is true and lies not: and men call him the Old Man because he is trusty and gentle and does not forget the laws of righteousness, but thinks just and kindly thoughts." Utnapishtim (ut nephis tam) in Shemitic/Hebrew means "a living beacon of righteousness."

Greek artists knew of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and they naturally expressed the hero’s fear of death and his demand for knowledge from Noah in terms of his Greek counterpart, Herakles. On the above vase, the hero clings to Nereus/Noah as he looks with dread over his shoulder at the monstrous figure, Kerberos, representing death and Herakles’s fear of it. Nereus/Noah gestures as if he is responding to the plea of Herakles/Nimrod. It appears that the vase-artist is depicting these very words of Gilgamesh from the epic: “Oh woe! What shall I do Utnapishtim? Where shall I go? The snatcher has taken hold of my flesh, in my bedroom, death dwells, and wherever I set my foot, there too is death.”

By the time Greek religion became systematized, Herakles/Nimrod/Gilgamesh had figuratively gotten back to the serpent’s enlightenment in the ancient garden, and overcome his great fear of death. On this reconstructed metope from the temple of Zeus at Olympia, we see that Herakles/Nimrod (pictured with his father, Hermes/Cush) now has Kerberos under control. There is no need for Herakles to fear death any longer: he has conquered the world on behalf of his ancestors in the way of Kain, and they have made him an immortal god as a reward for what he has done for them.
The 12 Labors of Herakles on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia chronicle and celebrate mankind's rebellion after the Flood.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THEM ALL RESTORED IN COLOR BY COMPUTER

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PART I
37 IMAGES OF NEREUS/NOAH (OUT OF THEIR VASE AND SCULPTED CONTEXTS)
PART II
A SHORT PICTORIAL REVIEW OF WHAT GREEK RELIGIOUS ART CHRONICLES AND CELEBRATES
PART III
HERAKLES/NIMROD THREATENS NEREUS/NOAH, BRINGS HIS RULE TO A HALT, AND PUSHES HIM OUT OF THE WAY
PLUS: WHAT THE REBEL HERAKLES—NIMROD—GILGAMESH IS AFTER, AND WHAT HE FEARS
PART IV
IN A DIFFERENT ARTISTIC TRADITION, HERAKLES/NIMROD IS PICTURED AS SEIZING THE AUTHORITY OF NEREUS/NOAH
PART V
THE BEGINNINGS OF ZEUS-RELIGION: THE ZEUS-WORSHIPPER, PELEUS, ABDUCTS THETIS, A DAUGHTER OF NEREUS/NOAH
PART VI
GREEK ARTISTS MAKE NEREUS/NOAH AN UNWILLING WITNESS TO THE RISE AND TAKE-OVER OF ZEUS-RELIGION

Pythagoras as Joseph of Egypt

 

 

[For more on this, see Re-Orienting to Zion the History of Ancient Philosophy
http://westerncivilisationamaic.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/re-orienting-history-of-ancient.html]

 

Having proposed the connection between the patriarch Joseph as the wise Ptah-hotep, and as Thales 'the first philosopher', it is now a small step I believe to connect this sage also to the alleged 'first user of the word philosophy', Pythagoras, thought to have been born at Samos in c. 570 BC. As in the first part of the name Tha-les, so here again in the case of Pyth-agoras, has the Egyptian divine name Ptah been Grecised.

Also once again, as with Thales, do we have the problem of a lack of first-hand written evidence [W. Guthrie, "Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism", Ency. of Phil., Vol. 7, (Collier Macmillan, London, 1972), p. 39]: "The obstacles to an appraisal of classical Pythagoreanism are formidable. There exists no Pythagorean literature before Plato, and it was said that little had been written, owing to a rule of secrecy". These "obstacles" will be seen to be even more "formidable" when, in the Revelation section, I discuss 'Plato' and his era.

Consistently though, Pythagoras, like Thales, was much influenced by Egypt. I suggest in fact that the great Pythagorean contribution to mathematics (numbers, geometry, triangles) may also have been bound up with Egypt and with Imhotep's measuring and other activities as an architect.

Now consider the pattern of the life of Pythagoras and his descendants in relation to Joseph and the family of Israel (the Hebrews). Pythagoras, like Joseph,

(a)               left his home country and settled in a foreign land, founding a society with religious and political, as well as philosophical aims. Compare the Hebrews settling in the eastern Delta of Egypt (Genesis 46:33).

(b)               The society gained power there and considerably extended its influence. Compare this with the growth of Israel in Egypt, and its spreading all over the country (Exodus 1:9, 12). After Pythagoras' death,

(c)                a serious persecution took place. Likewise, about 65 years after Joseph's death, the "new king" of Exodus 1:8, became concerned about the amount of Hebrews in Egypt and resolved upon a cruel plan. Moses was born into this very era - the pyramid-building 4^th dynasty era - at the approximate time that the founder-pharaoh Khufu (Greek Cheops)/Amenemes I had resolved to do something about the increase of Asiatics (including Hebrews) in Egypt. The Prophecies of Neferti, "All good things have passed away, the land being cast away through trouble by means of that food of the Asiatics who pervade the land" (www.touregypt.net/propheciesofneferti.htm). According to Josephus, Khufu was the oppressor of the Hebrews. Tyldesley, op. cit., p. 122.]. The pharaoh thus ordered for all the male Hebrew babies to be slain (Exodus 1:10, 15-16).

(d)               The (Pythagorean) survivors of the persecution scattered. This equates with the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt (Exodus 12)”.

Making Travellers Fit the Bed: Sodom or Attica?

….
 

Rabbinic legends about Sodom describe an area of unusual natural resources, precious stones, silver and gold. Every path in Sodom, say the sages, was lined with seven rows of fruit trees. Eager to keep their great wealth for themselves, and suspicious of outsiders’ desires to share in it, the residents of Sodom agreed to overturn the ancient law of hospitality to wayfarers. The legislation later prohibited giving charity to anyone. One legend claims that when a beggar would wander into Sodom, the people would mark their names on their coins and give him a dinar. However, no one would sell him bread. When he perished of hunger, everyone would come and claim his coin. There was once a maiden who secretly carried bread out to a poor person in the street in her water pitcher. After three days passed and the man didn’t die, the maiden was discovered. They covered the girl with honey and put her atop the city walls, leaving her there until bees came and ate her. Hers was the cry that came up to God, the cry that inaugurated the angelic visit and its consequences.

Another famous rabbinic tale mirrors the Greek myth of Procrustes. Both the Jewish and Greek stories are about beds that invert the ethic of hospitality. In Sodom, they had a bed for weary guests upon which they might rest. However, when the wayfarer would lie down, they made sure that he fit the bed perfectly. A short man was stretched to fit it and a tall man was cut to size. The Midrash tells us that Eliezer, Abraham’s loyal servant, was once offered to lie upon it but he declined, claiming that since his mother died he pledged not to have a pleasant night’s sleep on a comfortable bed. In the Greek myth, Procrustes (meaning “he who stretches”) kept a house by the side of the road for passing strangers. He offered them a warm meal and a bed that always fit whomever lay upon it. Once laying upon it, he would likewise cut off the legs of those too long or stretch those too short. Theseus, the hero of the Greek tale, turns the tables on Procrustes and fatally adjusts him to his own bed.

The people of Sodom are not only protective of their wealth and punishing of acts of charity; they are also desperate to force everyone to fit a single measure. They have a well-to-do gated community that makes sure no beggars disturb their luxury and peace. They have zoned out poverty. But what makes Sodom the “right” kind of neighborhood is that no difference is tolerated. “Our kind” of folk are welcomed and protected, while all the rest are excluded or eliminated. It can hardly be incidental that the locus of this one-size-fits-all violence is a bed that serves as a guillotine and a rack. The place of sleep, comfort, and sexual pleasure in Sodom has been transformed into a place of threat and malice, a device of torture for strangers.

Eliezer saves himself from being amputated or stretched by the mourning of his mother. Mourning the dead is a particularly selfless expression of relationship and love. The people of Sodom treat all who are not inside the walls as being as good as dead; Eliezer treats the dead with an honor and presence that makes their memory a living reality. Sodom is a place where compassion is punished brutally, as the story of the young maiden suggests. Eliezer is saved from Sodom’s evil not by his sword or cunning, as is Theseus in the Greek myth, but by his own loving beyond all boundaries or benefit-by a loving which, like a mother’s love, has no reasons.

http://www.jewishmosaic.org/torah/show_torah/48

Procrustes, also called Polypemon, Damastes, or Procoptas, in Greek legend, a robber dwelling somewhere in Attica—in some versions, in the neighbourhood of Eleusis. His father was said to be Poseidon. Procrustes had an iron bed (or, according to some accounts, two beds) on which he compelled his victims to lie. Here, if a victim was shorter than the bed, he stretched him by hammering or racking the body to fit. Alternatively, if the victim was longer than the bed, he cut off the legs to make the body fit the bed’s length. In either event the victim died. Ultimately Procrustes was slain by his own method by the young Attic hero Theseus, who as a young man slayed robbers and monsters whom he encountered while traveling from Trozen to Athens.

The “bed of Procrustes,” or “Procrustean bed,” has become proverbial for arbitrarily—and perhaps ruthlessly—forcing someone or something to fit into an unnatural scheme or pattern.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/477822/Procrustes

Gavin Ardley has brilliantly applied the notion of the Procrustean bed to his philosophy of science in Aquinas and Kant. E.g.:

REVIEWS

Aquinas and Kant, Gavin Ardley, Longmans Green & Co., London, 1950.

Pp. x + 256. 18s,

THE author of this book is greatly perturbed about the ultimate basis of our

knowledge of the universe, and the conflicting character of modern thought

in philosophy and physics. And well he may be. The rise of Neo-

Thomism in one form or another is a feature of our generation. No
less marked, however, is the advance of theoretical physics associated
with the names of Poincari, Eddington, and one or two others of comparable
calibre. Again, as Mr Ardley remarks, St Thomas Aquinas and Kant seem
strange bedfellows indeed, as Aristotle and the Fathers were aforetime.
Observing that the latter pair were eventually ' reconciled,' he believes
that a corresponding state of bliss for the former couple is only a matter
of time. Kant's idea of a physicist was that of an extremely active person,
by no means content to receive laws from nature, but perpetually engaged
in the task of formulating laws of his own which he ' fastened ' upon
nature, and to which she was obliged to conform. All that is said about
the Procrustean bed and the chopper is most apt, and indeed on this view,
deserved. Nevertheless, according to Mr Ardley, it is a grave error to
imagine that this coercive technique is intrinsically necessary ; it is merely
a device to secure power for mankind.
Over against this stands metaphysics in serene detachment, ready
as always to admit the practical advantages o f saving appearances,' whether
in classical physics or in modern metrical technology, but claiming the
absolute title to the possession of philosophical truth. Seldom has the
precept' between us and you there is a great gulf fixed . . .' been restated
in starker form. Why, therefore, it is asked, are we in fact confronted
with physics heaping triumph upon triumph in almost every department
of twentieth-century life ? Mr Ardley replies in efiect that had a divergent
system of ' categorisation' been set up, things might have worked out
differently. This riposte is very disappointing, being nothing short of
wholly irrelevant, since what we want to know is why physics, as commonly
understood, should be any good at all.
No reasonable person has anything but reverence for the philosophia
paennis, yet this book cannot be said to have helped to bring the natural
sciences of to-day within its broad and generous frontiers. Unfortunately,
too, Mr Ardley's style lacks attractiveness ; it is rather that of a school-teacher
admonishing an unwilling class, and underlining for them, as he goes along,
what they are meant to learn by heart.

IAN RAWLINS

http://bjps.oxfordjournals.org/content/II/6/167.full.pdf

Dick Gagel asks "isn't the XII [Dynasty of Egypt] too early?" for Moses.

Dear Damien,

I must have had your paper on Moses ages ago, made my notes in the margin but never shared my understanding of the man's early life with you.

Used the following to gainsay those who called him and the Exodus "a myth".

It would appear we differ on both dynasties and chronology - isn't the XII too early?

MOSES was a general, as fully described by Josephus in Antiquities, Book II, ch X.

In ch XI, after he had virtually saved Egypt as its victorious general over the Ethiopians/Cushites, he had to flee for his life from an assassination plot. He was heir to a throne in Egypt as the ruler had a daughter but no grandchildren. Josephus: "if Moses had been slain, there was no one, either a kin or adopted, that had any oracle on his side for pretending to the crown of Egypt." Here are our clues - a dynasty in which Moses is General, and one which effectively ended at the point in history that Moses fled and did not regain authority in the land. There is such a dynasty which also exercised jurisdiction in the Northeastern Delta where Israel dwelt and Moses was found - Dynasty XIII.

The total length of this dynasty according to Africanus' and Eusebius' epitomes from Manetho was 453 years under 60 rulers. But the version of Barbarus provides a missing detail from Manetho. It reveals that for a time the court was not only at Thebes, but at Bubastis in the Delta for the first 153 years (Alfred Schoene's edition of Eusebius, p. 214).

In the Turin Canon catalogue of kings of the thirteenth dynasty, listed number 17, is "The General" with the throne name of Semenkhkare (Gardiner's Egypt of the Pharaohs, p. 440; and Weigall's History of the Pharaohs, pp 136, 151-152). The Egyptian word for "the General" was Mermeshoi - not in all dynastic history does this title appear again as the personal name of a ruler of Egypt.

When Moses was made General or Commander of the Troops, he automatically inherited royal authority, as only kings could have the supreme command of the army, explaining his appearance in the list. Before the rise to power of this famous General, the thirteenth dynasty was of Asiatic blood. Its kings at time bore the epithet "the Asiatic" - hence no basic prejudice in adopting the Hebrew child Moses into the family. (See volume II, ch II of the revised Cambridge Ancient History, ed.1962.)

The sixteenth king listed in the Turin Canon - just before "the General" - is Userkare Khendjer - the latter being an un-Egyptian personal name. He ruled over the Delta as well as Upper Egypt. A pyramid of his has been found at South Saqqara. No descendant of his is known to have succeeded to the throne. Though nothing more is known of this man's family, every evidence points to him as the Pharaoh whose daughter is mentioned in the book of Exodus. Within a few years the influence of this dynasty in the eastern Delta ceased.

The kings of this obscure period often have their names associated with king Neferkare (Turin Canon) on royal seals who is Phiops of Manetho, and commonly known as Pepi the Great. Here is the final proof that these minor rulers of Dynasty XIII were contemporaneous with the last great Pharaoh of the sixth dynasty of Memphis - the pharaoh of the Oppression. More than one name on a scarab has puzzled many historians, who view Egypt as generally ruled by one king at a time, but literally hundreds of such seals have been found. They are generally treated with discreet silence, for the implication of these seals would revolutionise the history of Egypt. (See The Sceptre of Egypt, by William C Hayes,, Vol.I, p.342)

Moses is finally able to return to Egypt "and it came to pass in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died" (Ex. 2:23) confirms that it was a long wait as Pepi the Great ruled for 94 years and died at age 100, succeeded by his son Menthesuphis (Manetho) or Merenre II-Antyemzaef (Turin Canon) - the Pharaoh of the Exodus who ruled only one year 1487-1486, perishing in the Red Sea.

His widow Nitocris (Manetho) or Nitokerty (Turin Canon) ruled 12 years, followed by their son Neferka "the younger" - his first born elder brother and heir presumptive having died at the time of the Exodus.

Manetho ends his list here as the invading Hyksos having by then taken full control of the country with their Dynasty XV and ruled Egypt for the next 400 years.

I feel we are on safe ground to designate Pepi the Great as the oppressive pharaoh. Userkare Kendjer with an ethnic affinity with the Hebrews does not strictly apply the rules emanating from Memphis by elevating Moses who must later have gained huge popularity following his military success. Those factors may well have raised serious concerns at Memphis HO, prompting Pepi the Great to seek Moses' death by giving those assassination orders to the Bubastis court, and also maintaining his fatwa against Moses till the end of his life and reign.

Best regards
....

Damien Mackey replies:

 
Dear Dick

I just remembered that I, a few months ago, wrote a proposed synthesis of the biblical era, from Abraham to the Exodus, with the corresponding Egyptian history (and archaeology). See my:
 

Connecting the Biblical Patriarchs to Ancient Egypt

 

http://moseseditor.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/connecting-biblical-patriarchs-to.html

 

The article still has to be finished, but it already contains the basis of what my view is. Fundamental to my reconstruction are the following (after that I am tentative):
 

-The archaeological period from Abram at the time of the four Mesopotamian kings, to the Exodus, is bookended by Abram in Late Chalcolithic and Ghassul IV (Transjordan) and the Exodus Israelites as the Middle Bronze I (MBI) people.

-According to this archaeological evidence, Abram was contemporaneous with pharaoh Narmer, who may even have been the Pharaoh of Abram and Sarai. This latter, the biblical Abimelech pharaoh of Abraham and Isaac, was clearly a very long-reigning ruler, which would suit pharaoh Aha, the first dynastic king (who may have been Narmer, and Menes).

-Joseph is surely Imhotep, and Ptah-hotep.

-I fully accept the expert testimony of Dr R. Cohen (Israelites as MBI) and Professor Emmanuel Anati (Har Karkom is Mount Sinai).

-Anati notes (and I accept this) that the story of the Egyptian Sinuhe shares ‘a common matrix’ with that of Moses fleeing Egypt for Midian. (Obviously there are some vast differences as well between these two tales). That nails Moses to Late Amenemes I and early Sesostris I. Revisionists have found some striking 12^th dynasty correlations with the Exodus account (e.g. those bricks mixed with straw).

-The MBI people do just what the Israelites did in their trek through the Paran desert,
Transjordania and into Palestine, where Early Bronze Jericho falls.
 

The 13^thdynasty may possibly be partly contemporaneous with the life of Moses.

But be careful. The name, “Moses”, did not mean “General”. It was given to Moses with the meaning of being “drawn from the water” (Exodus 2:10): “She named him Moses, saying, "I drew him out of the water”." So that might shake your correspondence between Mermoshis and Userkare K.

(Perhaps Joseph, not Moses, was more likely to have left a dynasty of Asiatics).

You will see that I, too, have the 6^th dynasty contemporaneous with the era of Moses, though I have not yet been able fully to integrate it all. Given my synthesis of dynasties (following Courville’s clue but not his model), then some 13^th dynasty princes (or whatever they were) may well have been contemporaneous with the 6^th dynasty’s Neferkare (Pepi the Great).

But Pepi the Great was not a founder, a “new king” (exodus 1:8), so you perhaps need to allow for two major pharaohs before the Pharaoh of the Oppression: namely, the founder Pharaoh and then, as according to the Artapanus tradition, the “Chenephres”(Neferkare?) who married Moses’ Egyptian ‘mother’, “Merris” (Meresankh, or Meres-ankh).

Artapanus’s“Chenephres” (Neferkare) and “Merris” pattern is fulfilled both with Chephren and Ankhesenmerire (i.e. Meresankh), in the 4^th dynasty, and perhaps with Huni (Neferkare) and Meresankh, as explained in the above article, in relation to Sneferu (as Moses).

Merenre, followed by Nitocris, then the Hyksos, is a pattern that I, too, have previously proposed for the finale – but without properly having been able to blend the entire 6^th dynasty with the biblical picture.
 

I hope that this is helpful

Damien.

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Parallels in the lives of Jacob and Joseph.



There are many similarities between Jacob the son of Isaac and Rebekah and Joseph the son of Jacob and Rachel. (Everything in Italics is from Louis Ginzberg's - Legends of the Jews - Volume 2. - I don't recommend it)

1. As the mother of Jacob remained childless for a long time after her marriage, so also the mother of Joseph.

a. Rebekah and Isaac had to wait twenty years before having their twin boys Jacob and Esau

b. In the first place Rachel had to wait 14 years to even marry Jacob because Uncle Laban had tricked Jacob into marrying Leah. Then Everyone was having children but Rachel who eventually died giving birth to Benjamin.

2. As Jacob's mother bore two sons, so also Joseph's mother.

a. Rebekah bore two sons, Jacob and Esau.

b. Rachel bore two sons, Joseph and Benjamin.

3. Like the father, the son appropriated his older brother's birthright.

a. Jacob received the birthright from Esau because Esau sold it to him for a bowl of soup.

b. Joseph received the birthright for a few reasons.

i. The first is the Reuben the firstborn son, tried to take over the family in an incestuous way and fell out of his fathers favor.

ii. The second was that Rachel was Jacobs favorite wife and therefore her children were his favorite children, Joseph being the eldest.

4. The father was hated by his brother, and the son was hated by his brethren.

a. Jacob was hated by his brother Esau because not only had Esau lost the birthright for a bowl of soup, but he lost the blessing from his father Isaac because Jacob tricked Isaac into giving it to him.

b. Joseph was hated by his brothers because he was clearly the favorite of his father and he kept having these dreams that his brothers would one day bow down to him, and he told his brothers the dreams.

5. The father was the favorite son as compared with his brother, so was the son as compared with his brethren.

a. Isaac actually favored Esau for a while because he was a hunter cooked food just like Isaac wanted. After he lost the blessing and birthright though, he married some pagan women just to spite his parents.

b. Joseph was the favorite because he was from the favorite wife, as stated earlier.

6. Both the father and the son lived in the land of the stranger.

a. Jacob lived in Haran

b. Joseph lived in Egypt

7. The father became a servant to a master, also the son.

a. Jacob was a servant to Uncle Laban for at least 14 years trying to get permission to marry Rachel.

b. Joseph was a servant in Egypt.

8. The master whom the father served was blessed by God, so was the master whom the son served.

a. While Jacob was in the service of Laban, God blessed the house of Laban.

b. While Joseph served Potiphar and Pharaoh in Egypt, both were blessed by his presence.

9. The father and the son were both blessed with wealth.

10. Great things were announced to the father in a dream, so also to the son.

11. As the father went to Egypt and put an end to famine, so the son.

12. As the father exacted the promise from his sons to bury him in the Holy Land, so also the son.

13. The father died in Egypt, there died also the son.

14. As the father's remains were carried to the Holy Land for interment, so also the remains of the son.

The significance of these parallels.

As we have seen in other bible tidbits Joseph is a type of Christ figure. And as such I think that it is saying he is so like his father that they do the same things, just like Joseph and Jacob do the same things.

But if we can step back even further we see parallels between Abraham and Isaac. Both bear two children, one blessed, one not so blessed. They both have a hard time conceiving and there are more.

I think in a spiritual interpretation Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph all tell the story of salvation.

Abraham is a type for God the Father who offers his son Isaac as a sacrifice.

Isaac as a type of Christ gives birth to Jacob who is a types of the church with the twelve sons.

The sons of Israel (meaning the church) are sent to the nations to feed them, spiritually and physically.