can even include 'Ramp'), reaching to heaven and back (Genesis 28:12) [900]. The pyramids have indeed been likened to 'stairways' to facilitate the pharaohs ascending to the heavens.
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Original Historical Documents |
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The Lost and Found Cultural Foundations
of Western Civilization
Damien F. Mackey (February 29, 2004) |
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Eastern Foundations The Toledoth of Genesis Hammurabi Rescuing Solomon Lord's Day History Commentary on Judith Brutus - Danger to Liberty
Introduction | (a) Thales as the Patriarch Joseph
The Real Joseph Passes from Memory Law and Government
(a) Greek and Phoenician 'Moses-like Myths'
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Literature |
The Iliad and The Odyssey Comparisons Between Jesus and Socrates
Socrates as Jesus
Disclaimer: The views here expressed are solely those of the author and may not be shared by CIAS in their entirety.
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Introduction This article is continued in `The Lost and Found Cultural Foundations of Eastern Civilization'. Tracing the Judaeo-Israelite Origins of Metaphysics The impact of the ancient Near East (particularly Israel) upon our western civilization has been enormously underestimated, with practically all the glory - except in religion - going to the Greeks and the Romans. It is typical for us to read in the context of our western upbringing and education, in favour of Greco-Roman philosophy [10], politics and literature, statements such as: "Our European civilization rests upon two pillars: Judeo Christian revelation, its religious pillar, and Greco-Roman thought, its philosophical and political pillar" [50]. "The Iliad is the first and the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilization - an epic poem without rival in the literature of the world, and the cornerstone of Western culture" [100]. "Virgil's Aeneid, inspired by Homer and inspiration for Dante and Milton, is an immortal poem at the heart of Western life and culture" [150]. Nor do we, even as followers of Jesus, tend to experience any discomfort in the face of the above claims. After all, Jesus only said "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22); not philosophy, not literature, not politics. But is not "salvation" also wholly civilizing? Yes, it most certainly is. And it will be the purpose of this article to show that philosophy and other cultural benefits are also essentially from the Jews [200], and that the Greeks, Romans and others appropriated these Jewish-laid cornerstones of civilization, claiming them as their own, but generally corrupting them. Let us start with philosophy. The typical textbook introductions to philosophy begin with an explanation of the meaning of the term, "philosophy", and introduce us to the first philosopher. These are all purely Greek based. The word "philosophy" first used by Pythagoras, thought to be an Ionian Greek from Samos, is a Greek word meaning "love of wisdom"; with sophia "wisdom", originally having a broad meaning and referring to the cultivation of learning in general.[250] And the first philosopher? Well, he also is said to be Greek [300]: "The first philosopher on record is a man called Thales. Thales lived at the beginning of the sixth century B.C., at Miletus, a Greek colony on the coast of Asia Minor". Unfortunately there is a complete "absence of primary sources" for Thales who "left no written documents" [350]. And this is where the problem lies. The real existence of Thales as an Ionian Greek of the C6th BC is wide open to doubt. To Thales is attributed a prediction in astronomy that was quite impossible for an Ionian Greek - or anyone else - to have estimated so precisely in the C6th BC. He is said to have predicted a solar eclipse that occurred on 28 May 585 BC during a battle between Cyaxares the Mede and Alyattes of Lydia [400]. This supposed incident has an especial appeal to the modern rationalist mind because it - thought to have been achieved by a Greek, and 'marking the birthday of western science' - was therefore a triumph of the rational over the religious. According to Glouberman, for instance, it was "… a Hellenic Götterdämerung, the demise of an earlier mode of thought" [450]. Oh really? Well, it never actually happened. O. Neugebauer [500], astronomer and orientalist, has completely knocked on the head any idea that Thales could possibly have foretold such an eclipse.
Other, lesser known Greek thinkers, include: (1) Anaximander (ca. 611-547 BC) and apparently known only from the writings of Diodorus (late 1st cent. BC). Anax. is said to have held the view that man derived from aquatic, fish-like mermen,; (2) Empedocles (ca. 490-430) according to Aristotle's writings (??), is said to have believed in the spontaneous generation of life, an idea also held by the Roman Lucretius (96?-55 BC). We see how far back such incredulous ideas reach. That is why the historian Herbert Butterfield said, that the science of the Middle Ages and Renaissance had as its basis the `knowledge' and ideas of the ancient Greeks who were steeped in superstitions. That is also why we discover that, if the Greeks did not mention a particular subject or discuss a specific proble, the Renaissance as a rule did not think about it. (a) Thales as the Patriarch Joseph (c. C17th BC) Ironically, the clue to Thales' identity lies in Glouberman's own title "Jacob's Ladder …", and in his contrast of Thales' scientific method with Joseph's supposedly 'magical' one [550]: "… Thales forecast the bumper crop by observing climatic regularities, not by interpreting dreams of lean kine and fat…". Here we have Thales, not in Ionia, but in Egypt, doing, in Egypt, what Joseph is said to have done there, predicting the rise of the Nile - at least that is what would have been necessary in Egypt for the exceptionally good crop that Joseph had predicted (Genesis 41:29). To one familiar with the ancient Egyptian language, the name Thales immediately calls to mind the Egyptian theophoric (god-name) Ptah. I shall come back to this.
One can see how the Greeks distorted Joseph in their character, Thales, though the original Genesis thread can still be picked up: thus,
- a young man A further Egyptian link between Thales and Joseph occurs in the legend that Thales measured the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Whilst this too never actually happened, we might delve a bit to find the historical fact behind the legend. Following our Joseph = Thales lead, we need to find out who Joseph was in Egyptian dynastic history, and what connection he had with the pyramids. Joseph has been identified as Imhotep, Vizier to Egypt's 3rd dynasty. Chetwynd [600] has drawn up a list of impressive parallels between Imhotep and Joseph; not least of which being his connection with a seven-year famine (cf. Genesis 41:54). Wildung has likened Imhotep in his versatility to Leonardo da Vinci [650]. Hurry has described him as "one of the few men of genius recorded in the history of ancient Egypt: he is one of the fixed stars in the Egyptian firmament" [700]. Imhotep would go down in dynastic history as one of two Egyptian "saints" [750], even being deified by the later Ptolemaïc generations. Imhotep is credited with having been the inventor of stone-built architecture [800]. He was also the architect of the very first pyramid, the Step Pyramid at Saqqara; remarkably well preserved after the passing of millennia. Apparently even the pyramids were therefore an Israelite, not an Egyptian, invention [850].
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If Thales were Joseph, then he would never even have seen the famous trio of Giza pyramids which only became a reality during the next dynasty, the 4th. But he would certainly have been associated with measuring a pyramid (viz. the Step Pyramid) as the Thales' legends say. But why would Joseph, as Imhotep, have built the magnificent Step Pyramid in the first place? Might I suggest that this was a material icon of his father Jacob's vision of the Ladder, or Stairway (the Hebrew word can even include 'Ramp'), reaching to heaven and back (Genesis 28:12) [900]. The pyramids have indeed been likened to 'stairways' to facilitate the pharaohs ascending to the heavens.
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The mighty pyramids of stone That wedge-like cleave the desert airs When nearer seen, and better known, Are but gigantic flights of stairs. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: The Ladder of St Augustine Imhotep/Joseph in his old age would almost certainly now be the wise sage in Egypt's early history, Ptah-hotep, who not only lived to be 110 years of age, exactly the age of Joseph at death (Genesis 50:26), but whose wisdom writings resemble the Hebrew Proverbs [950]. Now Ptah-hotep was a real, attested historical person of Egypt's Old Kingdom, who, unlike Thales, has left us his writings; but from whom the name Thales must have arisen. Regarding Egyptian theophorics/divinities, we need to keep in mind what Mallon wrote almost fifty years ago about "the multiplicity being superficial", that [1000]: "The supreme Creator god was called Atûm at Heliopolis; at Memphis, Ptah; … Amon at Thebes …". It was thus a multiplicity of names, not beings. I include this comment to account for my proposal that Joseph could be named both Im-hotep and Ptah-hotep [1050]. The exact theophoric in the name would depend on from which location in Egypt he was being referred to at the time. Having made 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 [1100]: "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). The Real Joseph Passes from Memory Joseph's father Jacob had closed his own family history (toledôt) at Genesis 37:2(a), and then there commences the story of Joseph from the age of 17 to the end of the Book of Genesis (37:2b-50:26); most of which section Joseph himself could have written from an eye witness point of view, though certainly not the account of his death and embalming in Egypt. Joseph's section of Genesis is, not surprisingly, saturated with Egyptianisms. Joseph must indeed have had a profound influence upon Egypt considering his status in the land as second only to pharaoh (Genesis 41:40) and the fact that he lived in that fame and in peace for 80 years, from age 30-110 (Genesis 41:46; 50:26). Memory of Joseph though must have begun to fade during the new régime of pharaoh Amenemes I, who proclaimed his reign as a new beginning, a 'Renaissance Era' (Egyptian wehem meswt). The great Imhotep, still known a millennium and a half later in Greco-Roman times!
As the Book of Exodus describes it, "Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph" (1:8). The biblical statement surely does not mean that the new pharaoh had never heard of Joseph. Rather, what "did not know" means in the sense of the Hebrew word "know" ( This Pythagoras himself, like Imhotep - the true Joseph - underwent a kind of canonization in Ptolemäic times, becoming a patron saint of medicine. In this context it is interesting to note that [1250]: "Imhotep is the earliest physician of whom historical records have survived". And: "Joseph commanded his servants the physicians …" (Genesis 50:2). Perhaps closer to Greco-Roman memory, in regard to Imhotep's 'medicinal' skills, would be the cures that the "saint" was supposed to have effected due to petitions at his statues, much worn-down by centuries of pious human touch [1300]. "… the cult of Imhotep was to spread from Alexandria to Meroe …, and even survived the pharaonic civilization itself by finding a place in Arab tradition, especially at Saqqara, where his tomb was supposed to be located" [1350]. Joseph was a philosopher in that word's deepest meaning as a 'lover of wisdom' (cf. Book of Wisdom 10:13-14), being the most "discerning and wise" person in the entire Egyptian kingdom (Genesis 41:39). Wisdom, "the spirit of God" (v. 38), guided all of his actions, and these ranged from religious, to architectural, to political, to social, to literary, to medicinal. The Israelites did not think to confine God just to their religion, but included him in all of their life's activities. Wisdom was all-embracing with reference to God. Similarly for Pythagoras, religion and science were two aspects of the same integrated world view (symbolized by the upward and downward stairway?). The whole of life was ordered with a view to following God. Purity was to be sought by abstention from the flesh. A classical example of this would be Joseph's flight from Potiphar's seductive wife (Genesis 39:7-20). This reaction on the part of Joseph may have been grounded in the knowledge he had about the sins of his brothers (Genesis 34). We shall now find that this last story was known right across the ancient world, from Greece to Mesopotamia. The story, which can be read in full in Genesis 39:6-20 - probably written by Joseph himself, from personal memory - apparently became well-known in the ancient world [1400]: "It has already been repeatedly demonstrated that most of the motifs in the Joseph story are more or less euphemerized motifs of the Tammuz-Adonis myth". And [1450]: "In the W-S [West Semitic] world, the motif of the "chaste youth" was very widespread", wrote Astour, a master at detecting the Semitic influence underlying Greek legends.
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The woman who attempted to seduce the handsome young Joseph was the un-named wife of one Potiphar, pharaoh's captain of the guard, who had bought Joseph from the Ishmaelites (var. Midianites), to whom Joseph's brothers had sold him for twenty pieces of silver (Genesis 37:28; 39:1). Joseph, though innocent, was sent to prison based on the accusation of the woman (who became Venus/Astarte in some of the later pagan legends). Astour has, like others, recognized that the story has its resonance for instance in a famous Egyptian tale [1500]: "After the discovery of the papyrus d'Orbiney, a quite similar plot was revealed in the Egyptian story of the two brothers … Bata, its hero, slandered by his sister-in-law and pursued by his angry brother, emasculated himself to prove his innocence".
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The Egyptian story in turn Astour believed to have been based upon Phoenician tales. E.g. the young healer-god Ešmun, pursued by the love of the goddess Astronoë or Astronome (='Aštart-na'amã); and in Syrian Hierapolis, of Combabos, the builder of the Atargatis temple, with whom Queen Stratonice, the wife of the Assyrian king, fell in love. Notice in these Phoenician accounts the Joseph-like elements also of the young hero as a 'healer' and a 'builder'. The Joseph story even has its resonance in the most famous of all Mesopotamian myths, the Epic of Gilgamesh. Thus Astour believes that the Combabos of the Phoenician tale "can easily be recognized as Humbaba … of the Gilgameš epic … [whilst] the same [Joseph] motif also appears in the Gilgameš epic, tabl. VI, where Ištar [Venus] fell in love with Gilgameš and, after having been rudely rejected by him, turned herself to the supreme god Anu with a request to punish the hero" [1550]. Later Homer would give his own colourful account of the famous story in his conflict between Bellerophon(tes) and Anteia, King Proitos' wife. Before recounting that tale, however, the important fact needs to be noted that Astour has rigorously identified the supposedly Greek name Bellerophon as equivalent to the western Semitic Ba'al-rãph'ôn, "Lord Physician" [1600]. Most appropriate again for Joseph. Now here is the account of Bellerophon as told by Homer in The Iliad [1650]: To Bellerophontes the gods granted beauty and desirable manhood; but Proitos in anger devised evil things against him, and drove him out of his own domain, since he was far greater … Beautiful Anteia the wife of Proitos was stricken with passion to lie in love with him, and yet she could not beguile valiant Bellerophontes, whose will was virtuous. So she went to Proitos the king and uttered her falsehood. "Would you be killed, O Proitos? Then murder Bellerophontes who tried to lie with me in love, though I was unwilling". So she spoke, and anger took hold of the king at her story. He shrank from killing him, since his heart was awed by such action, but sent him away to Lykia, and handed him murderous symbols, which he inscribed in a folding tablet, enough to destroy life, and told him to show it to his wife's father, that he might perish. Many Greek stories in fact carry this basic motif. For example, according to Astour [1700]: The Greeks told myths with the same plot about Hippolytus and his stepmother Phaedra, and about Peleus and Astydamia (or Cretheïs), wife of king Acastos. Bethe was perfectly right when, despite all his antipathy to Semitizing Bellerophon, he nevertheless declared that [the story-motif] … of the shy youth slandered by the rejected woman … had an Asiatic origin.
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Law and Government 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 C18th BC). I shall discuss this further on. Moses was, as I have shown in other articles, the 4th dynasty ruler of Egypt, pharaoh Mycerinus, as well as Sinuhe, the 'Egyptian Moses', of the 12th dynasty. The Greek name, Mycerinus, has arisen from the Egyptian name for Moses, Musa, plus the theophoric Re (which Moses would have shed upon his departure from Egypt): thus Mu-sa-re (My-ce-ri, plus the Greco-Roman ending -nus). The Egyptians 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). Anyway, Moses became for the Egyptians Hor-mes, meaning 'son of Hathor', which legendary person the Greeks eventually absorbed into their own pantheon as Hermes, the winged messenger god [1750]. 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 a Mesopotamian original, as the textbooks say; based upon the story of king Sargon of Akkad in Mesopotamia? Sargon tells, "in terms reminiscent of Moses, Krishna and other great men", that [1800]: …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 Mesopotamian 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 [1850]. But when the revision of history is applied to this scenario, Sargon of Akkad is found to have lived somewhat later than Moses. Hickman [1900] has revised Sargon down to the 1300's BC, shortly after the death of Moses' successor Joshua, and identified Sargon rather compellingly with the biblical Cushan-rishathaim, the Mesopotamian king who oppressed Israel for 8 years during the period of the Judges (Judges 3:8). May it not have been during this time then, in the C14th BC, that the Mesopotamians picked up the story of Moses' infancy from their Israelite subjects? And Hickman has re-dated Hammurabi to the time of Solomon (mid-C10th BC [! See artist's view of Solomon's Jerusalem.]), also re-identifying Hammurabi's older contemporary, Shamsi-Adad I, as king David's Syrian foe, Hadadazer (2 Samuel 10:16). According to this new scenario, neither Sargon nor Hammurabi could have influenced Moses. (a) Greek and Phoenician 'Moses-like Myths' 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 [1950]:
He continues with his fascinating Greco-Israelite parallels [2100]:
The Romans further corrupted the story of the infant Moses, following on probably from the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Phoenicians 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. The Romans apparently took the Egyptian name for Moses, Musare, and turned 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) [2150]. The Romans took 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 & 4:17). More significant Roman borrowings from the Bible (in this case the New Testament) will be discussed later in the Revelation section. (c) Mohammed: Arabian `Moses-like Myths' ... Islam's Issa An Islamic lecturer, Ahmed Deedat [2200], tells of an interview he once had with a dominée 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 [2250] 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 dominée'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. Firstly he asked the dominée: Out of the 'thousands' of prophecies referred to, can you please give me just one single prophecy where Jesus is mentioned by name? The term 'Messiah', translated as 'Christ', is not a name but a title. Is there a single Prophecy where it says that the name of the Messiah will be JESUS, and that his mother's name will be MARY, that his supposed father will be JOSEPH THE CARPENTER; that he will be born in the reign of HEROD THE KING, etc. etc.? No! There are no such details! Then how can you conclude that those 'thousand' Prophecies refer to Jesus (Peace be upon him)?[2300] To which the dominée replied: "You see, prophecies are word-pictures of something that is going to happen in the future. When that thing actually comes to pass, we see vividly in these prophecies the fulfilment of what had been predicted in the past". Deedat responded: "What you actually do is that you deduce, you reason, you put two and two together." He said: "Yes". Deedat said: "If this is what you have to do with a 'thousand' prophecies to justify your claim with regards to the genuineness of Jesus, why should we not adopt the very same system for Muhummed?" The dominée agreed that it was a fair proposition, a reasonable way of dealing with the problem. He argued that the key phrase in the Deuteronomic prophecy was "like unto thee" - LIKE YOU - like Moses, and Jesus is like Moses". [2350] Deedat questioned: "In which way is Jesus like Moses?" The answer was: "In the first place Moses was a JEW [sic] and Jesus was also a JEW; secondly, Moses was a PROPHET and Jesus was also a PROPHET - therefore Jesus is like Moses and that is exactly what God had foretold Moses - "SOOS JY IS" [in Afrikaans]".[2400] "Can you think of any other similarities between Moses and Jesus?" Deedat asked. The dominée said that he could not think of any.[2450] Deedat replied: "If these are the only two criteria for discovering a candidate for this prophecy of Deuteronomy 18:18, then in that case the criteria could fit any one of the following Biblical personages after Moses: - Solomon, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Malachi, John the Baptist etc., because they were also ALL Jews as well as Prophets. Why should we not apply this prophecy to any one of these prophets, and why only to Jesus? Why should we make fish of one and fowl of another?" The dominée had no reply. Deedat continued: "You see, my conclusions are that Jesus is most unlike Moses, and if I am wrong I would like you to correct me".
So saying, Deedat reasoned with him: "In the FIRST place Jesus is not like Moses, because, according to you - 'JESUS IS A GOD', but Moses is not God. Is this true?" He said: "Yes". Deedat said: "Therefore, Jesus is not like Moses! So saying, Deedat reasoned with him: "In the FIRST place Jesus is not like Moses, because, according to you - 'JESUS IS A GOD', but Moses is not God. Is this true?" He said: "Yes". Deedat said: "Therefore, Jesus is not like Moses! SECONDLY, according to you - 'JESUS DIED FOR THE SINS OF THE WORLD', but Moses did not have to die for the sins of the world. Is this true?" He again said: Yes". Deedat said: "Therefore Jesus is not like Moses! THIRDLY, according to you - 'JESUS WENT TO HELL FOR THREE DAYS', but Moses did not have to go there. Is this true?" He answered meekly: "Y-e-s". [2500]
Deedat concluded: "Therefore Jesus is not like Moses!" "But dominee,", Deedat continued: "these are not hard facts, solid facts, they are mere matters of belief over which the little ones can stumble and fall. Let us discuss something very simple, very easy that if your little ones are called in to hear the discussion, would have no difficulty in following it, shall we?" The dominée was quite happy at the suggestion.
Father and Mother
"Moses had a father and a mother. Muhummed also had a father and a mother. But Jesus had only a mother, and no human father. Is this true?" He said: "Yes". Deedat said: "DAAROM IS JESUS NIE SOOS MOSES NIE, MAAR MUHUMMED IS SOOS MOSES!" Meaning: "Therefore Jesus is not like Moses, but Muhummed is like Moses!"
Miraculous Birth
"Moses and Muhummed were born in the normal, natural course, i.e. the physical association of man and woman; but Jesus was created by a special miracle. You will recall that we are told in the Gospel of St. Matthew 1:18: '.....BEFORE THEY CAME TOGETHER, (Joseph the Carpenter and Mary) SHE WAS FOUND WITH CHILD BY THE HOLY GHOST'. And Dr. Luke tells us that when the good news of the birth of a holy son was announced to her, Mary reasoned: '.......HOW SHALL THIS BE, SEEING I KNOW NOT A MAN? AND THE ANGEL ANSWERED AND SAID UNTO HER, THE HOLY GHOST SHALL COME UPON THEE, AND THE POWER OF THE HIGHEST SHALL OVERSHADOW THEE:......' (Luke 1:35).
In short, Deedat said to the dominée: "Is it true that Jesus was born miraculously as against the natural birth of Moses and Muhummed?" He replied proudly: "Yes!" Deedat said: "Therefore Jesus is not like Moses, but Muhummed is like Moses. And God says to Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy 18:18 "LIKE UNTO THEE" (Like You, Like Moses) and Muhummed is like Moses".
Marriage Ties
"Moses and Muhummed married and begat children, but Jesus remained a bachelor all his life. Is this true?" The dominée said: "Yes". Deedat said: "Therefore Jesus is not like Moses, but Muhummed is like Moses". [2550]
Jesus Rejected by his People
"Moses and Muhummed were accepted as prophets by their people in their very lifetime. No doubt the Jews gave endless trouble to Moses and they murmured in the wilderness, but as a nation, they acknowledged that Moses was a Messenger of God sent to them. The Arabs too made Muhummed's life impossible. He suffered very badly at their hands. After 13 years of preaching in Mecca, he had to emigrate from the city of his birth. But before his demise, the Arab nation as a whole accepted him as the Messenger of Allah. But according to the Bible: 'He (Jesus) CAME UNTO HIS OWN, BUT HIS OWN RECEIVED HIM NOT'. (John 1:11). And even today, after two thousand years, his people - the Jews, as a whole, have rejected him. Is this true?" The dominée said: "Yes". Deedat said:
"THEREFORE JESUS IS NOT LIKE MOSES, BUT MUHUMMED IS LIKE MOSES".
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"Other-Worldly" Kingdom "Moses and Muhummed were prophets as well as kings. A prophet means a man who receives Divine Revelation for the Guidance of Man and this Guidance he conveys to God's creatures as received without any addition or deletion. A king is a person who has the power of life and death over his people. It is immaterial whether the person wears a crown or not, or whether he was ever addressed as king or monarch: if the man has the prerogative of inflicting capital punishment - HE IS A KING. Moses possessed such a power. Do you remember the Israelite who was found picking up firewood on the Sabbath Day, and Moses had him stoned to death? (Numbers- 15:13).
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There are other crimes also mentioned in the Bible for which capital punishment was inflicted on the Jews [sic] at the behest of Moses. Muhummed too, had the power of life and death over his people. There are instances in the Bible of persons who were given gift of prophecy only, but they were not in a position to implement their directives. Some of these holy men of God who were helpless in the face of stubborn rejection of their message, were the prophets Lot, Jonah, Daniel, Ezra, and John the Baptist. They could only deliver the message, but could not enforce the Law. The Holy Prophet Jesus (Peace b.u.h) also belonged to this category. The Christian Gospel clearly confirms this: when Jesus was dragged before the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, charged for sedition, Jesus made a convincing point in his defense to refute the false charge: JESUS ANSWERED, 'MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD: IF MY KINGDOM WERE OF THIS WORLD, THEN WOULD MY SERVANTS FIGHT, THAT I SHOULD NOT BE DELIVERED TO THE JEWS; BUT NOW IS MY KINGDOM NOT FROM HENCE' (John 18:36). This convinced Pilate (a Pagan) that though Jesus might not be in full possession of his mental faculty, he did not strike him as being a danger to his rule. Jesus claimed a spiritual Kingdom only; in other words he only claimed to be a Prophet. Is this true?" The dominée answered: "Yes". Deedat said: "Therefore Jesus is not like Moses but Muhummed is like Moses". No New Laws
"Moses and Muhummed brought new laws and new regulations for their people. Moses not only gave the Ten Commandments to the Israelites, but a very comprehensive ceremonial law for the guidance of his people".
"Muhummed comes to a people steeped in barbarism and ignorance. They married their step-mothers; they buried their daughters alive; drunkenness, adultery, idolatry, and gambling were the order of the day. Gibbon describes the Arabs before Islam in his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", 'THE HUMAN BRUTE, ALMOST WITHOUT SENSE, IS POORLY DISTINGUISHED FROM THE REST OF THE ANIMAL CREATION'. There was hardly anything to distinguish between the "man" and the "animal" of the time; they were animals in human form.
The fact is that Muhummed gave his people a Law and Order they never had before.
"As regards Jesus, when the Jews felt suspicious of him that he might be an imposter with designs to pervert their teachings, Jesus took pains to assure them that he had not come with a new religion - no new laws and no new regulations. I quote his own words: 'THINK NOT THAT I AM COME TO DESTROY THE LAW, OR THE PROPHETS: I AM NOT COME TO DESTROY, BUT TO FULFILL. FOR VERILY I SAY UNTO YOU, TILL HEAVEN AND EARTH PASS, ONE JOT OR ONE TITLE SHALL IN NO WISE PASS FROM THE LAW, TILL ALL BE FULFILLED' How they Departed "Both Moses and Muhummed died natural deaths, but according to Christianity, Jesus was violently killed on the cross. Is this true?" The dominée said: "Yes". Deedat averred: "Therefore Jesus is not like Moses but Muhummed is like Moses". Heavenly Abode "Moses and Muhummed both lie buried in earth, but according to you, Jesus is in heaven. Is this true?" The dominée agreed. Deedat said: "Therefore Jesus is not like Moses but Muhummed is like Moses".
History tells us that Muhummed was forty years of age. He was in a cave some three miles north of the City of Mecca. It was the 27th night of the Muslim month of Ramadan.
In the cave the Archangel Gabriel commands him in his mother tongue: 'IQRA' which means READ! or PROCLAIM! or RECITE! Muhummed was terrified and in his bewilderment replied that he was not NOT LEARNED! The angel commands him a second time with the same result. For the third time the angel continues.
Now Muhummed, grasps, that what was required of him was to repeat! to rehearse! And he repeats the words as they were put into his mouth:
History tells us that Muhummed was forty years of age. He was in a cave some three miles north of the City of Mecca. It was the 27th night of the Muslim month of Ramadan.
In the cave the Archangel Gabriel commands him in his mother tongue: 'IQRA' which means READ! or PROCLAIM! or RECITE! Muhummed was terrified and in his bewilderment replied that he was not NOT LEARNED! The angel commands him a second time with the same result. For the third time the angel continues.
Now Muhummed, grasps, that what was required of him was to repeat! to rehearse! And he repeats the words as they were put into his mouth:
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"READ! IN THE NAME OF THE LORD AND CHERISHER, WHO CREATED - CREATED MAN, FROM A (MERE) CLOT OF CONGEALED BLOOD: READ! AND THY LORD IS MOST BOUNTIFUL, - HE WHO TAUGHT (THE USE OF) THE PEN, TAUGHT MAN THAT WHICH HE KNEW NOT." (Holy Qur'an 96:1-5) These are the first five verses which were revealed to Muhummed which now occupy the beginning of the 96th chapter of the Holy Qur'an.
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My Conclusions regarding Mohammed (c. 570-632 AD) What Ahmed Deedat may actually have succeeded in proving, unwittingly, in his self-judged annihilation of the dominée's few points, is that Mohammed (whose name means literally "one praised") basically is the highly-praised Moses (Numbers 34:10-11) - certainly is not Jesus (though in the Revelation section I shall show how Islam - literally "Surrender" to, or "Peace" with Allah - has even appropriated to Mohammed certain very specific aspects of the life of Jesus) - that Mohammed was just the Arabic reflection of Moses, and not a C6th AD individual at all. Mohammed especially resembles Moses in
(i) the latter's visit to Mount Horeb (modern Har Karkom[2570]) with its cave atop, its Burning Bush, and angel (Exodus 3:1-2), equating to Mohammed's "Mountain of Light" (Jabal-an-Nur), and 'cave of research' (`Ghar-i-Hira'), and angel Gabriel Mohammed as a Lawgiver is a direct pinch I believe from the Hebrew Pentateuch. |
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Consider the following [2600]: "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 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 [2650]: "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" [2700]. "The mission of Mohammed", perfectly reminiscent of that of Moses, 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." [2750] We do not have any accurate portrait of Mohammed himself because Islam - identically to Mosaïc law - forbids the creation of idols or images of divinity. The above-mentioned Burning Bush incident occurred whilst Moses
(a) was living in exile (Exodus 2:15) Likewise Mohammed
(a) experienced exile; Now this very episode 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). This is generally how the Koran is said to have arisen [2800]. Mohammed is, I suggest, basically Moses particularly in that period of Moses' life after his flight from Egypt when he dwelt amongst the Midianites as a shepherd and family man in the Paran desert region. (The very same segment of Moses' life incidentally as recalled by the Egyptians in their Tale of Sinuhe, 'the Egyptian Moses'). Mohammed resembles Moses as a Lawgiver, as an army commander (e.g. Exodus 17:9-10), and in all the various other ways that Ahmed Deedat has so helpfully itemized for us above (of which I have by no means given a complete list). But Mohammed also resembles Moses in his childhood in the fact that, after his infancy, he was raised by a foster-parent (Exodus 2:10). And there is the inevitable weaning legend [2850]: "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 & 4:5-7) [2900]: 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 [2950]: The Qur'an [3000] 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. Exactly how the Arabs later crystallized out of all of this a C6th AD 'Mohammed' - separate from Moses - still needs to be determined. Conrad (below) may have the answer. Socrates (Revelation section) may be a similar case. My suggestion is that the Arabs, aware of the New Testament - due to their association with Christians - had, like so many readers of the Bible today, anticipated the advent of a Messiah-type more in conformity with their own culture and traditions than was Jesus Christ. Whilst ostensibly paying great respect to Jesus, "not denying that Jesus was the 'Messiah'" [3050], they may have found him too mild for their own dispositions. Thus they substituted a 'Messiah' more 'in their own image and likeness': the far more earthy, polygamous and unspiritual Mohammed. He is now for them 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" [3100]. 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 [3150]. "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 [3200]: "'Well into the second century A.H. [3250] 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".Mohammed's Decline
"Mohammed", we are told [3300], "began to place himself on the level with crowned heads of nations and in 628 had a seal made with the inscription on it: "Mohammed the messenger of God." As the governor of Medina he became tyrannical and cruel. At one point he sacrificed one hundred camels to emphasize a preachment he made from the back of a camel. In one disagreement with Jews he had six hundred men of one tribe put to death and all of the women sold as slaves. He used private assassination. He added many wives to his family and concubines. According to "Islam: A Brief History" [3350]: "Mohammed sounds more like a successful warlord than a Prophet - more like a Napoleon or Hitler than a holy man on a mission from God. His method of government did not rely on bureaucracy, secular ideology or police powers, but rather a cruel new religion that, like many young faiths, borrowed heavily from existing traditions and slapped a fresh coat of gibberish on it". But Mohammed cannot be confined just to the person of Moses. He is what I shall call a 'Pseudo-Biblical Composite' [PBC]. Definition: A PBC will be a fictional, invented character who represents 2 or more real biblical personages, Old and/or New Testament - including Pseudepigrapha - and for whom a biography (dates, family, etc.) has been created. Sargon of Akkad, for instance, cannot be a PBC because he was a real historical person. Moreover, there is probably only the one parallel (hence not '2 or more' as above) between Sargon's 'life' and a biblical incident (namely, the incident relating to his rescue from the water as a child). Mohammed though seems to qualify perfectly as a PBC in that he has likenesses also 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. Other PBCs that we shall shortly encounter are the Greek characters Achilles and Athene, in the Literature section; most importantly, Socrates, in the Revelation section; and Krishna in World Religions at the end. From (c) 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 [3400] - identified all the major biblical Israelites, from the patriarch Joseph to the Holy Family of Nazareth, as 18th dynasty Egyptian characters. Thus Joseph = Yuya; Moses = Akhnaton; David = Thutmose III; Solomon = Amenhotep III; Jesus = Tutankhamun; St. Joseph = Ay; Mary = Nefertiti [3450]. 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 "Osman's 'Osmosis' of Moses" article [3500], 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. The way that Egyptian chronology is structured at present [3550] 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", is, together with his colleagues, virtually writing ancient Israel right off the historical map, along with all of its major biblical characters. This is an inevitable consequence of the faulty Sothic chronology with which these archaeologists seem to be mesmerized. With friends like Finkelstein & co., why would Israel need any enemies! Whilst the great Lawgiver for the Hebrews was Moses, and for the Babylonians, Hammurabi, and for the Moslems, 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 (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 [3600]: "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)[! See artist's view of Solomon's Jerusalem.]. Solon resembles Solomon especially in roughly the last decade of the latter's reign, when 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! Cyrus Gordon 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) [3650]. 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 [3700], the most influential Senenmut of Egyptian history, Hatshepsut's mentor; whilst Hatshepsut herself was the biblical Queen [of] Sheba [3750]. Professor Breasted has 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 (Fig. 2 on p. 25), 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" [3800]. 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 Phoenicians and/or Jews had migrated to Greece. In 1 Maccabees 12:21 [3850], 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, if Hammurabi were a contemporary of king Solomon's as Hickman has argued, then - far from Hammurabi's laws having influenced the Mosaïc Torah - Hammurabi would have been amongst the many kings of the earth who had imbibed the Solomonic wisdom (including Solomon's Jewish laws) (I Kings 10:24), and had presumably emulated them. That, I suggest, is how there arose the apparent similarity between the Torah and Hammurabi's law code. The female pharaoh, Hatshepsut, was - far more notably even than Hammurabi - influenced by the Solomonic wisdom and writings; and she was influenced also by the Psalms of Solomon's father, David [3900]. Though conventionally dated to the C15th BC, half a millennium before Solomon, Hatshepsut (in revised history) was actually Solomon's younger contemporary. In the beginning, the Semites and the Greeks were very close. Both peoples had descended from Noah; the Semites from Noah's son, Shem, and the Greeks from Noah's son, Japheth, about whom Neiman states categorically [3950]: "Japheth of the Old Testament is, in origin, Iapetos of the Greek mythology. Iapetos is the Titan, the father of Prometheus, who is the forerunner, the creator, the progenitor of man" And [4000]: "In the genealogy of the descendants of Japheth too the author of the Table [Genesis 10] seems to display a greater knowledge of one area against another. While he mentions nations by name as children of Japhet who inhabit areas of Central Asia, his primary interest is focused on the region of the Aegean Sea and its surrounding coast lands and islands, and the nations that interest him most are the Hellenes and those that fall within the geographical-cultural area of Greece". Moreover Japheth - unlike Noah's other son, Ham - did not come under Noah's curse, but received a blessing that knit him to Shem (Genesis 9:27): 'May God make space for Japheth, and let him live in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his slave'. Similarly as the Koran is the Arabic version of the Bible, so are Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey combined, in part, a Greek version of the Bible (including the Pseudepigrapha), but with multiple PBC's. So in that sense, I guess, could The Iliad be called "the cornerstone of Western culture". I have already written an article, "Beware of Greeks Bringing Myths", brimful of parallels between a combination of the Israelite books of Job and Tobit, on the one hand, and The Odyssey on the other. This article presupposes an earlier one of mine, "Job's Life and Times" [4050], in which I had identified Job with Tobit's son, Tobias. Basically, I arrived at these parallels: · The two chief male characters. Tobit and his son, Tobias/Job, equate approximately to Odysseus and his son, Telemachus. (Unlike the pious Tobit, though, Odysseus was a crafty and battle-hardened pagan, with a love of strong drink and an eye for women {goddesses}. But he nevertheless pined for his true wife, Penelope). · The Suitors. These unpleasant and self-serving characters are especially prominent and numerous in The Odyssey. In the Book of Tobit, "seven" suitors in turn meet an unhappy fate in their desire for Sarah. · The Sought-After Woman. In The Odyssey, she is Penelope. She is Sarah in the Book of Tobit. · The 'Divine' Messenger. From whom the son, especially, receives help during his travels. In the Book of Tobit, this messenger is the angel Raphael (in the guise of 'Azarias'). In The Odyssey, it is the goddess Athene (in the guise of 'Mentes'). · Satan, or Adversary (Book of Job). He is Poseidon in The Odyssey, the god who hounds down the story's hero. He is Asmodeus in the Book of Tobit. · The Friends. Whereas, in the Book of Tobit, the young man's journeying takes him amongst kindred folks (e.g. Raguel & Gabael), in The Odyssey, it is to the homelands of certain Greek returnées from Troy (e.g. Nestor and Menelaus) that young Telemachus travels. · The Dog. Yes, even a dog, or dogs, figure in both stories. I need to point out that it sometimes happens that incidents attributed to the son, in the Book of Tobit, might, in The Odyssey, be attributed to the son's father, or vice versa (or even be attributed to some less important character). The same sort of mix occurs with the female characters. There is space here for only a few of the many, many parallels I have arrived at: - Only Son Tobias was the only son of Tobit and Anna (cf. Tobit 1:9 & 8:17). So was Telemachus the only son of Odysseus and Penelope: '[Telemachus] ... you an only son, the apple of your mother's eye...' (II, 47). Anna referred to her son as 'the light of my eyes' (Tobit 10:5). Telemachus' uncle used that identical phrase: 'Telemachus, light of my eyes!' (XVI, 245). - Longing for Death Tobit, in his utter misery of blindness, longed for death, and thus he prayed to God: 'Command that I now be released from my distress to go to the eternal abode; do not turn Thy face away from me' (Tobit 3:6). This theme is treated even more starkly, and in more prolonged fashion, in the Book of Job (esp. Ch. 3). In The Odyssey, it is said of Laërtes that "every day he prays to Zeus that death may visit his house and release the spirit from his flesh" (XV,239). And Odysseus, after having learned from Circe about the wretched existence of the dead in Hades, said: 'This news broke my heart. I sat down on the bed and wept. I had no further use for life, no wish to see the sunshine any more' (X, 168). - The Suitors "On the same day" that Tobit had prayed to be released from this life, Sarah - back home in Midian [4100]: "was reproached by her father's maids, because she had been given to seven husbands, and the evil demon Asmodeus had slain each of them before he had been with her as his wife" (Tobit 3:7,8). In the Vulgate version of Tobit, we are informed that these seven suitors had lustful intentions towards Sarah (6:17). The Odyssey also tells about Penelope, who is tormented by the suitors who have invaded Odysseus' home and are squandering the family's wealth. Penelope has to resort to the ruse of weaving a winding-cloth - ostensibly intending to make the decision to marry once she has completed it. But each night she undoes the cloth, in order to keep the suitors at bay (I, 28-33; II, 38-39). The prediction early in the story, that "there'd be a quick death and a sorry wedding for ... all [the Suitors]", once Odysseus returned home (I, 32), was to be fulfilled to the letter when he dealt them all a bloody end. Indeed, these words, a "sorry wedding" and a "quick death", might well have been spoken of Sarah's suitors as well, once the demon Asmodeus had finished with them. This Asmodeus is eventually overcome by Tobias, with great assistance from the angel. Asmodeus then "fled to the remotest parts of Egypt, and the angel bound him" (cf. Tobit 7:16 & 7:8:3). Even this episode might have its 'echo' at the beginning of The Odyssey, when the violent god, Poseidon (legendary father of the Athenian hero Theseus - born of two fathers: Poseidon and Aegeus, king of Athens), is found amongst "the distant Ethiopians, the farthest outposts of mankind ..." (I, 25). Ethiopia could indeed be described as "the remotest parts of Egypt". [4150] - Heavenly Visitor ... she [Athene] bound under her feet her lovely sandals of untarnished gold, which carried her with the speed of the wind.... Thus she flashed down from the heights of Olympus. On reaching Ithaca she took her stand on the threshold of the court in front of Odysseus' house; and to look like a visitor she assumed the appearance of a Taphian chieftain named Mentes… (I, 27-28). The reader will quickly pick up the similarities between this text and the relevant part of the Book of Tobit if I simply quote directly from the latter: The prayer of [Tobit and Sarah] was heard in the presence of the glory of the great God. And Raphael was sent (3:16,17). Then Tobias ... found a beautiful young man, standing girded, as it were ready to walk. And not knowing that he was an angel of God, he saluted him.... 'I am Azarias, the son of the great Ananias' (5:5,6,18). - The Questioning Tobit had interrogated the angel about the latter's identity, asking: 'My brother, to what tribe and family do you belong? Tell me ...', etc., etc. (5:9-12). Raguel exhibited a similar sort of curiosity: 'Where are you from brethren? .... Do you know our brother Tobit? .... Is he in good health?' (7:3,4). In The Odyssey, too, this pattern (but with a Greek slant - e.g. the mention of ships) is again most frequent - almost monotonous. Telemachus, for instance, asks Athene: 'However, do tell me who you are and where you come from. What is your native town? Who are your people? And since you certainly cannot have come on foot, what kind of vessel brought you here?' (I, 29). (For further examples of this pattern of interrogation in The Odyssey, see pp. 72; 118; 164; 175; 208; 220). Athene replied to Telemachus, using a phrase that I suggest may have come straight out of the Book of Tobit - where towards the end of the story Raphael says: 'I will not conceal anything from you' (12:11). Thus: 'I will tell you everything', answered the bright-eyed goddess Athene. 'My father was the wise prince, Anchialus. My own name is Mentes, and I am a chieftain of the sea-faring Taphians'. - Delaying One's Guests Another noticeable tendency in these Israelite writings, and in The Odyssey, is for hosts to insist on their guests staying longer than the latter had intended, or had wished. This was perhaps the customary hospitality in ancient Syro-Mesopotamia, because it is common also in Genesis (24:25-26; 29:21-31:41). And it happens in The Book of Tobit and all the way through The Odyssey as well. For example, Telemachus says to Athene (I, 29): 'Sir, .... I know you are anxious to be on your way, but I beg you to stay a little longer, so that you can bathe and refresh yourself. Then you can go, taking with you as a keepsake from myself something precious and beautiful, the sort of present that one gives to a guest who has become a friend'. 'No', said the bright-eyed goddess. 'I am eager to be on my way; please do not detain me now. As for the gift you kindly suggest, let me take it home with me on my way back. Make it the best you can find, and you won't lose by the exchange'. (Cf. IV, 80; XV, 231-232). In like manner, Tobias was impatient to leave the sanguine Raguel and return home: At that time Tobias said to Raguel. 'Send me back, for my father and mother have given up hope of ever seeing me again'. But his father-in-law said to him, 'Stay with me, and I will send messengers to your father, and they will inform him how things are with you'. 'No, send me back to my father'. So Raguel arose and gave him his wife Sarah and half of his property in slaves, cattle, and money. (10:7,8-10). - The Dog(s) (a) The Leaving "... Telemachus himself set out for the meeting-place, bronze spear in hand, escorted ... by two dogs that trotted beside him" (II, 37). Also "[Tobias and the angel] both went out and departed, and the young man's dog was with them" (Tobit 5:16). (b) The Returning When Telemachus returned home: "The dogs, usually so obstreperous, not only did not bark at the newcomer but greeted him with wagging tails" (XVI, 245). The dog in the Book of Tobit was equally excited: "Then the dog, which had been with [Tobias and the angel] along the way, ran ahead of them; and coming as if he had brought the news showed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail" (Tobit 11:9). Many similarities have been noted too between The Iliad and the Old Testament, including the earlier-mentioned likenesses between the young Bellerophon and Joseph. Again, Achilles' being pursued by the river Xanthos which eventually turns dry (Book 21) reminds one of Moses' drying up of the sea (Exodus 14:21). Achilles is in fact a classical PBC [4200]. His fierce argument with Agamemnon [4250], commander-in-chief of the Greeks, at Troy - Achilles' anger being the very theme of The Iliad [4300] - is merely a highly dramatized Greek version of the disagreement in the Book of Judith between Achior (from whose name I suggest the Greeks got their Achilles) and the furious Assyrian commander-in-chief, "Holofernes" [4350], at the siege of Bethulia, Judith's town. Now, speaking of Judith, the Greeks appear to have substituted this beautiful Jewish heroine with their own legendary Helen, whose 'face launched a thousand ships'. Compare for instance these striking similarities (Judith and The Iliad): The beautiful woman praised by the elders at the city gates: "When [the elders of Bethulia] saw [Judith] transformed in appearance and dressed differently, they were very greatly astounded at her beauty" (Judith 10:7). "Now the elders of the people were sitting by the Skaian gates…. When they saw Helen coming … they spoke softly to each other with winged words: 'No shame that the Trojans and the well-greaved Achaians should suffer agonies for long years over a woman like this - she is fearfully like the immortal goddesses to look at'" [4400]. This theme of incredible beauty - plus the related view that "no shame" should be attached to the enemy on account of it - is picked up again a few verses later in the Book of Judith (v.19) when the Assyrian soldiers who accompany Judith and her maid to Holofernes "marveled at [Judith's] beauty and admired the Israelites, judging them by her … 'Who can despise these people, who have women like this among them?'" Nevertheless: 'It is not wise to leave one of their men alive, for if we let them go they will be able to beguile the whole world!' (Judith 10:19). 'But even so, for all her beauty, let her go back in the ships, and not be left here a curse to us and our children' [4450]. Suggested Equation: Helen, 'the Hellene', wife of Menelaus = Judith, 'the Jewess', wife of Manasseh (or Immanuel). [4500]
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If the very main theme of The Iliad may have been lifted by the Greeks from the Book of Judith, then might not even the Homeric idea of the Trojan Horse ruse to capture Troy have been inspired by Judith's own ruse to take the Assyrian camp? [4550]. What may greatly serve to strengthen this suggestion is the uncannily 'Judith-like' trickery of a certain Sinon, a wily Greek, as narrated in the detailed description of the Trojan Horse in Book Two of Virgil's Aeneid. Sinon, whilst claiming to have become estranged from his own people, because of their treachery and sins, was in fact bent upon deceiving the Trojans about the purpose of the wooden horse, in order "to open Troy to the Greeks". |
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I shall set out here the main parallels that I find on this score between the Aeneid and the Book of Judith.
- Firstly, the name Sinon may recall Juditthh's ancestor Simeon, son of Israel (Judith 8:1; 9:2). Likewise Judith assures Holofernes of victory because of the supposed sacrilegious conduct that the Israelites have planned (e.g. to eat forbidden and consecrated food), even in Jerusalem (11:11-15). - Sinon concludes – in relation to the Troojan options regarding what to do with the enigmatic wooden horse – with an Achior-like statement: 'For if your hands violate this offering to Minerva, then total destruction shall fall upon the empire of Priam and the Trojans…. But if your hands raise it up into your city, Asia shall come unbidden in a mighty war to the walls of Pelops, and that is the fate in store for our descendants'. Whilst Sinon's words were full of cunning, Achior had been sincere when he had warned Holofernes – in words to which Judith will later allude deceitfully (11:9-10): 'So now, my master and my lord, if there is any oversight in this people [the Israelites] and they sin against their God and we find out their offense, then we can go up against them and defeat them. But if they are not a guilty nation, then let my lord pass them by; for their Lord and God will defend them, and we shall become the laughing-stock of the whole world' (Judith 5:20-21). [Similarly, Achilles fears to become 'a laughing-stock and a burden of the earth' (Plato's Apologia, Scene I, D. 5)]. These, Achior's words, were the very ones that had so enraged Holofernes and his soldiers (vv.22-24). And they would give the Greeks the theme for their greatest epic, The Iliad. The Greeks have again, in the Lindian Chronicle, taken up the dramatic core of the Book of Judith: namely,
(i) the siege of a city; with In the typically Greek version though the invader is, not Assyrian, but Persian – using, not a land-based invasion, but a naval one – and the deliverance of the besieged city is effected, not by a mortal woman (Judith), but by a goddess (Athene), who prays to Zeus (instead of Judith's praying to the God of Israel).[4600] It is interesting to note too in regard to these comparisons that Athene's aegis was a decapitated head (Gorgon's head). Was this simply a Greek version of Judith triumphant with the head of Holofernes? (cf. Judith 13:8). From what we have just read about the goddess Athene – and recalling too that she, in The Odyssey, substitutes for the angel Raphael (Book of Tobit) – we can appreciate that she is another very good example of a PBC. Moreover, Johnson has shown how Athene has come to represent the biblical Eve in Greek mythology [4650]. Homer and Hesiod [4700] are considered to have belonged to the C8th BC, with Homer being Hesiod's older contemporary. Whilst I believe this chronology to be perfectly in order, I intend to show once again that these most celebrated 'Greeks' have their origins in Israel. I am encouraged to look for Homer's roots in Israel based on my findings above that some central characters and events of `The Iliad' and `The Odyssey' have been drawn from C8th BC Israelite personalities and incidents. So, on whose name do I suggest that the name 'Homer' was based? A similar name is Omri, the C9th BC Israelite king who founded a dynasty which the Assyrians still identified generations later as Bit Humri, the "House of Omri" [4750]; the name Humri being close to Homer. But king Omri, apart from his probably being a bit too early for Homer, was by no means a Homer type, being a general and statesman and unlikely a sage, storyteller and writer of epics. I suggest rather that Homer was the Greek version of the prophet Amos, who lived during the sort of truly catastrophic times that would serve admirably as a backdrop for The Iliad and The Odyssey. Thus Amos began to prophesy "two years before the earthquake" (Amos 1:1), which cataclysm was still remembered centuries later by the prophet Zechariah (14:5). Hence Homer's frequent references to "Poseidon the earthshaker" [4800]. It was also the time of the decline of the Israelite kingdom of Jeroboam II (Amos 7:9-11). In revised history, the tragic collapse of this kingdom is referred to in pharaoh Merenptah's stele [4850]: "Israel is laid waste – its seed is no more". Israel suffered exile at the hands of Egypt (Hosea, cf. 3:4; 7:16; 9:3; 10:3), c. mid-740's BC, and then, in the following decades, had to withstand the shock of successive Assyrian invasions, culminating in the fall of the capital, Samaria, in 722 BC. This is all pure Homeric stuff: wars, sieges, disasters, cataclysms, intrigue, and the fall of cities and kingdoms. But how to equate the name Amos with the name Homer? It can be done. But the explanation of it will involve a few fairly intricate paragraphs during which the reader will need to exercise some patience: Firstly, Amos needs to be filled out with who I believe to be his alter ego in the prophet Micah, who is so like Amos that he has been called "Amos redivivus" [4900]. Now, Micah was still active during the reign of king Hezekiah of Judah (Jeremiah 26:18), of the late C8th BC, so the prophet would also have been a witness to the beginnings of the major Assyrian incursions into the southern kingdom of Judah, placing Jerusalem under extreme threat. Amos was the father of the similarly great Isaiah (Isaiah 1:1). Now Amos (Micah), father of Isaiah, who moved from Judah to the northern kingdom, perhaps to Bethel (Amos 7:10), can be identified with Micah the father of Uzziah (var. Ozias), chief magistrate of Judith's town of Bethulia (northern Bethel?) (Judith 6:14-15). Thus Isaiah and Uzziah of Judith are also to be connected. But Isaiah/Uzziah (var. Ozias) was also the contemporary of the northern prophet, Hosea (var. Osee), whose name is extremely similar to Isaiah's/Uzziah's (Ozias'), as are also his prophetic writings like those of Isaiah, Amos and Micah. I suggest therefore that Isaiah and Hosea are also one and the same prophet [4950]. And, whilst the name of Hosea's father, Beeri (Hosea 1:1), does not immediately look like the name of Isaiah's father, Amos, I believe that it can be connected through the following chain of names: Amos-Amaziah-Amariah-Merari-Beeri [5000]. The names Amariah/Merari will be a crucial link in this chain leading to Homer. We are now in a position to take the name Amos, now Amariah, a step further still, evolving it into Beeri, the name of Hosea's father. Given the Syro-Palestinian propensity to interchange the letters `b' and `m', then Amariah can become Beeri (through Meeri/Merari). This last link, Amariah-Beeri, is greatly strengthened by the fact that, according to Jewish tradition [5050], Judith's father was called Beeri; whereas in the Book of Judith he is called Merari (8:1); Merari being a name that interchanges more easily with Amariah than does Beeri. It is not so hard then to take the final step and conclude that the Greek name, Homer, may have evolved from Amos/Amariah/Merari, especially the last two names. So we find that all of the names discussed above actually add up to only the two prophets,
(i) Amos (aka. Micah, Beeri, Merari), the father, and Now this two-way father-son relationship is, I believe, the key to the connection between Homer (aka. Amos) and his younger contemporary, Hesiod, whose name as we can now see resembles Isaiah's, especially in its variant of Hosea (= Hesiod). The great similarities, in places, between the writings of Homer and Hesiod, even admitting line by line comparisons [5150], are comparable to the sometimes identical statements of Isaiah and his father (cf. Micah 4:1-4 & Isaiah 2:2-5). Isaiah and Micah were in fact a prophetic combination, carrying out the same pantomimic actions, e.g. their going 'barefoot and naked' (cf. Micah 1:8 & Isaiah 20:1-2). Having arrived at these conclusions, I can now discuss Hesiod in his proper context. To Hesiod (now an appropriation of the prophet Hosea) are attributed two great poems: "Theogony" and "Works and Days". The "Theogony", thought in turn to have been derived from "Near Eastern lore" [5200], has some very Genesis-like aspects to it. It describes the creation of the Universe; and, as with Genesis 1:1,2, according to which "In the beginning … the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep", so does Hesiod begin with Chaos – by which he meant "the dark which dominated everywhere (or water)" [5250] – and the Earth. The notion of the Spirit of God, gathering together the waters (Genesis 1:2, 9) is probably picked up by Hesiod with his character of Eros (Love), the unifying power. And, just as lights in the dome of the sky are employed in Genesis to separate Day from Night (v, 14), so does Hesiod tell of the emergence of Erebus and Night and Aether and Day. Moving on to Genesis 5-9, Japheth (whom we encountered here), a father of the Greeks, is Hesiod's Titan, Iapetus; whilst his father Noah might perhaps be intended in Oceanus, the name of another Titan. The "Theogony" was the Bible for the Greeks, gathered from material that greatly pre-dated Hesiod [5300]: "Theogony" was a very important work for the ancient Hellenes because it served them as the touchstone which would enable them to check which of the various beliefs about gods were reliable. It constituted the Religious Canon for Hellenes and it was exactly what Moses' Bible was for Jews. …However, while Hesiod is thought to have written in the 8th century B.C., material that he had gathered together for his work had originated millennia earlier so that the cosmogony preserved in his writing is more or less a summation of far more ancient observations.
"Hesiod was the Greek [sic] poet who occupies a unique place in Greek literature both for his moral precepts and for his highly personal tone" [5350]. Unfortunately, according to what has by now become an all too familiar tune, "little is definitely known of his life. Modern scholars place him in the same period of Greek literature as Homer".
To my mind, Hesiod equates well with Isaiah/Hosea as to:
(i) the C8th BC dating (but also preceded by many generations of inherited sacred writings);
Hesiod's 'straightforward style' in his "Works and Days", with its 'simple moralising' and condemnation of the injustices of the day, is often likened anyway to the writings of the prophet Amos. The output of the so-called 'Hesiodic school' should probably be re-identified as the combined and extensive writings of Amos and, especially, Isaiah, in their various scriptural guises.
Introduction
I doubt if Ahmed Osman – who as we read earlier believes Jesus Christ to have been an Egyptian pharaoh, Tutankhamun – would be particularly impressed by BAR editor Shanks' swipe at "those cranks who claim that Jesus was not Jewish but Egyptian." [5450]
Regarding the supposed lack of evidence for the trial of Jesus, Osman has written [5500]:
No official report about Jesus and his trial exists, though a few centuries later some writings called Acts of Pilate appeared. They included an account of Jesus of Nazareth. However, they have been proved forgeries, either by Christians who wished to confirm the historicity of their Lord or by the enemies of Christianity who wished to attack the religion.
I think however that there are some exceedingly famous ancient reminiscences of the trial and death of Jesus Christ; a theme that, I shall show, made a deep impression upon both the Greeks and the Romans.
The first point that I wish to be noted is that there is a great deal of doubt about the historical Socrates, which is surprising given his cardinal value in human thinking. But such doubt is, as we saw in PHILOSOPHY, a common characteristic in regard to the so-called history of ancient philosophers. The historical problem of Socrates has become classical, with various books having been written about it. Thus we read in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy[5550]:
Socrates … of Athens … was perhaps the most original, influential, and controversial figure in the history of Greek thought. Very little is known about his life. … There is no agreement … on whether anything certain can be said of the historical life of Socrates. This controversy is known as the Socratic problem, which arises because Socrates wrote nothing on philosophy…. Not only a historical problem is involved in the nature of the evidence, but also a philosophical puzzle in the character of Socrates embedded in Plato's dialogues.
Comparisons Between Jesus and Socrates
Such comparisons are common because Socrates, like Jesus, is regarded as 'a watershed in human thinking'. Philosophy before Socrates was 'pre-Socratic': he was the 'hinge', or the orientation point, for most subsequent thinkers and the direct inspiration for Plato. Professor Taylor has written [5600]:
In the case of both the historical figures whose influence on the life of humanity has been the profoundest, Jesus and Socrates, indisputable facts are exceptionally rare; perhaps there is only one statement about each which a man ought not deny without forfeiting his claim to be counted among the sane. It is certain that Jesus 'suffered under Pontius Pilate', and no less certain that Socrates was put to death at Athens on a charge of impiety in the 'year of Laches' (399 BC).
And, according to Glover [5650]:
Socrates was famous for making men define their thoughts and be clear in their minds as to what they are saying. Similarly, it is to be noted how apt Jesus is to use a question to make men think. Someone has counted some hundred and fifty questions in St. Luke. As in Socrates … so in Jesus, the attentive listener can catch something of humour amongst his most serious utterances; not wit of course, but the subtler, more universal, happier thing, that speaks of peace of mind whatever the contrasts and contradictions it sees….
Their influence is all the more remarkable when one considers that neither Jesus nor Socrates wrote anything down. But their disciples did. "In Xenophon and Plato, some have said, Socrates had his St. Mark and St. John" [5700].
Glover has linked Jesus and Socrates when writing about the genuine teacher [5750]:
He realizes that, to achieve what he wants, the teacher must stamp something indelible on the memory – his words or his personality, or both; and it should be noted that, though [Jesus] wrote nothing down … no man's words are so well remembered. Nor so fertile; for he, like Socrates, used the analogy of sowing, and aimed at planting something in the mind that would root itself there and grow, and he trusted to its development.
What was Socrates' practical method? It took the form of 'dialectic' or conversation. He would get into conversation with someone and try to elicit from him his ideas on some subject – e.g. piety and impiety, the just and the unjust. The wealthy, young Meno plunged straight in and asked him: 'Tell me, Socrates, is virtue teachable or not?' [5800]. That is exactly the method that Jesus employed with a very 'Meno-like' rich and young man who came to him and asked: 'Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?' (Matthew 19:16). Jesus began his reply with the dialectical question: 'Why do you ask me about what is good?' (var. 'Why do you call me good?'), leading into a lengthy dialogue in which Jesus steers the young man towards a higher virtue and knowledge [5850].
Jesus' attacks were aimed chiefly at the hypocrisy of the money-loving Scribes and Pharisees. Similarly, Socrates had in his sights the money-loving Sophists (cf. Plato's Protagoras), who denied the absolute and objective character of Truth. Both Jesus and Socrates were able to illustrate a point about virtue by writing on the ground. (Cf. John 8:6, 8; Meno, 82). We are not told what Jesus actually wrote, or drew. But Socrates, in classical Greek fashion, drew geometrical diagrams to illustrate his point [5900].
Jesus said: "many are called but few are chosen" (Matthew 22:14). Socrates said to Simmias: "many bear the emblems, but the devotees are few" (Plato's Phaedo, 68C-69D).
Socrates was supposedly possessed of particular robustness of body and powers of endurance. His habits were spartan like those of Jesus. As a man, Socrates wore the same garment winter and summer, and continued his habit of going barefoot. He was very abstemious regarding his food and drink [5950], and was remarkable for living the life that he preached. From his youth upwards he was the recipient of messages from his mysterious "voice" or sign. Jesus, too, was the recipient of "a voice … from heaven" (Mark 1:10).
Plato in his Symposium tells us of Socrates' long fits of abstraction, one lasting the whole of a day and a night. Professor Taylor has interpreted these abstractions as ecstasies or rapts [6000].
Jesus would spend whole nights in prayer (e.g. Luke 6:12).
"… within [Socrates]", Glover exclaimed [6050], "there was a god indeed!" Jesus insisted that he was divine: 'I tell you most solemnly, before Abraham ever was, I AM' (John 8:58).
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In conventional history, of course, Jesus post-dates Socrates (c. 470-399 BC) by some 400 years. Socrates is supposed to have fought in the C5th Persian wars. But as in the case of the PBC Mohammed, so with Socrates I suggest, has a biography been fashioned for this essentially fictitious character. In my "Osman's 'Osmosis' of Moses" I had made the comment that [6100]: "… one should … expect the chronological earthquake caused by Velikovsky to be still transmitting aftershocks right down the line, so as to plunge late BC events into an AD time frame". I am therefore prepared to be 'counted among the insane', in Professor Taylor's sense, by my refusing to accept that a 'Socrates was put to death at Athens in 399 BC'. |
Socrates as Jesus Despite the conventional dating, I believe that the similarities between Jesus and Socrates are so striking that I must conclude – based on the pattern that began to emerge at the very beginning of this article, in the PHILOSOPHY section – that Socrates is just the Greco-Roman version of Jesus Christ, a C1st AD Jew. 'Their' Greco-Roman names, largely ignoring the changeable vowels, are stunningly similar, especially when Socrates is given his full name of Isocrates. Thus:
[I] SOK Ra T e S And 'their' trials and deaths have often also been compared. There is something anomalous about the callous slaying of Socrates at that particular era of Greek 'history', when conditions would not really seem to have favoured it. Glover calls it "almost unintelligible" [6150]. Thomas has written an entire book on The Trial[6200], in which he seems to be at a loss to account for many things, not least of which was why poor old Socrates was martyred, and why they waited until he was 70 years of age to do this. I think that our PBC theory alone explains in full the trial and death of Socrates. It is a mix of the`Passion and Death of Jesus Christ' and the death of the aged Maccabean hero, Eleazer (2 Maccabees 6:18-31). The latter has the Socrates-like aspects of being,
(i) during Greek rule (as the Macedonian Greeks were ruling Palestine in Maccabean times); Folklore has sensed the similarity between the demise of Socrates and the end of the earthly life of Jesus, and thus has Socrates warning Pontius Pilate's wife, Claudia Procula, to save Jesus: "… in her premonitory dream Socrates appeared to Pilate's wife and urged her to intercede on behalf of Jesus" [6250]. (Cf. Matthew 27:19). According to Tredennick [6300]: "The first part of the charge [against Socrates] – heresy – was no doubt primarily intended to inflame prejudice.…The prosecution relied mainly on a powerful conjunction of religious and political hostility". The same combination that Jesus had to face. Anytus, the moving spirit in the prosecution of Socrates, has a name a bit similar to Annas, father-in-law of the high-priest Caiaphas at the time of Jesus' death. Jesus' disciple John "was known to the high priest" (John 18:13, 15). Now, Calneggia has noted that Meno shared the same John-like relationships, respectively, to the prosecutor and the defendant [6350]: "So now who is Meno?" Though the names are not similar, I propose the beloved disciple St John. Meno 90b. Socrates: "Please help us, Anytus – Meno, who is a friend of your family, and myself – to find out …". St John was known to Caiphas". And for the twisted Greek version of the devotion of a disciple to his master in 80a: Meno (to Socrates): …"At this moment I feel you are exercising magic and witchcraft upon me and positively laying me under your spell until I am just a mass of helplessness … My mind and my lips are literally numb and I have nothing to reply to you". And here is Calneggia's connection of Anytus to the Jewish high-priesthood [6400]: "The last words of Anytus in `Meno'" are in 94e and are as follows: Anytus: "You seem to me, Socrates, to be too ready to run people down (i.e. Our Lord speaking the truth about the Pharisees). My advice to you, if you will listen to it, is to be careful. I dare say that in all cities it is easier to do a man harm than good, and it is certainly so here, as I expect you know yourself". (It is better that one man should die for the people!) To which Socrates replies to his friend Meno: Socrates: "Anytus seems angry, Meno, and I am not surprised. He thinks I am slandering our statesmen, (Is "slandering" a twist on Our Lord's alleged 'blasphemy'?) and moreover he believes himself to be one of them. He doesn't know what slander really is; if he ever finds out he will forgive me. (Is this a twist of "Father forgive them. They know not what they do")." Even the cock chanting to a new day figures in Plato's Symposium (223c), connected by Pepple to Socrates' death [6450]. (Cf. John 18:27). Socrates, in good Greek fashion will – as we just saw – drink hemlock. He does not die on a cross. Still, even that terrible death is depicted in Plato's The Republic [6500]: "The just man … will be scourged, tortured, and imprisoned … and after enduring every humiliation he will be crucified". I submit that this statement would not likely have been written before the Gospels. Mixed reflections of St. John's account of the Resurrection three days after Christ's death, with the woman Mary Magdalene at the tomb, and her vision of two angels in white (John 20:1-17), may have been picked up in Plato's Crito [43A], where the condemned Socrates gives an account of a dream he had just had: Crito: Why, what was the dream about?
Socrates: I thought I saw a gloriously beautiful woman dressed in white robes, who came up to me and addressed me in these words: 'Socrates, To the pleasant land of Phthia on the third day thou shalt come'. "What is Plato but Moses in Attic Greek!", exclaimed St. Clement of Alexandria [6550]. And St. Augustine considered Plato's conception of God to be so like the one described in the Bible that he had wondered if Plato may have, during the time of his journey to Egypt, "listened to the prophet Jeremiah" - before rightly rejecting such a connection as a chronological impossibility [6600]. Augustine, educated in - and very much steeped in - a western Greco-Roman tradition, had accepted the standard Greek version of Plato as a C4th Greek philosopher, pre-Christian. He found what he believed to be similarities in Plato's Timaeus with both Genesis 1 and Exodus 3:14[6650]. Gentile knowledge of the Old Testament would have been greatly facilitated by its translation into Greek (the Septuagint) at Alexandria in the C3rd BC. But Augustine goes even deeper than the Old Testament, by considering who he regarded as a C4th BC Plato as a potential Christian [6700]: "Plato and Porphyry each made certain statements which might have brought them both to become Christians if they had exchanged them with one another". From our discussion of Socrates above, we have learned that Plato's dialogues did in fact belong to the early Christian era. So perhaps A. Burn was not too far from the mark in his comment that Xenophon and Plato were Socrates' Sts. Mark and John [6750]; though he himself did not mean these to be taken as literal identifications. Certainly Plato's writings have been likened to parts of Sts. John and Paul. I cannot find much by way of significance in the name Plato [6800]. The apostles had a contemporary with a slightly similar name, Philo Judaeus, who is supposed to have lived in Alexandria and who synthesized Hebrew and Greek thought. Again not much is known about Philo's life, but his writings too have been likened in part to St. Paul's. St. Jerome even regarded Philo as one of the Church fathers, and Philo was supposed to have been friends with St. Peter [6850]. The staunch Jew, Philo, who is thought to have lived contemporaneously with the Apostles (c.20 BC-AD 40), who according to The Encyclopedia of Philosophy "was well educated in both Judaism and Greek philosophy" [6900]; who allegorized the New Testament; whose writings remarkably resemble those of St. Paul? "Little is known about the events of [Philo's] life …" [6950], according to what has become a familiar chant from encyclopediae of philosophy. One would expect Philo, as a contemporary of the apostles and a friend of St. Peter's, to figure somewhere in the New Testament. Certainly his name Philo, 'lover', would be most appropriate to St. John, the 'Apostle of Love', or 'Beloved Apostle' [7000], a close companion of St. Peter's. If Philo Judaeus does indeed connect with one or the other apostle, then this would explode Osman's claim that Philo Judaeus never wrote of the physical Jesus [7050]. Perhaps the real beginnings of Plato's rather abstract dialogues arose with Gnosticism, for example with the likes of Marcion (C2nd AD), who was very selective about which parts of the New Testament he kept. He retained the more mystical sections, especially St. Paul, and scrapped the historical material, the Gospels. That may explain why Plato's dialogues contain so much exalted, mystical-like doctrine admixed with some very alien material: a disembodied New Testament, so to speak, like Gnosticism. Greek tradition has it that Aristotle was a student of Plato's. But, we have discovered Greek tradition to be unreliable. The nearest human equivalent to Aristotle [7100] I find is a pre-Christian philosopher of Maccabean times, and a Jew: the priest, Aristobulus. According to 2 Maccabees 1:10, this Aristobulus was tutor to the Macedonian Greek pharaoh, Ptolemy 'Philometer'. It is from this pedagogical situation, I suggest, that the Greeks developed their tradition of Aristotle's having been the tutor of that most famous of Macedonians, Alexander the Great. Had this been the actual case, though, one wonders why Aristotle never mentioned in his writings any of the extraordinary conquests and achievements of Alexander, and why, conversely, there is virtually no discernible trace of an Aristotelian influence in the thinking of Alexander [7150]. Aristobulus is supposed to have dedicated a book to the Macedonian pharaoh, Ptolemy, purporting to show (the very theme of this article) that the Greeks derived their wisdom and philosophy from the Hebrew Law and the prophets [7200]. Aristobulus may perhaps have been the founder of the allegorical method – which St. Paul would later use to such great effect for example in his Letter to the Hebrews – for which method Alexandria would become famous. A likely candidate for Aristobulus' pharaoh I think would be Ptolemy III "Euergetes" [7250] in whose time the Book of Sirach [7300] (or Ecclesiasticus) was translated into Greek (Sirach, Prologue) - and therefore a favourable time for the creation of the Septuagint. I say this because the Book of Sirach shares numerous ethical subjects in common with those found in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. According to the doctrine of the "lost Aristotle", Aristotle's writings were lost to the Peripatetic school [7350]. But perhaps they were not originally written in Greek. If the real 'Aristotle' were as I maintain a Semite, Aristobulus, then this would explain why this magnificent thinker's writings first became known to western mediaeval scholars via Arabian Moslems, in their own non-Greek language. 2. Jesus Christ and Julius Caesar We read at the very beginning of this article that Virgil's Aeneid "is an immortal poem at the heart of Western life and culture." But it too appears to have been inspired by the Hebrew Bible. According to McDowell [7400]: The Romans, with the advent of the creation of their empire, wanted to give great antiquity to their patriarchs. The first major effort along this line was put forth by Virgil in his Aeneid. This Roman "bible" portrays the imperial city as having been founded and enhanced according to a divine plan: Rome's mission was to bring peace and civilization to the world. Cyrus Gordon has compared Virgil's accounts of the royal house of Rome with the New Testament account of the Messianic office as expressed in Jesus of Nazareth.This explanation may, in part, help to account for the distinct parallels now to be discussed between history's most famous J.C's – Jesus Christ and Julius Caesar – both referred to as the greatest man the earth has ever produced [7450]. Whilst in most aspects Jesus and Julius could not be any more different, there are nevertheless certain incredibly close likenesses, especially in regard to their violent deaths. Both Jesus and Julius were born into poor circumstances; but their ancestry was one of blue blood: Davidic in the case of Jesus, Patrician in the case of Caesar. Their births were notable, a miraculous Virgin birth for Jesus, Julius' birth giving rise to the term 'Caesarian'. Julius belonged to the populares, and Jesus was likewise for the common people. "The tax collectors", said Cicero, "have never been loyal, and are now very friendly with Caesar" [7500]. Likewise, the Pharisees were critical of Jesus for eating with "tax collectors and sinners" (Matthew 9:11). Both Jesus and Julius had spoken of an early death. Both had entered their capital city (Jerusalem, Rome) in triumph, on an ancient feast-day (Passover, Lupercalia [7550]), shortly before mid-March, and had been hailed as "king". This had caused anger and had the plotters conspiring. But there was also an ambivalence about the kingship. Caesar, though a king in deed, had rejected the diadem thrice. And Pilate had tried to get to the bottom of Jesus' kingship: 'So you are a king, then?' (John 18:37); eventually having written in three languages: "Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews" (19:19). The prime mover of Caesar's fatal stabbing was the soldier, Gaius Cassius Longinus, the last name (Longinus) being the very name that tradition has associated with the Roman soldier who rent Christ's side with a spear (19:34). The zealot amongst the conspirators was the intense young Brutus, in whom Dante at least had obviously discerned a similarity with Judas, having located "Brutus and Cassius with Judas Iscariot in Hell" [7600]. Even Christ's words to Judas in Gethsemane, 'So you would betray the Son of Man with a kiss?' (Luke 22:48), resemble what is alleged to be Caesar's anguished last cry: re-made by Shakespeare as 'Et tu Brute?'. There is the premonitory dream warning by the woman (cf. Matthew 27:19). There may even be a confused reminiscence of Barabbas: "Caesar … staged an elaborate legal charade against an old man called Rabirius [Barabbas?] … [who] had been allegedly implicated in … murder … not interested in having the old Rabrius actually executed" [7650]. (Cf. Matthew 27:15-23). On the Ides of March Julius Caesar is supposed to have died, like Jesus, riddled with wounds. The 'heretical' question must now be asked: Did Julius Caesar really exist? Or was his 'life' merely a mixture of his nephew Augustus, who also bore the name Julius Caesar, and aspects of the life of Jesus Christ according to Virgil's biblical borrowings? "Portrait busts are not a safe guide to [Julius Caesar's] appearance, since they may or may not date from his life-time" [7700]. Do we thus have any primary evidence for Caesar, as apparently we do not for Socrates? Do we have anything for Jesus Christ for that matter? I believe that we do have a most precious artifact of his in the enigmatic 'Shroud of Turin' [7750]. Whereas Ahmed Deedat had been unable to find any similarities between Jesus and Mohammed - but only with Moses - since he was taking an unspiritual approach to the subject, writers like St. Paul and the other apostles have by their use of the allegorical method uncovered numerous likenesses between Jesus and Moses (and other Old Testament patriarchs). One crucial example would be Moses' leading out of the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt and Joshua's (a Jesus-like name) bringing them into the Promised Land, to be compared with - the very core of the New Testament - Jesus' redeeming humankind from the slavery of sin in order to lead them ultimately into heaven. But we do not even have to become allegorically-minded to find some startling connections between the New Testament and the Koran. How about the following for another direct steal from the Bible? Jesus, as is well known, had chosen twelve apostles. He also had seventy disciples (Luke 10:1,17; The Douay and Vulgate version have `72' disciples here, a multiple of 12.). Now Mohammed purportedly had almost exactly the same [7800]: … in 622 Mohammed was meeting with seventy-two men of Medina by night at the same ravine, and the oath now taken was called the second Akaba. Twelve of the seventy-two were chosen as elders and the rest were termed disciples. The same promise of paradise was made. Other Jesus-like likenesses attributed to Mohammed (though not necessarily practiced by 'him') are:
- The Islamic prophet led a life of simplicity and poverty. Mohammed in Jerusalem though is as fictional as is that other Islamic legend that Abraham was responsible for the Kaaba at Mecca. Fictional also is the Moslem claim to accept all of the Scriptures, including the Gospels. In Jesus, Islam finds its greatest contradiction. Jesus Christ is the Lord of all history, the beginning and the end: 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty' (Revelation 1:8). WORLD RELIGIONS - and salvation "In the annals of men, individuals have not been lacking who conspicuously devoted their lives to the socio-religious reform of their connected peoples. We find them in every epoch and in all lands. In India, there lived those who transmitted to the world the Vedas, and there was also the great Gautama Buddha; China had its Confucius; the Avesta was produced in Iran. Babylonia gave to the world one of the greatest reformers, the Prophet Abraham (not to speak of such of his ancestors as Enoch and Noah about whom we have very scanty information). The Jewish people may rightly be proud of a long series of reformers: Moses, Samuel, David, Solomon, and Jesus among others". Jesus Christ has been the unifying principle for my revised version of Hebrew, Greco-Roman and Moslem wisdom. Can that influence be extended even further, eastwards to Persia, India and China? Already, we have clear connections between Indian writings in Sanskrit and the Old Testament, a most notable example being the account of the universal Flood. Given the commonality of the Indo-European language with that of the European nations, we should also expect a common origin in Noah's son, Japheth. And indeed we find that the father of the Indian race was Pra-Japati, or 'Father Japheth'.
We should even expect a strong New Testament influence, given the Christian tradition that St. Thomas the Apostle is supposed to have evangelized India. Thomas has certainly - at least in some parts of India - been absorbed into the vast pantheon of Hindu gods. I am now going to propose that Jesus himself has assumed a central role in Hinduism. Krishna is another example of a PBC, having likenesses to both Moses and Jesus. The story of Krishna's birth and childhood, for instance, has, I suggest, been lifted out of the Book of Exodus and given an Indian flavour. As in Exodus 1, there is the cruel ruler, and the favoured child saved and brought up by foster parents, found on the banks of a river [7850]: Thousands of years ago, an evil king called Kamsa [is this a mix of pharaoh Khufu-Amenemes?] ruled the kingdom of Mathura in north India. He was a cruel and evil ruler. He would summon demons and torture his subjects …. Everybody lived in terror of him but nobody was powerful enough to overthrow him. Kamsa believed that he was immortal and would live forever [like pharaoh]. Then one day the king was told that he could only be killed by the eighth son of his cousin's sister, Devaki. Kamsa immediately threw Devaki and her husband, Vasudeva, into prison and killed every one of their children. When Krishna, their eighth son, was born, the gates of prison magically opened. Vasudeva smuggled the baby out of the prison. He saw Yasoda, from a cowherds' village, sleeping by the banks of the Yamuna river. She had just given birth to a baby. Vasudeva swapped the two babies. When Yasoda awoke she thought Krishna was her baby, and she and her husband, Nanda, brought Krishna up among the cowherds. But Krishna was neither a typical child, nor man. He was – like Jesus – a god-Man. He was an avatar (appearing in human form) of God. "Krishna grew up a handsome young man. As he was Vishnu, the Supreme Being in human form, he inspired love from everybody" [7900]. Wise men (the Magi?) traveled a long way to take advantage of Krishna's wisdom. It seemed he was immortal and his earthly life would never end. But his life did end, under a tree (the Cross?) when he was pierced by an arrow (the spear of Longinus?). As with the resurrected Jesus: [7950]: "Nothing of Krishna remained on earth. Even when he died his body became like a bright light and disappeared". Krishna, I believe, is just the Indian version of Christ. His story does not appear in the early Hindu scriptures (just as Jesus' physical life is not found in the Old Testament), but later in the Mahabharata. I suggest that knowledge of Jesus was brought to India by the Apostle Thomas, who was, with his Master, incorporated into the Hindu pantheon. Probably a similar case as with Krishna could be made for the Buddha's being an Indian version of Christ, from closer to the Nepal region [8000]. The Buddha was one who went in search of truth, who opposed the hypocrisy of the Brahmins, the priests of the day, and who strove for enlightenment (or Nirvana), finding it ultimately – rather than death – under a tree. Billions of believers of seemingly totally diverse religions throughout the world (Jews, Christians, Moslems, Hindus, possibly Buddhists) - even Confucians and Zoroastrians - may be much closer linked than they are aware of, firstly through the Old Testament, but more importantly through the divine person of Jesus Christ.
Notes and References Students of Greek history in particular must insist that the personal information of the Greeks discussed here is accurately documented. If it cannot be accurately documented, the here described identifications ought to apply.
[0010] Philosophy (love of wisdom) according to Bertrand Russell, after 90 years, left him so empty that he called it a `washout'. Without Christ in our life, philosophy is a dead end street. |
Crawl out of this tomb
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"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 4th 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 [
) is that this pharaoh refused to acknowledge what Joseph had achieved for Egypt, and therefore did not feel in any way obliged to the nation of Israel [
He married women whom he had never even seen and some who were already married. To effectuate this he obtained from god a special law entitling him to exceed the usual number of wives. He finally coveted Zaynab, the wife of his adopted son Zaid. Zaid obligingly divorced her but when the young woman demanded a revelation to sanction the union, this was produced by Mohammed and the obliging Gabriel. His character degenerated as he continued in power. But he developed a remittent fever in the year 632, at the age of 61, and died on the eighth of June 632".
And the Indian Church of St. Thomas - if it indeed follows a liturgy brought east by the Apostle - may be the closest link that we have today between ancient Judaïsm and Christianity.
More often it is used with reference to God (9 times) and a few times to the king of Israel. Therefore, to suggest the phrase is a `key phrase' applicable to Moses is a bit misleading. The Hebrew phrase is underlined in red and reads, `kemo-k', `like thee' also used in Exodus 15:11 as `linke unto thee, O Lord.' Deedat's order with respect to persons is in error, Jesus is not like Moses but Moses is like Jesus, i.e. some events in the life of Moses are similar to what Jesus, the fulfilling of prophecy - the one whom almost all prophecies in some way pointed to, did.