19. Herman Kees, Gottinger Totenbuchstudien (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1954).
20. The authors of the early biblical texts were fascinated with square numbers. By looking at their utilization of mathematics and geometry we can get an interesting insight into their minds. We can also discern, from the knowledge they exhibited and by reference to other sources, the minimum lapsed time between the events recorded and their transcription.
The ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter was first given the term ‘pi’ by William Jones, an English writer, in 1706.
Pi = Circumference/Diameter
This equation was shown by Lindemann, in 1882, to be incapable of solution as a polynomial equation with integer coefficients. In other words, the division gives you an endless number of figures after the decimal point. The world record for memorizing ‘pi’ is attributed to Hideaki Tomoyori, of Japan, who in seventeen hours of recitation in March 1987, got to 40,000 decimal places!
The Old Testament, in describing the building of the First Temple at Jerusalem, refers to a bowl having a circumference three times its diameter:
I Kings7:13–14,23 And king Solomon sent and fetched Hiram out of Tyre.
He was a widow’s son of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass: and he was filled with wisdom, and understanding, and cunning to work all works in brass: and he came to king Solomon, and wrought all his work. … And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from one brim to the other: it was round all about, and its height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
This is a clear statement that the authors knew ‘pi’ as equal to 3.
The Babylonians were somewhat adrift in calculating ‘pi’ as 2.518. The Egyptians, however were much more accurate with their value of 256/81 = 3.1605.
The Greek, Archimedes, arrived at 22/7, which comes to 3.1428. The Chinese got nearest to the value in 500 CE, with their ratio 355/113, which comes to 3.14159. The ancient Indians used the square root of 10, and came near at 3.16.
21. Anderson, The History and Religion of Israel.
CHAPTER 8 ABRAHAM AT PHARAOH’S PALACE
1. Genesis 20:1–2, 14, 16 ‘And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the land of the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar.
And Abraham said of Sarah, his wife: “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah…
And Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and men-servants and women-servants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife…
And unto Sarah he said: “Behold, I have given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver; behold, it is a covering of the eyes to all that are with thee; and before all men thou art righted”.’
Other faults in Abraham’s character are pointed to by several commentators, who suggest that when his faith in God was tested, by seeing if he would give his son Isaac (his most precious possession) to God, he ‘failed the test’. Failed, because he acted in blind faith, without reasoning. See S. H. Bergman, Faith and Reason (Israel: Hebrew University, 1975); Jacqueline Tabick, Sermon on ‘The Binding of Isaac’, (London: West London Synagogue, 1995).
Nevertheless Abraham, on another occasion, demonstrates fearless physical loyalty to his family in coming to the aid of his nephew Lot when he is in trouble (Genesis 14). Powerfully built, he is somewhat of a ‘merchant adventurer’, living on his wits, ready to adapt to new situations and come out winning. He is brave and effective in the face of danger, not hesitating to come to the aid of his brethren. He leads a sizeable force of retainers and provides amply for his family and loyal servants.
2. Irving M. Zeitlin, Ancient Judaism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984); Abba Eban, Heritage, Civilization and the Jews (New York: Summit Books, 1984).
3. Ernst Sellin, Mose und Seine Bedeutung für die Israelitisch-Jüdische Religionsgeschichte (Leipzig: A. Deichertsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1922).
4. Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism (London: The Hogarth Press, 1951).
5. Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man (Boston: Little Brown, 1974).
6. Zeitlin, Ancient Judaism.
7. After leaving Egypt the Bible relates that for much of his life Abraham was without a male heir. His wife Sarah undermined her own position by allowing her handmaiden Hagar to sire Abraham’s first son Ishmael. Sarah’s trust in the Almighty is rewarded by the miraculous birth of a son Isaac, when she is ninety years of age. Abraham’s own faith in one omnipotent God is put to the ultimate test when God demands of him the sacrifice of his beloved son Isaac. The story has all the elements of true drama – love, anguish, deception, a miraculous birth, suspense, a supreme act of faith in an Almighty God through a human sacrifice with the heightened tension of a last minute reprieve.
Despite a tremendous internal struggle, Abraham’s faith is strong enough for him to apparently be prepared to fulfil God’s demand and kill his own son. At the very last minute, even as Abraham’s hand is raised to stab his son to death, God intervenes and commands Abraham to stop, content that Abraham’s faith is secure, and a ram is substituted as the sacrifice.
This story, and its demonstration of ‘a supreme act of faith’, is the basis of the magic that sparked the evolution of not only the Jewish religion, but of Christianity – seeing Abraham as the spiritual ancestor of Christ – and of Islam – seeing Ishmael as the seed of the Arabic nations with Ibrahim (Abraham) as the true ancestor of the Muslim faith.
CHAPTER 9 PHARAOH AKHENATEN – THE KING WHO DISCOVERED GOD
1. Cyril Aldred, Akhenaten King of Egypt (London: Thames & Hudson, 1988); and Cyril Aldred, Akhenaten and Nefertiti (New York: The Brooklyn Museum, 1973); Francis Fèvre, Akhenaton et Néfertiti (Paris: Editions Hazan, 1998).
2. James Henry Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt (New York: Russell & Russell, 1906).
3. James Henry Breasted, A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1906).
4. Arthur Weigall, The Life and Times of Akhnaton (London: Thornton Butterworth Days, 1923).
5. James Henry Breasted, The Dawn of Conscience (London: Prentice Hall, 1976).
6. Donald A. Mackenzie, Egyptian Myth and Legend (London: The Gresham Publishing Co., 1913).
7. Ibid.
8. N. de G. Davies, The Rock Tombs of El Amarna [I-VI] (London: The Egypt Exploration Fund, 1905).
9. Weigall, The Life and Times of Akhnaton.
10. M. Samuel, Texts From the Time of Akhenaten (Brussels: Bibliotheca Aegyptiaca, 1938).
11. James Henry Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt II (New York: Russell & Russell, 1906).
12. Siegfried Morenz, Egyptian Religion (Ithica, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994).
13. A. Volten, Zwei Altagyptische Politische Shriften (Copenhagen, 1945).
14. In one sense his choice of the sun as a representative of infinite power was more appropriate than any other he could possibly have imagined, and he was 5,000 million years correct. We now know that without the sun, the earth and all the planets in our solar system would not exist – but in about five billion years time the sun itself will die and with it all our planets. ‘Sun Storm’, Equinox, Channel 4, 25 August 1998.
15. ‘In the Morning of Man’, The Times Literary Supplement, 29 November 1947.
16. Breasted, A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest.
17. Aldred, Akhenaten King of Eygpt.
18. N. de G. Davies, The Rock Tombs of El Amarna – Part I (London: The Egypt Exploration Fund, 1903).
19. A number of the tenets were, subsequently, ‘weakened’ to a greater or lesser extent, through the influences of traditional Egyptian and local practices.
20. Worship in a Temple has not been possible since the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, and there is no prospect of a new Temple being built on the old site, as it is today occupied by the Muslim Dome of the Rock.
21. Belief in t
he hereafter became prominent in post-biblical Judaism. Hell was referred to as ‘Gehonnim’, after the valley of Hinnom, south-west of Jerusalem, a place of pagan sacrifice.
22. Kathleen M. Kenyon, The Bible and Recent Archaeology (London: British Museum Publications, 1987); Amnon Ben-Tor, The Archaeology of Ancient Israel (Tel Aviv: The Open University of Israel, 1992).
23. de G. Davies, The Rock Tombs – Part I.
CHAPTER 10 JOSEPH – PROPHET OF DESTINY
1. The ancient Egyptian ‘Tale of Two Brothers’ is based on a similar plot of attempted seduction and subsequent false accusation. R. T. Rundle Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt (London: Thames & Hudson, 1978).
2. William Congreve, The Mourning Bride, III, vii (London: Oxford University Press, 1928).
3. Manetho was a third century BCE Egyptian priestly historian, who is believed to have referred to Akhenaten and Joseph in his writings – see Chapter 13.
4. The likelihood of Joseph being ‘given’ a wife from this pro-monotheistic source fits in well with our historical understanding of conditions at the Temple of On in Heliopolis at the time. As N. de G. Davies notes in a treatise on the Smaller Tombs and Boundary Stelae of El-Amarna: ‘…it is precisely in Heliopolis that the jurisdiction of the sun-worshipping King [Akhenaten] would be most readily accepted.’ N. de G. Davies, The Rock Tombs of El Amarna – Part V, Smaller Tombs and Boundary Stelae (London: The Egypt Exploration Fund, 1908).
5. N. de G. Davies, The Rock Tombs of El Amarna – Part III, The Tombs of Huya and Ahmes (London: The Egypt Exploration Fund, 1905).
6. N. de G. Davies, The Rock Tombs of El Amarna – Part II, The Tombs of Panehesy and Meryra II (London: The Egypt Exploration Fund, 1905).
7. Donald B. Redford, Akhenaten the Heretic King (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
8. The subsidiary clue to this lavishing of gold collars and associating Joseph with the time of Akhenaten comes from Targum Onkelos to Genesis (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1982) – an interpretive commentary on the Pentateuch. In its coverage of Genesis 49:24 we find: ‘And his prophecy was fulfilled for he observed the law in secret and placed his trust in Divine power, then gold was lifted on his arms, he took possession of a kingdom and became stronger.’ This Targum appears to have been taken from The Book of Jubilees. In the Ethiopian version of this Book, Pharaoh, speaking about Joseph, says: ‘…put a golden chain around his neck, and proclaim before him saying: “El El wa abrir”…And he put a ring upon his hand…’. See Maren Niehoff, The Figure of Joseph in Targums, Journal of Jewish Studies, 1987–88; E. J. Goodrich, The Book of Jubilees (Ohio: Oberlin, 1888).
9. de G. Davies, The Rock Tombs – Part V.
10. John Romer, Romer’s Egypt: A New Light on the Civilization of Ancient Egypt (London: Joseph, 1982).
11. Cyril Aldred, Akhenaten King of Egypt (London: Thames & Hudson, 1988).
12. W. H. Murnane, The Penguin Guide to Ancient Egypt (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1983).
13. The memory of the name ‘Faiyum’ has remained in Hebrew culture and crops up in various forms. Moses Maimonides – one of the greatest Jewish philosophers, for example, writing the ‘Iggeret Teman’ (Letter to the Jews in Yemen) or ‘Petah-Tikvah’ (Opening of Hope), in 1172 CE, was responding to a pleading letter from Rabbi Jacob al-Fayuim of Yemen. Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, trans. M. Friedlander (New York: Dover Publications, 1956).
14. Amy K. Blank, The Spoken Choice (Cincinnati, Ohio: Hebrew Union College Press, 1959).
15. The Egyptian concept of ‘Maat’ started out as meaning straightness in geometric terms but later came to mean order out of chaos in creational terms – trueness in behaviour, a continual correct human behaviour, an obligation passed from the gods onto the king and then to the people, which gradually included righteous spiritual thinking. A similar parallel exists in Hebrew where the word for straight is ‘iasar’, which also takes on the meaning of ethical correctness.
Later ‘Maat’ evolved into guidelines for justice and a legal system, with judges wearing the sign for ‘Maat’ as they sat in judgement. Here we have the seeds of the divine laws that were to be later developed into detailed instructions and binding laws on the Hebrew people of Canaan.
For those that did not conform to ‘Maat’ there was, however, the possibility of forgiveness from God, or recourse to magic. We see it in the lessons from Merikare, a Pharaoh of the twenty-first century BCE, and in the following:
Though the servant was disposed to do evil,
Yet it is the Lord disposed to be merciful…
Punish me not for my many misdeeds,
I am one who knows not himself.
I am a witless man.
Adolf Erman, Denksteine aus der Thebanischen Graberstadt (Berlin: Koàniglich Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1911).
This moral sense is already well developed in the writings of the sage Petosiris of Hermopolis, who lived in the fourth century BCE:
No-one reaches the saving west unless his heart was righteous by doing ‘Maat’. There no distinction is made between the inferior and superior person; only that one is found faultless when the balances and the two weights stand before the Lord of eternity. No-one is free from the reckoning. Thoth as a baboon holds [the balances], to count each man according to what he has done upon earth.
Eberhard Otto, Die Biographischen Inschriften der Agyptischen Spatzeit (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1954).
Here we see the seeds of confession and absolution from sin. Later evolved into the Hebrew Day of Atonement, and the Christian doctrine of Original Sin and redemption through a saviour.
16. Reflections of the divine word’s inspirational instruction came out as solecisms of wisdom; the ideas of ‘keep reticent’, hold the truth within yourself, speak justice and do justice. As such ‘Maat’, personified as a goddess figure with feather headdress, became the basis of the Egyptian legal system. Judges wore a necklace holding the sign for ‘Maat’ when they sat in judgement. G. Moller, Zeitschrift für Agyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde (Leipzig, 1920).
17. James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955).
18. William W. Hallo and William Kelly Simpson, The Ancient Near East: A History (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971).
19. Chaim Rabin, Qumran Studies, Script Judaica II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957).
20. Solomon ben Moses Alkabez, Menot ha-Levi (Venice, 1585).
CHAPTER 11 THE LONG TREK SOUTH
1. Archaeological work, largely carried out by German and French teams, shows that a pseudo-Hebrew Community existed on Elephantine Island until just after 400 BCE. The anomalous existence of the Community is discussed further in Chapter 19. ‘Elephantine’, Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1992).
2. Dozens of papyri, written in Aramaic, were discovered on the Island of Elephantine at the turn of the nineteenth century and give us details of the lifestyle of the pseudo-Hebrew Community that lived and worshipped there. A. E. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century BC (Oxford: Clarendon, 1923).
3. There is the general principle (recognized, for example, by Plato and Leibnitz) that, although every effort can be made to remove all physical reminders of a system or concept, an idea – especially a powerful and plausible one – is the hardest thing to eliminate.
When terror threatens a valid new idea, the idea tends to retreat to an environment of safety, sympathy or secrecy. Safety was to be found in the remoteness of the Island of Yeb (the Island of Elephantine); sympathy was to be found at On (modern Heliopolis, near Cairo), the traditional centre of sun worship and the site of the first temple to Aten; secrecy was always to be a byword for the descendants of the priests of Aten.
4. How long the sympathy and loyalty towards monotheism continued at On after Akhenaten’s death is difficult to determine. Especially as, if it did continue, it would have done so in se
cret. There are, however, a few clues to be gained from our knowledge that when Jeremiah fled to Egypt, around 580 BCE, and Onias IV around 175 BCE, the place they sought sanctuary at was On. Onias built a Temple at Leontopolis, north of On, at a place now known as Tell el-Yehudiyeh.
CHAPTER 12 MOSES – PRINCE OF EGYPT
1. The word ‘Moses’ meant ‘given birth to’, and was usually associated with a prefix name relating to a god. But it was not unknown for a short-form name to be used on its own. J.W. Griffiths, ‘ The Egyptian Derivation of the Name of Moses’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953).
2. Alfred Sendrey, Music in Ancient Israel (New York: Philosophical Library, 1969).
3. Philip Hyatt, ‘Yahweh as the God of my Father’, Vetus Testamentum 5 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1955).
4. Donald B. Redford, Akhenaten the Heretic King (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
5. Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge, The Mummy: A Handbook of Egyptian Funerary Archaeology (London: Constable, 1989); James Henry Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt (New York: Russell & Russell, 1906).
6. Irving M. Zeitlin, Ancient Judaism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984).
7. Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism (London: The Hogarth Press, 1951).
CHAPTER 13 THE EXODUS – MOSES DOES A SCHINDLER
1. Oscar Schindler was a German businessman who, during the Second World War, bribed the Nazis into allowing him to employ over 1,000 Jews in his Polish factories, thereby effectively saving their lives. His life was featured in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Schindler’s List, based on the novel by Thomas Keneally (London: Sceptre, 1994).
2. Ramses II’s mummy shows him to have been a tall, distinguished man of lean physique. Usually very little is given away about the personality of pharaohs in surviving texts. The records are invariably of encounters with gods, or exaggerations of military successes and campaigns. We can glean, however, that Ramses II was someone who could be negotiated with and would, under pressure, have seen reason.
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