Who were the Hyksos? Strontium isotope analysis of remains from ancient Egypt • Hacker News Board

Re: Who were the Hyksos? Strontium isotope analysis of remains from ancient Egypt

#31

Post by KMag » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 2:04 AM UTC

wbhart wrote: post #28

garmaine wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what you mean. There is absolutely no historical basis for the biblical exodus from Egypt of Jewish people. That said, when the hill people composed their history into the story that would eventually become Genesis and Exodus, they probably drew from some vague stories about the Hyksos occupation of parts of lower Egypt. The Hyksos were almost certainly Canaanite, or one of the other peoples the hill pe…

I'm aware that mainstream archaeologist don't find evidence of an exodus of "Jewish" people from Egypt via the Sinai into Caanan. I personally don't buy their arguments (no dung piles in the desert, no artifacts found, no identification of Mt. Sinai, etc.) But I accept that no evidence is no evidence. There is, as far as I recall, evidence of an "exodus" of sorts of the Hyksos from Egypt, but not any (solid) evidence…

> They use some fairly strident language to describe what it is they are not talking about. I was just curious what that was, and why.

Have a look at what happened more than a decade ago when a paper came out showing no genetic distinction between Palestinians and Jews. Any discussion of nationalities in the Middle East is a political minefield.

Also, ever since The History Channel became the Aliens and Nazis Channel, the authors are probably afraid of being very badly misquoted in some Exodus documentary. The strident language makes it nearly impossible to cherry-pick a quote for a documentary without it sounding like complete gibberish.

Re: Who were the Hyksos? Strontium isotope analysis of remains from ancient Egypt

#32

Post by KMag » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 2:10 AM UTC

netcan wrote: post #26

eternalban wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm entirely off the current mainstream interpretation of Akhenaten. Akhenaten, to me, was hardly a "monotheist". In fact, if I were asked to name a historic figure that was the famous pharoah of biblical lore (the anti-Moses) I would unhesitatingly point to Akhenaten. I suggest considering his treatment of 'temple' with the pre-existing Egyptian norm. His temple has no roof. The original Egyptian model reflected the…

My interpretation is more banal. The borrowings are more superficial. We know that language and style used to describe kings, emperors, and gods are very similar. The "I am Sargon, King of Kings" style occurs in political and religious writings all throughout the region... with roots going deep into the bronze age. Recurring imagery, writing style, motifs, titles, etc. are the norm. Lots of cultural elements are broa…

FYI, the name for the jealous god among many gods is "monolatry". Historically, monolatry has a strong tendency to morph into monotheism, as it's much more stable belief system vs. having solid reasons not to worship other gods on the side.

In the Bible, there's evidence that the earliest Judaism was monolatrist[0]. You can see a very long period of frustration the priests have with people mostly worshipping the most powerful god, but hedging their bets with side worship of Baal Zebul, Asherah, etc. despite Yahweh's jealousy. They had a much easier time discouraging the side worship once they started asserting those side gods didn't exist, rather than saying they were dramatically less powerful.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolatry#In_ancient_Israel

Re: Who were the Hyksos? Strontium isotope analysis of remains from ancient Egypt

#33

Post by netcan » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 8:33 AM UTC

KMag wrote: post #30

netcan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is lots of evidence of semitic people in egypt over various periods. Also egyptian conquests & long lived administrations in these regions. "Semitic," as a language group is pretty big. There are also semitic languages spoken to the south of egypt, who were also interacting a lot with egypt. The Egyptians glorified their history like any political culture does, but massive defeats don't go unrecorded. They just…

By "there would be a relief", I presume you mean "they would have created a relief sculpture", rather than "they would have felt emotional relief". As written the sentence is ambiguous, and right at the point where you pivot from evidence supporting the slave escape narrative to evidence contradicting the slave escape narrative, so I can't be certain my reading is correct despite it fitting much better with the follo…

Yes. I meant statuary, obviously. I also meant it as a joke.

Re: Who were the Hyksos? Strontium isotope analysis of remains from ancient Egypt

#34

Post by netcan » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 9:00 AM UTC

KMag wrote: post #32

netcan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My interpretation is more banal. The borrowings are more superficial. We know that language and style used to describe kings, emperors, and gods are very similar. The "I am Sargon, King of Kings" style occurs in political and religious writings all throughout the region... with roots going deep into the bronze age. Recurring imagery, writing style, motifs, titles, etc. are the norm. Lots of cultural elements are broa…

FYI, the name for the jealous god among many gods is "monolatry". Historically, monolatry has a strong tendency to morph into monotheism, as it's much more stable belief system vs. having solid reasons not to worship other gods on the side. In the Bible, there's evidence that the earliest Judaism was monolatrist[0]. You can see a very long period of frustration the priests have with people mostly worshipping the most…

So... to my perspective, monolatry is the point. Monotheism is a good enough approximation in practice though.

Also, it's not the idea of monolatry or monotheism that matters... it's the development of a religious culture than is effective at banning other religions. This is what made monotheism what it is, historically.

Re: Who were the Hyksos? Strontium isotope analysis of remains from ancient Egypt

#35

Post by eternalban » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #25

eternalban wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, as a student of Iranian history, those "Babylonian" era records are rather intriguing, to say the least. It seems to me Judaism (and associated myths) are a product of an aborted imperial social engineering project of the aborted first Persian Empire. Even the historic divide of religious Jews and "Greek Jews" reflects the sudden collapse of the first Persian Empire and its replacement by the Greeks. A read…

If you are interested in this subject, look into samaritans. They are a closely related group to jews, but probably had less Babylonian & Persian influence. Their version of the Torah ends with Solomon. To this day, they maintain a religion similar to old temple judaism. High priest, sacrifice, etc. Their Torah is written in the native hebrew script. Jews switched to an assyrian script at some point. Nehemiah (book i…

Sorry for the late reply to your very interesting post.

I fully agree that ancient levantine figures, such as Noah, Job, and Abraham, predate the Persian era and were likely incorporated in Babylon.

Have to look into this Hebrew Samaritan Torah you mentioned. My understanding was that there were -no- extant torah of any kind at the time when the people came from Babylon claiming themselves to be the exiles. I know they presecuted the Samaritans to assert their own (version of) religion.