That’s extremely unlikely. The Book of Going Forth (better known as the Book of the Dead) isn’t a religious canon like the Torah, Bible, or Koran. It’s a funeral text, not a religious code. It’s a collection of “spells”, no copy of which contains the exact same set. Overall 192 spells are known. The one with the 42 negative confessions is spell 125 which doesn’t even show up until the New Kingdom era and is not included in every copy after it’s first known appearance.
Furthermore the basis of the laws in Exodus and Leviticus shows a large amount of similarity with other Mesopotamian codes like the Code of Hammurabi (which predates spell 125) or even older codes like that of Lipit-Ishtar. The book of Leviticus shows much more similarity to the oldest known set of laws, the Code of Ur-Nammu, than spell 125.
Incidentally, if you wanted to argue an Egyptian foundation of Mesopotamian laws you’re better off starting with the older and more closely related Maxims of Ptahhotep than the Book of the Dead. I don’t thing you’ll get too far, but at least you’ll be in the right millennium.
The Book of the Dead meanwhile has an easy to trace line of decent that has little to do with Mesopotamian codes. It’s clearly a revision of the older Coffin Texts, themselves a revision of the Pyramid Texts. The Pyramid Texts have almost nothing in common with Judaic beliefs. The Pyramid Texts are an aid for kings, and kings only, ascending after death to take their rightful place among the gods.
If we go back far enough, the origin of everything is in Africa. In addition, race is a sociological rather than biological construct, and in the time periods we’re discussing, the modern uses of “black” and “white” don’t really apply. If, thousands of years ago, you walked from villages in modern Sudan up to villages in modern Jordan, you’d note that the people in each village looked pretty much the same as the last village, even if those in what is now Sudan had darker skin than those in what is now Jordan. Thousands of years ago, in the Middle East and North Africa, most people probably had brown skin, and many modern “whites” and “blacks” assuredly descend from those folks, both in the sense of biological heredity and in the sense of society and culture.
So while most modern Jews likely descend from converts to Judaism, the same Jews probably also descend from the originators of Judaism as well, whether they were in Africa or the Middle East. We all have thousands of ancestors, and going back far enough we also all have African ancestors (and many of us have very recent African ancestors).
Finally – Judaism (and most other religions) did not arise at once… it was a long process, and it assuredly swept up local customs and beliefs from many groups. Regardless of what continent held the first people to call themselves Jews, it almost certainly contains beliefs and customs gathered from cultures in Africa as well as the Middle East.
Yeah, I agree with you. I don’t take issue with the overall criticism of coryoliver’s posts. I just wanted to point out the one thing I quoted, because it needs to be pointed out sometimes.
See how that works? You say something without providing a shred of evidence and someone else posts that you are wrong.
If you want to persuade anyone of your position, you need to provide something in the way of a timeline and a reason to accept it. Oldeb has already pointed out that the Book of the Coming forth of Day and Night actually was written after texts that we know did influence the writing of Jewish Scriptures. So why should we accept your word on the matter when you continue to post errors. It is not true that monotheism originated in only one place in the world. You have provided no evidence that whatever beliefs may have been held in the Nile Valley actually shaped Judaism. The 42 Declarations of Innocence are hardly the origin of the Ten commandments. There are a couple of similarities, (such as one can find throughout the world–how rare is it to find laws prohibiting theft or murder?), but the structure is different, there are multiple rules that are not shared between them. There is simply no good reason to claim that one led to the other. (For that matter, focusing on the “Ten Commandments” as an indication of the “foundation” of Judaism is an error in itself, as the Decalogue was only one aspect of Judaism and hardly the most important aspect.)
Posts I’m wrong without providing any evidence themselves. LOL I mean come on. When asked to provide sources I’ve certainly provided more than anyone contesting anything I’ve said. Now if you want me to go get page and paragraph that’s something else. I’ve posted two books that bear witness to what I’m saying. Read em or don’t, but don’t act like anything said to oppose what I’m saying would be anything other than information coming out a book by a different author.
Citing sources wouldn’t matter anyway. Didn’t you say that you reject anything Dr. Ben had to say? That means you’d probably reject the late Dr. Clarke or Runoko Rashidi or James Breasted or anyone else I cited. But it still wouldn’t mean you’d be right. I could say I reject Mary Lefkowitz and her colleagues outright, because I recognize where these objections are coming from. I don’t need you to cite it.
Certainly it’s true. It didn’t originate in 3 or 4 different parts of the world simultaneously. When you begin to compare different systems of religion found in different parts of world and find striking similarities, there can only be a few explanations for this: Either those who followed the religion took it with them as they traveled away from their home, teaching and converting as they went; someone came from their homeland to where that religion was practiced, converted and took it back with them; or there was some kinda cosmic spell set over different parts of the world at roughly the same time giving them each a similar system of beliefs. I can imagine the shock and awe when they first came into contact with one another and “realized” they all believed the same thing.
Nile Valley Civilization is older than Mesopotamia, and the attempt to say it isn’t is nothing more than the continued attempt to remove the African from his rightful place in history. Which is still impossible in this instance, because who were the founders of Mesopotamian civilization? I suppose you’ll say it was the ancestors of the current inhabitants.
The reality is the Black Africans, by whatever name you want to give them (Kemites, Anu, Ethiopian, Nubians, etc.), traveled all over the world, taking their culture with them. And they left evidence of it, from the pyramids found throughout Africa, to the Egyptian tomb found over in Israel, to the Olmec heads of South and Central America.
I’m not asking to be a smart ass, but because I’m genuinely curious and different people mean different things with that term.
Do you mean those who our board’s scientific racists would call “negroid” or do you mean for example modern day Algerians, Moroccans, and Egyptians who are referred to by some as “black”.
I’m sure you’re familiar with the career of Martin Bernal who after having his career shreds by “Black Athena” tried to deny that he ever intended to suggest that the ancient Egyptians looked like “modern day West Africans.”
I’m confused by the last bit. I tend to get the Olmec, Toltec, Aztec, Inca and Maya confused. So, I may be thinking of the wrong artifacts entirely. But, all the depictions of the Olmec I can think of show people who, while definitely not white, aren’t black either.
Who says it originated simultaneously? The monotheistic religion of Zoroastrianism arose in Persia, perhaps as early as 1000 BC, and was certainly influential to early Judaism. Monotheistic forms of Hinduism likely arose sometime in the next thousand years in India, as did Judaism in the next few hundred.
Read here about speculation on an African origin of the Olmecs. It’s largely based on supposed African features of some of the colossal stone heads that the Olmecs made (and an isolated and unpopular study of the shape of some skulls found). There’s no genetic evidence of African descent for native South Americans, however, and while the idea is interesting, it seems little more than a hypothesis right now. IMO we’d need more evidence than the features of the statues sort of look like Ethiopians, and a strange bone study that uses an old and rather discredited “Negroid, Caucasoid, and Mongoloid” breakdown.
Which Nile Valley Civilization? There were many, of course.
It’s very possible they did, although I don’t think modern uses of non-biological classifications like “black Africans” is particularly useful when talking about ancient human history.
I guess you could say “negroid”, but I never use that term. I know what you’re saying though.
Didn’t know that about Bernal, but I’m not surprised to hear it. I read through his book some years back, but didn’t go too deeply into it. Not that I needed his affirmation, I know what the ancient Egyptians looked like.
As for the modern day inhabitants of those countries you’ve named, there are still some “Blacks” amongst those predominately Arab populations, and they trace their history back to their ancient ancestors from Kemet and Kush.
You’re still only talking about the continued migration of an ancient Nile Valley religion. It spread as the people spread.
what do you mean there were many? you say that like they were each a distinct “civilization,” founded at different times by different people. wherever it originated, be it Uganda or Ethiopia (Kush), the civilization spread down the Nile as the people did. and when the people crossed over into asia they took their culture with them. and as they continued to move outward so did their culture.
it’s funny, a few years back i was reading Zinn’s 'A People’s History…" and he was talking about the beauty of Native American culture here in this country, but, in many respects, all he was describing was the culture of Black people in back in Africa.
now with Columbus “discovering” America and all…:D, I could see how that would be confusing to some. but not to those of us who know our true history.
The ancients called themselves “Black”, the Black people. Their land was the land of the Blacks (no, not the soil). And Blacks all over the continent still do today, so why shouldn’t I? They had and have many words to describe themselves that all translate to “Black.”
Now that’s just gorgeous to me, so I roll with it.
Persia and India are pretty far from the Nile Valley.
You say that as if it was one continuous transition with smooth transfer’s of power. There were many civilizations that at various times conquered each other, merged with neighbors, and split into other groups. They were closely related in many ways, of course, but there were distinct groups. Some groups probably had ancestors from the south, some from the north, and some from the Middle East, and some from a combination. Most people that live in that area now have mixed ancestry which would include ancestors we would now call black, brown, and white.
These “ancients” were likely brown-skinned, as were their neighbors (whom they undoubtedly both fought with and interacted peacefully with) to the north and south. These ancient people were also from many different interrelated groups. Then, as now, there was no distinct line in which one crossed from a “black” village into a “white” village. Any ancient sociological distinctions of race are unknowable, but however they existed it’s unlikely that they match the sociological concept of race today.
You have provided the name of an out of print book to read and a link to an on-line book that pretty well establishes that Yosef ben-Yochannan made it up, using superficial similarities of different societies to imagine that one originated from the other.
It was not a matter of just citing the sources. (As I noted, your linked citation indicates that one of your sources simply made it up.) It is a matter of providing the actual evidence. Your claim, for example, that monotheism only originated in one place in the world is nonsense. (It did not even originate in only one place in Africa.) Further, you have provided no evidence of monotheism actually being transmitted from a Nile culture of 2300 B.C.E. (1,000 years before Akhenaten by your claim) to a Middle Eastern Culture of 600 B.C.E. (postexilic Judaism)–no records, no chain of successive societies, just hand waving assertions.
Not simultaneously, of course. Like agriculture and many other human actions, it arose at different times in different places.
According to this weird claim, all agriculture must have been either transmitted from Mesopotamia to every other part of the world, (including the Americas), or else some “cosmic spell” caused it to arise in different places, because, of course, no humans could possibly discover or imagine similar things to other humans on their own. Both claims are silly and weaken your argument. It is far more likely that different societies in different stages of development repeated similar actions in similar societies at the same stage of development–development that occurred at different times for each society.
This is nothing more than the sort of silliness exercised by German ethnologists in the late 19th century trying to prove the “superiority” of “Germanic” peoples associating them with “Aryans.” (NOT the later abuse of those errors by the Nazis.)
Archaeology places the development of agriculture in Mesopotamia at about five hundred years earlier than that in the Nile. What archaeological discovery of agriculture or cities in the Nile predates the earliest Mesopotamian discoveries?
DNA has established that the Olmecs were never African, (even if the original claim was not silly on its face). Pyramids, throughout the world, not just in Africa, are typical of many early societies for the simple fact that it is easier to build a large structure by laying successively smaller courses of stone or brick to go up when one has not yet developed the engineering to build tall buildings with hollow interiors. The fact that the pyramids of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Southeast Asia, and Central America are all built using different designs is a clear indication that their constructions was not carried from one society to another, but re-discovered by separate societies at similar levels of development.
= = =
(And please stop making your silly claim about Columbus “discovering” America. No Historian has ever made that claim the way you have presented it and you are embarrassing yourself by repeating the popular tale as if it was ever put forth by Historians.)
Being born in a location means nothing more than that one is subject to the culture and mythologies in which one grew up. It is every bit as accurate to say that his beliefs about his version of Judaism are no better than the beliefs held by Mizrahi Jews in Israel, or by Sephardic or Ashkenazi or Kaifeng Jews elsewhere.
What is important is the evidence that one brings to the discussion and his “evidence”, (according to your linked source), was nothing more than the presence of circumcision in two societies, (a ritual that is practiced by several different societies around the world), and the eschewing of pork, without any consideration of actual beliefs and historical developments and without archaeological evidence that either occurred at the times and places he claimed.
Or they develloped seperatly from each other.
For that matter I would like some more info on who exactly these ‘ancients’ are supposed to be. Which specific culture was that monotheistic Nile-valley people, that you seem to think is at the heart of the spread of montheism?
The nonsense about pyramids is already dealt with, the admittably strange Olmec statues as well, but are you saying that the Kemet (or Egyptians) were black?
The ancient Egyptians were’nt black. They came predominantly from Lybian stock and the difference in their art with “black” Nubians is crearly apparent.
You seem to have some difficulty with grasping the enormous time ranges we are talking about here, as well as some ignorance of the actual histories of North Africa, the Nile-Valley, Israel, Mesopotamia and Iran.
The Egyptians never conquered Algiers or Morocco, so any blacks living there are far more likely to have come there, either from the Sub-Sahara or they came with the Arabs.
So if you say that some can trace their ancestry to Kemet or Kush origins that is a pretty far out claim, that certainly calls for some evidence.
Again you show a distinct lack of knowledge about the period and history.
There was no ‘continued migration’ of Blacks spreading their culture.
Even the Egyptians, who were not Black nor monotheistic, did not go further than the buffer region they created in Palestine, during the New Kingdom.
I predict that this Egyptians were/were not black is going to go nowhere. The Southern Kingdom clearly had a large black presence (and, at some time, was probably “black” as we would define it, today). Early on, the Southern Kingdom and the Northern Kingdom conquered each other once or twice until the Northern Kingdom developed enough resources to remain the dominant society. Since Egypt is, basically, one side of an isthmus separating Africa from Asia, in the days before routine sea travel, it was the location where any number of invasions from the Northeast or South occurred with a certain amount of (not well identified) mixing of populations.
Claims that “the Egyptians” were either "black’ or “white” miss the point that they were almost certainly a mixture of populations from both directions and people who want to assert one or the other pretty nearly always are grinding some axe.
If anyone wishes to pursue that discussion, I strongly urge them to open a new thread on the topic.
The problem I have is that both sides here are relying on speculation on what probably happened. Can anybody tell me what the oldest archeologic evidence for what we know of as judaism is? If you accept that all human life on this planet can be traced back to Africa then we are all Africans at the core and therefore all religions are African. However, since migration and differentiation of culture occurred before the development of different religions, I would say that you would have to say that the place of origin of a religion would have to be where the people were when the religion began, and not where their ancestors originally came from.
So looking at the archeologic evidence, was judaism first practiced in Israel, in Egypt, or in more southern areas of Africa? (I believe nobody is arguing for a European origin). Putting aside the similarities or differences to prior religions, where is the first evidence of people referring the themselves as jewish, or following the basic tenets of judaism?
I lack any expertise and am looking forward to a useful answer to psychobunny’s question. I’ll mention some early artifacts that might have relevance.
A Wikipedia page lists artifacts including 9th century BC inscriptions commemorating Kings of Moab and Assyria, which mention Kings Omri and Ahab of “Israel” as well as their God “Yahweh”. This confirms some Biblical history, but proves little about religion, especially since, according to the Bible, Omri and Ahab were sacrilegious. The 7th century King Josiah of Judah is credited with establishing or re-establishing the Jewish religion, but AFAIK there is no independent corroboration that he even existed.
The Admonitions of Ipuwer is an Egyptian text which some speculate relates to the plagues of Exodus; it probably dates from the Santorini eruption (ca 1600 BC) or earlier.
