# The Ancient Origin and Myths of Israel and Judaism **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 14, 2019, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235 "2019-09-14T21:49:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2

**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235/21 "2019-12-31T14:28:27Z")

> [@septimus](#): > > But whatever the relationship between fermented honey and ritual dunkenness, what do you think about the insistence on a _white_ mare in one ceremony and a _white_ stallion in the other? Chance coincidence? Why not? Pure white horses are rare. Rare things = gift for the Gods. ---

**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235/22 "2019-12-31T18:04:47Z")

The number of linguistic chance coincidences are surprisingly high. I wouldn’t be surprised by cultural ones as well. No individual parallel makes a strong case. But the wiki article I linked to does summarize the scholarship that links the mythology of various Indo-European groups. Actual scholarship, not individual coincidence crackpotology. That includes Celtic and Vedic. ---

**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235/23 "2019-12-31T19:13:05Z")

nm ---

**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235/24 "2019-12-31T20:06:36Z")

Anyway, I award you 1,000 linguistic geek points for relating _epo_- with _aśva_. Nobody who isn’t an Indo-Europeanist would ever guess those two shared a common origin, let alone \*Equus \*or the Éothéod. ---

**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235/25 "2019-12-31T20:08:50Z")

Back to the OP: You never explained what was up with Josiah. I can’t recall anything about Josiah offhand… something about pussycats? ---

**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235/26 "2019-12-31T20:29:42Z")

> [@Johanna](#): > > Anyway, I award you 1,000 linguistic geek points for relating _epo_- with _aśva_. Nobody who isn’t an Indo-Europeanist would ever guess those two shared a common origin, let alone \*Equus \*or the Éothéod. As I said, I just got this from Mallory: Mallory cites Jaan Puhvel, UCLA Emeritus Professor of Classics and Indo-European Studies, for \*asvamedha \< _ekwo-meydho [PIE] ‘horse-drunk’_ And I don’t really understand the Q\>P in Gallo-Brittonic but of course I’m aware of it! 🙂 ---

**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235/27 "2019-12-31T20:43:49Z")

> [@Johanna](#): > > Back to the OP: You never explained what was up with Josiah. I can’t recall anything about Josiah offhand… something about pussycats? King Josiah (born circa 648 BC) was the grandson of Manasseh the Heretic, and is credited with renovating Solomon’s Temple and (re-)establishing the Jewish religion. This was allegedly prompted by the discovery of Moses’ Book of the Law. I think most sources agree Josiah was historical, but getting Dopers to admit that would be a “bridge too far!” 🙂 Dating the Old Testament is controversial of course, but many scholars date the “Deuteronomist” writings to Josiah’s reign. ---

**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235/28 "2019-12-31T21:54:22Z")

I don’t know if anyone here is actually interested in Vedic studies besides **Johanna** , but [_The Indo-Aryan Controversy : evidence and inference in Indian history_](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Indo_Aryan_Controversy/VmSYAi3Ty0IC) is a rather thorough (and “balanced” 🙂 ) look at (mainly linguistic) evidence for Vedic origins. It was available via Amazon — that’s where I got my copy. I try to use that source, but much of my info on those matters comes from Mallory-1989. (Should I be embarrassed that I haven’t upgraded to a more recent edition? I do have other fish to fry.) But it does leave me somewhat bemused to see > [@Ruken](#): > > … But the wiki article I linked to does summarize the scholarship that links the mythology of various Indo-European groups. Actual scholarship, not individual coincidence crackpotology… I’m past wondering whether “crackpotology” is snark aimed at me. But this poster has Wikipedia for a source. Wow! Probably edited just this morning! I’m embarrassed to still be using Mallory-1989. Even _Indo-Aryan Controversy_ is 15 years out of date. ---

**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2020, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235/29 "2020-01-01T13:52:45Z")

Considering the Wikipedia article backs you up, that’s a strange interpretation. ---

**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2020, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235/30 "2020-01-01T14:16:11Z")

I apologize for misconstruing your post, **Ruken**. Its intent seemed ambiguous to me: possibly supportive, but I wasn’t sure. I assumed the worst and figured you wanted to join in on the pile-on! :smack: ---

**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2020, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235/31 "2020-01-01T14:25:36Z")

The pile-on-ers were wrong. However, a handful of peculiar coincidences are just peculiar coincidences and are not very useful individually. Hence the wiki link, which has a good summary. **GreenWyvern** wanted a cite; that’s a good place to start Now where were we? Still want to talk about Jewish mythology? ---

**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2020, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235/32 "2020-01-02T21:00:15Z")

> [@septimus](#): > > As I said, I just got this from Mallory: > Mallory cites Jaan Puhvel, UCLA Emeritus Professor of Classics and Indo-European Studies, for \*asvamedha \< _ekwo-meydho [PIE] ‘horse-drunk’_ OK, instead of dismissing that out of hand, it deserves fair consideration. I suspect that Puhvel may have pulled off a neat sleight of hand with the final vowel in his proposed reconstruction \*_meydho_. The proto-IE root we’re working with is \*[medhu](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/m%C3%A9d%CA%B0u). That final - **u** becomes a problem for Puhvel: Note that in all the daughter languages, the -_u_ persists, including Old English _medu_, Gaulish _medu_, Greek _methu_, OCS _medŭ_, the medv- in Russian _medved_ (‘bear’=‘honey eater’, where \*_u_ shows up as _v_) and of course Sanskrit _madhu_. In some daughter languages, the final -_u_ vowel disappears, but nowhere does it shift to any vowel other than /u/. Puhvel’s sleight of hand is to substitute \*-_o_ for the \*-_u_. That’s reasonable, isn’t it? One labial vowel slipping into another, piece of cake. And, as all Indo-Europeanists know, PIE short \*_o_ in word endings becomes _a_ in Sanskrit. Puhvel uses another sleight of hand in the first syllable, because he knows PIE short \*_e_ in roots becomes _a_ in Sanskrit. So he has to insert a -_y_- to get from \*medhu to \*meydho, in order to get Sanskrit _e_, which is a long vowel. It starts to look like special pleading. I don’t say I’ve disproved that \*medha \*comes from \*_medhu_, there’s a slim chance Puhvel may be on to something, but I’m skeptical is all. > [@](#): > > And I don’t really understand the Q\>P in Gallo-Brittonic but of course I’m aware of it! 🙂 That’s fairly simple as historical sound changes go. The proto-IE \*/k[sup]w[/sup]/ in words like \*_ek[sup]w[/sup]os_ was a labialized unvoiced velar stop. What happened in P-Celtic and Osco-Umbrian Italic was the “unvoiced stop” quality and the “labial” quality got recombined, resulting in the unvoiced labial stop: /p/. Clear? ---

**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2020, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235/33 "2020-01-04T12:00:24Z")

> [@Ruken](#): > > Now where were we? Still want to talk about Jewish mythology? It still seems an interesting topic to me, but I only have questions, not answers. #2 in the thread probably sums up any response I’d get — I should have asked for the thread to be closed then. 🙂 In OP, I list a motley collection of clues that I found interesting, wondering if anyone could connect the dots. Googling turns up at least six different Pharaohs alleged to be Pharaoh of the Exodus (in addition to another four Pharaohs, mostly fathers of the first six, alleged to be the Pharaoh of the Oppression); I suppose at least five of those six constructions are wrong, but which? 😛 IMO the Exodus was somehow based on fact, even if the details are hugely distorted. It’s a fact that Canaanites served in Egypt, both as aristocrats and as slaves, and were expelled on at least two occasions. However conflated the Exodus story may have become, it almost surely had a factual basis. > [@https://reformjudaism.org/exodus-not-fiction](#): > > There have not been many major excavations in the Sinai, and we most certainly have not combed it. Moreover, uncovering objects buried 3,200 years ago is a daunting endeavor. An Israeli colleague laughingly told me that a vehicle that had been lost in the 1973 Yom Kippur War was recently uncovered under 16 meters – that’s 52 feet of sand. Fifty-two feet in 40 years! > > … [The Exodus may have been the Levites (re)joining the other tribes. Levites, e.g. Moses, had Egyptian names.] The two oldest texts in the Bible are the Song of Deborah and the Song of Miriam. The Song of Deborah, in Israel, doesn’t mention Levi. The Song of Miriam, in Egypt, doesn’t mention Israel! > … > The Levites worshipped the God Yahweh, while the Israelite tribes worshipped the God of Canaan: El. Once the Levites arrived on the scene, the tribes needed to make a decision as to which God they would worship – Yahweh or El. They could have decided to worship both … Instead, the tribes decided that El and Yahweh were … “the same God by a different name.” That explains why two of the Levite-authored sources (E and P) both developed the point that God was known as El until the time of the Exodus, and then God revealed to Moses that his true personal name was Yahweh (Exodus 6:23 and Exodus 3:15). El and Yahweh were one and the same. The Elephantine Temple, discovered only a few decades ago, may be an important clue, but is often ignored. Googling I see that only the departed **BrainGlutton** and I have seemed interested in it here. (There have been brief mentions by other Dopers, including an exchange between **Sage Rat** and **DrDeth** in the 2016 thread “The History of Israel Informed By the Exodus Narative.” It was in one of those threads where I found a link to the page quoted above.) Follows here a test! 😛_The Great Hymn to Aten_ (celebrating a Sun-God), written by Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton) himself, has been compared to Psalm 104, allegedly written by King David of Judah and Israel. (The excerpt here starts with a Moon reference.) What do Dopers think? Are the similarities just coincidental? Following are passages which suggest to me that the writer of Psalm 104 was familiar with the Hymn to Aten. > [@](#): > > THE GREAT HYMN OF ATEN: > The land is in darkness, in the manner of death. … > Every lion is come forth from his den; … > At daybreak, when thou arisest on the horizon, … > Their arms are (raised) in praise at thy appearance. > All the world, they do their work. … > How manifold it is, what thou hast made! … > O sole god, like whom there is no other! > Thou didst create the world according to thy desire, > Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts, … > Thou settest every man in his place, > Thou suppliest their necessities: > Everyone has his food, and his time of life is reckoned. … > The world came into being by thy hand, > According as thou hast made them. > When thou hast risen they live, > When thou settest they die. > > PSALM 104, verses 19-29 > He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down. > Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. > The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. > The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens. > Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening. > O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. > So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. > There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein. > These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. > That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good. > Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. ---

**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2020, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235/34 "2020-01-04T17:47:05Z")

What a coincidence! Just now I stumbled upon a [news article suggesting that a stone table on which the Ark of the Covenant once rested has been discovered!](https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Ancient-stone-table-at-Beit-Shemesh-may-hold-link-to-Ark-of-the-Covenant-611444) I was NOT Googling “Israeli archaeology”; I was Googling for reactions to the recent assassination of General Soleimani, and this clickable appeared on the periphery. The “table where Ark of Covenant once sat” _might_ be a speculation too far! Bunimovitz has been excavating at Beit Shemesh for many years, and may have just needed a stunning new announcement to get an interview with some hot journalist. OTOH, Shlomo Bunimovitz is a Professor of Archaeology specializing in ancient Palestine. [Some of his papers can be downloaded.](https://telaviv.academia.edu/ShlomoBunimovitz) I have his “Canaanite Resistance: The Philistines and Beth-Shemesh—A Case Study from Iron Age I.” One interesting tidbit from that paper: Judging by bone remains, _ **no pork was consumed 3100 years ago at Beth Shemesh** _, while as much as 26% of bones were pig bones at neighboring Philistian sites like Ekron. My watch stopped: Was that before or after the Captivity in Babylon? 🙂 ---

**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2020, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235/35 "2020-01-09T14:19:05Z")

Places which ancient humans chose for ritual or veneration were often chosen because they were _already_ venerated places. For example, the ditch at Stonehenge was dug 3100 BC, but much older wooden artifacts have turned up at the site, and [new evidence points to neighboring Blick Mean being a venerated burial ground up to 3000 years before the ditch was dug!](https://www.buckingham.ac.uk/research/hri/blickmead) What about Petra? — The amazing site located halfway between the tips of Dead Sea and Gulf of Aqaba in the ancient land variously called Edom, Se’ir, and the Land of the Shasu. The gigantic carved rooms at Petra stagger the imagination, but the site’s geology would be phenomenal even without those carvings. Nobody knows who did the carvings, let alone what ritual significances that location may have had before that. However, just a few miles from Petra is a mountain called Jabal Hārūn (Aaron’s Mountain). The famous Jewish historian Josephus believes that this was the famous mountain where, in legend, Aaron died. Water might be scarce in this desert, but the ancient city of Petra has a remarkable system supplying spring water. (“Take the rod, … and speak ye unto the rock … and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock” (Numbers 20:8)) Despite a few circumstantial hints, asserting that Yahweh’s mountain was near Petra would be very speculative. Still there was _some_ ritual home for Yahweh, probably in southern Edom: “And He said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground (Exodus 3:5).” In those days, Gods were not abstractions, but often associated with physical places, shrines or statues. And indeed, the Egyptian mention of “Yahweh in the Land of the Shasu” (apparently from the time of Amenhotep II) occurred on a list of place-names. About a century after Amenhotep II, Seti and Ramesses II waged war against the Shasu people. Ramesses II’s son Merneptah seems to brag about destroying these people, but by then a different ethnonym was in use: “Israel is laid waste and his seed is not” Edom (Se’ir, Land of the Shasu) was of course allegedly founded by Esau, brother of Jacob/Israel (“Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man.”) Surely the source that connects the toponym Se’ir to the [Hebrew word for ‘hairy’](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A9%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%A8) is going too far. :eek: I realize these matters are of little or no interest to Dopers, but it’s easier for me to find these musings here via Google than to search for them on my laptop! :rolleyes: Still, I think Dopers should be able to address some of the questions I’ve raised: > [@septimus](#): > > … Following are passages which suggest to me that the writer of Psalm 104 was familiar with the Hymn to Aten. > [@septimus](#): > > … Judging by bone remains, _ **no pork was consumed 3100 years ago at Beth Shemesh** _, while as much as 26% of bones were pig bones at neighboring Philistian sites like Ekron. My watch stopped: Was that before or after the Captivity in Babylon? 🙂 > [@Wikipedia](#): > > According to Karel van der Toorn, "By the 14th century BC, before the cult of Yahweh had reached Israel, groups of Edomites and Midianites worshipped Yahweh as their god [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ancient-origin-and-myths-of-israel-and-judaism/840235.md?page=1)