The things that you’re liable to read in the Bible

 

Yes, Jonah, he lived in the whale
Oh, Jonah, he lived in the whale
For he made his home in that fish abdomen
Oh, Jonah, he lived in the whale

 

Little Moses was found in the stream
Little Moses was found in the stream
He floated on water till old Pharaoh's daughter
She fished him, she says, from that stream

 

It Ain’t Necessarily So

 

 

Joshua Schachterle (April 7th, 2025) reckons that he has found:

10 Times Archaeology Has Disagreed with the Biblical Narrative

 

10 Times Archaeology Has Disagreed with the Biblical Narrative

---

 

For centuries, the Bible has been revered as a sacred text, guiding the beliefs of billions of people worldwide. Yet, as archaeology has advanced, many discoveries have challenged the historical accuracy of certain biblical narratives. The field of archaeology offers a lens through which we can scrutinize the events and figures described in the Bible, testing them against physical evidence from the past.

What can we determine regarding conflicting archeology and the Bible? In this article, I’ll explore ten instances where archaeological findings have contradicted or provided an alternative perspective to the biblical story, raising questions about the historical underpinnings of some of the most famous biblical tales. These archaeological revelations invite a reevaluation of how we interpret the ancient texts and their connection to history.

 

Damien Mackey’s comments: Joshua Schachterle makes a correct and very important observation when he writes that: “The field of archaeology offers a lens through which we can scrutinize the events and figures described in the Bible, testing them against physical evidence from the past”.

 

The foundational significance of archaeology is something in which I have believed.

 

For instance, in my 2007 doctoral thesis I regularly referred to the fact that my historico-biblical reconstructions could not be considered valid without a firm stratigraphical underpinning to support them. And, whenever archaeological evidence was found to contradict any of my hopeful reconstructions, I have not hesitated to reject them – even when these may have been pet theories, some of which had also proven to be popular with readers.

 

Truth is paramount! (John 18:37)

 

The point was not lost on two of my examiners, who applauded the fact that I had recognised just how important a factor was the archaeological aspect. 

 

So far, then, I am on the same page as Joshua Schachterle.

 

But I cannot agree at all with what he writes next, on the basis of the findings of an earlier (1994) postgraduate (MA) thesis of mine. Joshua Schachterle writes:

 

What can we determine regarding conflicting archeology and the Bible? In this article, I’ll explore ten instances where archaeological findings have contradicted or provided an alternative perspective to the biblical story, raising questions about the historical underpinnings of some of the most famous biblical tales.

 

For in this particular thesis, that could be called a work of demolition - as contrasted with the 2007 thesis of construction - I called into question the very foundations upon which ancient chronology had been established.

This thesis was eventually passed on both historico-chronological and scientific (archaeoastronomical) grounds. For a simplified version of the thesis, see:

Fall of the Sothic theory: Egyptian chronology revisited · Creation.com

 

Fall of the Sothic Theory: Egyptian chronology revisited

 

For a relatively brief account of my two theses, and my overall purpose in writing them, see my article:

 

Damien F. Mackey’s A Tale of Two Theses

 

(6) Damien F. Mackey's A Tale of Two Theses

 

One examiner of my 1994 thesis would make the remark that, with the conventional system now exposed as flawed (he mentioned the word [getting a] “thrashing”), “the way lay open for a more acceptable alternative”. This is precisely what the ambitious 2007 thesis was intended to be. The old house had collapsed like a pack of cards; the new one would hopefully be built on solid rock rather than sand (cf. Matthew 7:24-27).

 

So when Joshua Schachterle writes of an archaeology that contradicts the Bible, he, unawares, is referring to a conventional textbook archaeology that has been chronologically mis-dated. He is referring to an archaeology that cannot possibly be, for the most part, co-ordinated with biblical history – for such an uneven pair cannot satisfactorily be yoked together (cf. 2 Corinthians 6:14).

 

The Bible and true archaeological evidence, on the other hand, do not conflict.

The problem is wholly with the conventional chronology that was early devised on quite artificial archaeoastronomical assumptions, and – despite some very serious objections – was retained, and has since become an accepted, monolithic norm.

 

It is far easier to fall in line with an established system that one has been taught, and teaches, and has written about, despite its grievous errors, than to exclaim out loud:

 

‘Something is seriously wrong here!’

 

On that note, see my article:

 

Dumb and Dumbfounded archaeology

 

(6) Dumb and Dumbfounded archaeology

 

telling of a catastrophic shock for conventional history, especially Islamic history, with the discovery that supposed C7th AD Umayyad strata lies at the same level as C1st AD Roman strata. The ramifications of this true archaeology are absolutely mind blowing.

 

Joshua Schachterle’s

 

10 Examples of Conflicting Archeology and the Bible Narrative

 

Damien Mackey’s comments: Let us here test the first 3 of these.

 

#1 – History and identity of the Israelites

In the book of Joshua, the Israelites invade the land of Canaan, conquering the cities and then dividing the land between their own twelve tribes. However, archeologists have discovered a different story.

In Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?, William Dever writes that the ancient settlements found in the land of Canaan show no sign of armed conflict. In addition, he says that large Canaanite towns such as Jericho show no evidence of having been destroyed contrary to depictions in the book of Joshua. Instead, Jonathan Laden writes that the Israelites were one group of Canaanites who gradually became their own social group. ….

 

Damien Mackey’s comments: This is so wrong as to be laughable.

The Sothic-based chronology has not made William Dever, clever.

 

The nomadic Middle Bronze I (MBI) people were undoubtedly the Exodus Israelites, as Dr. Rudolph Cohen had sort of, dimly, discerned (The Mysterious MBI People, Rudolph Cohen, Biblical Archaeology Review (9:4), Jul/Aug 1983), even whilst being yoked to an uneven dating system that would set the MBI almost a millennium too early (Dr. Cohen’s “… from about 2200 B.C. to about 2000 B.C.”) 

 

The direction of the in-coming MBI people points from the S to NE. Thus Dr. Cohen:

 

I have been studying the MBI sites in the Central Negev for almost two decades now. The result of this study can, I believe, elucidate some of the outstanding issues. My own conclusion is that the MBI culture must be differentiated from those both preceding and following it. MBI is, in this sense, intermediate.

…. other new aspects of MBI culture, including burial customs and social structure, imply a new ethnic element. Thus, the MBI culture is also intrusive; migrating peoples who destroyed the existing urban centers must be involved. But this new ethnic element was neither Amorite nor “Kurgan” peoples who supposedly came from the north and east. In my view, the new MBI population came from the south and the Sinai, the route of the Israelites on that journey known as the Exodus. This is a new hypothesis published here for the first time.

 

Dr. Cohen continues further on:

 

This hypothesis, of course, contradicts the prevailing assessment, which describes the MBI sites in the Central Negev as a movement that came from the north. It is interesting, however, to note that this migratory drift, as I have reconstructed it, bears a striking similarity to that of the Israelites’ flight from Egypt to the Promised Land, as recorded in the book of Exodus. The concentration of MBI sites in the relatively fertile district east of Kadesh-Barnea recalls the tradition that the Israelites encamped near this oasis for 38 of their 40 years of wandering after leaving Egypt (Deuteronomy 1:46). If the EBII communities were still flourishing in the Negev and Sinai at the time of this MBI incursion, then the capital city of EB Arad with its satellites in the desert no doubt formed a kind of league like that of the Canaanite king of Arad, described in Numbers 21:1, and like that of the Amalekites in Exodus 17:8–13. Both no doubt offered fierce resistance to the northward-advancing MBI Israelites. The establishment of the MBI settlements directly over the ruins of the EBII–EBIII sites in the Central Negev is consistent with the tradition that the Israelites dwelled in the area previously inhabited by their Amalekite foes (Deuteronomy 25:17–19). The northeastward migration of the MBI population into Transjordan has parallels in the Biblical recollection that the Israelites remained in Moab before crossing the Jordan River and laying siege to Jericho (Deuteronomy 3:29).

 

In this connection, it is interesting to note that Early Bronze Age Jericho was destroyed by a violent conflagration, and the site was thinly reoccupied by MBI newcomers, who were apparently unaccustomed to urban dwellings.

 

In the central and northern parts of Israel, the EBIII urban culture flourished. The MBI invaders in the south overwhelmed this urban Canaanite civilization and destroyed their cities but thereafter persisted in a semi-nomadic way of life. This bears a striking similarity to the tradition of Joshua’s devastating campaign against the Canaanite centers in central Palestine and his ban on rebuilding some of them (e.g., Joshua 8:28). Both Jericho and Ai were fortified cities at the end of the Early Bronze Age. According to the Biblical account, they were both destroyed by the Israelites; God specifically instructed that these cities should not be rebuilt. Interestingly enough, after the EBIII destruction of Jericho and Ai, both cities lay in ruins for hundreds of years.

 

Having successfully taken over Palestine, the MBI tribes were profoundly influenced by the mores of the people they conquered, and many of their artifacts and customs have their origin in the Early Bronze Age.

[End of quote]

 

The fact that the MBI people brought with them Egyptian/Red Sea artefacts does no harm to this reconstruction: “Apart from pottery, the other artifacts included grinding stones (sometimes of Aswan granite), fragments of ostrich egg shells, Red Sea conches (and the ornaments fashioned from them) …”.

 

Revisionist Dr. John Osgood, who has not had to wobble under the Sothic yoke, as did Dr. Cohen (d. 2006), has done a better job than anyone else in confirming the MBI as the Exodus Israelites.

 

In his brilliant article, “The Times of the Judges — The Archaeology: (a) Exodus to Conquest” (N Tech. J., vol. 2, 1986, pp. 56–76), Dr Osgood has set side by side:

 

Figure 7. Expected MB I sites according to Exodus narrative.

 

Figure 8. Actual findings of MB I (EB-MBA). (Sources — references 10, 12–22.)

 

Figure 7 is a map of the distribution of known archaeological sites in

the Sinai and the Negev, while for comparison, Figure 8 is a map of the

expected distribution of artifacts if the MB I culture was in fact Israel.

 

The fit is almost exact.

The identification of the MBI people as the Exodus Israelites - with MBI to be re-dated from c. 2000 BC to c. 1450 BC - has to be, for me, the very archaeological foundation for biblical history before and after this time.

 

“… the ancient settlements found in the land of Canaan show no sign of armed conflict. … large Canaanite towns such as Jericho show no evidence of having been destroyed contrary to depictions in the book of Joshua”.

 

Not clever, William Dever.

Recall what Dr. Cohen wrote:

 

…. it is interesting to note that Early Bronze Age Jericho was destroyed by a violent conflagration, and the site was thinly reoccupied by MBI newcomers, who were apparently unaccustomed to urban dwellings.

In the central and northern parts of Israel, the EBIII urban culture flourished. The MBI invaders in the south overwhelmed this urban Canaanite civilization and destroyed their cities but thereafter persisted in a semi-nomadic way of life. This bears a striking similarity to the tradition of Joshua’s devastating campaign against the Canaanite centers in central Palestine and his ban on rebuilding some of them (e.g., Joshua 8:28).

Both Jericho and Ai were fortified cities at the end of the Early Bronze Age. According to the Biblical account, they were both destroyed by the Israelites; God specifically instructed that these cities should not be rebuilt. Interestingly enough, after the EBIII destruction of Jericho and Ai, both cities lay in ruins for hundreds of years.

 

What did I exclaim earlier:

 

‘Something is seriously wrong here!’

 

Wouldn’t it be nice, just for a change, if an archaeologist would say, as did Dr. Cohen, “This [scenario] bears a striking similarity to the [biblical] tradition”, but without having to add, as had he, due to those uneven, lop-sided chronological difficulties:

 

I do not necessarily mean to equate the MBI people with the Israelites, although an ethnic identification should not automatically be ruled out. But I am suggesting that at the very least the traditions incorporated into the Exodus account may have a very ancient inspiration reaching back to the MBI period.

 

In other words, the real MBI scenario inspired the much later, fictitious (or literary) biblical account.

Although there was no biblical Joshua, we could propose the notion of a proto-Joshua.

 

How about this, instead: Since archaeology is a mirror-image of the biblical scenario, might not our chronology be grossly out of whack? So, let us scrutinise the chronology.

 

#2 – There was no mass exodus from Egypt

The book of Exodus begins with the Israelites enslaved in Egypt until God sends a charismatic prophet named Moses to liberate them. Is there evidence for this event?

 

In her commentary on Exodus, Carol Meyers notes that there is no archeological evidence, either for a large Israelite presence in Egypt or for a mass exodus. She writes that while there is some evidence for a small number of Canaanites living in Egypt, there is no indication that they left, which implies that they simply became assimilated Egyptians.

Furthermore, Stephen Russell argues in Images of Egypt in Early Biblical Literature that the stories of Exodus are the creation of the Jewish community both during and after exile, an origin story of sorts with little historical basis.

 

Damien Mackey’s comments: The “mass exodus” of which the Old Testament speaks is the march of the MBI people from Sinai to the Negev, and into Transjordan (as noted by Dr. Cohen), and then crossing the River Jordan and conquering and settling in Canaan, as so well described by both Drs. Cohen and Osgood.

If it walks, talks, and travels, like an Exodus Israelite, then …. 

 

A Blogger, “Nugget”, has well written on this fascinating subject, providing this nugget.

 

The Discoveries at Avaris

 

For more than two centuries archaeologists have sought evidence for the Israelites in Egypt. No Israelite settlement has ever been found in the 19th Dynasty where the Orthodox Chronology predicted it would be. I told you in the last Nugget about the Austrian team of archaeologists, led by Manfred Bietak, who have been excavating at Tel ed-Daba since 1960, more commonly called Avaris in ancient times. Bietak and his team have made many astounding discoveries.

 

Manfred Bietak and his team have found evidence of a long period of Asiatic settlement in Avaris. Between Stratum G/1 and F there is a definite break between two distinct phases of settlement. Both Rohl and Bietak believe this line of demarcation between Stratum G/1 and F at Tel ed-Daba likely marks the break that resulted from the biblical Exodus of the Israelites from Tell ed-Daba.

 

Around Goshen in the Second Intermediate Period there is incontrovertible evidence for a large Asiatic population. ….

 

The majority of the tombs in the earlier strata are of Asiatic people from Palestine and Syria. Bietak says the early Asiatics were heavily Egyptianized. These people have spent considerable time in Egypt and have taken on many of the cultural practices of the Egyptians themselves. Under the New Chronology these people have to be Israelites. The fit for the time period perfectly matches the other indications that this indeed is the correct time period for the Exodus. These earlier Asiatics are more likely to be Joseph’s relatives. The later Asiatics were very different and were not Egyptianized at all and appear to be of Hyksos descent.

 

In the Brooklyn Papyrus there is a list of 95 names of slaves, over 50% of which are Semitic names. There are several Biblical names in the list, e.g. Menahem, Issachar, Asher and Shiphrah. The term Apiru (the equivalent of Hebrew) appears first in the Brooklyn Papyrus. William Albright recognized the language belongs to the northwest Semitic language family which includes Biblical Hebrew. There is a high proportion of female slaves. More adult women are buried here than men. 65% of all burials are children under the age of 18 months with girls out numbering boys by a ratio of 3:1. This could be explained by the massacre of Israelite boys whose bodies were then disposed of in mass unmarked burial pits.

 

All over the city of Avaris are shallow burial pits with multiple victims. There were no careful interments as was required under Egyptian customs. The bodies were thrown one on top of another in mass graves. There is no evidence of grave goods being placed with the corpses as was the Egyptian custom. Bietak is convinced this is direct evidence of a plague or catastrophe. The large part of the remaining population abandoned their homes and left en masse. Bietak says the site was then reoccupied after an unknown interval of time by Asiatics who were not Egyptianised. Hence the break between stratum G/1 and F. There is a strange anomaly where the Asiatic folk who inhabited Stratum F lived in poor conditions yet their graves were richly endowed with precious metals and jewellery.

 

The sources are unconnected and yet intriguingly consistent. Putting all the pieces together one can build up a consistent story which supports the Biblical account. The break in archeological stratum between G/1 and F marks the intervening years following the exodus of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt.

 

The repopulation of Avaris sometime afterward by the Hyksos people who moved into Egypt matches the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period of the Egyptian Pharoahs [sic]. They were Asiatic people from the same region as the Israelites but not Egyptianized as Joseph and his family had been.

 

The facts fit the period before the Exodus well. Given the disruption at the time of plagues and the magnitude of the deaths which occurred there would have been no time to bury the dead according to Egyptian customs. The predominance of females, especially among children would have been a result of the deliberate murder of the male children by the Pharoah. Where did such poor people (slaves no less) get such riches? Simple: read Ex 11:2 which says, “Tell all the Israelite men and women to ask their Egyptian neighbours for articles of silver and gold.”

 

#3 – Jerusalem in the time of King David

In the books of Samuel and Kings, King David is portrayed as a powerful ruler over a vast and formidable territory. However, Israeli archeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman say the data doesn’t support this claim.

 

In their book The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, Finkelstein and Silberman write that there is little evidence to indicate that Jerusalem, David’s capital city according to the Bible, was "more than a typical hill country village" during David and of Solomon’s time. Additionally, David’s region, Judah, was a lightly populated rural region until long after David and Solomon’s time.

 

Damien Mackey’s comments: What might we say about that grossly incompetent, biblical minimising, emeritus professor, The King”:

 

Israel “The King is a Fink” Finkelstein?

 

He always gave me the impression that he and his colleagues were standing in one (relevant) strata level, whilst pointing to another - misguided to there by the flawed Sothic chronological dating.  

Let me explain that.

In the search for archaeological evidence for, say, the kingdom of David and Solomon, these Israeli archaologists, while metaphorically standing in the correct strata, would be pointing to some other level, an impoverished one, like Iron IIA, and foolishly identifying that as the stratum level for the Unified Kingdom of Israel.

 

My comment as to why we never find anything appropriate:

 

“Because you’re standing in it!”

 

True archaeology has provided us with firm evidence for the House of David, with the now famous Tell Dan inscription:

 

And, when the El Amarna (EA) letters are re-dated from the C14th BC to the C9th BC, where they properly belong, there emerges also the “House of Solomon” (Bît Shulman) (EA #’s 74 and 290 – the latter written by the King of Urusalim, Jerusalem).

 

Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Islam, copied the Hebrew laws

 

by

 Damien F. Mackey

  

“The mission of Mohammed”, perfectly reminiscent of that of Moses,

and later of Nehemiah, 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”.

M. O’Hair

 

Moses

 

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 18^th BC). I shall discuss this further on.

 

For my ancient Egyptian historical identifications of Moses, see e.g. my article:

 

Moses, not Joseph, pertains to Egyptian Fifth-Twelfth dynasty

 

(3) Moses, not Joseph, pertains to Egyptian Fifth-Twelfth dynasty

 

The Egyptians may have 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).

 

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 an Akkadian original, as the textbooks say; based upon the story of king Sargon of Akkad?

 

Sargon tells, "in terms reminiscent of Moses, Krishna and other great men", that [as quoted by G. Roux, Ancient Iraq, Penguin Books, 1964, p. 152]:

 

.… 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 Sargonic 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.

 

Dean Hickman has re-dated king Hammurabi of Babylon to the time of kings Solomon and David (mid-C10th BC), re-identifying Hammurabi’s older contemporary, Shamsi-Adad I, as king David's Syrian foe, Hadadazer (2 Samuel 10:16) (“The Dating of Hammurabi”, Proceedings of the Third Seminar of Catastrophism and Ancient History, Uni. of Toronto, 1985, ed. M. Luckerman, pp. 13-28).

For more on this, see e.g. my article:

 

Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim as Contemporaries of Solomon

 

(3) Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim as Contemporaries of Solomon

 

According to this new scenario, Hammurabi could not possibly have influenced Moses.

 

(a) Greek and Canaanite ‘Moses-like Myths’

 

Michael 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 (Hellenosemitica, p. 99):

 

Moses grows up at the court of the Egyptian king as a member of the royal family, and subsequently flees from Egypt after having slain an Egyptian - as Danaos, a member of the Egyptian ruling house, flees from the same country after the slaying of the Aigyptiads which he had arranged. The same number of generations separates Moses from Leah the "wild cow" and Danaos from the cow Io.

 

My Comment: The above parallel might even account for how the Greeks managed to confuse the land of Ionia (Io) with the land of Israel in the case of the earliest (‘pre-Socratic’) philosophers.

 

Michael Astour continues (pp. 99-100):

 

Still more characteristic is that both Moses and Danaos find and create springs in a waterless region; the story of how Poseidon, on the request of the Danaide Amymona, struck out with his trident springs from the Lerna rock, particularly resembles Moses producing a spring from the rock by the stroke of his staff.

A ‘cow’ features also in the legend of Cadmus, son of Agenor, king of Tyre upon the disappearance of his sister Europa, who was sent by his father together with his brothers Cilix and Phoenix to seek her with instructions not to return without her. Seeking the advice of the oracle at Delphi, Cadmus was told to settle at the point where a cow, which he would meet leaving the temple, would lie down. The cow led him to the site of Thebes (remember the two cities by that name). There he built the citadel of Cadmeia. Cadmus married Harmonia, the daughter of Ares, god of war, and Aphrodite and, according to the legend, was the founder of the House of Oedipus.

 

Michael Astour believes that "even more similar features" may be discovered if one links these accounts to the Ugaritic (Canaanite) poem of Danel, which he had previously identified as "the prototype of the Danaos myth" (p. 100):

 

The name of Aqht, the son of Danel, returns as Qehat, the grandfather of Moses. The name of the locality Mrrt, where Aqht was killed, figures in the gentilic form Merarî as the brother of Qehat in the Levite genealogy. The name of P?t, the daughter of Danel and the devoted sister of Aqht, is met in the Moses story as Pû'ã, a midwife who saved the life of the new-born Moses. The very name of Moses, in the feminine form Mšt, is, in the Ugaritic poem, the first half of Danel's wife's name, while the second half of her name, Dnty, corresponds to the name of Levi's sister Dinah.

 

Michael Astour had already explained how the biblical story of the Rape of Dinah (Genesis 34) was "analogous to the myth of the bloody wedding of her namesakes, the Danaides".

 

He continues on here with his fascinating Greco-Israelite parallels:

 

Dân, the root of the names Dnel, Dnty (and also Dinah and Danaos), was the name of a tribe whose priests claimed to descend directly from Moses (Jud. 18:30); and compare the serpent emblem of the tribe of Dan with the serpent staff of Moses and the bronze serpent he erected. …

 

Under the same name - Danaë - another Argive heroine of the Danaid stock is thrown into the sea in a chest with her new-born son - as Moses in his ark (tébã) - and lands on the serpent-island of Seriphos (Heb. šãrâph, applied i.a. to the bronze serpent made by Moses). Moses, like Danel, is a healer, a prophet, a miracle-worker - cf. Danel's staff (mt) which he extends while pronouncing curses against towns and localities, quite like Moses in Egypt; and especially, like Danel, he is a judge….

 

(b) Roman ‘Moses-like Myth’

 

The Romans further corrupted the story of the infant Moses, following on probably from the Egyptians, Babylonians, Canaanites 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.

 

Did the Romans take an Egyptian name for Moses, such as Musare (Neuserre), and turn 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).

 

The Romans may have taken 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 and 4:17).

 

(c) Mohammed: Arabian ‘Moses-like Myths’ ...

 

An Islamic lecturer, Ahmed Deedat ["What the Bible Says About Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him) the Prophet of Islam"]

www.islamworld.net/Muhammad.in.Bible.html

told of an interview he once had with a dominee 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 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 dominee'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.

 

For some of my own views on Mohammed, see my series:

 

Biography of the Prophet Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously Mangles History

 

(3) Biography of the Prophet Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously Mangles History

 

….

Some Conclusions regarding Mohammed (c. 570-632 AD, conventional dating)

 

Whilst Mohammed supposedly lived much later than Moses, there nevertheless do seem to be Arabic borrowings of the Moses story itself (and even appropriations of certain very specific aspects of the life of Jesus) in the legends about Mohammed, who especially resembles Moses in

 

(i) the latter's visit to Mount Horeb (modern Har Karkom) with its cave atop, its Burning Bush, and angel (Exodus 3:1-2), possibly equating to Mohammed's "Mountain of Light" (Jabal-an-Nur), and 'cave of research' (`Ghar-i-Hira'), and angel Gabriel;

 

(ii) at the very same age of forty (Acts 7:23-29), and

(iii) there receiving a divine revelation, leading to his

(iv) becoming a prophet of God and a Lawgiver.

 

Mohammed as a Lawgiver is a direct pinch I believe from the Hebrew Pentateuch, and also from the era of Jeremiah.

 

Consider the following by M. O’Hair ("Mohammed", A text of American Atheist Radio Series program No. 65, first broadcast on August 25, 1969:

www.atheists.org/Islam.Mohammed.html

 

"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 consider anyone equal to Allah;

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:

 

"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".

"The mission of Mohammed", perfectly reminiscent of that of Moses, and later of Nehemiah, 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."

 

The above-mentioned Burning Bush incident occurred whilst Moses

 

(a)    was living in exile (Exodus 2:15)

(b)   amongst the Midianite tribe of Jethro, in the Paran desert.

(c)    Moses had married Jethro's daughter, Zipporah (v. 21).

 

Likewise Mohammed (also partly applicable to Jeremiah and to Nehemiah)

 

(a)    experienced exile;

(b)   to Medina, a name which may easily have become confused with the similar sounding, Midian, and

(c)    he had only the one wife at the time, Khadija. Also

(d)   Moses, like Mohammed, was terrified by what God had commanded of him, protesting that he was "slow of speech and slow of tongue" (Exodus 4:10). To which God replied: "Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be your mouth and teach you what you are to speak' (vv. 11-12).

 

Now this episode, seemingly coupled with Moses’s (with Jeremiah’s) call, 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, or to Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch).

 

This is generally how the Koran is said to have arisen.

 

But Mohammed also resembles Moses in his childhood (and Tobit also) in the fact that, after his infancy, he was raised by a foster-parent (Exodus 2:10). And there is the inevitable

weaning legend (Zahoor, A. and Haq, Z., "Biography of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)", http://cyberistan.org/islamic/muhammad.html

(1998.): "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 and 4:5-7) [O’Hair, op. cit., ibid.]:

 

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 [ibid.]:

 

The Qur'an 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.

 

Mohammed is now for Islam 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" [ibid.].

 

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 [ibid.]:

 

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 ["What Historians have Deduced about the Historical Mohammed.

(http://jeromekhan123.tripod.com/enlightenment/id11.html; - currently not online).

See also Barnes, T. D. "The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East II: Land Use and Settlement Patterns, ed. Averil Cameron and G. R. D.; King [Papers of the Second Workshop on Late Antiquity and Early Islam. Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 1], volume II (Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1994)" (1996-1997), IX: 191-199.; "The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East III: States, Resources and Armies, ed. Averil Cameron [Papers of the Third Workshop on Late Antiquity and Early Islam. Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 1], volume III (Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1995)" (1996-1997), IX: 191-199.; "Albrecht Noth's The Early Arabic Historical tradition. A Source-Critical Study, trans. Michael Bonner, in collaboration with Lawrence I. Conrad [Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 3] (Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1994)", (1996-1997), IX: 191-199.]:

 

"'Well into the second century A.H. [A.H. is the muslim time reckoning and means 'Asahhus-siyar'.] 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".

 

My own estimation of the historical dislocation of the Prophet Mohammed would involve far more than a mere “variance of eighty-five years”. The fact is that we now have a ‘Mohammed’ who is a semi-legendary version of the original Prophet. Mohammed, a composite figure, seems to have likenesses even 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.

 

(d) Modern Myths about Moses

 

From the 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 [Out of Egypt. The Roots of Christianity Revealed (Century, 1998)] - identified all the major biblical Israelites, from the patriarch Joseph to the Holy Family of Nazareth, as Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian characters. Thus Joseph = Yuya; Moses = Akhnaton; David = Thutmose III; Solomon = Amenhotep III; Jesus = Tutankhamun; St. Joseph = Ay; Mary = Nefertiti.

 

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 article, “Osman’s ‘Osmosis’ of Moses” article [The Glozel Newsletter, 5:1 (ns) 1999 (Hamilton, N.Z), pp. 1-17], 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.

This article, modified, can now be read as the two-part series:

 

Osman’s ‘Osmosis’ of Moses. Part One: The Chosen People

 

(4) Osman's 'Osmosis' of Moses. Part One: The Chosen People | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu

and:

 

Osman’s ‘Osmosis’ of Moses. Part II: Christ the King

 

(4) Osman's 'Osmosis' of Moses. Part Two: Christ The King | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu

 

The way that Egyptian chronology is structured at present - thanks largely to Eduard Meyer’s now approximately one century-old Ägyptische Chronologie (Philosophische und historische Abhandlungen der Königlich preussischen Akad. der Wissenschaften, Berlin, Akad. der Wiss., 1904).) 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”, has, together with his colleagues, virtually written ancient Israel right off the historical map, along with all of its major biblical characters. This horrible mess is an inevitable consequence of the faulty Sothic chronology with which these archaeologists seem to be mesmerized.

 

With friends like Finkelstein and co., why would Israel need any enemies!

 

The Lawgiver Solon

 

Whilst the great Lawgiver for the Hebrews was Moses, and for the Babylonians, Hammurabi, and for the Moslems, supposedly, 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 (supposedly 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 (Plato's Timaeus, trans. B. Jowett, The Liberal Arts Press, NY, 1949), 6 (22)) and/or Desmond Lee’s translation, Penguin Classics, p. 34]:

 

‘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).

 

Was it not King Solomon himself, rather than some supposed ancient Egyptian priest, who had proclaimed that what has gone before has been forgotten? (Ecclesiastes 1:10-11):

 

“Is there anything of which one can say,
  ‘Look! This is something new’?
It was here already, long ago;
    it was here before our time.

No one remembers the former generations,
    and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
    by those who follow them”.

 

Solon resembles Solomon especially in roughly the last decade of the latter’s reign, when King 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!

 

Edwin Yamauchi 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) (“Two reformers compared: Solon of Athens and Nehemiah of Jerusalem”, Bible world. New York: KTAV, 1980. pp. 269-292).

 

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 (“Solomon and Sheba”, SIS C and C Review, 1997:1, pp. 4-15), the most influential Senenmut of Egyptian history, Hatshepsut’s mentor; whilst Hatshepsut herself was the biblical Queen [of] Sheba. This article (Now updated) can now be read at:

 

Solomon and Sheba

 

(2) Solomon and Sheba

 

I have also identified Hatshepsut/Sheba as the biblical Abishag, who comforted the aged King David (I Kings 1-4), and, likewise, as the beautiful virgin daughter of David, Tamar.

 

The Spartan Lawgiver par excellence is Lycurgus, who seems to have been taken from the Hebrew Moses.

On this, see my article:

 

Moses and Lycurgus

 

(4) Moses and Lycurgus | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu

 

Professor Henry Breasted had 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, 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” (A History of Egypt, 2nd ed., NY (Scribner, 1924), p. 274).

 

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 Levantines and/or Jews had migrated to Greece.

 

In 1 Maccabees 12:21 [Areios king of the Spartans, to Onias the high priest, greetings: “A document has been found stating that the Spartans and the Jews are brothers; both nations descended from Abraham”. Areus, der König zu Sparta, entbietet Onias, dem Hohenpriester, seinen Gruß. "Wir finden in unsern alten Schriften, daß die von Sparta und die Juden Brüder sind, dieweil beide Völker von Abraham herkommen." 1. Macc. 12:20, 21, The New American Bible, 1970], 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, concerning a supposed C5th BC deputation from Rome that brought back the laws of Solon to be embedded into the Twelve Tables, we read this by Ken Moore:

2019-5-2-3-Moore.pdf

 

Athens Journal of History - Volume 5, Issue 2 – Pages 123-134

 

Rome’s Decemviral Commission to Greece: Fact, Fiction or Otherwise?

 

….

 

However, by the late 18th century, Gibbon had taken up Vico’s cause, writing that due to “national pride, both Livy and Dionysius are willing to believe that the deputies of Rome visited Athens under the wise and splendid administration of Pericles, and the laws of Solon were transferred into the Twelve Tables”. ….

 

Damien Mackey’s comment: So-called ‘Pericles’ may well have post-dated the C5th BC:

 

Pericles thought to have preceded, by centuries, Hadrian, a ‘second Pericles’

 

(3) Pericles thought to have preceded, by centuries, Hadrian, a ‘second Pericles’

 

He went on to point out there was no Greek evidence of such a deputation and that any similarity between the Roman laws and those of Solon were only "some casual resemblance". In the early nineteenth century, Livy’s accuracy became a subject of wider debate and it was concluded that there was a general absence of notable Greek elements in the Twelve Tables. In his first edition of his History of Rome, Niebhur argued that the commission to Athens had never taken place, eventually admitting (in the second edition of this same opus) that it might have occurred but that it had little observable impact on the final Roman legislation.

….

Mommsen agreed with that view and his position remains dominant to this day, with more limited debates still arising from time to time. …. Wilhelm Ihne, referencing Gibbon, argued that "the whole story of the Greek embassy was a fiction". …. Gruen, quoted above, illustrates a typical stance on the matter in the current historiography.

Even so, some scholars such as Ellmore, in the early twentieth century, sought to rehabilitate the view that the commission did, in fact, happen (or could have happened) and they did so with recourse to considerations of constitutional matters versus legal ones, e.g. a politeia (res publicae) in contrast to nomoi (leges). The issue comes down to whether or not the Decemvirs were just producing a code of laws or whether their actions marked a fundamental constitutional change. If the former, then there would have been little need to send a deputation to Athens or anywhere else. If the latter, then such a commission would have been not only desirable but potentially quite necessary. …. The distinction between laws and constitution was recognised both by Plato in the appropriately titled Republic (Politeia) and Laws (Nomoi) as well as later by Cicero, with clear homage to Plato, in his On the Republic (De re publica) and On the Laws (De legibus).

Metaphysics and morality aside, the one is clearly about the laws themselves and the other about the theoretical, structural and operational principles of the state. In his Laws, Plato describes two phases of forming a constitution: the establishment of government officials and the laws which govern their conduct and function (675a). Aristotle goes into greater detail in the Politics, also describing the organisation of the state with regard to the public offices and the rules by which they must govern. …. Of course, Plato and Aristotle were producing 4th century articulations that would have been unavailable to any deputation sent from Rome to Athens in the early 5th century, if there was one; but, they do illustrate that such ideas had been in circulation since at least the time of Solon.

Ihne’s argument against the "embassy to Athens" bears some further consideration, entailing several key points. He asserted that "no nation of antiquity ever dreamt of forming its civil law after a foreign model" and, as with Gibbon and Mommsen, that there is no resemblance between the laws of the Twelve Tables and the laws of Solon. As Niebhur succinctly agreed, the "laws of Solon did not contain what the Romans wanted". …. As well as the lack of any evidence from Greece, Ihne pointed out that the Solonian laws were no longer in effect at that time, rather the Cleisthenic reforms were in place. …. His last objection can be countered if we assume that the Romans were specifically interested in Solon’s laws, regardless of the fact that those of Cleisthenes were then in place. News travelled slowly in the ancient world and the Romans may have been unaware of Cleisthenes but perhaps had heard of Solon and how he had dealt with a crisis similar to their own. Or they may have been aware of Cleisthenes’ reforms and preferred Solon’s nevertheless for reasons of their own. The reforms of Solon, which Livy states were being studied by the alleged commission, were definitively of a constitutional type, and indeed the Romans were reportedly experiencing comparable issues having to do with debt, representation and inequality.

In terms of the lack of similarity between the Roman laws and those of Solon, Cicero reported that at least one of Solon’s was actually adopted by the Romans, that concerning expressions of grief and wealth at funerals. …. It is only a single case of parallelism, of the sort that Gibbon had dismissed as circumstantial with "some rules which nature and reason have revealed to every society". …. And he too had cited a lack of Greek evidence for the embassy. But this bears some closer scrutiny. Table Ten, insofar as we have it intact, states:

 

1.       A dead person shall not be buried or burned in the city.

2.      ... More than this one shall not do: one shall not smooth a funeral pyre with an axe.

3.      ... Expenses of a funeral shall be limited to three mourners wearing veils and one mourner wearing an inexpensive purple tunic and ten flutists...

4.      Women shall not tear their cheeks or shall not make a sorrowful outcry on account of a funeral.

5a. A dead person’s bones shall not be collected that one may make a second funeral.

     5b. An exception is for death in battle and on foreign soil.

           6a. ... Anointing by slaves is abolished and every kind of drinking bout ... there      shall be no costly sprinkling, no long garlands, no incense boxes...

      6b. ... A myrrh-spiced drink...shall not be poured on a dead person.

      7. Whoever wins a crown himself or by his property, by honour, or by valour, the crown is bestowed on him at his burial...

      8. ... Nor gold shall be added to a corpse. But if any one buries or burns a corpse that has gold dental work it shall be without prejudice.

      9. It is forbidden...to build a new pyre or a burning mound nearer than sixty feet to another’s building without the owner’s consent.

     10. It is forbidden to acquire by prescriptive right a vestibule of a sepulchre or a burning mound. ….

 

Solon’s laws on funerary matters are rather more complete, as we have them preserved from a 5th century inscription and canvassed elsewhere in other primary sources, and there are many notable resemblances with Table Ten. …. They state:

 

These are the laws concerning the dead. Bury the dead person as follows: in three white cloths-a spread, a shroud, and a coverlet-or in fewer, not worth more than 300 drachmas. Carry out [the body] on a wedge-footed bed and do not cover the bier with cloths. Bring not more than three choes of wine to the tomb and not more than one chous of olive oil, and bring back the empty jars. Carry the shrouded corpse in silence all the way to the tomb. Perform the preliminary sacrifice according to ancestral customs. Bring the bed and the covers back from the tomb inside the house.

On the next day cleanse the house first with sea water, and then cleanse all the rooms with hyssop. When it has been thoroughly cleansed, the house is to be free from pollution; and sacrifices should be made on the hearth.

The women who come to mourn at the funeral are not to leave the tomb before the men. …. There is to be no mourning for the dead person on the thirtieth day. Do not put a wine-cup beneath the bed, do not pour out the water, and do not bring the sweepings to the tomb. In the event that a person dies, when he is carried out, no women should go to the house other than those polluted [by the death]. Those polluted are the mother and wife and sisters and daughters, and in addition to these not more than five women, the daughters’ children and cousins; no one else. The polluted when washed with water poured out [from jugs] are free from pollution. [The next two lines are damaged].

This law has been ratified by the Council and the People. On the third day those who mourn on the anniversary of the death are to be free from pollution, but they are not to enter a temple, and the house is to be free from pollution until they come back from the tomb. ….

 

The original laws from the Roman Tenth Table will have been more elaborate; but even the version that we have reveals remarkable similarity with the Solonian ones.

….

 

Babylonian, Greek, Roman, Islamic, Laws, all appear to have been heavily influenced by the Hebrews (Moses, David and Solomon, and Nehemiah).