101 Myths of the Bible: how ancient scribes - Conscious Evolution TV

178 101 Myths of the Bible
that the exiled monarch met up with a group of bronze-armored sea-raiders forced
ashore on Egyptian soil. Seeing this as a fulfillment of the prophesy, Herodotus says,
Psammetichus made friends with the raiders and “persuaded them to enter into his
service, and by their help and the help of his supporters in Egypt defeated and deposed
his eleven enemies.”
Note the numerous parallels between the biblical and Egyptian stories. In both
tales, a group of twelve men related by intermarriage live in a state in which no king
presides; a prophecy foretells that one of the twelve would be ruler over all of them;
when the other eleven learn who will become the new leader, they plan at first to kill
him but then change their minds and banish the offender from their territory; after
being banished, the hero enters Egypt in the company of foreigners; the hero ultimately
arises to a position of power in Egypt; and in fulfillment of the original
prophecy the hero rules over the eleven rivals.
One other parallel suggests itself. In the Egyptian story, a cup belonging to the
hated king plays a role. Similarly, a cup belonging to Joseph plays a key role in the biblical
story. After becoming Prime Minister of Egypt and seeing his brothers appear
before him to buy wheat, Joseph tested his brothers by hiding his silver cup in Benjamin’s
bag. While the cup symbolized Joseph’s power, the holder of the cup, Benjamin,
became the forefather of Israel’s first king, ending the period of kinglessness in Israel.
Herodotus’s Psammetichus may be based on a historical figure of the same name
who ruled Egypt in the seventh century B.C. The king in Israel at the time was Josiah,
the great religious reformer under whom the Book of Deuteronomy may have been
written and whose administration had an active interest in rewriting the earlier history
of Israel. Like Joseph, Josiah was a child when he was thrust into a leadership position,
taking the throne at the age of eight.
Psammetichus’s successor, Neco II, killed Josiah in battle and conquered Jerusalem
and most of Canaan. He installed an Egyptian vassal, Jehoiakim, as king of Judah.
Hebrew scribes at this time would have been familiar with stories about Psammetichus.
While the parallels between the biblical and Egyptian stories closely follow the same
plot, a question remains as to whether Herodotus’s story about the twelve kings was history
or fiction and whether it originally applied to Psammetichus or to some earlier king.