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

200 101 Myths of the Bible
him into the river, from which he was rescued by Akki, the “drawer of water.” Akki
taught him to be a gardener, but the goddess Ishtar favored him and with her guidance
in battle he became a powerful king.
The texts do not give any explanation for why he had to be born in secret, although
his mother’s embarrassment at being a priestess pregnant by an unknown father may
have had something to do with it. In any event, other than the child in the ark theme,
the story-line bears no similarity to that of Moses and makes a poor literary model.
A better and more logical literary model occurs in Egyptian literature, based on the
images of the mythical conflict between the Egyptian gods Horus and Set over the
right to rule. In the Egyptian myth, Horus the Child was hidden away on a floating
island by his mother after Set killed Horus’s father and seized the throne. When
Horus became an adult, he returned from hiding and challenged Set for the throne.
After a series of magical confrontations, Horus defeated the usurper in combat and
became king, driving his enemy into the wilderness.
The image of the true Egyptian ruler floating on the water as a child is an important
motif in Egypt theology. Not only does the Horus-child float on the water, the
Egyptian Creator god, Re, first appears as a child floating on a lotus. This motif was
often used to describe historical events concerning conflicts over the throne. The legitimate
ruler was identified with the Horus-child, who was given a fictional background
as a youth fleeing Egypt to avoid an evil ruler and who later returns to confront the villain
and take back the throne. The Jewish historian Josephus preserves two excellent
examples of such a literary motif.
Quoting from the writings of a third century B.C. Egyptian priest named
Manetho, Josephus tells of an Egyptian priest named Osarseph who seized the Egyptian
throne. The displaced pharaoh and his five-year-old son had to flee the country
while Osarseph cruelly oppressed the Egyptians and desecrated the country and its
religious symbols. Thirteen years later, the child returned at the head of an army and
drove the priest and his followers out of Egypt.
In a variation of this story, attributed by Josephus to an Egyptian writer named
Chaeremon, the pharaoh’s child was born in secret after the cruel emperor came to the
throne and his mother hid him in a cave to save him from execution.