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

Myths of the Heroes 201
These two Egyptian stories describe actual historical events, but in disguised and
exaggerated form. They tell of the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten (c. 1372 B.C.), the
monotheistic ruler who unsuccessfully tried to impose his religious viewpoint on the
Egyptian people and persecuted his chief opponents in the priesthood of Amen.
Although the stories had a historical core, the incident of the young hidden pharaoh
who returned to expel the heretic pharaoh is fiction. It is based upon the Horus-Set
literary motif.
Josephus, by the way, added an interesting claim to the story. According to
Manetho, he said, this priest changed his name to Moses and led his Egyptian followers
to Jerusalem. Whether or not one chooses to believe this allegation about Moses,
it shows that from an Egyptian perspective the story of Moses easily adapted to the
Horus-Set motif.
What are the main characteristics of the Egyptian stories? We have an illegitimate
seizure of the Egyptian throne; a young child hidden away by his mother to protect his
life; persecution of the people by the usurper; a return by the child in his adult years to
confront the tyrant; and the expulsion of the tyrant into the wilderness outside of
Egypt. These are essentially the plot details in the Egyptian myths concerning the
conflict between Horus and Set over the right to rule Egypt. The myths, however, add
the elemnt that the child floated on the water and on his return engaged in contests of
magic with the evil king.
The scribes took the Egyptian myth of Horus and Set as a motif, and recast it as a
story about actual events in ancient Egypt, substituting historical figures for the
deities, with the legitimate king being identified with Horus and the illegitimate king
being identified with Set. With only slight but insignificant changes, this adaptation of
the Egyptian myth is also the story of Moses.
In the Egyptian stories, it was the Egyptian people who were persecuted and their
pharaoh that fled Egypt and returned to liberate the people. In the biblical story it is
the people of Israel, residing in Egypt, who were persecuted and an Israelite who fled
Egypt and returned to liberate the people. In both the Egyptian myths and biblical
stories, the liberator’s mother hid the child-hero away, at first leaving him floating on
the water, to avoid execution by a cruel tyrant; the liberator’s people suffered under