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

210 101 Myths of the Bible
were destroyed for rebelling against Re’s supreme rule, with Jahweh replacing Re as the
chief deity.
What is missing from the Egyptian story is the parting of the waters, a biblical
claim that is probably a late addition to the story. In Exodus 15, considered the oldest
original poem in the Bible (perhaps twelfth to tenth centuries B.C.), and which follows
right after the story of the drowning of the pharaoh’s army, we have the Song of Moses,
a recap of the pharaoh’s defeat. In it there is no mention of the splitting of the sea, just the
drowning of the soldiers. Particularly interesting in this poem is the following passage:
“And in the greatness of thine excellency thou hast overthrown them that rose up against
thee: thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble” (Exod. 15:7).
Note here the basic theme from the Book of the Divine Cow. The biblical poem
depicts the pharaoh’s army as rebelling against God, a slightly different image than that
generally presented in the rest of Exodus, and God sent down his wrath to destroy
them. In the Book of the Divine Cow, we have a rebellion and Re sent down his wrath,
in the form of Hathor. While the Bible understandably omits the image of Hathor, a
Hathor substitute appears in the story.
[T]he angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went
behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood
behind them: And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of
Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so
that the one came not near the other all the night. (Exod. 14:19–20)
The angel described above substitutes for Hathor as the agent of God and even
retains some of Hathor’s characteristic as the place where the sun shines.
In addition to the Divine Cow myth, Egyptians also used the drowning theme on
occasion to metaphorically describe the defeat of an enemy. Ramesses II, for example,
in describing a battle with the Hittites, claimed to have single-handedly drowned the
enemy in the Orontes River, despite the fact that he:
entered into the host of the fallen ones of Khatti [i.e., the Hittites], being alone by
himself, none other with him. And His Majesty went to look about him, and found
surrounding him on his outer side 2500 pairs of horses with all the champions of the