Sefkhet-Abwy/Seshat = Miriam, Sister of Moses?

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billd89
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Sefkhet-Abwy/Seshat = Miriam, Sister of Moses?

Post by billd89 »

A little over 100 years ago, Amsterdam Theologian (German) Daniel Völter developed an extraordinary thesis which was promptly ignored (i.e. despised) by colleagues of his day: that the Moses Myth in almost all its components was exquisitely Egyptian, taken from other, older (explicitly Egyptian) myths.

On the face of it, no one reasonably intelligent and well-informed should be shocked by this today. (It still makes news, tho.) But Völter was scorned 100 years ago, made a pariah; his heretical work was buried. Völter was the first to meticulously connect Yahweh w/ Sopdu, for example, yet this linkage remains almost unknown, uncited in scholarly literature. This is the first time I'd seen his detailed arguments based on Egyptian material (which could be updated, fine-tuned w/ discoveries of the past 100 yrs.) so I suppose it's worth sharing.

I am still translating the work into English, to put on the Internet Archive. {Edit: Completed.} See one interesting example at D. Völter, Jahwe und Mose im Licht aegyptischer Parallelen [1919], pp.39-40:
Miriam is mentioned as the sister of Moses. The Egyptian archetype of the latter we would recognize in the Sister of Thoth, goddess Sefkhet-Abwy (Sefkhet-Aabut, Seshat), the usual companion of Thoth on monuments 2), as Miriam is of Moses. If Miriam is presented as a prophetess who sings a hymn of victory to the women (Exodus 15:20,21), so too Sefkhet-Abwy has a prophetic character. In a representation from the period of Seti I {1285 BC}, Seshat/ Sefkhet-Abwy is called ‘Mistress of Writing’, who (like her brother Thoth) records with her hand the glory of the king by order of Rê 1). So also Miriam glorifies the victory of Yahweh in Exodus 15:20-1. Brugsch assumes that Sefkhet-Abwy is the first muse mentioned by Plutarch (De Iside et Osiride, c.3), who was at the same time called 'Isis' and 'Justice' (Δικαιοσύνη) in Hermopolis, and who revealed divine things to those who were actually called Hieraphoroi and Hierostoloi 2).

On the Egyptian goddess assumed the prototype for Jewish Miriam, see Noha Mohamed Hafez, "The Scenes of Sefkhet-Abwy at The Temples" (JAAUTH) Vol. 21, No. 1, (December 2021), pp.1-24.
Last edited by billd89 on Wed Jul 27, 2022 7:16 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Miriam, Prophetess (an OLDER Jewish Cult)

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Ronald M. Glassman, The Origins of Democracy in Tribes, City-States and Nation-States Vol.1 [2017],p.612:
Now, the name “Miriam” is Egyptian, and as with Moses, it is a portion of a name. For it means “beloved of.” Beloved of whom? Miriam was probably a priestess of one of the gods or goddesses, which the Semitic peoples had been worshiping in the Delta since the time of the Hyksos rule. She was, perhaps, beloved of Baal or Anat and her brother Aaron may also have been a priest of Baal. Because, as is well known, Aaron will fashion a golden bull-calf for the people when Moses was gone ... If Miriam were a priestess — and it is acknowledged in the Bible in the song at the Sea of Reeds that she was — and if she had been a priestess of Baal, after the triumph at the Sea of Reeds, she acknowledged the greatness of YHWH when she intoned: “Sing to YHWH, for he is highly exalted, Horse and Chariot he had thrown into the sea.” She then seems to have turned her skills as a prophet to the service of YHWH. In this role, however, she saw herself as holding traditional authority as a priestess, and, she came to resent Moses' monopoly of religious authority.
...
Miriam is the first woman so mentioned—if we leave aside Eve—and the Song of the Sea of Reeds leads us to believe that she was a real historical figure. In fact, so important was she, that even though she challenged Moses, she was not killed, but afflicted with a disease.

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Miriam is unknown at Elephantine, but the goddess Anat was worshipped with Yahu. Where Yahu ~Phoenician Baal-Shammin; Egyptian Khnum, his female consort is Phoenician Baal-Gebal (Astarte, Ashtoreth), No. African Tanith, the Biblical Asherah (Deuteronomy 12:3). As a nurse-maid, Anuket might be Young Miriam; Sumerian Ashtoreth is associated with the drum. In Ancient Egypt, Sekhmet is associated with the drum and ecstatic trance, leonine, and identified w/ Astarte. In Ptolemaic Egypt, the sexualized version is Isis-Aphrodite.

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