My mother was a high priestess, my father I knew not. The brothers of my father loved the hills. My city is Azupiranu, which is situated on the banks of the Euphrates. My high priestess mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast me into the river which rose over me. The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me. Akki, the drawer of water, appointed me as his gardener. While I was a gardener, Ishtar granted me her love, and for four and ... years I exercised kingship.
Compare the legend of the birth and subsequent events for Sargon (Sargon the Great ruled Sumer c. 2334-2279 B.C.) with that of Moses:
The Birth of Moses 1 And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.
2 And the woman conceived, and bares a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.
3 And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink.
4 And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.
5 And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side: and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.
6 And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, this is one of the Hebrews' children.
7 Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?
8 And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother.
9 And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it.
10 And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, because I drew him out of the water.
Sargon becomes a gardener for the king while Moses becomes a trusted administrator for the Pharaoh and is adopted as a son.
Eventually Moses kills an Egyptian who is abusing a slave and flees into the desert and while working as a shepherd encounters the burning bush where God speaks to him and tells him to return to Egypt and free his people. He does so and after confronting Pharaoh, visiting plagues on the land leads between 200,000 and 600,000 people out of Egypt where they wander around the Sinai Peninsula for 40 YEARS. In all that time no one pays attention to where the sun rises in the morning and where it sets at night and thinks maybe they are traveling in circles. The desert is not hospitable. They run out of food which is supposedly provided by God and out of water which Moses brings forth from a rock at God’s command. It would take a lot of water to quench the thirst of that many people.
The people grumble and complain. Moses and his brother Aaron who holds joint command climbs a mountain (actual mountain’s identity disputed) and spends 40 days on top being instructed by God who then gives Moses 10 Commandments written is stone by his hand which Moses brings down the mountain only to discover that with the help of his brother the people have constructed a golden calf (remember they had been familiar with many such idols while living in Egypt) which they are now worshipping. Since #1 of the Commandments of God is “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me Moses takes the rock inscribed by God and in a fit of anger destroys it. After dealing with the people he has to climb back up the mountain and again after much smoke and fire receives another copy which he brings down to instructs the people with as to how they should behave. Finally God allows him to bring the people out of the desert to the “land of milk and honey”. The fact that it already is occupied by a people does not deter God and he orders their destruction.
Moses will not be allowed to enter because he made the error when asked who brought the water from the stone declared, “I did!” rather than giving credit to God. In the archaeological record the evidence of the pitched battles that take place in Canaan does not exist and there seems to have been more of a peaceful assimilation of the area by the Hebrews under the appointed successor Joshua. (Remember these people have no idea that the earth travels around the sun and come from a tradition that that ball of light travels by chariot across the sky so a story that Joshua can ask God to stop the sun in its travels to prolong a battle would seem perfectly plausible). Did the walls of Jericho come tumbling down because of trumpet blast and the shouts of the people or because of an earthquake?
Did these Ten Commandments written in stone actually exist? We don’t know. We do know though that the “Code of Hammurabi was carved in stone
The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code, dating back to about 1772 BC. It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a human-sized stone stele and various clay tablets. The Code consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth (lex talionis) as graded depending on social status, of slave versus free man.
FROM EXODUS CHAPTER 21:1-2
These are the rules you shall lay before them. 2. When you purchase a Hebrew slave he is to serve you for six years but in his seventh year he shall be given his freedom without cost. FROM THERE THE CHAPTER GOES ON WITH MORE LAWS REGARDING SLAVES .
Nearly one-half of the Hammurabi Code deals with matters of contract, establishing for example the wages to be paid to an ox driver or a surgeon. Other provisions set the terms of a transaction, establishing the liability of a builder for a house that collapses, for example, or property that is damaged while left in the care of another. A third of the code addresses issues concerning household and family relationships such as inheritance, divorce, paternity and sexual behavior. Only one provision appears to impose obligations on an official; this provision establishes that a judge who reaches an incorrect decision is to be fined and removed from the bench permanently. A handful of provisions address issues related to military service.
EXODUS CHAPTER 21: 33-34
When a man uncovers or digs a cistern and does not cover it over again, should an ox or an ass fall into it 33. The owner of the sistern must make good by restoring the value of the animal to its owner, the dead animal however, he may keep.
Thus we see that the law presented in the Torah from God parallels the law proclaimed by Hammurabi.
One nearly complete example of the Code survives today, on a diorite stele in the shape of a huge index finger 2.25 m or 7.4 ft. tall. The Code is inscribed in the Akkadian language, using cuneiform script carved into the stele. It is currently on display in The Louvre, with exact replicas in the Oriental Institute in the University of Chicago and the Pergamon Museum of Berlin.
Could this be the basis for the legend of the stone carved by God? Actually the laws promulgated by the commandments are very useful for a nomadic people such as don’t steal, don’t kill and don’t covet thy neighbor’s wife or commit adultery. Such things cause quarrels that can result in bloodshed and many of them are also covered under the Hammurabi Code in almost duplicate form.
From Mark Zima: A mythical story does not necessarily a mythical person make. The important question to ask, in considering the myth, is: what was the purpose of the myth? (And why was this sort of myth repeatedly used?). If one understands the answer to THAT question, then one can better speculate how the myth might relate to the historicity of the person about whom the story was told.
For further discussion of Biblical archaeology involving these issues please go to which details more of these theories and what has been found
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