diamond said:
But I guess some of you think that Moses was a fictious character and never led God's chosen people out of Egypt, correct?
There's reasonable evidence that Moses was substantially mythical, actually.
For one, in spite of this all happening in an advanced civilization like that of ancient Egypt, there's no corresponding Egyptian records to back up what the Old Testament says.
Secondly, "Mosaic Law" bears more than a passing resemblance to Persian Zoroastrian "Purity Codes" themselves. The Book of Ezra, in the Old Testament, is the most explicit text showing Persian influence in the revival of Judaism. We see Persian king, Cyrus the Great, making pronouncements, as if he were Jewish himself, in spite of it being very well-known that Cyrus had a habit of taking a minority religion in his kingdom and changing it substantially to ensure loyalty to the Persian Empire. A famous example is what Cyrus did with the followers of Marduk. He first made an appeal that he believed in Marduk, then declared that he was Marduk, and, as "Marduk," destroyed the religion.
Regardless, Ezra 7 states something very interesting on this subject. Approximately 80 years after Cyrus permits the Jews to return to Jerusalem, King Artaxerxes I, by decree, puts Ezra in charge of Jerusalem's ecclesiastical and civil affairs. What would a Persian Zoroastrian king know about Judaism to make him more qualified than the existing Jewish priesthood?
[Artaxerxes I speaking] "As for you, Ezra, in accordance with the wisdom of your God which is in your possession, appoint magistrates and judges to administer justice to all the people in West-of-Euphrates, to all, that is, who know the laws of your God. Instruct those who do not know these laws. Whoever does not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let strict judgment be executed upon him, whether death, or corporal punishment, or a fine on his goods, or imprisonment." - Ezra 7:25-26
It is thought by some scholars, thus, that, due to the lack of any evidence of Jewish enslavement in Egypt and the fact that all of our extant Old Testament texts are post-exilic in date, that the whole thing might be a parable. That is, with a Jewish community looking to rebuild from two centuries or so of exile from their homeland, the story of Moses, their escape from Egypt, and their conquering of Israel meant that
they had all done this before. And with Mosaic Law being roughly equivalent to Zoroastrian religious law and God, now no longer resembling a typical Semitic angry warrior deity, but, instead, being a peaceful, loving, and benevolent God very much like the Zoroastrian supreme god, Ahura Mazda, they have achieved their ultimate goal of having a nation that they would not fear of rising up against them. Indeed, the Persian Empire is the only foreign state treated with gushing adoration in the Bible.
Of course, in a couple of centuries, Alexander the Great defeats the Persian Empire and consigns it to history. Thus begins the influence of the Greeks and eventually the Romans, both of whom are hated.
As opposed to the idea that we should all be living in dread of the power of 'Evil.'
