From: owner-ane@ (ANE Digest) To: ane-digest Subject: ANE Digest V1997 #58 Reply-To: Sender: owner-ane@ Errors-To: owner-ane@ Precedence: bulk ANE Digest Thursday, March 6 1997 Volume 1997 : Number 058 ane Moloch and Baal ane More Exodus Musing Re: ane Moloch and Baal ane Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt ane Minoans in Mali ane BASNY dinner/lecture meeting schedule ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 05 Mar 1997 09:04:57 -0500 From: "Timothy B. Smith" Subject: ane Moloch and Baal I am looking for bibliographical suggestions of articles and books on the worship of Baal and Moloch in the ANE. Also if anyone can suggest excavations that have shed light on Baal or Moloch worship, I would appreciate it. Timothy B. Smith Pastor, United Presbyterian Church In Ingram Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Faculty, Geneva College New Testament Greek and Exegesis Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 11:43:29 -0500 (EST) From: AriWyler@aol.com Subject: ane More Exodus Musing David Lorton reminded me (off-list) of the importance of the pharaoh Merenptah's "Israel Stela" in determining the chronology of the Exodus. On the walls of Karnak we have the account of Merenptah's victory over various invaders. To quote a bit from the actual text: "They have come to the land of Egypt to seek food for their mouths." Here Merenptah was probably referring to the Lybians but it may have been an ironic reference to numerous peoples who saw prosperous Egypt as a bread basket, including the dwellers in Canaan like Jacob and his sons. The mention of "Israel" in the political stela of Merenptah has prompted scholars to believe Merenptah to have been the pharaoh of the Exodus. This stela does say "Israel is desolated and has no seed" but it also reads "Canaan plundered with every ill". Rather than being the conditions of the time of the Exodus of Semitic-speaking peoples from Egypt, this tends to sound like the situation (perhaps caused by Egypt in the first place) that prompted the sons of jacob to go to Egypt to purchase food. The name "Israel" does not occur again in non-Biblical sources until the middle of the 9th Century B.C.E. when Mesha King of Moab is said to have fought with Israel (by then definitely a kingdom). Probably "Israel" in the context of Merenptah's stela does not mean a land or a kingdom but a people. Here is something else interesting from the report of an Egyptian official: "We have finished allowing the Shoshu (Bedouin) tribes of Edom to pass the fortress of Merenptah which is in Tjeku to the pools of Pi-Tum of Merenptah which are in Tjeku, in order to keep them alive and to keep alive their flocks by the goodness of Pharaoh, the beautiful sun of every land, in Year 8, third epagomenal day, the bithday of Seth." Merenptah, it must be remembered, ruled only ten years in all (1212 - 1202) and here we have a coming in of Semitic peoples instead of a going out. It might be argued that this "Pi-Tum" is the "Pitom" of the Bible that the Israelites supposedly built. However, just as there was more than one "Per Rameses", there may have been more than one "Pi-Tum" (Per Atum?). In my opinion, there is about as much evidence linking Merenptah to the time of Joseph, if you like, as there is linking him to the Exodus. The early Ramessides, coming from the Delta, are of mysterious origin (non-royal) themselves and may even have been, from their collective appearance, been of Semitic stock, perhaps "Hyksos". Rameses II, strangely enough, had a daughter with the wholly Semitic name of Bint-Anat, even though her mother had the conventional Egyptian name of Isis (although this may not have been the original appellation). Rameses' father, Seti I, was more likely called after the Semitic god Set than the Egyptian demonic deity by the same name. In the time of the Ramesside king, Siptah, there is mention of an influential man called Chancellor Bay, who was possibly Syrian by birth. Another factor in the Joseph story that argues against the young man's saga from having happened prior to the 19th Dynasty is the Egyptian name he was given by pharaoh--"Zaphenath-paneah" which the concensus says should read in Egyptian "Djedptahiufankh" (Ptah Says He Shall Live). This is a late style name, no question. In fact, the husband of a 21st Dynasty royal princess had this identical name. If Merenptah were the king who found Joseph's talents useful, it makes sense that he should bestow upon him a theosophic name incorporating that of his own patron deity. Ari Yoram Wyler ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Mar 1997 12:10:20 -0500 From: Jim Ross Subject: Re: ane Moloch and Baal Timothy B. Smith wrote: > > I am looking for bibliographical suggestions of articles and books on the > worship of Baal > and Moloch in the ANE. Also if anyone can suggest excavations that . . . Bibliography on Moloch: among many others be sure to consult John Day, Molech, and G. C. Heider, The Cult of Molek. As for excavations, major one would be the Baal temple at Ugarit, which has been reviewed frequently. - -- Jim Ross | jimross@laser.net 596 Russell Ave. | 301-216-5615 Gaithersburg, MD 20877 | fax: 301-216-5945 http://www.atcon.com/~jimross/bible.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Mar 1997 16:21:14 -0500 From: Rhoda Terry Subject: ane Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt We would like to invite Patrick Houlihan and Andrea Gnirs to contribute to the forthcoming Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt but do not have their addresses. Please answer off the list, if you have any information. Thanks. Rhoda Terry Associate Project Editor Oxford University Press Scholarly Reference ph: 212/726-6124 fax: 212/726-6445 email: RTS@oup-usa.org ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 22:14:52 -0500 From: nyokabi@KingCon.com Subject: ane Minoans in Mali I may have missed the beginning of this thread. I do not get the original story on this cave in Mali. Is it in western Mali, near the sea? I would have imagined that any traces of Minoans in Mali would have been found in eastern Mali, and that they would be graffiti left by Minoans involved in the trans-Saharan trade. I think the idea that Minoans may have travelled chariot routes across the Sahara sometime c. 1200 BC goes back to Jean Lhote, The Search for the Tassili Frescoes (Eng. trans, l960) , who divided the art into large time frames. The characteristic of one of the later ones that brought up the Minoans was some drawings of horses pulling a chariot in a peculiar style called "the flying gallop" with the horses' rear legs extended which is known from Minoan art. So even if this cave writing did turn out by some far out chance to be Linear A, it would mean nothing about the origin of the language. It would be the equivalent of Greek graffiti left in Nubia by mercenaries... This whole idea of Lhote's, and I am in no way panning it, is of course Eurocentric. One finds art in Africa that reminds one of something in Europe and one says Europeans must have been here. If Mr. Meadows suspects traces of Afrocentrism here I am taken aback. Would he be equally suspicious of possible Minoan writing in a cave in Russia? If I point out that Minoan religion centering on caves reminds me of ancient North African, so-called Berber , religion centering on caves, and point out that a fresco found on Thera showed "tufty-haired Libyans", who looked more like black dreadlocked North African Ethiopians, engaged in some kind of unsuccessful naval invasion, am I suspect? Have I stumbled into the wrong room here, or is this an open discussion? E. Adams ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Mar 97 03:30:40 UT From: "Gary Greenberg" Subject: ane BASNY dinner/lecture meeting schedule The Biblical Archaeology Society of New York meets approximately monthly for an (optional) dinner at a restaurant followed by a guest speaker. Details on costs, time, and place appear at the end of the schedule. The balance of the season schedule is as follows: 3/18/97 Gary Greenberg on The Moses Mystery 4/29, 5/6, 5/13 Three lecture series by Prof. Robert Stieglitz on Law in the Ancient Near East. 6/17 Prof. Ogden Goelet on The Egyptian Book of the Dead All meetings are held at Coldwaters Restaurant in Manhattan, 52nd Street and Second Ave. Dinner plus Lecture costs $20 for members/ $30 for nonmembers. The lecture only is $10 for members and $15 for nonmembers. Dinner starts at about 6 PM, the lecture at about 7:30 PM. Membership in BASNY is $20 a year, and runs from January to December. For more info you can contact me at GGreenberg@msn.com. ------------------------------ End of ANE Digest V1997 #58 *************************** Back issues are available on the Oriental Institute World-Wide Web (WWW) site at: http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html