Sargon Redux
The delightful tribe of Triablogue has continued the dialogue on the Sargon legend with a recent post attempting to crow victory on the issues which we have debated at length.
To fully appreciate the lengths the tribe will go to, it's necessary to revisit the sentence I wrote that started the whole fracas in the first place. I made a simple, declarative sentence:
I think the story of Sargon being floated in a basket of reeds down the river as an infant is a myth (that predates the Moses myth).
This created multiple posts over on Triablogue that were apoplectic about how awful I was for suggesting such a thing. So now we have their "post-mortem" on the issue and I would like to see if they have succeeded at disproving my original claim. There are eight authors who they have selected as experts and we'll evaluate their statements in turn to see if anyone disagrees with my basic, initial assertion.
Their first author is a no-show that's really just a tease for some future "dismantling" that we can all just hold our breaths and wait for.
Their second author is Dr. James Hoffmeier. The crux of his statement in support of the tribe is this:
Indeed the Sargon legend may well be the earliest example of the expose child motif, but that does not mean that Exodus 2 could not be completely independent. To ignore the clear Egyptian linguistic elements of Exodus 2 (one that does not fit a Mesopotamian setting) is shear obscurantism!
Wow! First, he thinks that obscurantism can be taken off like wool ... an odd thought that. Secondly, he admits exactly what I stated in my first statement on the issue and the tribe is kind enough to quote him on it. Post-mortem indeed. Their argument is buried by their own expert!
Third up is Richard Hess:
I am not quite sure what the point here is. The Sargon story is generally as Avalos says. Lewis' book has been around and well known. He cites dozens of Sargon story types in the ancient Near East and later, ending with the story of Superman's birth in DC comics. The form of the Sargon legend involves a first person intro and an an epilogue that concludes with 1 of the 4: blessings/curses, didactic lesson, temple donation, or prophecy. None of this applies to the Moses story; so if there was a borrowing it was more general than Avalos would like to admit. The general motif of the rescue of a leader as a baby and his/her being brought up by strangers is certainly well known in the ancient world and around the rest of the world. So what? No doubt the author and early readers of the exodus account saw the motif in the Moses story. That says nothing about its historicity.
Yes, that's right. Once again there is not a speck of support for the idea that the Sargon legend didn't pre-date the Moses legend. Their expert supports Avalos by agreeing with him. He brings up no evidence to suggest the story of Moses has any greater historical validity than the legend of Sargon.
Next they go to John Currid:
Indeed, within ANE literature there is a common motif of a birth story in which a child is under threat but survives to become king or leader of his people. The Legend of Sargon is such a story, and many scholars identify it as the very basis of Exodus 2. To go from Exodus to Mesopotamian literature has been the bias of ANE scholarship for a long time (creation and Enuma Elish; flood and Epic of Gilgamesh, etc.). But the reality is, and many do not want to admit it, is that Exodus is set in Egypt (seems obvious, but apparently not!) -- the book is imbued with Egyptianisms (see my Ancient Egypt and OT, for example). Consequently, I think that we ought to be looking in Egyptian literature for any such paradigm: The Myth of Horus contains similar motifs as Exodus 2.
Looking closely, I see only the suggestion that both the legend of Sargon and the legend of Horus pre-date the legend of Moses. With experts like this, the tribe doesn't even need Dr. Avalos to debunk them. They can just read their own sources to prove that the story of Moses is a legend. I'm perfectly happy to admit that the culture of the Hebrews could easily have borrowed from both and of course there's nothing in the text of the Pentateuch to suggest this is not the case.
This concludes all the expert testimony that the tribe was able to get from actual experts who had reviewed whatever they sent in. It's nice to see that not a single one of them support the position that the legend of Moses pre-dates the legend of Sargon. The general rule when debating apologists is just to read the source of the apologist thoroughly and you usually have more than enough debunking ammunition within their own source, but rarely has the case been shown more conclusively than here.
The rest of the reports are all from sources that were dug up from the library or the internet or wire services and yes, not a single one suggests that the legend of Moses pre-dates the legend of Sargon. To pad the list, they even post something about medieval foundlings, a topic that is not particularly germane to the question of whether one foundling legend predates another.
So once again the tribe swings repeatedly and hits air. It's nice they at least properly titled this corpse of a post.
To fully appreciate the lengths the tribe will go to, it's necessary to revisit the sentence I wrote that started the whole fracas in the first place. I made a simple, declarative sentence:
I think the story of Sargon being floated in a basket of reeds down the river as an infant is a myth (that predates the Moses myth).
This created multiple posts over on Triablogue that were apoplectic about how awful I was for suggesting such a thing. So now we have their "post-mortem" on the issue and I would like to see if they have succeeded at disproving my original claim. There are eight authors who they have selected as experts and we'll evaluate their statements in turn to see if anyone disagrees with my basic, initial assertion.
Their first author is a no-show that's really just a tease for some future "dismantling" that we can all just hold our breaths and wait for.
Their second author is Dr. James Hoffmeier. The crux of his statement in support of the tribe is this:
Indeed the Sargon legend may well be the earliest example of the expose child motif, but that does not mean that Exodus 2 could not be completely independent. To ignore the clear Egyptian linguistic elements of Exodus 2 (one that does not fit a Mesopotamian setting) is shear obscurantism!
Wow! First, he thinks that obscurantism can be taken off like wool ... an odd thought that. Secondly, he admits exactly what I stated in my first statement on the issue and the tribe is kind enough to quote him on it. Post-mortem indeed. Their argument is buried by their own expert!
Third up is Richard Hess:
I am not quite sure what the point here is. The Sargon story is generally as Avalos says. Lewis' book has been around and well known. He cites dozens of Sargon story types in the ancient Near East and later, ending with the story of Superman's birth in DC comics. The form of the Sargon legend involves a first person intro and an an epilogue that concludes with 1 of the 4: blessings/curses, didactic lesson, temple donation, or prophecy. None of this applies to the Moses story; so if there was a borrowing it was more general than Avalos would like to admit. The general motif of the rescue of a leader as a baby and his/her being brought up by strangers is certainly well known in the ancient world and around the rest of the world. So what? No doubt the author and early readers of the exodus account saw the motif in the Moses story. That says nothing about its historicity.
Yes, that's right. Once again there is not a speck of support for the idea that the Sargon legend didn't pre-date the Moses legend. Their expert supports Avalos by agreeing with him. He brings up no evidence to suggest the story of Moses has any greater historical validity than the legend of Sargon.
Next they go to John Currid:
Indeed, within ANE literature there is a common motif of a birth story in which a child is under threat but survives to become king or leader of his people. The Legend of Sargon is such a story, and many scholars identify it as the very basis of Exodus 2. To go from Exodus to Mesopotamian literature has been the bias of ANE scholarship for a long time (creation and Enuma Elish; flood and Epic of Gilgamesh, etc.). But the reality is, and many do not want to admit it, is that Exodus is set in Egypt (seems obvious, but apparently not!) -- the book is imbued with Egyptianisms (see my Ancient Egypt and OT, for example). Consequently, I think that we ought to be looking in Egyptian literature for any such paradigm: The Myth of Horus contains similar motifs as Exodus 2.
Looking closely, I see only the suggestion that both the legend of Sargon and the legend of Horus pre-date the legend of Moses. With experts like this, the tribe doesn't even need Dr. Avalos to debunk them. They can just read their own sources to prove that the story of Moses is a legend. I'm perfectly happy to admit that the culture of the Hebrews could easily have borrowed from both and of course there's nothing in the text of the Pentateuch to suggest this is not the case.
This concludes all the expert testimony that the tribe was able to get from actual experts who had reviewed whatever they sent in. It's nice to see that not a single one of them support the position that the legend of Moses pre-dates the legend of Sargon. The general rule when debating apologists is just to read the source of the apologist thoroughly and you usually have more than enough debunking ammunition within their own source, but rarely has the case been shown more conclusively than here.
The rest of the reports are all from sources that were dug up from the library or the internet or wire services and yes, not a single one suggests that the legend of Moses pre-dates the legend of Sargon. To pad the list, they even post something about medieval foundlings, a topic that is not particularly germane to the question of whether one foundling legend predates another.
So once again the tribe swings repeatedly and hits air. It's nice they at least properly titled this corpse of a post.