I found this article very interesting. There are of course some things that I tend to believe and some things that I definitely don't believe.
It's a rather long article and the following is just a portion of it. It goes along with this particular topic and I just wanted to hear your thoughts either about the entire article (link to follow and will open in a new window) or just the following excerpt:
I mentioned earlier that, upon coming out of Egypt into Sinai en route to Canaan, the Israelites would have expected to be made familiar with the laws and ordinances of their new homeland. However, although this appears to have been partially the case, the situation was largely reversed on the religious front, with the Egyptian customs being introduced to the native Hebrews.
It was upon the mountain at Sinai that Jehovah first announced his presence to Moses. Being an Aten supporter, Moses asked this new lord and master who he was, and the reply was "I am that I am", which in phonetic Hebrew became 'Jehovah'. However, for the longest time afterwards, the Israelites were not allowed to utter the name 'Jehovah' - with the exception of the High Priest who was allowed to whisper the name in private once a year. The problem was that prayers were supposed to be said to this new godhead - but how would he know the prayers were said to him if his name was not mentioned?
The Israelites knew that Jehovah was not the same as Aten (their traditional Adon or Lord), and so they presumed he must be the equivalent of the great State-god of Egypt, even if not one and the same. It was decided, therefore, to add the name of that State- god to all prayers thereafter, and the name of that god was 'Amen'. To this day, the name of 'Amen' is still recited at the end of prayers. Even the well-known Christian Lord's Prayer (as given in the Gospel of Matthew) was transposed from an Egyptian original which began, "Amen, Amen, who art in heaven..."
As for the famous Ten Commandments (said to have been conveyed to Moses by God upon the mountain), these too are of Egyptian origin and they derive directly from Spell Number 125 in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. They were not new codes of conduct invented for the Israelites, but were simply newly stated versions of the ritual confessions of the Pharaohs. For example, the confession "I have not killed" was translated to the decree "Thou shalt not kill"; "I have not stolen" became "Thou shalt not steal"; "I have not told lies" became "Thou shalt not bear false witness"; and so on.
Not only were the Ten Commandments drawn from Egyptian ritual, but so too were the Psalms reworked from Egyptian hymns (though they are attributed to King David). Even the Old Testament Book of Proverbs - the so-called 'wise words of Solomon' - was translated almost verbatim into Hebrew from the writings of an Egyptian sage called Amenemope. These are now held at the British Museum, and verse after verse of the Book of Proverbs can be attributed to this Egyptian original. It has now been discovered that even the writings of Amenemope were extracted from a far older work called The Wisdom of Ptah-hotep, which comes from more than 2,000 years before the time of Solomon.
In addition to the Book of the Dead and the ancient Wisdom of Ptah-hotep, various other Egyptian texts were used in compiling the Old Testament. These include the Pyramid Texts and the Coffin Texts, from which references to the Egyptian gods were simply transposed to relate to the Hebrew god Jehovah.
In Bloodline of the Holy Grail I made the point that the modern style of Christianity, which evolved from the Roman Church in the 4th century AD, was actually a created 'hybrid' - a religion based on themes from numerous others, including, of course, Judaism.
Now it transpires that Judaism itself was no less of a hybrid in the early days, being a composite of Egyptian, Canaanite and Mesopotamian traditions, with the stories, hymns, prayers and rituals of the various and sundry gods brought together and related to a newly contrived 'One God' concept.
What is particularly interesting is that, historically, this was not fully contrived in the time of Abraham, nor even in the later time of Moses. It did not happen until the 6th century BC, when tens of thousands of Israelites were held captive by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Until that time, the Hebrew and Israelite records referred to any number of gods and goddesses by individual names, and under a general plural classification of 'the Elohim'.
Through some 500 years from the captivity, the scriptures existed only as a series of quite separate writings, and it was not until after the time of Jesus that these were collated into a single volume. Jesus himself would never have heard of the Old Testament or the Bible, but the scriptures to which he had access included many books that were not selected for the compilation that we know today.
Strangely, though, some of these books are still mentioned in the modern Bible text as being important to the original culture. They include the Book of the Lord, the Book of the Wars of Jehovah, and the Book of Jasher. Why were they not included? Quite simply because their content did not suit the new Jehovah-based religion that was being created. Jasher, for example, was the Egyptian-born son of Caleb; the brother-in-law to the first Israelite judge Othneil; and the appointed royal staff-bearer to Moses. It is generally reckoned that the Book of Jasher's position in the Bible should be between the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua, but it was sidestepped by the editors because it sheds a very different light on the sequence of events at Mount Horeb in Sinai.
The familiar Exodus account explains that Jehovah issued instructions to Moses concerning masters and servants, covetousness, neighbourly behaviour, crime, marriage, morality and many other issues including the all-important rule of the Sabbath, along with the Ten Commandments.
But, in Jasher (which pre-dates the Exodus writings), these laws and ordinances are not conveyed to Moses by Jehovah. In fact, Jehovah is not mentioned at all. The new laws, says the Book of Jasher, were communicated to Moses and the Israelites by Jethro, High Priest of Midian and Lord of the Mountain. In effect, Jethro was the overall governor of the Sinai temple.
In Hebrew, the title 'Lord (or Lofty One) of the Mountain' was translated as 'El Shaddai', and this is particularly significant for that was precisely the name related to Moses when he asked the Lord to reveal his identity. The Lord said, "I am that I am. I am he that Abraham called 'El Shaddai'". "I am that I am" eventually became transposed to the name 'Jehovah', but, as related in Jasher (and as confirmed in Exodus when correctly read), this Lord was not a deiform god at all. He was Jethro the El Shaddai, the great vulcan and Master Craftsman of the Hathor temple.
Apart from the fact that we are taught about certain aspects of the Bible text, I think it is fair to say that not too many of us actually study the books ourselves. As a result of this, our perceived images are generally those conjured by picture-books and films. Hollywood, of course, has done us proud with its portrayals of Moses on the mountain and God blasting the words of the Ten Commandments onto two great, barely portable, granite slabs. In Exodus, however, there is no such depiction, and the Commandments are said to have been written down by Moses himself (at the dictation of the Lord) after he had broken the first tablets that he was given.
As for the other part of the Sinai package, the Tables of Testimony, these are stated in the teachings of the Kabbala and the Midrash to have been held within a sacred gemstone which Moses placed "in the palm of his hand". This was the same Divine Stone of Wisdom said to have been inherited by King Solomon. In the earlier texts of Egypt it was called the 'Tablet of Hermes', which embodied the wisdom of Thoth.
