Moses supposes [split from Amen-Moses's Intro]

[Lisa0315]

Hi, I don't know you unless you go by another name somewhere. I was intrigued by your user name explanation. I wanted to ask you the source of your definition of the name Moses. I had always thought that was his Hebrew name, and it meant Prince, rather than son of God.

Lisa

[Amen-Moses]

Hi, I don't know you unless you go by another name somewhere. I was intrigued by your user name explanation. I wanted to ask you the source of your definition of the name Moses. I had always thought that was his Hebrew name, and it meant Prince, rather than son of God.

Lisa

Ra-Moses = Son of Ra
Tut-Moses = Son of Tut

It is one of the most common forms of an Egyptian Pharoah's formal name.

If the Biblical account of Moses being an adopted son of a Pharoah is true then he would have had a formal name of the same form, the other part was most probably edited out as it referred to an Egyptian god which would be rather unpalatable in a Hebrew account don't you think.

Amen-Moses

[Amen-Moses]

Duplicate post -- DMB

[Lisa0315]

Ra-Moses = Son of Ra
Tut-Moses = Son of Tut

It is one of the most common forms of an Egyptian Pharoah's formal name.

If the Biblical account of Moses being an adopted son of a Pharoah is true then he would have had a formal name of the same form, the other part was most probably edited out as it referred to an Egyptian god which would be rather unpalatable in a Hebrew account don't you think.

Amen-Moses

hmm...again, I would like to see the source for that. Moses is a greek form of the Hebrew word Mosheh, which means drawn out, and refers to the Egyptian princess who drew Moses out of the Nile and adopted him.

Even if the word Moses is Egyptian, from what I can find, it is from the Egyptian word, "mo" or water. Mes or Mesu does mean "son" in Egyptian, so perhaps, it was a clever play on both Egyptian words. I do not know.

Again, you could be right and I have just never heard of it. Do you have an article in which it shows the various Pharoah's called Moses, i.e., "Son of"?

Lisa

[Lisa0315]

Duplicate post -- DMB

[Amen-Moses]

Again, you could be right and I have just never heard of it. Do you have an article in which it shows the various Pharoah's called Moses, i.e., "Son of"?



Ancient Egyptian did not really have written vowels so Mases, Meses, Moses or even Mss are all really the same thing, the vowels are added to allow us moderns to actually pronounce the words.

Just check out the names of Pharoahs, their "crowning" names were always names showing their "qualifications" to be gods, iow "son-of", "beloved-of" or derivatives.

Here is one link:

http://egyptian-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/moses_real_man_or_biblical_myth

(note that I don't actually hold with everything in that article though)

The wiki page on Moses also mentions it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses#Names

I got it from a book about Egyptology years ago but haven't a clue what it was called.

Amen-Moses

[Amen-Moses]

Duplicate post -- DMB

[Lisa0315]

Ancient Egyptian did not really have written vowels so Mases, Meses, Moses or even Mss are all really the same thing, the vowels are added to allow us moderns to actually pronounce the words.

Just check out the names of Pharoahs, their "crowning" names were always names showing their "qualifications" to be gods, iow "son-of", "beloved-of" or derivatives.

Here is one link:

http://egyptian-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/moses_real_man_or_biblical_myth

(note that I don't actually hold with everything in that article though)

The wiki page on Moses also mentions it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses#Names

I got it from a book about Egyptology years ago but haven't a clue what it was called.

Amen-Moses

Hebrew words also did not have vowels, but that does not mean that the words all mean the same thing. It was assumed that you knew which vowel to use, but as time passed, sometimes, there were disputes over which word was used, and what the true meaning was. Take for example the english word S_n. It could be sin, sun, or son, very different words, and in the Hebrew, it would be no different. I cannot imagine that the Egyptian displacement of vowels would result in the same meaning regardless of what vowel was used.

So, I strongly disagree that any vowel would result in the same word with the same meaning.

Anyway, I will stop here. I don't happen to agree with your interpretation, but your intro thread is not the place for a debate on it. I have gone too far with it as it is.

Any interest in continuing this in another thread? Very friendly-like of course. I don't think either of us know enough about ancient languages to argue definitively one way or the other.

Lisa

[Lisa0315]

Duplicate post -- DMB

[David B]

Since there is little traffic on a Sunday night, for want of anything else I googled 'Moses etymology'

The top 4 are

http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Moses.html

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Moses

http://edofolks.com/html/pub119.htm

http://www.mootgame.com/jtm/moses_egyptian.html

The first of them strikes me as unreliable. There is some quite interesting stuff in the third. None of them strike me as conclusive.

David

[David B]

Duplicate post -- DMB

[Lisa0315]

Since there is little traffic on a Sunday night, for want of anything else I googled 'Moses etymology'

The top 4 are

http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Moses.html

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Moses

http://edofolks.com/html/pub119.htm

http://www.mootgame.com/jtm/moses_egyptian.html

The first of them strikes me as unreliable. There is some quite interesting stuff in the third. None of them strike me as conclusive.

David

I only read the third one, and that is very interesting. I agree, nothing conclusive.

Lisa

[Lisa0315]

[Duplicate post -- DMB

[Ronin]

That ancient pre-christian Egypt had God(s)ess(es) with similar origins, qualities and intentions are on record at all makes every difference in the world to me.

The Jewish, Catholic, Islamic, Protestant, Mormon gods are relatively new evolved Pokemon as far as the oral and written record are concerned.

As a descendant of native American tribes, I can attest that Yeshua and Yahweh are relatively tiny anomalies who have tales and myths that make utterly no sense to me whatsoever.

Lisa0315 and I have been at this before, so her suddenly dubious nature regarding "historical facts" and ways to interpret the record "conclusively" continue to be extremely far fetched and really very disingenuous to me personally.

:cool:

[Ronin]

Duplicate post -- DMB

[Lisa0315]

That ancient pre-christian Egypt had God(s)ess(es) with similar origins, qualities and intentions are on record at all makes every difference in the world to me.

The Jewish, Catholic, Islamic, Protestant, Mormon gods are relatively new evolved Pokemon as far as the oral and written record are concerned.

As a descendant of native American tribes, I can attest that Yeshua and Yahweh are relatively tiny anomalies who have tales and myths that make utterly no sense to me whatsoever.

Lisa0315 and I have been at this before, so her suddenly dubious nature regarding "historical facts" and ways to interpret the record "conclusively" continue to be extremely far fetched and really very disingenuous to me personally.

:cool:

Oh, really.

Please, then, show me the evidence.

Lisa

[Lisa0315]

Duplicate post -- DMB

[lpetrich]

Welcome here, Amen-Moses.

The theory I like best for "Moses" is derived from my pet theory that the Israelite Exodus was a very mangled memory of the Egyptians' expulsion of the Hyksos around a few decades before 1500 BCE. The Egyptians were led by the pharaoh Ahmose, whose name sounds like "Brother of Moses" in Hebrew. In the centuries afterward, various storytellers invented lots of details of Ahmose's supposed brother, which is where we get Moses from.

[Ronin]

Oh, really.

Please, then, show me the evidence.

Lisa

What a time to suddenly find value in "evidence".

Show me some (any at all, really) evidence for the existence of your particular brand of deity and I'll prepare to allow you some credibility, Lisa.

:cool:

[Ronin]

Duplicate post -- DMB

[Amen-Moses]

Anyway, I will stop here. I don't happen to agree with your interpretation, but your intro thread is not the place for a debate on it. I have gone too far with it as it is.

It doesn't really matter what the source of the Biblical Moses was because in Ancient Egyptian the word that we would render as "Moses" in modern English does mean "son-of" and that's what I am using it for.

If the daughter of Pharoah was learned enough to know that the baby she pulled out of the river was actually a Habiru and also to name him using a subtle Hebraic play on words then that is pretty impressive but I'm sticking with brother Ockham, i.e she found the screaming brat washed up by the side of the river and said "Ah f%$k it, I'll call him 'child'". ;-)

Amen-Moses

[Amen-Moses]

Hi, I don't know you unless you go by another name somewhere. I was intrigued by your user name explanation. I wanted to ask you the source of your definition of the name Moses. I had always thought that was his Hebrew name, and it meant Prince, rather than son of God.

Lisa

btw, just thought I'd ask, what does "prince" mean?

Amen-Moses

[Ray Moscow]

The NIV translator notes on Exodus 2:10 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=2&chapter=2&verse=10&version=31&context=verse)say that

Moses sounds like the Hebrew for draw out.

but I remember reading elsewhere that this was questionable.

[Lisa0315]

What a time to suddenly find value in "evidence".

Show me some (any at all, really) evidence for the existence of your particular brand of deity and I'll prepare to allow you some credibility, Lisa.

:cool:

Oh, no. I surely go by faith on MATTERS of faith. However, name origins are academic. So, since you find my post on the subject disengenious, show me the academic research that conclusively states one way or the other what the name Moses means. We were all pretty much in agreement that there was nothing conclusive to be found.

Ronin, There really is no need to go on the attack. This WAS a friendly exchange of ideas, not an argument. I readily admit that Amen-Moses may certainly be right. I was simply interested and fascinated by the subject.

So, I hope you cool off and stop acting like a jerk. Simply no need for it especially when your view is colored by so-called past conversations with me of which you cannot give me an example.

Have I been a jerk in the past? Sure. To you? I don't know. According to what you have told me privately though, it is simply because I am a Christian of which you appear to have a low tolerance for.

Grow up. Secular board with an atheist flavoring does not make me a second-class citizen here.

Lisa

[Lisa0315]

btw, just thought I'd ask, what does "prince" mean?

Amen-Moses

Wrong Bible character. When I read up on it again, the traditional meaning of Moses is *drawn out*, not *Prince*. I cannot remember whose name means Prince in the Bible.

Lisa

[Lisa0315]

It doesn't really matter what the source of the Biblical Moses was because in Ancient Egyptian the word that we would render as "Moses" in modern English does mean "son-of" and that's what I am using it for.

If the daughter of Pharoah was learned enough to know that the baby she pulled out of the river was actually a Habiru and also to name him using a subtle Hebraic play on words then that is pretty impressive but I'm sticking with brother Ockham, i.e she found the screaming brat washed up by the side of the river and said "Ah f%$k it, I'll call him 'child'". ;-)

Amen-Moses

You certainly could be right, and it makes a lot of sense. The Hebrews would have known Moses by his Egyptian name. It is just the first time that I (a former fundie) have ever heard that particular explanation.

I have always found language and origins of things very fascinating. I especially am fascinated by the use of letters doubling as numbers. It would be extremely interesting if we could number the name of Moses or Mosheh to find out the meaning that way. Unfortunately, I am not very good at it.

Lisa

[Ray Moscow]

Wrong Bible character. When I read up on it again, the traditional meaning of Moses is *drawn out*, not *Prince*. I cannot remember whose name means Prince in the Bible.

Lisa

Wasn't it the prophet formerly known as
http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/7109/mf008456.jpg

[Oolon Colluphid]

Curses! Beaten to the joke again!

[Lisa0315]

Wasn't it the prophet formerly known as
http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/7109/mf008456.jpg

:notworthy:

[Ronin]

Oh, no. I surely go by faith on MATTERS of faith. However, name origins are academic. So, since you find my post on the subject disengenious, show me the academic research that conclusively states one way or the other what the name Moses means. We were all pretty much in agreement that there was nothing conclusive to be found.

Ronin, There really is no need to go on the attack. This WAS a friendly exchange of ideas, not an argument. I readily admit that Amen-Moses may certainly be right. I was simply interested and fascinated by the subject.

So, I hope you cool off and stop acting like a jerk. Simply no need for it especially when your view is colored by so-called past conversations with me of which you cannot give me an example.

Have I been a jerk in the past? Sure. To you? I don't know. According to what you have told me privately though, it is simply because I am a Christian of which you appear to have a low tolerance for.

Grow up. Secular board with an atheist flavoring does not make me a second-class citizen here.

Lisa

Nice and complete ad hom, Lisa.

Touched a nerve did I?

:rolling:

Since you will only wrap yourself in the tortilla of "faith", it is my view that "evidence" for anything isn't top on your list.

In short, nothing will supply you "conclusive" evidence for anything...because your standard bearer is faith without conclusive evidence.

That sums up my intention here in responding to your initial post, Lisa.

I understand that this upsets you and would explain the assorted private messages of angst and red herrings regarding my own life perspective and why I find Christian claims as flawed and false as Jewish, Islamic, Protestant and Mormon assertions (among others).

I'll ask you the same question I did in our tangential pm discussions:

Do you believe the angel Gabriel gave Mohammed the directives of God because the Jews and Christians got it wrong?

Why/why not?

Do you believe the angel Moroni gave Joseph Smith the New New Testament to humankind to observe, believe and obey?

Why/why not?

Playing the martyr card shouldn't work here, Lisa, though a common refrain when any sign of rejection by an atheist arises.

You're no second class citizen here at secularcafe (I'm not sure how that would even be enforced), I just don't believe in your brand and your marketing methods.

As I said before, no harm, no foul.

Let's get on with it.

[Ronin]

Wrong Bible character. When I read up on it again, the traditional meaning of Moses is *drawn out*, not *Prince*. I cannot remember whose name means Prince in the Bible.

Lisa

Here y'all go:

Moses (http://www.babynames.com/name/MOSES)

The meaning of the name Moses is Born Of A God

The origin of the name Moses is Egyptian

Notes: Probably from the same element as found in the name Ramesses 'born of Ra'.

You have to conclusively trust a baby naming website for Ra's sake!

:notworthy:

[Asha'man]

The Hebrews would have known Moses by his Egyptian name.

I think this sentence shows how different our base perspectives are. You are discussing the name Moses as if such a person existed, lived in Egypt somewhere around the 13th century BCE, and was a member of a group of Hebrews.

From my perspective (and probably Ronin's), none of that is even remotely possible. The story of the Exodus may have been set in the 13th century BCE, but it was not written down until somewhere around the 7th or 6th century. The people that wrote the story probably based it on oral stories that had been passed down for generations, but those oral stories were not historical, and were almost entirely fiction. The Hebrew people were never slaves in Egypt, never escaped across the desert led by Moses, and never conquered the promised land in Canaan. The Hebrews didn't even exist in the 13th century BCE. Instead, the Hebrew people evolved out of native Canaanites during the 10th thru 6th centuries BCE. Canaan never went through a total conquest around the 13th century, and it never saw a mass replacement of it's population with people that had recently lived in Egypt. The archeological evidence to support this is very strong, and pretty much destroys the entire Exodus story as written. The story of the Exodus was simply a fiction crafted with a strong political motivation: to provide a layer of justification for claiming 'ownership' of the land they occupied, in an era when military conquest and 'given by god' were two of the best reasons to claim such ownership.

So, when dealing with a name like Moses, you need to add a layer of ignorance into the mix, since the Hebrew's had almost no knowledge of what Egypt (or Egyptian language usage) might have been like 500 years earlier. You also have to add changing language patterns and influences, since the scribes that wrote the story down were prisoners in Babylon at the time. And you have to add in any political motivations for choosing that name, since the character was created as a political symbol, and thus the name would have been chosen with symbolic meaning to the target audience (6th century Hebrews).

[JAD]

The Hebrews would have known Moses by his Egyptian name.

I think this sentence shows how different our base perspectives are. You are discussing the name Moses as if such a person existed, lived in Egypt somewhere around the 13th century BCE, and was a member of a group of Hebrews.

From my perspective (and probably Ronin's), none of that is even remotely possible. The story of the Exodus may have been set in the 13th century BCE, but it was not written down until somewhere around the 7th or 6th century. The people that wrote the story probably based it on oral stories that had been passed down for generations, but those oral stories were not historical, and were almost entirely fiction. The Hebrew people were never slaves in Egypt, never escaped across the desert led by Moses, and never conquered the promised land in Canaan. The Hebrews didn't even exist in the 13th century BCE. Instead, the Hebrew people evolved out of native Canaanites during the 10th thru 6th centuries BCE. Canaan never went through a total conquest around the 13th century, and it never saw a mass replacement of it's population with people that had recently lived in Egypt. The archeological evidence to support this is very strong, and pretty much destroys the entire Exodus story as written. The story of the Exodus was simply a fiction crafted with a strong political motivation: to provide a layer of justification for claiming 'ownership' of the land they occupied, in an era when military conquest and 'given by god' were two of the best reasons to claim such ownership.

So, when dealing with a name like Moses, you need to add a layer of ignorance into the mix, since the Hebrew's had almost no knowledge of what Egypt (or Egyptian language usage) might have been like 500 years earlier. You also have to add changing language patterns and influences, since the scribes that wrote the story down were prisoners in Babylon at the time. And you have to add in any political motivations for choosing that name, since the character was created as a political symbol, and thus the name would have been chosen with symbolic meaning to the target audience (6th century Hebrews).

Just thinking out loud... I find it interesting to speculate that the name "Moses" could also have been a metaphorical reference to bolster an Exodus story. Whether "Moses" means "son-of" or "drawn out", both meanings seem linked to the idea of the formation of Israel from Egyptian roots.

IIRC, the Exodus event actually may refer to the expulsion of the Hyksos.

[lpetrich]

I like the Ahmose = "Brother of Moses" theory the best. The writers of the Bible did not bowdlerize the names of their neighbors, despite their names often containing names of various deities. They did, however, bowdlerize the name of one of their kings, Ishbaal ("Man of Baal"), into Ish-bosheth ("Man of Shame").


As to the Hyksos-Exodus connection, I think that it was rather badly mangled by several generations of storytellers. The slaves-in-Egypt bit may have been invented by someone in the Babylonian Exile who turned it into "We were slaves in a foreign land once before, and we escaped and made it home once before."

It would have started out as "Ahmose chased us out of Egypt" which sounded like "The Brother of Moses chased us out of Egypt" to its hearers. It was likely mangled into "Moses led us out of Egypt, with the Egyptians chasing us", complete with how Moses had once been in Egypt's royal court.


Along the way to Canaan, they crossed the "Reed Sea" (yam suph), which was likely a big marsh that seemed like a sea of reeds. However, one of the translators of the Hellenistic-Greek Septuagint used "Red Sea" (hê eruthra thalassa) instead, and that's where the crossing of the Red Sea came from. Either the translator was trying to puzzle out what the "Reed Sea" was, or he wanted something more dramatic than a marsh.

In any case, the Exodus version is much more dramatic than what the original likely was. "When we reached the Reed Sea, Moses split us so we could cross it. When the Egyptians followed us there, Moses let the water return and drowned them." is much more dramatic than "We crossed the Reed Sea, but the Egyptians didn't. They decided to quit chasing us and return to Egypt."


The Hyksos were Canaanite "foreign rulers" who ruled northern Egypt from about 1648 BCE to about 1540 BCE; during their reign was a natural disaster whose effects could have been remembered as some of the Ten Plagues of Egypt.

Rivers and other bodies of water turning to blood
Frogs (crocodiles?)
Lice / Fleas / Gnats
Flies or wild animals
Pestilence that affected livestock
Boils or some other such skin disease
Fiery hail
Locusts
Darkness
Death of the Firstborn, both human and livestock

It's been speculated that some of these calamities had been related to the Minoan eruption of Thera/Santorini, a volcanic island in the Aegean Sea. This massive caldera eruption released about 60 km3 Dense Rock Equivalent (DRE) of volcanic ash; Mt. Pinatubo had released about 10 km3 in 1991 and Mt. St. Helens about 1 km3 in 1980. Its dating is rather controversial, since direct radiocarbon dating and tree-ring dating conflicts with dating from archeological correlation; the former gives dates around 1628 BCE, while the latter gives dates around 1550 BCE.

However, both dates are consistent with when the Hyksos were in Egypt, and they could have remembered that eruption's effects, or else picked up accounts of those effects from visiting Cretans. The Ipuwer Papyrus is sometimes considered to be a memory of this eruption, like its stating "the River is blood", though it can also be a generalized lament of a world turned upside down in various ways; war, famine, lots of death, servants being rebellious, etc.

That eruption may even have inspired Plato's Atlantis story, though Plato likely stitched together his description of Atlantis from several sources.