Tanakh and the Ancient Near East Index – Parashat Shemot/0

Tanakh & the Ancient Near East Index – Parashat Shemot

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Overview

Knowledge of the history, law, cultic practices and realia of the Ancient Near East can often shed much light on Tanakh. This index contains a list of links to articles which touch on the connections between Tanakh and ancient cultures.

The Midwives

• See Potters’ Wheels and Pregnancies: A Note on Exodus 1:16, by Scott Morschauser, for an intriguing reinterpretation of Pharaoh’s command to the midwives, based on the symbolism of a potters’ wheel in ancient Egyptian religion. He suggests that the midwives were being commanded to check if the fetus, while still in utero (on "the potter's wheel", symbol of the baby's formation) was male, and if so to cause a miscarriage.
• See Midwives in the Bible and its World, by Tarja Philip, for an analysis of the craft and practice of midwifery in its Ancient Near East context.

Egyptian Slavery and Brick Making

• See Dr. Nahum Sarna’s Exploring Exodus, Ch. 1, for analysis of the nature of Egyptian slavery. 
• See Brick by Brick, by David A. Falk, for a brief analysis of the purpose and type of building that the Israelites performed in Egypt and the behavior of the taskmasters.
• See The Global Egyptian Museum’s entry on Mud Bricks for a brief description of the type of bricks the Israelites are described as producing in Shemot 5.
• See Bricks Without Straw? By Charles F. Nims, for a description of ancient brick-making techniques and an exploration (and rejection) of claims of having identified archaeological evidence of bricks made without straw that attest to the narrative in Shemot 5. He notes that Paroh's command that straw will not be given to the nation does not mean that they made bricks without this component, but that now they had to collect straw on their own.

Egyptian Names

• See Egyptian Background and the Exodus Narrative for explanation of the possible Egyptian etymology of the names Moshe, Aharon, and Miriam, as well as Egyptian background for other elements of the Exodus story. 
• See The Egyptian Derivation of the Name Moses, by J. Gwyn Grifiths, for analysis of suggestions about the Egyptian root of the name and the weaknesses of various theories. 

Moshe's Birth and the Legend of Sargon

• See Moshe’s Birth and the Legend of Sargon for a comparison of the story of Moshe’s infancy to the Mesopotamian legend of Sargon.¹ The article notes how Tanakh inverts one of the main motifs of the Mesopotamian legend in which it is a commoner who adopts a baby of originally noble lineage. In Shemot it is a princess who adopts the baby of an enslaved nation, who decides in the end not to remain in the palace, but to rejoin his "lowly" nation.
• See Dr. Nahum Sarna’s Exploring Exodus, pp. 30-31, who emphasizes the wide divergences between the stories of Moshe and of Sargon, which lead him to conclude: “The supposed close affinities between this folkloristic composition and our Exodus narrative are fanciful.  In fact, the story of Moses’ birth departs from “The Legend of Sargon” and from the genre in general in so many significant respects that one almost gets the impression of a conscious attempt on the part of the Biblical narrator to dissociate this narrative from the features otherwise characteristic of the foundling hero motif.” 
• See The Birth of Moses, by Brevard S. Childs, for analysis of the narrative of Moshe’s birth in the context of the Ancient Near Eastern literary tradition.

Leprosy

• See The Nature of the Leprosy of the Bible From a Medical and Biblical Point of View, by Dr. Jay F. Schamberg, for analysis of the medical aspects of Biblical leprosy and whether it is the same disease as modern leprosy.  

Circumcision

• See Circumcision in the Ancient Near East, by Jack M. Sasson, for comparison and contrast of the ritual of circumcision in Israel and the Ancient Near East, with a focus on how ancient Egyptian practices of circumcision differed from those in Israel.²

¹ For other comparisons to the story of Sargon's birth and other "abandoned hero legends" from the ancient near east, see: D. B. Redford, "The Literary Motif of the Exposed Child," Numen 14 (1967): 209-228 and Brian Lewis, The Sargon Legend: A Study of the Akkadian Text and the Tale of the Hero who was Exposed at Birth (Massachusetts, 1980).

² As the Egyptian practice was not as complete as the Israelite one, one can understand the command in Yehoshua 5: "וְשׁוּב מֹל אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל שֵׁנִית". Those who had been circumcised in the Egyptian fashion, were now to receive a thorough removal of the foreskin.