Re: Akhenaten == Moses Revisited

The eonic model has a lot to say about the period of the core Old Testament, to the extent that we can decipher what really happened. The interpretation is not conventional but in many ways more interesting than the religious version, which is showing signs of age, witness such books as The Bible Unearthed by Finkelstein and Silberman.  
This literature is having a hard time getting a hearing in a place like the states, although book was a bestseller in Israel itself. 
Biblical criticism has totally transformed our view of this history, although it is extremely hard (I mean extremely) for a non-specialist to sort out the often confusing literature which sometimes pretends to be telling the real archaeological history, but which isn't. 
We have essentially no proof Moses existed, for example. So that's not truly historical. 
The sources of monotheism nonetheless very well might be a three way influence from Egypt, early Canaanite religion transformed and Zoroastrian influence during the Exile. It is important to see how Judaic history is constructed in the last generation before the Exile. 
The whole thing is as if the Greek parallel history had been written by Homer in the fourth century, with Athena talking to Socrates near the Parthenon. 

Much of the historical basis of the Old Testament has eroded, and the more it does so the closer it matches the version in the eonic model, which shows the connection of the rough period -900 to the Exile as the second phase of the eonic sequence. We can secularize all we please, but we are still left with a string of prophets appearing at about the same time as the Greek Archaic onward with its stunning series of philosophers, the Indian and Chinese co-transitions.
So explanation must explain them all or explain nothing!  So we get a new mystery for the old, beware of how you explain that, and how you consider that this period produced two great religions, the atheist Buddhism and theistic Judaic stream. 
In any case, the neat thing about this new view of Israel (or Israel/Judah) is that it reflects the core transition period I call ET5.
And it beautifully signals the essential 'fundamental unit of analysis' problem as this transforms from the state to a 'state beyond the state', the ecumenical religions of the Axial Age. We forget that the Old Testament reflects a national history, and this turning into a large phenomenon. 
This interplay between a core transformation area and the vehicle created to pass into a larger oikoumene is what the eonic model is all about, and is an exciting mystery for the system modeller. 
Note how the modern transition, if you are familiar with the eonic model, is already showing exactly the same core/periphery transition process with its attempt to spawn an oikoumene vehicle beyond the local transitional, European, source area. 
It is always one and the same process, and you see the common denominator somewhat better if you compare this transition from source to oikoumene in both the Judaic and Buddhist examples. Their timing is almost identical in both cases.

We retreat from religious explanations only to find the basic confronting us all over again, how does evolution really operate if it can transform whole populational cultures from sources areas to diffuse outward. Such things in more primitives forms must have existed all along in man's evolution. 
Which still doesn't explain them. God is not the answer! Too bad. 

Dig those prophets, The rest is historical chaff, good for Hollywood movies, but not history. 

Time to get cracking in the library. The superficial stuff in the smaller libraries is mostly worthless. 

Silberman and Finkelstein nearly get it straight, and save the cop out for the last chapter. 

This is my favorite transtion, but a student of the eonic model had best start with the Greek example, to stay out of mythical mischief, until he gets his eonic sea legs. 



In a message dated 5/23/2003 7:36:43 AM Eastern Daylight Time, ravitchn@bellsouth.net writes:

> Jay, I liked your message here to WSN.  Good points to it.  I'm thinking maybe John Landon or Norman Ravitch probably might have some good ideas on this matter also, so I'm sending them this message as well as another copy to Consilience-P.
>   
> My own ideas?  The real events of "Bible history" are always a little more complicated than the picture we get from hearing the official readings and interpretations of it.  Add to that mix the way biblical books were written and the way that they were primarily passed down from generation to generation (orally by word of mouth), and the simple picture of the Bible championed by its advocates disappears in a cloud of historic and literary chaos.
>   
> No way around it; the Bible itself confounds even the Bible thumpers when it comes to these matters.
>   
> Still I'd advance a word of caution for all of us.  The official interpretations of Bible advocates may be off-the-wall and the "Bible as History"/ "showcase of miracles" arguments may be historically and scientifically ludicrous; still I'd say for all our ears - be careful.  When we're talking about Biblical times, Axial Era, et al, we got to remember these (and the Classical period) were strange points in history.  Strange events were happening whether we choose to believe what's written about those happenings in the Old Testament or not.  Stranger yet may have been the interpretations and ideas about those events by their contemporaries and those who recorded what happened (during or after the fact).  So, we can't dismiss the oddities of the period either even when they're recounted in the fantastic symbolism of religious motif or supernatural "miracles", etc.  We don't have to necessarily accept the OT accounts, but we should remember they weren't completely pulled out of the air either.  They represent both a way of seeing the world/history and the unique events that occur when world history itself reaches its transitions and turning points.
>   
> I see something like this topic you've raised here as a juncture between the dynamisms of macrohistory, memetic patternization, and human psychology in history (via social psych. and psychohistory ala Lloyd DeMause).  But I also recognize that other people have different interpretations of this matter and other ways of noting the synthesis of ideas, convergence of disciplines when it comes to the Bible and historical events.
>   
> So I'm inviting list members to share some of their own ideas on the topic here and now.  Your thoughts? 



John Landon
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World History and the Eonic Effect
http://eonix.8m.com
Blogzone
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