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Moses and MiriamNew - 28 January 2010
Generations 48 - 51 Moses and Miriam Generation No. 48 1. Tuthmosis IV (Menkheperure) [48] Amenhotep II (=Tiaa) [47] Tuthmosis III (=Meryetre-Hatshepsut) [46] Tuthmosis II (=Iset) [45] Tuthmosis I (=Mutnofret) [44] Amenhotep I (=Ahmose-Meritamon) [43] Ahmose I (=Ahmose-Nefertari) [42] Muddled Generations [33 - 41] Amenemhet IV (=Sobeknefru, d. of Igrath) [32] Amenemhet III (=Aat) [31] Senusret III (=Mereret) [30] Senusret II (=Nofret) [29] Amenemhet II (=Keminebu) [28] Senusret I (=Nefru) [27] Tohwait (=Amenemhet I) [26] Nefert (=Senusret of Elephantine) [25] Missing Generations [15-24] Ham (=Neelata-mek) [14] Tubal Cain (=Nin-banda) [13] Lamech (=Zillah) [12] Methusael (=Edna?) [11] Mehujael (=?) [10] Irad (=Baraka?) [9] Enoch (=Edna?) [8] Cain (=Luluwa) [7] Enki and Eve [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu (OR Ki) [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]
Tuthmosis IV (Menkheperure, "Established in forms is Re") was the 8th Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. He was born to Amenhotep II and Tiaa but was not actually the crown prince. He was also not Amenhotep II's chosen successor to the throne. Thutmose may in fact have ousted his older brother in order to usurp power and then commissioned the Dream Stele in order to justify his unexpected kingship. The stele is, after all, something of a convenient (alleged) truth.
Little is known about his comparatively brief ten-year rule, other than perhaps his rule being significant because he was the New Kingdom pharaoh who established peaceful relations with Mitanni and married a Mitannian princess to seal this new alliance. Furthermore, like most of the Thutmoside kings, he built on a grand scale. Thutmose IV completed the eastern obelisk first started by Thutmose III, which, at 32 m (105 ft), was the tallest obelisk ever erected in Egypt, at the Temple of Karnak. Thutmose IV called it the tekhen waty or 'unique obelisk.' It was transported to the grounds of the Circus Maximus in Rome by Emperor Constantius II in 357 AD and, later, "re-erected by Pope Sixtus V in 1588 at the Piazza San Giovanni" in the Vatican where it is today known as the 'Lateran obelisk."
Thutmose IV also built a unique chapel and peristyle hall against the back or eastern walls of the main Karnak temple building. The chapel was intended "for people "who had no right of access to the main [Karnak] temple. It was a 'place of the ear' for the god Amun where the god could hear the prayers of the townspeople." An examination of his body shows that he was very ill and had been wasting away for the final months of his life prior to his death. He was succeeded by his son, Amenhotep III.
Figure 1. The Moses and Miriam Family Tree 2. Tuya (Asenath) [48] Poti-pherah, priest of Ra (=Zelekha) [47] Missing Generations [42-46] Muddled Generations [33 - 41] Amenemhet IV (=Sobeknefru, d. of Igrath) [32] Amenemhet III (=Aat) [31] Senusret III (=Mereret) [30] Senusret II (=Nofret) [29] Amenemhet II (=Keminebu) [28] Senusret I (=Nefru) [27] Tohwait (=Amenemhet I) [26] Nefert (=Senusret of Elephantine) [25] Missing Generations [15-24] Ham (=Neelata-mek) [14] Tubal Cain (=Nin-banda) [13] Lamech (=Zillah) [12] Methusael (=Edna?) [11] Mehujael (=?) [10] Irad (=Baraka?) [9] Enoch (=Edna?) [8] Cain (=Luluwa) [7] Enki and Eve [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu (OR Ki) [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1] 3. Yuya the Vizier (Joseph; "Father of the Lord") [48] Uncertain Generations [32-47] Amenemhet III (=Aat) [31] Senusret III (=Mereret) [30] Senusret II (=Nofret) [29] Amenemhet II (=Keminebu) [28] Senusret I (=Nefru) [27] Tohwait (=Amenemhet I) [26] Nefert (=Senusret of Elephantine) [25] Missing Generations [15-24] Ham (=Neelata-mek) [14] Tubal Cain (=Nin-banda) [13] Lamech (=Zillah) [12] Methusael (=Edna?) [11] Mehujael (=?) [10] Irad (=Baraka?) [9] Enoch (=Edna?) [8] Cain (=Luluwa) [7] Enki and Eve [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu (OR Ki) [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]
Tuya and Yuya have the same genealogies as Thutmose IV... for the most part... just without the royal and/or pharaoh stamp of approval. Little is known of them, other than the fact that Tuya (aka Asenath) is a "priestess of Neith"... which, as it turns out, says a lot. According to Wikipedia:
According to Laurence Gardner, Genesis of the Grail Kings (page 184), Tuya (Touiou) held the distinction of 'Asenath' (i.e., "she belongs to Neith"). "By way of her mother (Zelekha), she is reckoned to have perhaps been a grand daughter of Tuthmosis III... while through her father she was descended from Igrath (daughter to Esau and Mahalath), the mother of Queen Sobeknefru." Yuya was, in addition to being a Vizier, also a Joseph ("Father of the Lord"), where "Joseph" is actually a title, or job description. Clearly, then, Yuya was an Israelite, someone in the royal circles of said Israelites, and from a long line of such. As will become even more apparent in later generations, the Israelites were fond of naming patriarchs after such luminaries as Joseph, Abraham, Isaac, et al. Thus it might be assumed that Yuya's heritage would be primarily from the Seth line. However, there is also some indication of being a descendant of Ham (Chem-Zarathustra), even the Hyksos Delta Kings. This would suggest some intermarriages between the two lines during the 400 year hiatus of the Israelites in Egypt (and during which the records of which did not apparently survive).
In addition, according to Laurence Gardner, Genesis of the Grail Kings (pages 183-184), the name, Yuya, was phonetically akin to variants of Yahweh or Jehovah. "the vizier had become personally known as Yuya, and... and his grandson, Pharaoh Akhenaten, later developed the 'One God' concept in Egypt." Yuya was in fact "the principal minister" for Tuthmosis IV and his son, Amenhotep III. "His tomb was discovered in 1905, along with that of his wife, Tuya (the Asenath), and the mummies of Yuya and Tuya are among the very best preserved in the Cairo Museum." "Clearly, this couple were of tremendous importance in their day." It is also clear that "Yuya was not only the viceroy and primary state official, but was also the father of a pharaoh, just as related in Genesis (45:8)." [The reference is to Joseph, but as a Joseph, Yuya would be able to claim such an honor... in this case as a grandfather to a pharaoh.]
Generation No. 49 1. Amenhotep III (Nubmaatre) [49] Tuthmosis IV (=Mutemwiya) [48] Amenhotep II (=Tiaa) [47] Tuthmosis III (=Meryetre-Hatshepsut) [46] Tuthmosis II (=Iset) [45] Tuthmosis I (=Mutnofret) [44] Amenhotep I (=Ahmose-Meritamon) [43] Ahmose I (=Ahmose-Nefertari) [42] Missing Generations [33 - 41] Amenemhet IV (=Sobeknefru, d. of Igrath) [32] Amenemhet III (=Aat) [31] Senusret III (=Mereret) [30] Senusret II (=Nofret) [29] Amenemhet II (=Keminebu) [28] Senusret I (=Nefru) [27] Tohwait (=Amenemhet I) [26] Nefert (=Senusret of Elephantine) [25] Missing Generations [15-24] Ham (=Neelata-mek) [14] Tubal Cain (=Nin-banda) [13] Lamech (=Zillah) [12] Methusael (=Edna?) [11] Mehujael (=?) [10] Irad (=Baraka?) [9] Enoch (=Edna?) [8] Cain (=Luluwa) [7] Enki and Eve [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu (OR Ki) [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]
According to Wikipedia, Amenhotep III was the son of Thutmose IV by Mutemwia, a minor wife of Amenhotep's father. Amenhotep III has the most surviving statues of any Egyptian pharaoh, with over 250 having been discovered and identified. Since these statues cover his entire life, they provide a series of portraits covering the entire length of any ancient Egyptian ruler. For example, five scarabs reported that the foreign [Mitanni] princess who would become a wife to him, Gilukhepa, arrived in Egypt with a retinue of 317 women. She was the first of many such princesses who would enter the pharaoh's household. Another eleven scarabs record the excavation of an artificial lake Amenhotep had built for his royal wife, Queen Tiye, in his eleventh regnal year, Amenhotep appears to have been crowned while still a child, perhaps between the ages of 6 and 12. It is likely that a regent acted for him if he was made pharaoh at that early age. He married Tiye two years later [a young boy’s dream] and she lived twelve years after his death. His lengthy reign was a period of unprecedented prosperity and artistic splendor, when Egypt reached the peak of her artistic and international power. Proof of this may be evidenced by one famous correspondence which firmly rejected the Babylonian king Kadashman-Enlil I’s entreaty to marry one of pharaoh’s daughters. Amenhotep III's refusal to allow one of his daughters to be married to the Babylonian monarch may indeed be connected with Egyptian traditional royal practices that could provide a claim upon the throne through marriage to a royal princess, or, it be viewed as a shrewd attempt on his part to enhance Egypt's prestige over those of her neighbors in the international world. [Again, the necessity of a male to marry the royal blooded wife... if that male want’s credibility or semi-legitimacy as a ruler.] There is currently no conclusive evidence of a co-regency between Amenhotep III and his son, Akhenaten. There is evidence, however, that Akhenaten did not honor his father's promise to forward Tushratta statues made of solid gold as part of a marriage dowry for sending his daughter, Tadukhepa, into the pharaoh's household. This correspondence implies that if any co-regency occurred between Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, it lasted no more than a year... albeit in his last year Amenhotep was depicted as visibly weak and sick (possibly arthritis/obesity).
When Amenhotep died, he left behind a country that was at the very height of its power and influence and which commanded immense respect in the international world; however, he also bequeathed an Egypt that was wedded to its traditional political and religious certainties under the Amun priesthood. The resulting upheavals from his son Akhenaten's reforming zeal would shake these old certainties to their very foundations and bring forth the central question of whether a pharaoh was more powerful than the existing domestic order as represented by the Amun priests and their numerous temple estates. [emphasis added] Akhenaten even moved the capital away from the city of Thebes in an effort to break the influence of that powerful temple and assert his own preferred choice of deities, the local deity of Akhenaten ('Horizon of Aten'), at the site known today as Amarna, while suppressing the worship of the Amun deity.
According to Laurence Gardner, Genesis of the Grail Kings (pages 79, 87), "Tablets containing Adapa's story were originally discovered, along with the Enuma elish... in the Egyptian archives of Pharaoh Amenhotep III..." There is also detail found that "a heavenly shem was provided by Enki for the priest-king Atabba when he ascended to meet with the great Anu." These are just more points of evidence that the royal blood line... from Adam to this 18th Dynasty pharaoh... was still very important.
2. Tiya (Tiye) [49] Tuya (=Yuya) [48] Poti-pherah, priest of Ra (=Zelekha) [47] Missing Generations [42-46] Muddled Generations [33 - 41] Amenemhet IV (=Sobeknefru, d. of Igrath) [32] Amenemhet III (=Aat) [31] Senusret III (=Mereret) [30] Senusret II (=Nofret) [29] Amenemhet II (=Keminebu) [28] Senusret I (=Nefru) [27] Tohwait (=Amenemhet I) [26] Nefert (=Senusret of Elephantine) [25] Missing Generations [15-24] Ham (=Neelata-mek) [14] Tubal Cain (=Nin-banda) [13] Lamech (=Zillah) [12] Methusael (=Edna?) [11] Mehujael (=?) [10] Irad (=Baraka?) [9] Enoch (=Edna?) [8] Cain (=Luluwa) [7] Enki and Eve [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu (OR Ki) [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1] According to Laurence Gardner, Genesis of the Grail Kings (page 186), when Tuthmosis IV died, his son Amenhotep III "married his infant sister Sitamun (as was the pharonic tradition) so that he could inherit the throne." "Shortly afterwards, in order to have an adult wife as well, Amenhotep also married Tiye, the daughter of [his chief minister] Yusuf-Yuya. It was decreed, however, that no son born to Tiye could inherit the throne and, because of the length of her father's governorship, there was a general fear that his Israelite relatives were gaining too much power in Egypt." [So much for the "bondage and hard labor" bit; with Egyptians becoming a bit more nervous over the power and influence of the Israelites.] Tiye had a son, Tuthmosis, and in fact he did not survive (with a whip bearing his name being found later in the tomb of Tutankhamen). Based upon the evidence at hand (as well as entombed), Tiye concluded that the ban on her sons was for real, and when she became pregnant again, she took precautions. During her pregnancy, she moved to Goshen, where she could reside in her "confinement" among the somewhat more friendly Israelites. There Tiye had a her brother's wife, Tey, a daughter of the house of Levi, nurse her son. As far as an outsider could tell, Tey was nursing her own child, and poor Tiye had once again failed to generate a possible heir to the Egyptian throne. [Considering Tiye's radical religion of monotheism, she was wise to avoid antagonizing the Religious Right of Egypt.] "Tiye's son Amenhotep (born c. 1394 BC) was later educated at Heliopolis by the Egyptian priests of Ra... and in his teenage years he went to live at Thebes. By that time, his mother had become more influential than the senior queen, Sitamun, who had never borne a son and heir to the pharaoh, only a daughter who was called Nefertiti." [In fact, Tey may have been Nefertiti's mother as well!] "Pharaoh Amenhotep III then suffered a period of ill-health and, because there was no direct male heir to the royal house, young Amenhotep married his half-sister Nefertiti in order to rule as co-regent during this difficult time. When their father died, he succeeded as Amenhotep IV by virtue of his marriage to Nefertiti. Were it not for this marriage, the eighteenth dynasty would have expired at their father's death." Not surprisingly, Tiye probably had a great deal of influence over Amenhotep IV... soon to be renamed Akhenaten (Egyptian)... and known to the Israelites as Moses. Sometimes it pays to have an alias.
Generation No. 50 Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) MOSES [50] Amenhotep III (=Tiye) [49] Tuthmosis IV (=Mutemwiya) [48] Amenhotep II (=Tiaa) [47] Tuthmosis III (=Meryetre-Hatshepsut) [46] Tuthmosis II (=Iset) [45] Tuthmosis I (=Mutnofret) [44] Amenhotep I (=Ahmose-Meritamon) [43] Ahmose I (=Ahmose-Nefertari) [42] Missing Generations [33 - 41] Amenemhet IV (=Sobeknefru, d. of Igrath) [32] Amenemhet III (=Aat) [31] Senusret III (=Mereret) [30] Senusret II (=Nofret) [29] Amenemhet II (=Keminebu) [28] Senusret I (=Nefru) [27] Tohwait (=Amenemhet I) [26] Nefert (=Senusret of Elephantine) [25] Missing Generations [15-24] Ham (=Neelata-mek) [14] Tubal Cain (=Nin-banda) [13] Lamech (=Zillah) [12] Methusael (=Edna?) [11] Mehujael (=?) [10] Irad (=Baraka?) [9] Enoch (=Edna?) [8] Cain (=Luluwa) [7] Enki and Eve [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu (OR Ki) [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]
Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten / Moses) (“Effective spirit of Aten”) was the Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, who is especially noted for attempting to compel the Egyptian population in the monotheistic worship of Aten... although there are doubts as to how successful he was at this. He was born to Amenhotep III and his Chief Queen Tiye and was their younger son. Akhenaten was not originally designated as the successor to the throne until the lack of any other alternatives. Amenhotep III and his wife, Sitamun, for example, had failed to produce a male heir. According to Laurence Gardner, Genesis of the Grail Kings (page 189):
After his death and the restoration of traditional religious practice, Akhenaten and his immediate successors were ignored and excised from history by later rulers. Akhenaten himself is usually referred to as 'the enemy'. [Curiously... Egyptians still consider Hebrews to be the enemy.] According to Wikipedia: Styles of art that flourished during this short period are markedly different from other Egyptian art, bearing a variety of affectations, from elongated heads to protruding stomachs, exaggerated ugliness and the beauty of Nefertiti. Significantly, and for the only time in the history of Egyptian royal art, Akhenaten's family was depicted in a decidedly naturalistic manner, and they are clearly shown displaying affection for each other. [Are you kidding me? Affection? Akhenaten is consorting with just about every royal female in sight! This is family style PDA taken to an extreme.] Nefertiti also appears beside the king in actions usually reserved for a Pharaoh, suggesting that she attained unusual power for a queen.
Following Akhenaten's death, a comprehensive political, religious and artistic reformation [surprise!] returned Egyptian life to the norms it had followed previously during his father's reign. Much of the art and building infrastructure created during Akhenaten's reign was defaced or destroyed in the period immediately following his death. Stone building blocks from his construction projects were used as foundation stones for subsequent rulers' temples and tombs. [Seems fair.] Early on in his reign, Akhenaten fell out with the king of Mitanni, Tushratta, who had been courting favor with his father against the Hittites. Tushratta complains in numerous letters that Akhenaten had sent him gold plated statues rather than statues made of solid gold; the statues formed part of the bride price which Tushratta received for letting his daughter Tadukhepa be married to Amenhotep III and then Akhenaten. While Akhenaten was certainly not a close friend of Tushratta, he was evidently concerned at the expanding power of the Hittite Empire under its powerful ruler Suppiluliuma I. A successful Hittite attack on Mitanni and its ruler Tushratta would have disrupted the entire international balance of power in the Ancient Middle East at a time when Egypt had made peace with Mitanni; this would cause some of Egypt's vassals to switch their allegiances to the Hittites, as time would prove. [Akhenaten was clearly not his great grandfather’s heir to skill in foreign affairs. More of a trouble maker.]
If Smenkhkare outlived Akhenaten, and became sole Pharaoh, he likely ruled Egypt for less than a year. The next successor was Neferneferuaten, a female Pharaoh (possibly Nefertiti, or Meki-taten), who reigned in Egypt for 2 years and 1 month. She was, in turn, probably succeeded by Tutankhamen (later, Tutankhamen), with the country being administered by the chief vizier, and future Pharaoh, Kheperkheprure (Aye). [The Israelites did know, apparently, how to be an effective grand vizier.]
Admittedly, the excision may also have been due in part to the fact that Horemheb, the last Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty (1319 to late 1292 BCE), wanted to delete all trace of Atenism and the pharaohs associated with it from the historical record. Akhenaten's name never appeared on any of the king lists compiled by later Pharaohs and it was not until the late 19th century that his identity was re-discovered and surviving traces of his reign were unearthed. [Good job, Horemheb! Of course, Horemheb was probably a commoner (thus explaining his attention to detail) -- albeit he was probably the commander in chief of the army under the reigns of Tutankhamen and Abe. And thus any continuation or restoration of the 18th Dynasty, following the debacle of Akhenaten, was extremely unlikely.] On the other hand, Horemheb was probably childless [typical of army career types], and he appointed his Vizier Paramesse as his successor... the latter who would assume the throne as Ramesses I. [See how the Viziers do it?] The success of the 19th Dynasty may thus be accounted for by the fact that having served as the previous Vizier, Ramesses had a fair idea of what a Grand Vizier title could achieve. Meanwhile, back at the sudden reversal of fortunes of the 18th Dynasty and with Akhenaten gone, the Aten cult he had founded gradually fell out of favor. Tutankhamen changed his name to Tutankhamen in Year 2 of his reign (1332 BC) and abandoned the city of Akhenaten, which eventually fell into ruin. His successors Aye and Horemheb disassembled temples Akhenaten had built, including the temple at Thebes, using them as a source of easily available building materials and decorations for their own temples. Curiously, this Amarna period is also associated with a serious outbreak of a pandemic, possibly the plague, or polio, or perhaps the world's first recorded outbreak of influenza. The disease(s) apparently came from Egypt and spread throughout the Middle East, killing Suppiluliuma I, the Hittite King. Influenza, for example, is a disease associated with the close proximity of water fowl, pigs [swine!], and humans, and its origin as a pandemic disease may be due to the development of agricultural systems that allow the mixing of these animals and their wastes. Some of the first archaeological evidence for this agricultural system derives from the Amarna period of Ancient Egypt, and therefore the pandemic that followed this period throughout the Ancient Near East may have been the earliest recorded outbreak of influenza. However, the precise nature of this Egyptian plague remains unknown. [Perhaps just a plague of frogs and blood red water... as in the Exodus?] The prevalence of disease may help explain the rapidity with which the site of Akhenaten was subsequently abandoned [making it an early example of possible attempts to quarantine a plague?]. It may also explain why later generations considered the gods to have turned against the Amarna monarchs. The black death has also been suggested because at Amarna the traces of the plague have been found. Whatever the causes, it is clear that the literary, history revisionist possibilities were not lost upon the writers of Exodus.
The relationship between Amenhotep IV and the priests of Amun-Re took a decidedly negative turn in Year 5 of his reign, when Amenhotep IV took decisive steps to establish the Aten as the exclusive, monotheistic god of Egypt: the pharaoh "disbanded the priesthoods of all the other gods...and diverted the income from these [other] cults to support the Aten.
To emphasize his complete allegiance to the Aten, the king officially changed his name from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten. This year also marked the beginning of construction on his new capital, 'Horizon of Aten', at Amarna. Very soon afterwards, he centralized Egyptian religious practices in the capital though construction of the city seems to have continued for several more years. In honor of Aten, Akhenaten also oversaw the construction of some of the most massive temple complexes in ancient Egypt. In these new temples, Aten was worshipped in the open sunlight, rather than in dark temple enclosures, as had been the previous custom. Initially, Akhenaten presented Aten as a variant of the familiar supreme deity Amun-Re (itself the result of an earlier rise to prominence of the cult of Amun, resulting in Amun becoming merged with the sun god Ra), in an attempt to put his ideas in a familiar Egyptian religious context. However, by Year 9 of his reign, Akhenaten declared that Aten was not merely the supreme god, but the only god, and that he, Akhenaten, was the only intermediary between Aten and his people. He ordered the defacing of Amun's temples throughout Egypt and, in a number of instances, inscriptions of the plural 'gods' were also removed.
Aten's name is also written differently after Year 9, to emphasize the radicalism of the new regime, which included a ban on images, with the exception of a rayed solar disc, in which the rays (commonly depicted ending in hands) appear to represent the unseen spirit of Aten, who by then was evidently considered not merely a sun god, but rather a universal deity. It is important to note, however, that representations of the Aten were always accompanied with a sort of "hieroglyphic footnote", stating that the representation of the sun as All-encompassing Creator was to be taken as just that: a representation of something that, by its very nature was something transcending creation, cannot be fully or adequately represented by any one part of that creation.
Akhenaten's status as a religious revolutionary has led to much speculation. The idea of Akhenaten as the pioneer of a monotheistic religion that later became Judaism has been considered by various scholars. One of the first to mention this was Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in his book Moses and Monotheism. Freud argued that Moses had been an Atenist priest forced to leave Egypt with his followers after Akhenaten's death. Freud argued that Akhenaten was striving to promote monotheism, something that the biblical Moses was able to achieve. Following his book, the concept entered popular consciousness and serious research. [Laurence Gardner has, for example, simply equated Akhenaten and Moses. The latter makes the most sense.] Abundant visual imagery of the Aten disk was central to Atenism, which celebrated the natural world, while such imagery is not a feature of early Israelite culture. However, pottery has been found throughout Judea dated to the end of the 8th century BC that have seals resembling a winged sun disk burned on their handles, presumably thought to be the royal seal of the Judean Kingdom. It is also widely accepted that there are strong similarities between Akhenaten's Great Hymn to the Aten and the Biblical Psalm 104. The connections may be tenuous... or just true. Another claim was made by Immanuel Velikovsky, who hypothesized an incestuous relationship pharaoh Amenhotep IV and his mother, Tiye. Velikovsky also posited that Akhenaten had elephantiasis, producing enlarged legs. Based on this, he identified Akhenaten as the history behind the Oedipus myth, "oedipus" being Greek for "swollen feet," and moved the setting from the Greek Thebes to the Egyptian Thebes. As part of his argument, Velikovsky uses the fact that Akhenaten viciously carried out a campaign to erase the name of his father, which he argues could have developed into Oedipus killing his father. In the same 1960 work, Oedipus and Akhenaten, Velikovsky not only saw Akhenaten as the origin of Oedipus, but also identified him with a Pharaoh mentioned only in Herodotus, "Anysis of the city of the same name" - Akhenaten of Akhenaten. Like Oedipus, Anysis was blinded, deposed and exiled. Ultimately, Moses / Akhenaten / Amenhotep IV was exiled and fled to the land of Midian, east of the Sinai penisula. Nefertiti apparently died shortly thereafter. Moses, meanwhile, married Zipporah, the daughter of Lord Jethro, and she bore him two sons. Moses then did the Burning Bush thing and arrangements were made to return to Egypt... and retrieve the Israelites, who had recently (NOT 400 years) been placed in bondage by the new authorities. However, by the time Moses was ready to head home, a whole new regime had begun in Egypt: the 19th dynasty, whose founding pharaoh was Ramses I. And of course, in order to identify himself to the new rulers, Moses was advised to use magic tricks (aka miracles by virtue of divine powers conferred upon him by “I am that I am.”). Okay you know most of the rest... except maybe for the point that according to Laurence Gardner (Genesis of the Grail Kings), “When the Israelites made their exodus from Egypt, their spiritual leader was not Moses, but Miriam -- a queen and high priestess of the pharonic succession.” Why Monotheism? The Israelites, in the form of Tiye, et al, were obviously into the idea of a single god... or more importantly their own private god. These were the days of every city, state, and Elks lodge had their own god. For the most part, everyone tolerated everyone else's god... and while there may have been competition for the hearts and minds of ignorant people... the fact of the matter was that few, if any, people would claim that there only existed a single god. They might, and probably did, claim that their god was better than your god, but not that your god did not exist. So what changed? What happened to make the likes of Tiye and her Israelite brethren so intent upon the idea that everyone else had to adhere to just one god, and that all the other gods who had had their moments... must now be discarded? Taking on the role of "there is only one god, and our is it", the Hebrews effectively challenged every single member of the human race at the time. Insisting upon a single god was throwing a glove in the face of any and everyone. It was an extreme measure... and there really doesn't seem to be any good reason to insist upon such things... at least, a good reason from the viewpoint of the Hebrews. On the other hand, if the god who was insisting that there was only one god... was a dysfunctional ego maniac... and that the idea of his brother, nephews, and so forth could hold forth with as much importance as he... then this monotheistic endorsing god... Aten, Jehovah, Enlil (or whatever other name)... might well begin insisting to this followers that they should forget tolerance as a peace keeping technique, should instead raise holy hell with the rest of the world, and thereafter insist on the "my way is the only way." The Hebrews just had the bad luck to be "chosen" by Enlil for his nefarious purposes. As for why the Hebrews would even buy such a egocentric point of view... they did get the title of "chosen" -- and this is always a cool idea for many people... who desperately want to be superior to others. The problem, of course, is that the idea has really not worked out that well... thus far.
Generation No. 50-51 The following departs somewhat from line of descent we’ve been following. It is shown here in brief format in order to complete the line of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt pharaohs... and the manner in which they led to the 19th Dynasty of Egypt. The new pharaohs were (in order): 1 - Smenkhkare (Akenkhares) (1361 BC) -- probably Generation No. 50 (with Moses) 2 - Possibly Neferneferuaten, a female Pharaoh (possibly Nefertiti, or Meki-taten) 3 - Tutankhamen (Tutankhamen) (Nebkheperure) (1361-1352 BC) (Generation 51) 4 - Aye (Amunpthis) (1352-1348 BC) Kheperkheprure (brother of Tiye, of Hebrew origin) 5 - Horemheb (Meryamun) (1348-1335 BC) (Commoner, Army commander-in-chief) Someone who was not a pharaoh, but who was absolutely essential to the continuation of the royal lines is Kiya-tasherit, the daughter of Moses and Miriam (aka Akhenaten and Mery-amon). The line of descent from her is next on the agenda... particularly when she marries Rama (Aram/Arni), the descendant of Hezron and Kanita, and when her departure from Egypt is contemporaneous with the: END OF THE 18TH DYNASTY OF EGYPT Then came Ramses I (and the 19th dynasty of Egypt), just in time for Moses’ big finish.
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