Sargon and Moses

[aj830]

What is the response that the Genesis account of Moses is based on the legend of Sargon? I have never heard this until recently in one of my classes where the notes stated that Moses story was based on Sargon(not as theory but as fact). It said something with bitumen and pitch not being available in Egypt at Moses time so that the story had to be based on Sargon’s. Just wondering how to respond to this as I am not well versed enough in history to counter this.

 

[NotWorthy]

What’s bitumen and pitch have to do with it? Are you talking about the whole Exodus thing?

 

[Fidelis]

What is the response that the Genesis account of Moses is based on the legend of Sargon? I have never heard this until recently in one of my classes where the notes stated that Moses story was based on Sargon(not as theory but as fact). It said something with bitumen and pitch not being available in Egypt at Moses time so that the story had to be based on Sargon’s. Just wondering how to respond to this as I am not well versed enough in history to counter this.

That’s pretty feeble rationale for jettisoning the entire Moses story!

Other than this this is just another “similarity must mean common origin” fallacy.

 

[aj830]

What’s bitumen and pitch have to do with it? Are you talking about the whole Exodus thing?

The teacher’s notes that we copied stated this and I quote

The legend of Moses birth is obviously modeled on the earlier birth story of Sargon(2350 B.C.) and is clearly not of Egypt, since in Egypt bitumen and pitch was not used before Ptolemaic times, when it was introduced from Palestine.

It also had the account of Moses birth and the account of Sargons birth which you can find by a quick google search. Sargon was an Akkadian king and this whole thing about Sargon and Moses was just thrown into her notes after the description of Sargon. I don’t think if this is her own words because she has it quoted but I don’t really know how to respond to this because I don’t know the historical background on this and was looking for help in it.

 

[whowantsumadebo]

We can take all of our copy-cat myths to the cleaners with good ol’ tekton apologetics:
tektonics.org/copycat/sargon.html

Often when people are trying to draw parallels between religions or religious figures, strong similarities must be forced upon them. Sargon and Moses aren’t all that similar.