Did Moses Exist The Myth Of The Israelite Lawgiver [Paperback]

The biblical figure of Moses has been the center of fascination for over 2,000 years, but what do we actually know about him? Was he a real person? Did the Exodus truly happen? Or is the story in the Pentateuch a mythical account written centuries after the alleged events?

Why does Moses's story resemble that of other, older lawgivers and legendary predecessors? Why are there so many elements of sun and wine god myths in the tale of Moses? What does the focus on the serpent in his story signify? Who were Yahweh and the Elohim?

Did Moses Exist? includes:

• Maps and 126 illustrations
• Extensive bibliography, table of contents and index
• Hundreds of footnotes and citations from primary sources in multiple languages
• Best modern scholarship from credentialed authorities

Did Moses Exist? provides a massive amount of information from antiquity about the world's religious traditions and mythology, including how solar myths, wine cultivation and fertility cults have shaped the Bible and Judaism. This book may be the most comprehensive study to date, using the best scholarship and state-of-the-art research methods.

In the citations and bibliography appear numerous ancient sources such as the Bible, Anacreon, Apollodorus, Aristides, Aristophanes, Arrian, Cicero, Clement of Alexandria, Diodorus, Euripides, Eusebius, Herodotus, Hesiod, Homer, Josephus, Justin Martyr, Megasthenes, Origen, Ovid, Pausanias, Pindar, Plato, Plutarch, Porphyry, Seneca, Strabo, Varro, Virgil and others, often in the original languages, mostly Greek, Hebrew and Latin.

Also discussed are texts and words in Akkadian, Arabic, Assyrian, Babylonian, Canaanite, Phoenician, Ugaritic and other Semitic languages, along with Egyptian, Sumerian, Vedic and Sanskrit.

The existence of Moses as well as the veracity of the Exodus story is disputed amongst archaeologists and Egyptologists, with experts in the field of bibllH