[24] See Ignaz Goldziher, “Der Mythus bei den Hebräern und seine geschichtliche Entwickelung” [Leipzig, 1876], p. 125. According to the writings of Siecke [“Hermes als Mondgott,” Leipzig, 1908, p. 39], the incest myths lose all unusual features through being referred to the moon, and its relation to the sun. The explanation being quite simple: the daughter, the new moon, is the repetition of the mother [the old moon], with her the father [the sun] [also the brother, the son] becomes reunited.
[25] Is it to be believed? In an article entitled “Urreligion der Indogermanen” [Berlin, 1897], where Siecke points out that the incest myths are descriptive narrations of the seen but inconceivable process of nature, he objects to a statement of Oldenburg [“Religion der Veda,” p. 5] who assumes a primeval tendency of myths to the incest motive, with the remark that in the days of yore the motive was thrust upon the narrator, without an inclination of his own, through the forcefulness of the witnessed facts.
[26] The great variability and wide distribution of the birth myths of the hero results from the above quoted writings of Bauer, Schubert and others, while their comprehensive contents and fine ramifications were especially discussed by Husing, Lessmann, and the other representatives of the modern direction.
Innumerable fairy tales, stories, and poems of all times, up to the most recent dramatic and novelistic literature, show very distinct individual main motives of this myth. The exposure-romance is known to appear in the following literary productions: The late Greek pastorals, as told in Heliodor’s “Aethiopika,” in Eustathius’ “Ismenias and Ismene,” and in the Story of the two exposed children, Daphnis and Chloe. The more recent Italian pastorals are likewise very frequently based upon the exposure of children, who are raised as shepherds by their foster-parents, but are later recognized by the true parents, through identifying marks which they received at the time of their exposure. To the same set belong the family history in Grimmelshausen’s “Limplizissimus” (1665), in Jean Paul’s “Titan” (1800), as well as certain forms of the Robinson stories and Cavalier romances (compare Würzbach’s Introduction to the Edition of “Don Quichote” in Hesse’s edition).
[27] The various translations of the partly mutilated text differ only in unessential details. Compare Hommel’s “History of Babylonia and Assyria” (Berlin, 1885), p. 302, where the sources of the tradition are likewise found, and A. Jeremias, “The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient Orient,” II edition, Leipzig, 1906, p. 410.
[28] On account of these resemblances, a dependence of the Exodus tale from the Sargon legend has often been assumed, but apparently not enough attention has been paid to certain fundamental distinctions, which will be taken up in detail in the interpretation.
[29] The parents of Moses were originally nameless, as were all persons in this, the oldest account. Their names were only conferred upon them by the priesthood. Chapter 6, 20, says: “And Amram took him Jocabed his father’s sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses” [and their sister Miriam, IV, 26, 59]. Also compare Winckler, “History of Israel,” II, and Jeremias, l. c., p. 408.
[30] The name, according to Winckler (“Babylonian Mental Culture,” p. 119), means “The Water-Drawer” (see also Winckler, “Ancient Oriental Studies,” III, 468, etc.), which would still further approach the Moses legend to the Sargon legend, for the name Akki signifies I have drawn water.
[31] Schemot Rabba, fol. 2, 4. Concerning 2, Moses 1, 22, says that Pharaoh was told by the astrologers of a woman who was pregnant with the Redeemer of Israel.
[32] The Hindu birth legend of the mythical king Vikramâdita must also be mentioned in this connection. Here again occur the barren marriage of the parents, the miraculous conception, ill-omened warnings, the exposure of the boy in the forest, his nourishment with honey, finally the acknowledgment by the father. (See Jülg, “Mongolian Fairy Tales,” Innsbruck, 1868, p. 73, et seq.)