Solomon,
OT is a unified work (by committee), which accounts for the variant styles with singular "purpose". Just think how many centuries of interpolation in native texts during British period was required before output of one slumdog movie for the masses in English. OT/NT was no small project and it extended from the Greek period when the foundation was laid. Persians are being wrongly implicated for various reasons, least of which is anti-semitism and '300' type motivations. This material is *extremely* radioactive. Care should be taken not extend its scope into Indo-Iranian where it does not in the least belong. Gmirkin gives the right context. Wesselius explains the Darius connection in the narrative. Moses is the fulfillment of the failed enemy monarch Darius as given in Herodotus. Geopolitical context of OT is Seleucid (Shem) and Ptolemaic (Ham) successors of Alexander's Empire, built upon the remains of Darius' Persian Empire.
The prophets are given encounters with Pharaoh, Sennacherib, Cyrus and make these native representatives as their (immoral) serviles. It does not mean that Cyrus and Darius are the originators, just as Gurus or Shankara are not the partisans of monotheism. Monotheism has a property of blaming the heathen reaction as a reaction against the heathen culture itself. Bhakti movement which was a corrective response to certain perception changes about their being leaders of the "religion" in India (needed by the religionists to mark the "leaders" for elimination), is now being redescribed as a response to degradation within the heathen culture itself and as an escape from the heathen culture and a foreshadow of the project. OT is similarly an impulse to backproject a monotheist sensibility onto native societies and native narratives (back into 'history').
OT is a unified work (by committee), which accounts for the variant styles with singular "purpose". Just think how many centuries of interpolation in native texts during British period was required before output of one slumdog movie for the masses in English. OT/NT was no small project and it extended from the Greek period when the foundation was laid. Persians are being wrongly implicated for various reasons, least of which is anti-semitism and '300' type motivations. This material is *extremely* radioactive. Care should be taken not extend its scope into Indo-Iranian where it does not in the least belong. Gmirkin gives the right context. Wesselius explains the Darius connection in the narrative. Moses is the fulfillment of the failed enemy monarch Darius as given in Herodotus. Geopolitical context of OT is Seleucid (Shem) and Ptolemaic (Ham) successors of Alexander's Empire, built upon the remains of Darius' Persian Empire.
The prophets are given encounters with Pharaoh, Sennacherib, Cyrus and make these native representatives as their (immoral) serviles. It does not mean that Cyrus and Darius are the originators, just as Gurus or Shankara are not the partisans of monotheism. Monotheism has a property of blaming the heathen reaction as a reaction against the heathen culture itself. Bhakti movement which was a corrective response to certain perception changes about their being leaders of the "religion" in India (needed by the religionists to mark the "leaders" for elimination), is now being redescribed as a response to degradation within the heathen culture itself and as an escape from the heathen culture and a foreshadow of the project. OT is similarly an impulse to backproject a monotheist sensibility onto native societies and native narratives (back into 'history').