A baby placed in a basket. Set adrift on a river. Rescued and raised to greatness. It’s a powerful image—and Zeitgeist claims it proves Moses is fiction.
The film asserts that Moses’ birth narrative in Exodus 2 was “lifted directly” from the Legend of Sargon of Akkad, an ancient Mesopotamian king whose origin story features the same motif. Since Sargon lived around 2300 BCE, long before the traditional dating of Moses, the conclusion seems obvious: the Bible copied an older myth.
But this argument collapses under scholarly scrutiny. The text Zeitgeist cites doesn’t date to 2300 BCE—it was composed around 700 BCE, making it roughly contemporary with or later than the biblical tradition. More importantly, the two narratives have opposite purposes: Sargon’s legend legitimizes a usurper’s claim to power, while Moses’ story subverts imperial authority. And the Hebrew text contains internal markers linking Moses to Noah’s Ark, not to Akkadian folklore.
The “basket in the river” isn’t evidence of plagiarism. It’s evidence of the Bible engaging with—and overturning—the propaganda of the ancient world.
The Claim We Must Examine
The Zeitgeist Claim: Moses’ birth story was plagiarized from the Legend of Sargon of Akkad. Since Sargon’s legend is older (c. 2250 BCE), the biblical account must be a copy.
The parallels are real:
- Sargon’s mother places him in a basket of rushes sealed with bitumen
- She sets him in the river
- He is rescued and raised by someone of different social status
- He rises to become a great leader
Moses’ story follows the same basic pattern. To the casual observer, the case seems open and shut.
But the Zeitgeist argument depends on two assumptions: (1) that the Sargon text predates Moses, and (2) that similarity proves copying. Both assumptions are wrong.
The Chronological Fallacy
The linchpin of the plagiarism argument is dating. Zeitgeist assumes that because Sargon the Great lived around 2300 BCE, his birth legend must also date to that period. This is a fundamental error.
When Was the “Legend of Sargon” Actually Written?
The Sargon Birth Legend—the specific text containing the basket-in-the-river motif—is preserved primarily in tablets from the Library of Ashurbanipal (7th century BCE). Scholars such as Brian Lewis and Joan Goodnick Westenholz have demonstrated that this text was likely composed during the reign of the Assyrian king Sargon II (722–705 BCE).
Why would a text about an ancient king be written 1,600 years after his death? Because Sargon II was a usurper who needed to legitimize his rule.
The Political Context
Sargon II seized the Assyrian throne under questionable circumstances. He needed propaganda to justify his reign. What better strategy than to craft a birth legend for his illustrious namesake—Sargon of Akkad, the founder of the world’s first empire—that emphasized a rise from humble beginnings to divine destiny?
The “basket in the river” motif served a specific political function: it signaled that Sargon, despite his obscure origins, was destined for greatness. This is royal propaganda, not ancient history.
The Implication for Moses
If the Sargon Birth Legend was composed around 700 BCE, then it cannot be the source for the Moses tradition. The Exodus narratives are typically dated by scholars to the monarchic period (10th–6th centuries BCE), with oral traditions extending much earlier. The two texts are roughly contemporaneous—and if anything, the direction of influence is uncertain.
The claim that Moses was “copied” from a text written in the 23rd century BCE collapses when we recognize that the text itself dates to the 8th or 7th century BCE.
The Exposed Infant Archetype
Even setting aside the dating problem, the “plagiarism” argument suffers from a deeper methodological flaw: it mistakes a widespread literary convention for evidence of direct copying.
A Universal Motif
Psychoanalyst Otto Rank documented over 70 examples of the “exposed infant” motif across world cultures. The pattern appears in:
- Oedipus (Greek): Exposed on a hillside, rescued by a shepherd, becomes king
- Romulus and Remus (Roman): Exposed by the Tiber, nursed by a wolf, found by a shepherd, found Rome
- Karna (Hindu): Set adrift in a basket on a river, raised by a charioteer, becomes a great warrior
- Perseus (Greek): Set adrift in a chest on the sea with his mother, rescued by a fisherman
- Cyrus the Great (Persian): Ordered killed at birth, raised by a herdsman, becomes emperor
Are we to conclude that all of these stories were plagiarized from each other? That the Greeks copied the Akkadians, the Romans copied the Greeks, and the Hindus copied everyone?
Literary Convention, Not Plagiarism
The “exposed infant” is what scholars call a literary archetype or type-scene—a narrative pattern used across cultures to signal the extraordinary destiny of a hero. The presence of this motif doesn’t indicate that one author physically copied another’s tablet. It indicates that ancient writers operated within a shared symbolic vocabulary.
When a biblical author used the “basket in the river” motif, ancient readers would immediately recognize its significance: this child is marked for greatness. The motif functions as literary shorthand, not as evidence of intellectual theft.
Political Inversion: Opposite Trajectories
The most devastating response to the plagiarism claim comes from comparing what the two narratives actually do. Far from being a copy, the Moses story systematically inverts the Sargon legend’s political message.
The Sargon Trajectory: Legitimizing Power
In the Legend of Sargon:
- Sargon’s mother is a “high priestess” (elevated status)
- His father is “unknown” (suggesting a possibly divine or illicit origin)
- He is placed in a basket to conceal his shameful birth
- He is rescued by Akki the gardener (a commoner)
- He rises to become king of a vast empire
- Function: The narrative legitimizes a usurper by saying, “Though raised in obscurity, I have royal blood and divine favor.”
The trajectory moves from hidden royalty → common upbringing → rightful kingship. It’s propaganda for dynastic power.
The Moses Trajectory: Subverting Power
In Exodus:
- Moses’ parents are Levite slaves (lowest status)
- He is placed in a basket to save him from Pharaoh’s genocide
- He is rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter (royalty)
- He is raised in the palace of the oppressor
- He becomes the liberator who destroys that empire
- Function: The narrative subverts imperial power by saying, “The very empire that tried to kill us raised the man who would set us free.”
The trajectory moves from slave origins → royal upbringing → imperial destruction. It’s not propaganda for power; it’s a celebration of liberation from power.
The Inversion Is Deliberate
These aren’t minor variations. They represent fundamentally opposed political messages:
| Feature | Sargon Legend | Moses Narrative |
|---|---|---|
| Family Origin | High priestess (elite) | Slaves (oppressed) |
| Motive for Exposure | Concealment of shame | Escape from genocide |
| Rescuer’s Status | Gardener (commoner) | Princess (royalty) |
| Outcome | Becomes King | Destroys the King |
| Political Function | Legitimizes empire | Liberates from empire |
If the biblical author knew the Sargon tradition—which is possible—he used it to make the opposite point. He took a template for royal legitimation and transformed it into a narrative of slave liberation. This is not plagiarism; it’s polemic.
The Theology of Tebah
Internal evidence within the Hebrew text confirms that the Moses narrative is driven by Israelite theological concerns, not Mesopotamian borrowing.
A Unique Word Choice
The Hebrew word used for Moses’ basket is tebah (תֵּבָה). This is not the ordinary word for basket or container. In fact, tebah appears in only one other place in the entire Hebrew Bible: Genesis 6–9, where it refers to Noah’s Ark.
This cannot be coincidental. By using tebah, the biblical author creates a deliberate linguistic connection between Moses and Noah.
Salvation Through Water
The theological link is clear:
- Noah’s Ark (tebah): Saves humanity from the watery chaos of divine judgment
- Moses’ Basket (tebah): Saves the liberator from the watery chaos of imperial decree
Both narratives feature a vessel of salvation that carries a remnant through destructive waters to a new beginning. Both signal God’s preservation of His people against overwhelming odds.
This internal connection to Genesis—not to Akkadian legend—reveals the author’s intent. The Moses story is designed to echo the flood narrative, establishing Moses as a “new Noah” who will lead a remnant through judgment to deliverance.
Why This Matters
If the author were merely copying a Mesopotamian text, we would expect Akkadian vocabulary or concepts to appear. Instead, we find the author reaching back to his own tradition’s foundational narrative. The choice of tebah anchors Moses in Israelite theology, not foreign mythology.
The Scholarly Consensus
Specialists in Ancient Near Eastern studies reject the Zeitgeist plagiarism claim on multiple grounds:
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The dating is wrong. The Sargon Birth Legend is a Neo-Assyrian composition (c. 700 BCE), not a 3rd millennium text.
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The methodology is flawed. Surface-level parallels don’t prove copying; they may indicate shared conventions, independent development, or deliberate subversion.
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The political functions are opposite. Sargon’s legend legitimizes royal power; Moses’ story undermines it.
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The internal evidence points elsewhere. The use of tebah connects Moses to Noah, not to Mesopotamia.
This doesn’t mean there’s no relationship between the texts. Ancient Israelite authors lived in a world saturated with Mesopotamian culture. They may well have known stories like the Sargon legend. But “knowing” a tradition and “copying” it are different things. The evidence suggests that if the Exodus author engaged with the Sargon motif at all, he did so to subvert it—to take a template for imperial propaganda and transform it into a celebration of liberation.
The Christian Response
From a Christian perspective, the relationship between Moses and Sargon—whatever its precise nature—poses no threat to the historicity or authority of Scripture.
Engagement, Not Copying
The Bible consistently engages with the cultures around it. Hebrew prophets challenged Babylonian gods. The Gospel of John presents Jesus using language that echoed Greco-Roman philosophy. Paul quoted pagan poets. This engagement is not evidence of copying; it’s evidence of proclamation. Biblical authors spoke to their world in terms their world could understand—while overturning its assumptions.
If the Exodus author used a known literary convention (the exposed infant), he did so to communicate truth, not to plagiarize fiction.
The Uniqueness of Moses
Whatever similarities exist at the level of narrative motif, the content of Moses’ life is utterly unique:
- No Mesopotamian king was given the Torah on Sinai
- No Akkadian legend includes the Ten Commandments
- No pagan myth features a covenant between the Creator God and a people He has redeemed from slavery
The “basket in the river” is a single story element. The entire Exodus narrative—the plagues, the Passover, the crossing of the Red Sea, the theophany at Sinai, the giving of the Law—has no parallel in Mesopotamian literature. Isolating one motif while ignoring everything that makes the Moses story unique is a classic example of parallelomania.
The Sovereignty of God
Finally, Christians can affirm that God is sovereign over all of history—including the literary conventions of the ancient Near East. If multiple cultures preserved stories of infants saved from water, this may reflect humanity’s deep intuition that God rescues the helpless. The archetype points toward a reality that finds its fulfillment in Moses and, ultimately, in Christ.
Addressing Common Objections
“But the motif is too specific to be coincidental!”
The motif is not unique to Sargon and Moses. It appears across dozens of cultures worldwide. The specificity you perceive is actually a widespread literary convention.
“Even if the text is late, the legend could be older.”
Possibly—but this is speculation. We cannot assume an oral tradition existed in the 3rd millennium just because we want the plagiarism argument to work. We must work with the evidence we have, which places the Sargon Birth Legend text in the 8th–7th century BCE.
“You’re just defending the Bible because you believe it.”
I’m working with the same evidence critical scholars use. The Neo-Assyrian dating of the Sargon text isn’t a conservative Christian invention; it’s the mainstream scholarly position. The political inversion between the narratives isn’t an apologetic construct; it’s what the texts actually say.
What This Means for Faith
The Zeitgeist claim about Moses and Sargon illustrates a recurring pattern we’ve seen throughout this series: sensational assertions that collapse under scrutiny.
The film presents a confident narrative: older text + similar motif = plagiarism. But confidence is not evidence. When we examine the actual sources—their dating, their function, their literary context—the plagiarism charge evaporates.
What remains is a story about a slave child saved from genocide, raised in the palace of his people’s oppressor, and destined to lead them to freedom. That story has inspired liberation movements for three thousand years. It echoes with the hope that God sees the affliction of the oppressed and acts to deliver them.
That’s not a copy of royal propaganda. It’s the exact opposite.
An Invitation
If the “Moses = Sargon” claim troubled you, I hope this examination has been clarifying. The evidence doesn’t support plagiarism—it supports a biblical author engaging with his cultural context while proclaiming something radically new.
Consider reading Exodus 1–2 alongside the Legend of Sargon (widely available online). Note the similarities, but pay equal attention to the differences. Ask yourself: which narrative legitimizes power, and which challenges it?
And consider the possibility that the “exposed infant” motif, appearing across so many cultures, points to something true about the human condition: we long for a rescuer, a deliverer who comes from unexpected origins to set the captives free.
Next in the series: We examine the claim that the Ten Commandments were copied from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.