Topic: Plot Device - Babies in River Baskets

[Desert Fox]

I was listening to a Roman History teaching company course and the the teacher talks about Romulus and Remus floating in a basket down the Tiber river. This is kind of interesting when you think about it being also in the Moses narative

Kind of curious  just how common a plot device is this?

Also, going even further, could Superman's origin story be compared to this as well? At least in the Christopher Reed version, the space ship looks basket like to me.

[David E.]

Not as common as a "chosen one" being of a virgin birth or born non vaginally.   Fear the Vagina so say the Gods.

[klintistvud]

There is a basket in a river story about Sargon of Akkad from (according to wiki) 7th century BC.

"My mother was a high priestess, my father I knew not. The brothers of my father loved the hills. My city is Azupiranu, which is situated on the banks of the Euphrates. My high priestess mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast me into the river which rose over me. The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me. Akki, the drawer of water, appointed me as his gardener. While I was a gardener, Ishtar granted me her love, and for four and ... years I exercised kingship"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_of_Akkad#In_comparative_mythology

[IrishJazz]

I was listening to a Roman History teaching company course and the the teacher talks about Romulus and Remus floating in a basket down the Tiber river. This is kind of interesting when you think about it being also in the Moses narative

Kind of curious  just how common a plot device is this?

Also, going even further, could Superman's origin story be compared to this as well? At least in the Christopher Reed version, the space ship looks basket like to me.

It was a reed basket, and it was Christopher Reeves.  Interesting idea.

Oedepus was also an abandoned baby, as was King Arthur.  Not to mention Oliver Twist, Luke Skywalker and his coke-head sister. 

[Jim S]

Tvtropes calls it "Doorstop Baby".  But they mention none of those three. 

[Neon Genesis]

Harry Potter was delivered to the Dursleys in a basket to escape from Voldermort.

[Desert Fox]

Same Source, Moses in the Bullrushes

[Jim S]

Harry Potter was delivered to the Dursleys in a basket to escape from Voldermort.

And Voldemort was a doorstop baby as well, but he was delivered to an orphanage.

Same Source, Moses in the Bullrushes

Oh...   Yeah!

[Desert Fox]

Interesting just how common it is in myth. . .
Now, for example Moses and Romulus / Remus are likely independently derived but interested in how many might have inspired others.

[Anders]

There's the same story about Cyrus and Augustus. I don't know if there's one about Alexander but it wouldn't surprise me. And there's of course Herod's slaughter of the infants in the New Testament.

[IrishJazz]

There's the same story about Cyrus and Augustus. I don't know if there's one about Alexander but it wouldn't surprise me. And there's of course Herod's slaughter of the infants in the New Testament.

The slaughter of the innocents in the Gospel of Matthew nativity is a mythical retelling of the Moses story.  The family even goes to Egypt at the end.  Matthew's text was written within a primarily Jewish early Christian context.  Jesus was cast as the Second Moses, delivering believers from the curse of mortality.  It was a less complex theology than Paul's Jesus as second Adam/Lamb of God.

[Xptical]

I've bumped into this a few times.  Things like baskets on rivers, virgin births, floods, etc.  The apologist answer is that all these stories descend from a single "true" event as recorded in the Bible.

It's neat to see how it all evolved (no Jewish creation stories before Babylon capture), but trying to argue using this tack is a losing prospect.

[Desert Fox]

We are "among friends" here. . . I agree that this may not be the best argument to use against believers.
Just kind of wonder if there is something deep in our psyche which these ideas appeal to?

[Shibboleth]

It's neat to see how it all evolved (no Jewish creation stories before Babylon capture), but trying to argue using this tack is a losing prospect.

People can't find it in all of the massive amounts of Hebrew writings before the Babylonian Captivity? What do they have like two coins and a pottery shard?

[Shibboleth]

We are "among friends" here. . . I agree that this may not be the best argument to use against believers.
Just kind of wonder if there is something deep in our psyche which these ideas appeal to?

I think it is definitely ingrained into the Western Psyche. There are stories in ancient Greece also where a baby is set to sea such as Perseus.