“There is no real history in the Old Testament, and the little historical information one can glean is only found in the indiscreet revelations of the prophets. The book, as a whole, must have been written at various times, or rather invented as an authorization of some subsequent worship, the origin of which may be very easily traced partially to the Orphic Mysteries, and partially to the ancient Egyptian rites in familiarity with which Moses was brought up from his infancy.
Since the last century the Church has been gradually forced into concessions of usurped biblical territory to those to whom it of right belonged. Inch by inch has been yielded, and one personage after another been proved mythical and Pagan. But now, after the recent discovery of George Smith, the much-regretted Assyriologist, one of the securest props of the Bible has been pulled down. Sargon and his tablets are about demonstrated to be older than Moses. Like the account of Exodus, the birth and story of the lawgiver seem to have been “borrowed” from the Assyrians, as the “jewels of gold and jewels of silver” were said to be from the Egyptians.
On page 224 of Assyrian Discoveries, Mr. George Smith says: “In the place of Sennacherib at Kouyunjik, I found another fragment of the curious of Sargon, a translation of which I published in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, volume 1, part 1, page 46. This text relates that Sargon, an early Babylonian monarch, was born of royal parents, but concealed by his mother, who placed him on the Euphrates in an ark of rushes, coated with bitumen, like that in which the mother of Moses hid her child (see Exodus 2). Sargon was discovered by a man named Akki, a water carrier, who adopted him as his son; and he afterward became King of Babylonia. The capital of Sargon was the great city of Agadi – called by the Semites Akkad – mentioned in Genesis as a capital of Nimrod (Genesis 10:10), and here he reigned for forty-five years. Akkad lay near the city of Sippara, on the Euphrates and north of Babylon. “The date of Sargon, who may be termed the Babylonian Moses, was in the sixteenth century and perhaps earlier.”
G. Smith adds in his Chaldean Account that Sargon I, was a Babylonian monarch who reigned in the city of Akkad about 1600 B.C. The name of Sargon signifies the right, true, or legitimate king. This curious story is found on fragments of tablets from Kouyunjik, and reads as follows: 1, Sargona, the powerful king, the king of Akkad am I; 2, My mother was a princess, my father I did not know, a brother of my father ruled over the country; 3, In the city of Azupirana, which is by the side of the river Euphrates, 4, my mother, the princess, conceived me; in difficulty she brought me forth; 5, She placed me in an ark of rushes, with bitumen my exit she sealed up. 6, She launched me in the river which did not drown me. 7, The river carried me to Akki, the water carrier it brought me. 8, Akki, the water carrier, in tenderness of bowels, lifted me, etc., etc.
And now Exodus (2) – “And when she (Moses’ mother) could not longer hide him, she took him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein, and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.” The story, says Mr. G. Smith, “is supposed to have happened about 1600 B.C., rather earlier than the supposed age of Moses. As we know that the fame of Sargon reached Egypt, it is quite likely that this account had a connection with the event related in Exodus 2, for every action, when once performed, has a tendency to be repeated.””
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 