If pagan traditions preserved memories of biblical events, those memories ought to be recoverable in the stories of their greatest figures. Pierre-Daniel Huet (1630–1721) pursued the possibility with extraordinary learning. His Demonstratio Evangelica (1679) presented a defence of Christianity in which Moses reappeared under the names of other peoples’ teachers and heroes. What looked like several histories could be explained as altered accounts of one.
Huet had learned much from Samuel Bochart (1599–1667), whose comparisons of languages and places traced biblical peoples across the ancient world. He extended the search into the details of religious biography. Similar deeds, attributes, and circumstances could suggest that two figures had begun as the same person. Changes of language and the habits of storytellers would account for what no longer agreed.
The biblical account had a privileged position in deciding which version came first. Once Moses was accepted as the original, other narratives could supply confirmation without displacing him. The growing number of examples made the argument look stronger, especially when they came from widely separated peoples. Yet each new identification also depended on accepting the earlier decision about the direction of borrowing.
The identifications did not persuade every later reader, and some accepted the resemblances while reversing their explanation. A story might have travelled toward the biblical writers rather than away from them. Huet had collected enough material to make that disagreement substantial. His defence left the reader with Moses surrounded by proposed counterparts, each of whom required a history of his own.