Book Review… Was Moses an Egyptian?

Mar 18, 2018 Book Review…, Features / Columnists

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Book: Moses and Monotheism

Author: Sigmund Freud

Critic: Glenville Ashby, PhD

In his last book, ‘Moses and Monotheism’, the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, raised some searching questions. Was Moses an Egyptian and not an Israelite? Was the story of Moses part of a well-crafted mythology? Were parts of the Old Testament astutely culled from older manuscripts? These inquiries, hardly new, persist to this very day.

In this riveting treatise, Freud explores ancient myths, etymology, and the origins of Jewish practices. What he concluded is nothing short of explosive. Himself a Jew, Freud grasped the implication of his presentation. But he was undeterred.

In this seminal work, Freud argues that Moses was possibly an Egyptian (an assertion long made by Manetho, a 3rd century BC Egyptian historian) who was mesmerized and sold on the concept of monotheism, a new religion that was revealed by Amenhotep IV, who changed his name to Akhenaton to honour the all-pervasive Deity, the Creator of the universe.

Akhenaton built the city of Amarna in reverence to the universal Creator (the God of truth and justice) and moved swiftly and dramatically to smother the many gods of Egyptian, above all the cult of Amun.  There was relentless resistance by the priests of Amun to this new religion. Akhenaton’s rule lasted a mere 17 years. After his sudden demise (1332 BC), his city was sacked, his name was excised from official names of Pharaohs, and Egypt’s old religion was reintroduced,

Moses, an inveterate follower of the dethroned king, introduced monotheism to the Levites, Egypt’s Israelites.

Freud posits that the Levites, many of whom bore Egyptian names, were introduced to the one God concept. Circumcision, an Egyptian practice that predated the Mesopotamians and the Sumerians, was also transferred.

Freud argues quite convincingly, “…let us adopt for a moment the usual assumption that Moses was a Jew who wanted to free his compatriots from the service of an Egyptian overlord and lead them out of the country…What sense could there be in his forcing upon them at the same time a burdensome custom which, so to speak, made them Egyptians and was bound to keep their “dark” (emphasis mine) memory of Egypt?”

He goes further. On Moses’ speech impediment, he offers a compelling explanation. Citing Exodus 4: 10, He writes, “Another trait imputed to him deserves our special interest. Moses was said to have been “slow of speech.” [This], however has another and more important significance. The report may, in a slightly distorted way, recall the fact that Moses spoke another language and was not able to communicate with his Semitic Neo-Egyptians without the help of an interpreter – at least not at the beginning of their intercourse. Thus a fresh confirmation of the thesis: Moses was an Egyptian.”

And although Freud makes no mention of the Ten Commandments in his work, noted scholars have proven that Moses’ commandments to the Levites were taken from the Egyptian precepts of Maat or the 42 Negative Confessions.

On this subject, the late scholar, Professor Ben Jochannan, stated, “We can find that there was no Moses on Mt Horeb in Sinai to receive any ten commandments that had not been given before or written before in Egypt because you could go in the Book of Coming Forth By Day and By Night [and see] those ten commandments but 32 more for a total of 42 commandments [written] 2,000 years before the birth of Moses.”
And Dr Kwame Nantambu, Professor Emeritus at Kent State University, wrote, “The fact is that as a High Priest during the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaton, (xxvth Dynasty, 1370 —1352 B.C), Moses was not only familiar and knowledgeable with “42 Negative Confessions” but also with the 10 categories of sins that existed.”

On the fate of Moses, Freud refers to biblical scholar Ernst Sellin 1867-1946.

He writes, “Sellin made a discovery of decisive importance. He found in the book of the Prophet Hosea (second half of the eighth century [BCE]) unmistakable traces of a tradition to the effect that the founder of their religion, Moses, met a violent end in a rebellion of his stubborn and refractory people. The religion he had instituted was at that time abandoned.”

Still, Moses’ laws and practices survived, absorbed by the Kadesh tradition at the time of King David (1000 BCE).

According to Freud, the Levites “would not renounce memories …of their liberation from Egypt and the magnificent figure of Moses; and indeed, he succeeded in finding a place in the new representation of Jewish early history.”

Notably, the volcanic god Jahve (Yahweh) proved dominant, eventually, assuming the characteristics of Moses’ ubiquitous, universal  God – the God of Akhenaton. More importantly, Moses assumed a new identity in Jewish scriptures (written long after his death) as one of their own. The myth, Freud argues, transforms this Egyptian into a Jew.
Not only does Freud’s ‘Moses and Monotheism’ validate the indispensable role of myths to the creation of religions, it advances the thesis that religion does not emerge from a vacuum. Arguably, it concludes that religious beliefs are a mélange of diverse cultural practices and belief systems formed by acculturation, enculturation and cultural hybridization. This has always been the trajectory of civilization. 

Feedback: glenvilleashby@gmail.com/www.glenvillewellness.com or follow him on Twitter@glenvilleashby

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