“Freud had argued that Akhenaton, the
supposedly monotheistic Egyptian pharaoh, was the source of the religious
principles that Moses taught to the people of Israel in the desert”.
The Velikovsky Encyclopedia
Moses the Lawgiver, so revered within the
Judaeo-Christian tradition, appears to be a figure of enormous controversy
amongst certain highly-respected scholars and writers. From at least the time
of Sigmund Freud and his book, Moses and Monotheism (1939), Moses has
been presented as an enlightened Egyptian:
Freud was quite interested in Jewish history. At
his time, persecution and hatred for the Jewish people was quite common. Being
a pioneer in the field of psychoanalysis, he set out to investigate the origins
of the Jewish people. Among his most astonishing claims was that Moses was not
of Jewish. For one, the name Moses is not of Jewish origin and can be traced
back to ancient Egyptians. The book is an attempt to apply psychoanalysis to
the field of history. An extension on his earlier works such as Totem and Taboo. In keeping with his suggestion about the
primal father, Freud argues that a small band of individuals, which Moses led
out of Egypt during a time of great civil war, conspired against him and
eventually killed him. ….
[End of quote]
In more recent times, the concept of
Moses-as-an-Egyptian has been taken up by Islamic scholar, Ahmed Osman, in his controversial
book Out of Egypt: The Roots of Christianity Revealed (Century, 1998).
In Part I, Osman presumes to identify Moses with the most peculiar (my
description) 18th dynasty pharaoh, Akhnaton.
I wrote an unsympathetic review of this bizarre, distorting model of ‘history’
in my article:
Freud’s book on Moses, for its part, had been a
catalyst for Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky’s revision of ancient biblico-history. In The
Velikovsky Encyclopedia, we read:
In 1939, with the prospect of war looming,
Velikovsky travelled with his family to New York, intending to spend a
sabbatical year researching for his book Oedipus & Akhnaton
(which, inspired by Freud’s Moses
and Monotheism, explored the possibility that Pharaoh Akhenaton was the legendary
Oedipus). Freud had argued that Akhenaton, the supposedly monotheistic Egyptian
pharaoh, was the source of the religious principles that Moses taught to the
people of Israel in the desert. Freud’s claim (and that of others before him)
was based in part on the resemblance of Psalm 104 in the Bible to an Egyptian
hymn discovered on the wall of the Tomb of Akhenaton’s general, Ai, in
Akhenaton’s city of Akhetaten. To disprove Freud’s claim as well as to prove
the Exodus as such, Velikovsky sought evidence for the Exodus in Egyptian
documents. One such document was the Ipuwer Papyrus which reports events
similar to several of the Biblical plagues. Since conventional Egyptology dated
the Ipuwer
Papyrus much
earlier than either the Biblical date for the Exodus (ca. 1500 – 1450 BCE)
or the Exodus date accepted by many of those who accepted the conventional
chronology of Egypt (ca. 1250 BCE), Velikovsky had to revise or correct the
conventional chronology. ….
[End of quote]
But Velikovsky, too, had an idiosyncratic view of Moses, to which I have
previously referred as follows with reference to Martin Sieff’s very insightful
article, “Velikovsky and His Heroes” (SIS
Review, vol. v, no. 4, 1980/81, pp. 112-120):
Velikovsky was a Jewish nationalist, according to
Martin Sieff in his most interesting paper, “Velikovsky and His Heroes” … and
consequently his heroes seem to have been more the ‘baddies’ of the Bible
(Saul, Ahab), [since these were the nationalistic types] rather than the
‘goodies’ (Moses, Isaiah).
But whether or not Velikovsky believed in God, not
to have done so would not disqualify him from being able to arrive at a right
synchronism for the Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty, which I believe he achieved.
Sure, his original model was defective and needed modifications in various
places. But the final result has been an impressive platform for the
re-building of ancient history upon proper foundations. His critics … have not
been able to come anywhere near it. ….
A major obstacle to the progress of the
Velikovsky-inspired revision was the academically entrenched – and, purportedly,
astronomically-fixed – “Sothic” (Sirius star) theory of ancient Egyptian
history as worked out by the Berlin School chronologist, Eduard Meyer.
Thankfully, pioneer revisionists such as Drs. Velikovsky and D. Courville,
followed by other bright minds, have been able to blow holes in this absurdly
artificial scheme.
At the Velikovsky site: https://www.varchive.org/tpp/moses.htm we read more about Sigmund Freud and his highly unorthodox view of Moses:
Sigmund Freud and Moses the Lawgiver
Twice Freud strayed
away into a by-path off the high road of psychoanalytic investigation—once,
many years ago, when he … wrote a study of aesthetics, and the second time in
his eighties, when he undertook an inquiry into biblical history. Both times
the prophet Moses was the object of his investigation. In the first instance it
was Michelangelo’s statue of Moses, selected out of all the work produced by
Michelangelo and from all the other creations of the plastic arts. Later it was
Moses the law-giver, whose historic figure exercised a compelling effect on the
spiritual vision of the creator of depth psychology.
Is this accidental? A
man may accidentally meet another twice at the same spot, but it is not accidental
when an old man returns to the place where once, in the full vigor of his
manhood, a figure held him enthralled. What compelled the man who maintained
that he was ignorant of the “oceanic feeling” of religious experience to
approach the great religious founder and attempt to illuminate his spiritual
aspect as well as the traits of his appearance? He said that religion was a
neurosis; was he seeking the traits of neurosis in Moses? In not a single line
has he given any indication of this. “I decided to put it away [the work], but
it haunted me like an unlaid ghost.” (1) Something profoundly personal is
hinted at in such a confession.
Freud’s work on
Moses, the Egyptian, is not a psychoanalytical or psychological study. But we
shall proceed in the manner of Freud when delivering over the author of a
literary work to the tribunal of psychoanalysis.
Unless one follows
the traditions which have been handed down, a reconstruction of the personality
of Moses is not possible on the basis of the remainder of the available
historical material. When such an attempt is made to mold anew a statue of this
giant from the scraps of relevant history—to give not an analysis of the
tradition, but a synthesis of the personality—then we have before us an
artistic creation, just as Michelangelo’s prophet with the tablets is an
artistic creation. But by referring to such a statue we should not attempt to
make an analysis of what is hidden in the mythical past, but rather an analysis
of the artist.
Whatever is alien to
Freud in the traditional figure of Moses will be regarded in his inquiry as
alien to Moses; whatever there is in the figure of Moses that fails to reflect
Freud’s concept will be found in historical and exegetical excursions and bound
up with the inquiry.
In analysis this is
called projection. In order to project one’s inner world onto some personality
of the outer world, some similarity must first be found. The associations which
lead to this may be positive and also negative. Correspondingly, the associations
will be colored by love or negatively charged with hate, everything depending
on which unconscious impulses are being outwardly projected. The projections
may be on occasion divided up into two personalities: one is taken over by the
“good” ego, the other by the “evil” ego; one is idealized and the other hated.
Everything which does not correspond to the good or evil ego will either remain
unseen or be denied.
“Moses is an
Egyptian.” How is this proved? Two explanations are given in the first of the three
essays, which bears the title of “Moses an Egyptian.” One is historical and
philological, the other is psychological and folkloristic. The first one is:
“Moses” is an element of many Egyptian names, such as, for example, Ramses
(Ra-mose), Thut-mose; Mose in Egyptian means child. Hence, Moses was an
Egyptian.
A man who is not an
Egyptologist enters on a difficult excursion in order to demonstrate that an
Egyptian name is a proof of non-Hebrew descent, but the very man making this
endeavor bears the name of Sigmund and is a Jew. Is he aware of the striking
inadequacy of his proof? On the basis of such a demonstration, anyone by the
name of Sigmund is a Teuton; therefore this demonstration may be rejected, for
the same reason that a child of Jewish parents born in Moravia may be called
Sigmund.
In a footnote on page
23, Freud cites Eduard Meyer: “The name Moses is probably . . . Egyptian. This
does not prove, however, that these generations were of Egyptian origin, but it
proves that they had relations with Egypt.” To this Freud appends a remarkable
question: “One may well ask what kind of relation one is to imagine.”
The other,
psychological, demonstration that Moses belonged to the Egyptian people is as
follows: In many legends about the origin and adulthood of famous men of the
past, a stereotype is retained: the hero is of exalted descent; even as a child
he is recognized by his father as a future danger to him, is compelled to flee,
and is rescued and brought up by poor people; when he is fully grown his noble
descent comes to light. Such is the echo resounding through the folk-tales.
Since, according to the legend, Moses was born among humble people of an
oppressed race, and rescued and brought up by the king’s daughter, Freud
associates himself with Eduard Meyer’s idea that the legend was falsified and must
be set right; and he arrives at the contention that the historic Moses was of
higher descent, of the royal house of Pharaoh, and possibly even the son of the
Egyptian princess.
Freud undertakes a
detailed psychological demonstration with reference to folkloristic research
into the legends of various peoples and heroes—without noticing that the
emendation cannot be equated with the legendary stereotype, if he himself does
not regard Moses as a legendary prince but as a real one. The fictional element
is the princely origin of the hero. It is true that on the basis of history it
can be proved that a legendary hero was no prince by blood, but on the basis of
a legend about a non-prince can a scientific proof be adduced that the hero
was, nevertheless, an historical prince?
In the countless
folktales the lowly origin of the hero is denied and a nobler one poetically
ascribed to him. Accordingly, in revision and correction doubt must be cast
upon the princely blood of the hero. If Moses had been named as the son of
royal blood in the biblical tradition, then skepticism would be in place and a
suspicion justified that the legend had undergone a conventional distortion.
But Freud recognizes Moses as an historical prince by blood, and so it is he
who composes the legend according to its usual stereotype. He would like to
maintain that Moses was the son of a princess. (2) This anecdote is taken from
Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1900.
Freud quotes Rank:
“As a result of ‘national motives’ the legend was reconstructed into the
version we know.”
Freud is aware that
the theory of Moses’ Egyptian descent lacks a strong foundation.
. . . Further thought
tells us that an original Moses myth of this kind, one not diverging from other
birth myths, could not have existed. For the legend is either of Egyptian or of
Jewish origin. The first supposition may be excluded. The Egyptians had no
motive to glorify Moses; to them he was not a hero.
So the legend should
have originated among the Jewish people; that is to say, it was attached in the
usual version to the person of their leader. But for that purpose it was
entirely unfitted; what good is a legend to a people that makes their hero into
an alien? (p. 20)
The only thing left
was to assume that “in a later, and rather clumsy treatment of the legendary
material, the adapter saw fit to equip his hero Moses with certain features
appertaining to the classical exposure myths characteristic of a hero.” (p. 21)
With this
unsatisfactory and even uncertain result our investigation would have to end,
without having contributed anything to answering the question whether Moses was
an Egyptian, were there not another and perhaps more successful way of
approaching the exposure myth itself.
As a rule the real
family corresponds to the humble one, the noble family to the fictitious one.
In the case of Moses something seemed to be different. And here the new point
of view may perhaps bring some illumination. It is that the first family, the
one from which the babe is exposed to danger, is in all comparable cases the
fictitious one; the second family, however, by which the hero is adopted and in
which he grows up, is his real one. If we have the courage to accept this
statement as a general truth to which the Moses legend is also subject, then we
suddenly see our way clear: Moses is an Egyptian—probably of noble origin—whom
the myth undertakes to transform into a Jew. And that would be our conclusion!”
(pp. 21f.)
At this point, where
Freud hopes to find the necessary proof, we must expose a logical error. Let us
repeat Freud’s train of thought.
A. The legend has
been falsified because of national motives; originally the legend had it that
Moses was the son of an Egyptian king.
B. Since Freud
considers this proof inadequate, he establishes another and more convincing one
by setting up a rule: the first family is the fictitious one.
Then for what reason
is the first family in the saga fictitious and the later one real? Surely
because fantasies concerning noble descent are natural and belong to many
people; fantasies concerning lowlier descent are unnatural, for what purpose
would they serve? If it is desired to test the Moses legend coolly, critically,
and with skepticism, then it would be more plausible to leave him his poor
Hebrew parents, and to explain away princesses who discover poor children as
figments of the imagination.
It is a
wish-fulfilment that Moses was an Egyptian (and that Freud is free-born), and a
second, infantile wish-fulfilment that Moses was of royal blood. Freud
transforms the elite character of the people into the … “chosen” character of
his own spiritual model.
According to Freud,
Moses was not a Hebrew but an Egyptian child; his mother was not Johebed, the
wife of Amram, but a princess (his father is unnamed). He was saved from the
water and adopted not by the princess but by poor Hebrews. The correction,
however, is soon extended: no reason exists for assuming that he was adopted by
a Hebrew woman, and so he would not need to have been exposed by the princess.
It was not Moses who
spoke about God to Pharaoh, but Pharaoh who taught Moses about the unique God.
Moses did not flee from Pharaoh into the wilderness. Instead of competing with
Moses in the magical arts, the Egyptian priests taught Moses violently to
oppose all magic and to reject all mysteries. Moses was slow of speech—this is
to be understood to mean that he had to speak through interpreters, not with
Pharaoh, but with the Hebrews.
And further, “our
reconstruction leaves not room for . . . the ten plagues, [and] the passage
through the Red Sea, and the solemn law-giving on Mount Sinai will not lead us
astray.” (p. 54)
Since Freud does not
perceive the inadequacy of his demonstration he is, according to psychoanalytic
terminology, in a state of scotomization. But a psychic scotoma happens to be a
proof that something touching the person very closely bears a disagreeable
affect, which gives rise to a block in perception.
Such a lack of
perception is in no case a defect of logical capacity, but rather a
psychological phenomenon. In reality every scotoma retains its own logic. And
there is logic in this case as well: Freud does not wish to recognize Moses as
a Hebrew because he did not wish to recognize Sigmund as a Jew either. He does
not consciously deny his adherence to the Jewish people at all; on the
contrary, he emphasizes it at the very outset of the book. Nor would the idea
of disowning his people ever consciously occur to him. But psychoanalysis has
always taught us that it is not the conscious, but the unconscious material
that is to be considered as decisive for the personality. That which is
emphasized in the first few hours of the analysis often serves the precise
purpose of masking the unconscious impulses; indeed, who taught us to hear
“yes” in place of “no” and “no” in place of “yes” in such utterances?
In spite of the words
in Freud’s introduction, “to deny a people the man whom it praises as the
greatest of its sons is not a deed to be undertaken lightheartedly,” there soon
follows a slip of the pen: “We had hoped [our emphasis] the suggestion that
Moses was an Egyptian would prove fruitful. . .” Accordingly, “Moses an
Egyptian” would have to be translated as “Freud an Aryan, or free-born.” There
is no illogic here: he would like to feel himself as not a pariah.
Freud wrote this
study—we should like to mention briefly—during the flowering of the
race-theories of the elite character of the Aryans. Subsequently we shall
attempt to investigate the more profound reasons for this renunciation of his
race.
As I have said, I do
not wish to adopt any position with respect to the historical reconstruction.
Yet the personality of Moses appears to be completely altered by Freud’s hand;
much falls away, and something else is added, and a shape appears before us
which is a reflected image. Even if Freud is right, the remarkable fact of his
interest in a historical personality, and also of his wonderful, divining
insight, would be a proof of a psychic affinity which approaches spiritual
identity. If Freud is wrong he is wrong as a historian. He remains, however, in
the right as a poet, ruling over his poetry by virtue of his imagination.
References
Moses
and Monotheism, transl. by Katherine Jones (London, 1939), p. 164.
This
conclusion of the essay called “Moses and Egyptian” was anticipated by a Jewish
youngster in an anecdote: During the religious hour the instructor asked the
class, “Who knows who Moses’ mother was?” The class was silent. A Jewish pupil
present raised his hand and said: “Pharaoh’s daughter.” “How is that? She was
the one who found him.” “That’s what she said,” answered the daring pupil.
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