Moses and Monotheism E-Book

Sigmund Freud

• Herausgeber: Harmakis Edizioni
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The book consists of three essays and is an extension of Freud’s work on psychoanalytic theory as a means of generating hypotheses about historical events. Freud hypothesizes that Moses was not Hebrew, but actually born into Ancient Egyptian nobility and was probably a follower of Akhenaten, an ancient Egyptian monotheist. Freud contradicts the biblical story of Moses with his own retelling of events, claiming that Moses only led his close followers into freedom during an unstable period in Egyptian history after Akhenaten (ca. 1350 BCE) and that they subsequently killed Moses in rebellion and later combined with another monotheistic tribe in Midian based on a volcanic God, Jahweh. Freud explains that years after the murder of Moses, the rebels regretted their action, thus forming the concept of the Messiah as a hope for the return of Moses as the Saviour of the Israelites. Freud said that the guilt from the murder of Moses is inherited through the generations; this guilt then drives the Jews to religion to make them feel better.

Leseprobe

MOSES AND MONOTHEISM

SIGMUND FREUD

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY KATHERINE JONES

Harmakis Edizioni

Division S.E.A. Servizi Editoriali Avanzati,

Registered office in Via Del Mocarini, 11 - 52025 Montevarchi (AR) ITALY

Headquarters the same aforementioned.

Editorial Director: Paola Agnoluccia

www.harmakisedizioni.org

[email protected]

ISBN: 978 88 98301 79 9

PART I

MOSES AN EGYPTIAN

To deny a people the man whom it praises as the greatest of its sons is not a deed to be undertaken light-heartedly especially by one belonging to that people. No consideration, however, will move rne to set aside truth in favour of supposed national interests. Moreover, the elucidation of the mere facts of the problem may be expected to deepen our insight into the situation with which they are concerned. The man Moses, the liberator of his people, who gave them their religion and their laws, belonged to an age so remote that the preliminary question arises whether he was an historical person or a legendary figure. If he lived, his time was the thirteenth or fourteenth century B.C.; we have no word of him but from the Holy Books and the written traditions of the Jews. Although the decision lacks final historical certainty, the great majority of historians have expressed the opinion that Moses did live and that the exodus from Egypt, led by him, did in fact take place.

It has been maintained with good reason that the later history of Israel could not be understood if this were not admitted. Science to-day has become much more cautious and deals much more leniently with tradition than it did in the early days of historical investigation. What first attracts our interest in the person of Moses is his name, which is written Mosche in Hebrew. One may well ask: Where does it come from? What does it mean? As is well known, the story in Exodus, Chapter ii, already answers this question. There we learn that the Egyptian princess who saved the babe from the waters of the Nile gave him his name, adding the etymological explanation: because I drew him out of the water. But this explanation is obviously inadequate. “The biblical interpretation of the name ‘He that was drawn out of the water’ “thus an author of the Judisches Lexikon”1is folk etymology; the active Hebrew form itself of the name (Mosche can at best mean only ‘the drawer out’) cannot be reconciled with this solution.” This argument can be supported by two further reflections: first, that it is nonsensical to credit an Egyptian princess with a knowledge of Hebrew etymology, and, secondly, that the water from which the child was drawn was most probably not the water of the Nile.