By  OVE VON SPAETH

Anthropologists were among the first to scientifically enlarge our view of the contents of the ancient biblical texts - while theologians and linguists were mislead by unfounded theories, unfortunately, established before archaeology and history were developed scientifically.
          Also the spiritual world picture of the early cultures was explored - and the results inspired in many fields. On this basis Sigmund Freund was much influenced by anthropological researching - also to be seen in his famous book about Moses.


Recovered Historical Information from Egyptian Myths

The authors of antiquity, as well as the Bible and the Rabbinical Writings, esteemed highly the famous historical Moses' versatile talents as a founder of religion and law, besides being a general, philosopher - also versed in astronomy - and a mystic, magician, healer, and inventor.
          However, in later times many researchers regard such kind of a person as an impossibility, "too many various abilities for one life!" - while others find the many aspects of the enigma of Moses (what kind of man was he in reality? and did he in fact exist? etc.) to be still intriguing; thus, for instance, according to texts by Goethe, Machiavelli, Henry George, Winston Churchill, Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Mann and, especially - Sigmund Freud.

          Anthropologists were among the first to scientifically enlarge our view of the contents of the ancient biblical texts, while theologians and linguists in the beginning often were mislead, e.g. by the still not proved "documentary theory", which unfortunately was established before the development of modern scientifically based archaeology and history.
          Specific conditions during Egypt's 18th dynasty in 1585-1300 BC, mentioned in biblical texts and Rabbinical Writings, but only recognized by present historical research, prove that the ancient parts of the Bible cannot have been "fabricated".
          In the years round 1850 the first research results appeared about the contents of the Bible as to possible loans from other cultures, but public exposure of this was done very cautiously. As late as the beginning of the 20th century even in such a well-informed western European countries, people were punished according to blasphemy laws for openly claiming that the Bible is mainly based on myths.
          However, the many indications in the Bible, the Rabbinical Writings, and in the written works of the ancients - especially in collected presentation - appear more than convincing that Moses was an Egyptian of royal breed. So far the problem has been to have these traces investigated as a major whole.

          It has been neglected that the particular river ceremony - especially known to us from the Bible - where the small royal child was delivered to the royal palace was a common tradition - was carried out in practice, as a ceremonial play, by all the ancient civilized countries.
          Instead, in many present-day works the appearance of this royal cult in the Moses-narrative has been misleadingly designated a "migratory-legend", even after widespread astonishment that the same type of event was also repeated in connection with historical royal sons of other countries.
          The best known accounts of this event as found in the Bible has been scrutinized linguistically, historically, mythologically, theologically, etc. Historical research does not provide immediate insight into mythological research, a discipline which, in turn, lacks thorough knowledge of the connection between ancient astronomy and cosmological ideas, - just as linguists do not normally have sufficiently thorough professional insight into archaeology, and archaeologists are not primarily researchers of religion. And in addition, both exact inter-disciplinary research and the professionally less one-sided investigations have often been met with suspicion and resistance.

          Despite this, a few researchers have been able to point out the original background of Moses across the limits of specific branches of learning. Notable is a statement from the German international authority, Eduard Meyer (1835-1930), who, as one of the few within the science of history, has specialized in Egyptology. Already at that time and despite the fact that there were only a limited number of data available in this field of reseach, he was able to present a qualified treatise - in the "Sitzungsberichte der Königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaft", in Berlin 1905 (Band 31, pp. 640-652) - which includes for instance this cohesive concept:
                    "... Probably Moses was, originally, the son of the ruler's daughter - now presented as his foster mother - and he was probably presented as being of divine origin ...".
          In his work, "Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme" (Halle 1906, p. 46 f), Eduard Meyer also dealt with his well-founded doubt about the biblical version with its impression of Moses as both a Hebrew boy and Egyptian prince. And again he pointed out that beyond reasonable doubt, Moses was the son of the Egyptian princess.
          Hugo Gressmann, Berlin and later Chicago, was an expert in comparative history of religion and traditional historical research. In his treatise, "Moses und seine Zeit" (Göttingen 1913) he also called atention to this point and ascribed major plausibility to it.

          Some years earlier, the Moses-narrative had fascinated the pioneer group of psycho-analysts. They took a special anthropological attitude. And apart from his basic psycho-analysis work, Sigmund Freud worked for a long time on the conception of the Moses figure.
          Otto Rank, Freud's secretary, who was also a psycho-therapist, had specialized in comparative cultural history and mythology, and in his analysis of comparative traditions of the ancient civilized countries, he proved that the original version of the Moses-chronicle definitely dealt with the fact that Pharaoh's Daughter had given birth to Moses.
          This appears in Otto Rank's treatise, "Die Mythus von der Geburt des Helden" published in the series of books edited by Sigmund Freud, i.e. "Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde" (Heft 5, Leipzig 1909).
          Also Wilhelm Wundt, their colleague, in his "Völkerpsychologie" (Band 2:3, Leipzig 1909), came close to the same conclusion.

Freud - and Historical Views Influenced by Ecclesiastical Moses Cliché

In 1934-1938, after many years of tentative effort, Sigmund Freud wrote three treatises - comprising his last book - titled "Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion", in which he used his analytic talent to dissect the Moses narrative. Freud was the first writer to emphasize the fact that no historians had found it strange that "Moses" was an Egyptian name! Freud came from a Rabbi family and he stated in open contrast to orthodox Jewish attitudes that the consequence had to be that Moses was Egyptian and not Jewish (i.e. not a Hebrew).
          As one of his main points of argumentation Freud, the sexuality-researching analyst, pointed out that Moses introduced the Egyptian tradition of circumcision.

          Ludwig Hugo Koehler, the German expert in Hebrew history, commented in "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" (No. 667, 16th April, 1939) on Freud's treatises about Moses and made out a list covering what he regarded as incorrect and impossible statements, but recognized that:
                    "... with his great talent Freud had made out a probable explanation from the given complex network of impossibilities ...".
          This seems to present quite a precise evaluation - when it comes to the historical aspect of Moses as an Egyptian prince, Freud was logical and concrete.
          Likewise, when Freud - who was well-informed on Egyptology and among other things known for his exquisite collection of ushapti figures - attached importance to the fact that in the ancient Egyptian society there were tendencies towards a concentration on one selected god (which is not the same as pure "monotheism").
          Freud was of the opinion that Moses, the king's son (!), might have represented this perception, and that Moses during his later connection with the Jews was brought to appear in the narratives as if he were of Jewish origin.

          However, when the treatise comes to the psycho-analytic aspect, its not uninteresting angle of approach on this particular point seems to be put forward at some distance from the exact data of the texts. According to Freud "Moses had tried - like certain neurotics - to break up with his family in order to find a more suitable one".
          Still without historically supported examples for this, Freud suggested - and before him, researcher Ernst Sellin - that "later the Jews killed Moses (analogue with Freud's hypothesis on the sons' murder of the primal father) because of their hesitation in following Moses' demand for acceptance of his moral code ('the Ten Commandments' etc.)". And that "recollections of the murder caused this people's sense of guilt, for which they compensated by - in delayed obedience - inventing an immaterial, distant god, which resembled both Moses' god and Moses himself".
          Also in this psycho-historical interpretation Freud made it clear that he doubted that one single person would be able to do what Moses had done; he believed that in reality Moses was two people. Also other researchers have hypotheses about two leaders - and even two Exoduses. But why should one person of Moses' calibre be unable to do the task?

          Later in life Freud identified himself in some ways with Moses, the wanderer in the wilderness, who never reached "the Promised Land". For instance, in a letter (17.01.1909) to the younger Carl Jung, Freud wrote: "... If I am Moses, you are Joshua ...".
          At an early stage, and for years, Freud was deeply interested in the idolized Moses statue by Michelangelo: "... as the image of an ideal human being ...", according to "The Moses of Michelangelo", Freud's essay in the Standard Edition (vol. 13, 1914/1955, pp. 211-238) - although it is clearly modelled on the statues of the god Zeus as depicted in antiquity. In numerous works by others, Freud was often "analyzed" as to his views on Moses.
          The Jewish born and raised Freud then went over to the opposite side - he had tried to free himself of the Jewish perception of Moses, but now he became fixed on the stereotype of Moses as seen by the Christian Church.
          A similar cliché-like understanding of this unreal Moses figure also affected such lines of study as history, Egyptology, ancient linguistics, and archaeology. 

Historical Research Inhibited by Odd Portrait of Moses

Using the biblical Moses texts generations of researchers have looked for historic traces of Moses, which cannot be found there because these research areas were often influenced by the Church's image of Moses as a Jewish patriarch instead of seeing him as an Egyptian. All of which also guided the investigations in another direction.
          However, traditional views were effectively breached when a few researchers began to take the myths seriously and analyzed them more closely, especially in the field of anthropology (Sir James Frazer among others).
          In the meantime, much hitherto somewhat inexplicable information in the Bible has been misinterpreted on the basis of various longstanding and unaccountably undisputed "armchair" theories. - This, despite the fact that much widely recognized scientific documentation has actually revealed the said biblical information as being fully explicable after all.
          - Or, if in the ancient biblical texts an expression may be found from a later time, then the biblical narrative is rejected as being "fiction" built on myths, instead of considering the different times of biblical editing where the editors may have included some language of their own time.
          Thus, the claim that the event with Moses on the Nile and similar traditions from other countries are "migratory legends" is simply armchair theory. That migratory legends exist, also today, is a known phenomenon. But to turn handed down accounts into "legends", however, has often been an easy, explanatory attempt which has created confusion among scholars when a specific event is repeated in one country after another.
          It never occurred to the researchers in question that this was a matter of a common, religious conception, the themes of which - as mentioned previously - were in reality carried out in cultic rituals in various societies.
          And although it is well-known that ritual dramas or mystery plays were practised in these old cultures, among researchers this practi ce does not seem to have been considered as having any connection with the Moses narrative.

         Sigmund Freud had exposed the theologians and historians' lack of taking it into more serious consideration that name 'Moses' was an Egyptian name. It can be added even that the hitherto wide-spread interpretation of the words in the biblical text where the name Moses is claimed to have been a Hebrew play on words is strangely enough implying that Pharaoh’s Daughter mastered the Hebrew language - even to the extent of being able to make puns in this foreign language.
          In Hebrew, Moses is called Moshe, which according to the biblical text of the Book of Exodus (2:10) is, word for word, understood to play on the assumption that Pharaoh's Daughter named him thus, "because she had drawn him out of the water".
          However, the Egyptologists and historians specializing in Egypt, e.g. James Henry Breasted, Alan H. Gardiner, and Eduard Meyer early have confirmed that the name Moses was not Hebrew, but stems from Egyptian usage.
          In addition, the "Jüdisches Lexikon" ('Hebrew Dictionary', the Herlitz & Kirschner's editions) says on the subject "Moses as a name" that the biblical explanation concerning the claimed Hebrew name Moshe (Moses) should mean 'he who is being drawn out of the water', is a misunderstanding:
                    "... it is completely impossible to harmonize the active form of the Hebrew word - as Moshe (Moses) can only mean 'he who draws out' ...".
          The Hebrew play on words in the Bible has been created from meshitihua, meaning 'he draws out' - where consequently "he" cannot indicate that Pharaoh's Daughter drew him out of the water.
         Thus, the Hebrew biblical text includes an impossible play on words on the name Moses, all of which means that this cannot have been the idea of the original narrative. The situation indicates that Pharaoh's Daughter had ceremonially given the boy the same pharaoh-name as that of her father, and later of her husband, and also her nephew (and his son) - all were/became pharaohs - i.e. Tuth-mosis, of which this purely Egyptian name Moses (mosis) is the last part.
          This abbreviated form - which was common usage in Egypt - was thus logically based on the names of a number of pharaohs all bearing this sovereign name at that time.

          Many researchers have been astonished that no recognizable traces have been found in Egypt of the presence of Moses and the Exodus - for instance inscriptions about "the Ten Plagues of Egypt" - and find it unlikely that such disasters to the Egyptians should have happened unreported.
          However, no known pharaoh has been seen to jeopardize his prestige by advertising major defeats. Although many inscriptions in stone exist, another problem is the perishableness of old papyrus writing material - only few manuscripts or parts of texts on papyrus older than 1300 BC are preserved.
          In modern times the great personalities of history have often been rather summarily dismissed by academic research as being subject to hero worship. Yet certain new-orientated historians have lately begun to observe them being such people who have really existed, i.e. when it comes to great figures mostly known from the handed down narratives and myths of individual nations. The old inflexible attitude could now be replaced by a broader view of narratives which so far have mainly been (down)graded as myths, but must often be considered as historically significant: irrespective of the lack of archaeological confirmation, old narratives may include valuable information.
          In the light of this, attitudes are improved and so are the possibilities of finding traces of Moses in Egypt - not as a Hebrew, but as an Egyptian.

A Biblical Research which Rejected Moses

Other researchers believe that biblical texts cannot be used as source material for historical purposes. However, it is more likely that the problem stems from insufficient historical knowledge.
          It was fatal to the study of the Bible's specific information about Moses that, especially in philological research, academic hypotheses as to how the biblical texts were created, were developed prior to scientific archaeological excavations, analyses, and conclusive findings. As a consequence this starting point led in an increasingly mistaken direction. (All this is further elaborated on in a special Appendix in Vol. 4 of my Moses-series).
          By the end of the 19th century theological researchers and historians began experimenting by making "models" and reconstructing how the formation of the texts may have taken place, but with hypotheses etc. mainly based on the texts alone. This - rarely recognized - one-sidedness naturally made sufficiently critical and qualified judgment of the available data at that time almost impossible.

          Based on ideas from pioneers like de Wette, Reuss, Graf, and Kuenen, it was claimed by the German theologian, orientalist, and Semitic scholar Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) that the biblical texts had been subjected to alterations or had been adapted and, in particular, pieced together from old sources.
          For more than a hundred years an extreme version of Wellhausen's hypothesis on such alleged text division - later represented as the Berlin School or the German School - continued to have quite a dominating influence on many researchers' and non-researchers' perception of texts. And it still influenced much biblical information in encyclopaedias and literature. For instance, it became a fashionable "truth" for many years that the Bible contained six Books of the Pentateuch (thus including the Book of Joshua).
          This German School's increasingly complex and excessive methods of classifying the biblical texts, the so-called "documentary theory", aimed at the appearance in the individual texts of different designations of the Israelite god - and different issues of rules and narratives - to the effect that the texts stemmed from different sources.

          Generally among researchers from many schools there is a predominantly hypercritical attitude as to the age of the ancient sources as well as an uncontrolled passion for late dating - which means that the texts are now often considered to be 300-500 years more recent.
          The German School - rooted in biblical textual studies and often isolated from Middle Eastern culture as a whole - is coloured by an unfortunate and anachronistic approach: present-day based textual criticism and interpretation, theory of form, and editorial methodology - in which archaeological findings are "adapted" - in itself a method open to criticism. Already at an early characterization, At an early stage this school was, therefore, characterized as being "dogmatic, arbitrary, and ultra-Semitiological".
          The result is that many researchers and theologians now regard the biblical texts only as folkloristic narratives without genuine historical value and possibly even as pure falsifications. It has even been suggested that the ancient Hebrew language of the oldest texts is an artificial product of late date.
          Many have also adopted the attitude that Abraham and Moses are pure fiction, Exodus never happened - and most of the Bible consist of fictional, national-ideological narratives set in a "patchwork" of religious backgrounds; everything invented by the priests ca. 300 BC.
          Among the numerous examples of the authenticity problems concerning these hypotheses should be mentioned that at a distance of several thousand years, some of the researchers claim to know more about the texts than the writers who once wrote them did.


The Events not to be Evaluated Isolated

The science of anthropology, in short, was structured - especially by Malinowski and Max Weber - as a comprehensive cross-cultural study also dealing with history, religion, and mythology, besides psychology, sociology and economics. It is using holistic research methods by descriptions of human social phenomena and historical connections, much based on ethnographic fieldwork and founded on the condition that a system's properties cannot necessarily be accurately understood independently of each other.
          By my acquaintance with the Malinowski-educated Doctor of Antropology, the Greek-Danish Prince Peter (1908-1980), during his last eight years, I got information on many highly interesting subjects. Besides, he was the son of one of Freud's most keen assistants, Marie Bonaparte, who so bravely help Freud later to escape to London, away from the nazis in Austria, also by succeeding to make USA's President Roosewelt to send a sensational letter to the Gestapo and pressuring them.
          Among the 10 languages Prince Peter mastered, he spoke Tibetan fluently, and was leading expeditions to Centra Asia and was a friend of Dalai Lama. Certain extra details concerning Dalai Lama and his birth story came here to my attention. It was about - as in the case of Moses - the found child appearing according to divine providence, and should then continue the experienced tradition-of-thousand-years by being brought up to the palace (in Lhasa) to receive a high education, and after this he became the sovereign of the country and its religious leader (here, Buddhism). - So when scholars claim historical events of similar type as "migratory legends" and myths, Dalai Lama presents a still living proof that the event-pattern also exists in concrete reality.

          Indeed, by its characteristic width and methodology anthropology can also contribute to a solution, e.g. when the account of Moses and the Israelite’s long-term desert journey is rejected among so-called experts for being impossible and unrealistic.
          However, in this way by all the very many aspects it is here to be compared when Mao Tze Dong and his huge group of rebellion troops carried out ”the long march” especially from 1934-1935, in reality for more than 15 years until this leader in 1949 had conquered the last of “the promised land”. Including the escape into the desert and the stay here - where he could collect troops and reorganize them - all this is in principle also similar to the case of Moses.
          Another example, among many, - a certain kind of Buddhist-Shaman temples in Tibet and Mongolia are portable temple-tents, with pillars, alter, curtains etc. - and like all of these tent-huts, yurts, constructed to be collapsible and packed up. In an anthropological sense it can be recognized as completely similar, in principle, with the Tabernacle of Moses, known from the Bible as the portable shrine in the desert - neither here anything new under the sun.

The Egyptian Factor

This hypothetical classification of sources, and their hypothetical sub-sources, and the idea that the Bible is pure literary fiction, is contradicted also by so many new find and discoveries. But many researchers have considered possible text alterations and modifications of older expressions as confirmation that the entire text stemmed from the much later times of the modernized expressions.
          However, the Bible says for instance that both King Hezekiah (Ezekias, 700 BC) and especially the priest Ezra (350 BC) edited the Bible. In such cases the texts had an established existence on a traditional basis prior to 700 BC.
          The Rabbinical Writings are an absolute necessity for the understanding of so many - also Egyptian - circumstances referred to in the Bible which is often ignored by researchers.
          Offshoots of the German School - also in Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian framework, as for instance the "Copenhagen School", which deprives Moses of all historical identity - have omitted to observe the Egyptian factor among the most important elements in the understanding of many claimed text discrepancies. A "knowledge filter" has been created that automatically filters everything out which is not in accordance with prevailing theories; but critics would call it 'killing history'.
          Here it is the merit of Freud that - in opposition to the research's more extreme opinions concerning a non-historical Moses - he clearly pointed out Moses' intimate connection precisely to the Egyptian universe.

          As an original written foundation regarding knowledge of historical activity before 900 BC in Israel is virtually unknown (so far), this gave rise to unrestrained theorism as was the case not the least in the German School, especially as its models are thus not verifiable; scepticism became a "faith" itself.
          Many good researchers have supported, and still support, offshoots of the "documentary theory" - and the German hypotheses resulted in a valuable and wide-spread text research, which achieved considerable results. But it is also a fact that not even the slightest exact and objective proof has been found verifying the"documentary theory".
          Within the entire Middle East there was no example of such splitting up of documents from different times, thus making a textual "patch-work" or even a direct invention of historical background, solely to strengthen national-religious ideas; - which, again, is self-contradictive, because the Bible repeatedly unfavourably mentions the people and its leaders.
          Outstanding text research has often been done, but the over-all picture was lost: for instance, minimalistic historical scepticism which denies that the Exodus from Egypt ever happened, but is unable to explain the many hundreds of genuine Egyptian data.
 

Egyptian Source Documentation on Moses

Many researchers adopted the attitude that Abraham and Moses are pure fiction, the exodus never happened - and most of the Bible consist of fictional, national-ideological narratives set in a "patchwork" of religious backgrounds; everything invented by the priests ca. 300 BC.
          Although also many general inscriptions in stone exist, another problem is the perishableness of old papyrus writing material - only few manuscripts or parts of texts on papyrus prior to ca. 1300 BC are preserved.
          However, 2,300 years ago King Ptolemy II ordered all ancient books and documents from the libraries of the temples all over Egypt to be collected in his new great library of Alexandria - and here, at that time, the historian and priest, Manetho, drew information from these sources and wrote in Greek about Moses' riot and the exodus.
          Thus, it is a fact that at 280 BC original Egyptian documentation on Moses were still existing - so how can so many of present-day's scholars and researchers claim that Moses never existed but is an invention created in Israel or even Babylonia by Jewish priests of the same time ca. 300 BC?
          The Jewish-Roman historian Josephus, 2,000 years ago, had invaluable sources on the history of the Jews, also because of Titus Caesar (Vespasian), the conqueror of Jerusalem, gave Josephus scrolls confiscated from The Jerusalem Temple on its destruction in 70 AD. Josephus had no problem with acknowledging the authenticity of Manetho's texts but disagreed very much with Manetho's Egyptian view on Moses as a destructive rebellion - to Josephus he was a hero.

          In the Bible, Moses is mentioned with terms as 'the Son of Pharaoh's Daughter'. This, his in fact royal Egyptian title, is corresponding with that Manetho both calling him Moses and Osarsyph - i.e. User-sif  in late-Egyptian language meaning 'child of Osiris', i.e. Horus, who was always identified with the crown prince of Egypt, (Freud would have loved this).

          The Ptolemean kings allowed Jews to settle down in Egypt - and through ca. 300 years in the city of Leontopolis they had their own temple of the Jerusalem model and a highpriest. And in Alexandria they lived in a fourth part, the Delta quarter, of the great city - altogether a huge group of new inhabitants (and in addition many Samaritan emigrants) to be behind the king’s sponsoring a translation of the Hebrew Bible into the Greek international language - the Septuaginta Bible. Again, it was around 280 BC that this task was carried out in Alexandria, and in this metropol's famous library Manetho by chance may even have worked almost side by side with the 72 translating Jewish rabbis and scholars.
          So, how can anybody claim that the Bible is a late creation - and how could the concrete existing Septuaginta Bible then have been translated from a Hebrew Bible which in the claimed theoretical case hardly existed yet?
 

Egyptian Gods in the Bible - and Freud, the Atheist

Furthermore, the otherwise obvious consequences have not been taken notice of concerning the many genuine Egyptian names in Moses' circles. Besides his own name Moses, 'child', there are also to be seen e.g. Jethro, 'the River Nile', - Miriam, 'loved by Amun', - Aaron, 'great is the name' (i.e. of Osiris), - Aaron's son El-eazer, 'Osiris-god' (el is a Semitic addition), - Aaron's successor and grandson Phinehas, 'Negro', 'Ethiopian', - Merari, 'highly loved', - Hopni, 'river-god'. Also a word for 'truth' in Hebrew, emeth, is the name of the Egyptian goddess for truth, Maat, - and numerous other examples of Egyptian origin exist.
          Freud, the atheist, admired a great historical personality, Moses - who also happened to be the first known founder of a religion. This later world religion demands, “You must not have other gods”. And yet - as just exposed - so many in the groups close to Moses had Egyptian names connected with Egyptian gods.

          Freud was as rooted in the Enlightenment with thinkers such as Locke and Newton - and in the new science especially Darwin - and was a confirmed atheist who often rejected the belief in supernatural faith as inconsistent with the scientific method. To a colleague, Oskar Pfiste, who was a Christian pastor in Switzerland, Sigmund Freud had (in 1918) posed a question:
                    "... Quite by the way, why did none of the devoutees create psychoanalysis? Why did one have to wait for a completely godless Jew? ..."
          However, Freud seems to have had an essential position for the making of his momentous discoveries leading to psychoanalysis - when influenced early by knowledge from his own Jewish background and simultaneously keeping and outside position by being an atheist and avoiding Jewish customs. Thus, he succeded in developing interpersonal examination of the unconscious mind into an apparently new therapeutic intervention, the psychoanalysis. According to Peter Gay, Professor of history at Yale University, in his book, "Freud: A Godless Jew" (1987) - it was the mentioned basis of the knowledge and the freedom that enabled Freud to pierce the taboo topics of sexuality and the unconscious.

          There are atheists and there are atheists, i.e. those who renounce religion and those who have atheism as a 'religion' - it could be said that Freud appeared as both. He admired Moses and yet Moses was the founder of a world religion. In connection with his own position he has explained:
                    "… My deep engrossment in the Bible story (almost as soon as I had learnt the art of reading) had, as I recognized much later, an enduring effect upon the direction of my interest …", (Sigmund Freud: "An Autobiographical Study", 1925).
          However, Freud could never accept religion - and stated:
                    "… The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life …", (Sigmund Freud: "Civilization and its Discontents", 1930).
          Anyway, Freud could not stay away from near presence of religion, he showed some kind of "to love his enemy" and was always fascinated and drawn to the subject. At his place he had surrounded himself with religious significances, Freud's study was full of sacred objects from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the Far East, and concerning "afterlife" objects - besides the row of Egyptian ushapti  figures on his desk - he had an Egyptian funerary boat in the cabinet.
 

Egyptian Language in the Bible

Among the in fact overwhelming many examples of the authenticity problems concerning the researchers’ hypotheses in question, a few are mentioned here:
1.       Although the Bible has 3-4 Hebrew words for 'linen/cotton' (e.g. bad, peshet, and sadin) the Egyptian word shesh (shesn) is used 38 times, of which 34 passages with this word are in the Pentateuch, but is nevertheless claimed to belong to a so-called late priest-source ("P-source"). But why should the priests avoid the words of their own Hebrew biblical language as if they were Egyptological linguistic historians?
2.       The designation pharaoh (per-ao, 'the great house') was only used in Egypt for 'king' at the time of Moses and until 900 BC, when the usage was reduced to only being included in the ceremonial titles of the king. However, if the Pentateuch was only written one thousand years after the event, which Jewish readers could then be expected to be able to understand this obsolete Egyptian word?
3.       Why should anyone invent a mythical figure, Moses, for these Jews of later times - and with this purely Egyptian name?
4.       According to many scholars, these Jews of later times in Israel mostly spoke Aramaic. Why then were the Books of Pentateuch written in ancient Hebrew which in daily use apparently was severely declining after 600 BC?
5.       How can the Bible of the Samaritans hold an almost identical text about Moses - written in even older writing than the Jewish Bible from Babylonian times ca. 400 BC - if the Jewish priests, who were often the competitors (even sometimes enemies) of the Samaritans, only "invented" the Bible in 400-200 BC? Therefore, researchers have also had to claim that the Samaritan Bible is a very late construction.
6.       The idea about one (creating) god is documented in Egypt - around 1450 BC for instance (at the time of Moses) - and much earlier too, i.e. not invented by Jewish priests in 300 BC.
7.       In the Pentateuch the pact/treaty with Yahweh was formulated in a way just typical of treaties in 1400 BC of the Middle East, for instance also by the Hittites. - And:
8.       Censuses mentioned in the Pentateuch are based directly on the Egyptian pattern of the same period: both conditions unlikely to be created a thousand years later.
          - So, at a distance of several thousand years, it is thus claimed by some influential schools of research that they know more about the texts than the writers who once wrote them did.
          It was such kind of an artificial historical picture that Freud had to go up against.


Killing History

And as for historical plausibility of the oldest parts of the Bible, i.e. the Pentateuch, biblical research has generally neglected the fact that these texts can give specific information about persons, times and sites - i.e. exactly as required for legal evidence in court - contrary to legends and folk-tales, where these factors are unclear. Researchers who, at an early stage, were on a better track are still rejected with the non-argument that "they are obsolete".
          All this has restrained the solution of the Moses enigma and became the main reason for the lack of concrete results. This was encouraged by the fact that new schools of history regarded ideas about prehistoric key personalities in the development of civilization to be the aforesaid obsolete hero worship.
          An attempt has, however, been made to find a solution to the dissension and problems in research about Moses and the authorship by simply, as has already been mentioned, eliminating Moses by rendering him non-existent and thus merely a constructed mythical figure. In this way the Assassination of Moses - set up by his contemporary Egyptian opposition, and later to a certain extent by ancient biblical editors - has been repeated today!

          Much intensive research for essential historical data, human knowledge, and spiritual information in the ancient myths - done by, among others, Freud's anthropological circle - seems thus neglected. For a long time such attitude was often to be seen among the theologians.
          Much of the collected unusual knowledge we owe to those élite researchers of this early period - involved experts who from older vanishing cultures often in the last minute obtained to contain and preserve a special knowledge about man.
          Many of the early researchers' works have become priceless which is the reason for the fact that whole annual volumes of, for instance, German scientific journals dating back to 1920'es are being photographic reprinted - often by American University Publishers. Thus, today we can benefit from the inspiration by the meeting with the earlier cultures and their physical and spiritual world picture - as it already provided Freud, and his circle, with the amazing material for studying and insight. pspiritual world picture.   

The Sigmund Freud Jubilee - Freud's Book on Moses Still Much Discussed

Quite a number of books and media articles were in 2006 internationally celebrating the 150th anniversary of Sigmund Freud - naturally, also mentioning Freud wrote articles about Moses.
Still, Freud is also was exposed to a lot of criticism - naturally, when a pioneer work not always can compare with a later development - but also because he had insisted so heavily on certain of his teories to be the sole truths.
          However, around the anniversary in 2006, almost 2,000 books about Freud were available according to various Internet book-sites (Amazon.com, etc), - and in the Newsweek, Time Magazine, Der Spiegel, and Die Zeit, etc., he was strongly celebrated.
          As their starting point or inspiration to work, the German Egyptologist and culture researcher, Jan Assmann, the Palestinian-American literature researcher, Edward W. Said, and the American philosopher, Richard J. Bernstein, take up Freud's religious-critical considerations about the part of Moses in our perception of today's monotheistic religions.
          So Moses too is of current interest - although he was never out of focus. For example, Cecil B. DeMille, the great Hollywood director, succeeded in making the great movie, "The Ten Commandments", even twice in his lifetime, i.e. in 1923 and 1956. According to Hollywood trivia, Cecil B. deMille was made convinced to cast Charlton Heston as Moses in his movie-epic of 1956, based on Heston's to some degree physical resemblance to Michelangelo's Moses. Also Karen Armstrong in her books has dealt several times with Moses.
          In decades prior to the 2006-jubilee, the collected three treatises in his book, "Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion" - finished in London shortly before he passed away in 1939 -inspired to several new editions.

          Freud had famous people as his patients, e.g. Gustav Mahler - however, he has written several analysis, psychobiographies, on people who have not been his patients, e.g. on Dostojevsky, and the former USA-President Woodrow Wilson and on Leonardo da Vinci - as well as on Michelangelo in his article "The Moses of Michelangelo" (1914). But now, it was precisely his book centred around Moses now being published again - the one having raised so much debate also among other groups - the historians, biblical researchers, and even Jewish spokesmen.
          Again it was also brought to attention that Freud has also written about his incredible occupation of Michelangelo's Moses, the statute in the Rome made even more famous by Freud.
          The chapter 8 of "The Suppressed Record", the first volume of my Moses-series, describes the shared considerations of Freud and his fellow researchers: they do not conceal that Moses was an Egyptian prince - as appears from the comprehensive and clarifying source material in my books about the background of Moses. Altogether - in the huge bibliography (until 2005) in my Moses-series can be found almost all of the last 120 years' internationally published works and treatises about Moses - approx. 1,000 titles.
          Freud's perception of Moses is extremely much referred to through a constantly growing amount of works and articles by many researchers. An enormous interest exist in connection with Freud's occupation of Moses - and in 2004 there was held: the NOMOS International Conference "Freud's Moses and the Traumatized Human Subject. Ramifications for Culture and Education", (Oct. 16-17) at Columbia University, New York City.
          In the expanded bibliography attached the present article (and in my book-series on Moses) is listed examples of the incedible many works and treatises - concerning many reseachers' concepts of Sigmund Freud's concept of himself concepting Moses. Naturally, the researchers' "comments on comments concerning comments" about Freud's thoughts about Moses tends to creating far distances - in all this what became of Moses?


Critical Questions

Present article is among other things showing Moses, the historical Moses, as appearing in the picture again. Many researchers and scholars have tried to make Moses non-historical - and is it worth the effort to compare and discuss Freud's relation to himself in relation to Moses, if the Moses concept of the involved researchers is just another non-historical illusion instead of a historically founded, concrete person of the past? Prior to anything else, thoroughly real-history knowledge must be a most important entrance ticket to this kind of Freud study.
           Also, for instance, when Freud himself - with his Jewish background and history identification - has his mentioning of the biblical events with Moses based on a special Jewish concept of the Bible, it is never seen that anybody has corrected in this picture.
          The problem here is that the exodus from Egypt was a movement consisting not only of he Jews as it often is presented later, but, among others, of 12 Israelitic tribes mainly of Hebrew origin, according to the ancient texts. The Jews were here a minority, probably even less than 15 per cent of the Exodus group; even tribes of other kind were joining too, for instance the tribe of Caleb plus many Egyptian refugees belonging the so-called proselytes, supporting Moses. Much later, most of the Israelitic tribes in Israel had either re-emigrated, disappeared, or merged during ca. 800-300 BC leaving the one tribe to be the lone heir, the Jews.
          On this background, the theologians, historians, and researchers' continued discussions on Freud are, by the often monotonously mentioning of "the exodus of the Jews", creating a misleading picture. It might even have brought Freud himself to misplace an extra weight on indications concerning especially the Jewish problems, tradition, and trauma - in the ancient situation and as reflected in present-time events - and now in connection with his book on Moses.


Dangerous minefield - Supporters and Criticism

Many critics points to that psychoanalysis has been used as a substitute a kind of religion, with its holy texts, its hierarchies and 'churches', disciples spreading the good news, promises of salvation, and claims to 'truth'. When the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss examined a shamanic healing ritual from the Cuna population in Panama, he drew parallels with psychoanalysis (in his "Structural Anthropology", (1958) 1963, pp. 197-198).
          The gifted and shrewd writer and former Secretary to the Danish Prime Minister and later the Editor-in-chief at the Ekstra-Bladet (leading Danish daily tabloid), Victor Andreasen (1920-2000), was a graduate in political science and economics, and especially known for his knowledge and great interest in history, - he requested the the first volume of my book-series on Moses and was very enthusiastic about it. The book's positive and yet not entirely surrendering description of Freud's sometimes less historically consistent interpretation of Moses, made Victor Andreasen stop a completion of his review. He presented me with a private, 16-page letter about the book and the problem.
          My book only referred some data in a modified, neutral way as a in dictionary (so the present article would as well have been directly shocking). I understood that I had entered a dangerous minefield by not being sufficiently conscious of the fact that by certain circles the atheist Freud himself was close to being cultic worshipped almost like a god - nothing was allowed to be said here if it could be interpreted as the slightest disapproval.
          Freud's most uncritical supporters should have known better - that in reality when Freud published his book on Moses, and many of the reviews were terrible, and reactions to the book often bitter, then Freud himself was delighted, - "... Quite a worthy exit ...", he called the Moses book.


An Invisible God and the Dynamics of Inner Life

Behind Freud's contentment when his book's messages were disseminated widely because of such great attention around the publishing, it is apparent that the book among its many inquiries also contains an extra message of a special kind. Without changing his atheistic position, yet Freud - near the end of his life and speculations about the existence - suggests through his argumentation that belief in the unseen god may prepare the ground for several very great cultural values - and especially: intense introspection.
          - Someone who can contemplate an invisible god, Freud implies, is in a strong position to take seriously the invisible, but perhaps determining, dynamics of inner life, - according to Mark Edmundson's essay on Freud: "Defender of the Faith?", in New York Times Magazine (September 9, 2007).
          Thomas Mann, the great German writer, well-known too for his interest in Moses, points to the fact that Freud was deeply involved in the irrationalism of the beginning of the new century (1900) because of the nature of the material of his enquiry - the unconscious, passions, instincts, and dreams.

          Among the criticism against Freud, of course, much is of no significance, while other features may be of interest, e.g. an 'avoidance' of the spiritual dimension, while the fact that he describe his research as psychoanalysis - a Greek term meaning 'examination of the soul' - although his theory is not comprising or recognizing the soul, is thus contradictory. Such a kind of insufficiency can by nature limit solving many enigmas in connection with Moses' Egyptian inspired religious cultural background.
          Anyway, Freud could not stay away from near presence of religion, he showed some kind of "to love his enemy" and was always fascinated and drawn to the subject. At his place he had surrounded himself with religious significances - Freud's study was full of sacred objects from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the Far East, and concerning "afterlife" objects - besides the row of Egyptian ushapti figures on his desk - he had an Egyptian funerary boat in the cabinet.
          Several times Freud stated his hope that mankind would pass beyond religion, and yet he surely took inspiration from the story of Moses and its new concept of religion.


Freud's Word on Science

Many years ago when I began my research on the historical Moses, I only knew very little about Freud's ideas about Moses - however, through my own investigations also I ended up with some of the same results as by Freud. Even about the title of my book-series, "Assassinating Moses", it was to be observed that already Freud had used an almost similar expression, although not for quite the same purpose. (Here, Freud had his theory about an archaic murdering-of-the-father).
          Based on the knowledge in his time, Freud arrived to his interesting conclusions about Moses. Freud was very logical and penetrating in his argumentation - in particular in his endeavours to present Moses as an Egyptian prince. More than 60 years later I was able to make use of many more sources from also many more research areas (not least the first more precise Moses dating by which I even used means of astronomy) - this alone may show decisive differences and lead to the further progress.
          Like Freud himself (although he often wanted to protect his research with dogmas) said so brilliantly:
                    "... It is a misunderstanding that science is only decisive, provable findings, and it is unfair to demand it to be so. This is a demand only expressed by those who pursue some kind of authority and a demand for having the religion's catechism replaced by something else, even with a scientific one. Science ... is constituted mainly by statements which it has developed into different degrees of probability. ..."

The Birth of King Sargon - a Narrative as a Mystery Play

By claiming Freud as "provocative" when presenting Moses as a non-Jewish leader, the critics did not regarded historical knowledge about Moses was connecting to a well-established ritual.
Many recognizable circumstances of the ancient myths in generally, which inspired Freud and his circle, are also dealt with in Jung's research of the archetypes.
          Spiritual dimensions were in ancient Egypt believed to be criss-crossing through the universe and may be difficult to understand from a base in present-day's entirely different world perception, in which western culture has developed into the first predominantly "non-religious" civilization of history.
          The ancient Egyptians always had their focus on the creation and succeeding cycles of life and death (after-life). Consequently, the aim of religion was to attend to big and small natural cycles, which form the world as in a change between hidden, potential existence and visible, manifest being. Therefore, at an early stage, considerable importance was ascribed to the perception of the interaction of these mechanisms and structures - in world, in life, in cosmos.
          Among for instance the Egyptians it belonged to the cyclic perception that the kings in a 30-year cycle were to renew themselves and show their renewal at the hept-sed festival. Likewise in most of the old world, heirs to the throne were by birth joining a bigger cycle connected to providence and the divine attachment of the fate of the country.
          The account about the infant Moses on the River Nile belongs to a larger structure of cultic mystery plays copying and re-playing the ancient myths throughout many ages in many countries of antiquity. Let us finish here and experience some information about the oldest known among such events:


To Perform Like the Gods

The written narrative about the birth of King Sargon I (ca. 2,000 BC) was found in 1870 by the British Assyriologist, George Smith, excavating King Sankerib's palace in Keuyunjik, i.e. the place of the ancient Nineveh, nearby present Mosul in Iraq.
          King Assurbanipal (668-627 BC) who was especially interested in history, had narratives systematically copied from older texts - up to several thousand years older - which he wanted saved in future. In addition, he made his daughter, the highest ranking princess, the chief-librarian, a high priestess position.
          The texts were collected from all over the empire of Assurbanipal; - together with other literature, more than 22,000 clay tablets have been found in his library established at the enormous palace of a predecessor, King Sennacherib (Sanherib). Here at Nineveh, King Assurbanipal created "the first systematically collected library" where he attempted to gather all cuneiform literature available by that time. A library was distinct from an archive - where earlier repositories of documents had accumulated passively, in the course of administrative routine.
          Because many of the texts are copies the researchers have designated them with a standard term "Duplicate" (or by German researchers, "Dublikat") at the beginning of each tablet’s number marking. Concerning astronomical contents in many of the texts, modern astronomy computing has confirmed fully their celestial descriptions regarding stellar circumstances a thousand years earlier.
          In addition, in older Babylonian, Akkadian, and Sumerian archives some of the ancient original versions of the texts have been found - all of which support the concept that the Ninive tablets are copies of the much ancient texts.

          George Smith (1840-1876) was the most competent Assyriologist of his time. One year after the finding both George Smith and his colleagues published translations. Later, more knowledge was used for further improving his translation of the ancient birth narrative about King Sargon I;  however, the principal contents as originally stated by him are unaltered.
          Compared with the many other existing birth myths with a ritually practising of the same type of event and action - a distinct pattern of a certain kind religious mystery play emerges. Re-playing myths was normal religious procedure - all to perform as the gods did.
          Thus, almost a millennium before Moses, accounts about a new-born child found in a boat floating down the River Euphrates were already known from Babylonia. The text mentions that a boy-child - later to become the king named Sargon (Sargon I) - was found by a princess, brought to the king's palace, and here given a high education. His so-called 'autobiographical' record clearly indicates the child (Sargon) in the rush boat was the son of the king's daughter.


A Verbatim Translation of King Sargon's Text

(1)  Sargon, the mighty king, king of Akkad - I am.
(2)  My mother was a princess (or a high rank priestess), my father I did not know; my father's brother (or brothers) ruled the country (: the country with hills).
(3)  My city was Azupirani on the bank of River Euphrates,
(4)  where my mother as a princess (or priestess of high rank) conceived me - secretly (or in a hidden place, a cave), she gave me birth.
(5) She placed me in an ark of rush; with pitch she caulked the lid.
(6) She threw me into the river, which did not sweep over me (i.e. into the ark).
(7)  The river was buoyant and brought me to Akki, the river man (or "irrigator" (cf. Jethro in Egypt))..
(8)  Akki, the river man, took me up - carefully as his water container.
(9)  Akki, the river man brought me up as his son (.....).
(10)  Akki, the river man, made me a gardener (.....).
(11)  (.....) as I was a gardener the goddess Ishtar (i.e. Sirius or Venus) made me king.
(12)  (.....) 35 (or 45) years old I was a king and ruled.
(13)  over a dark-skinned people. I (.....) over various countries. - Etc. ...

          The Babylonian cuneiform tablet (below) with the Sargon inscriptions was published early - and also in a work by British Museum, "Cuneiform Inscriptions" (Vol.3, p.4, No.VII, British Museum).


Ritualized Connection With Providence or Gods

No foreign child of low birth could have obtained such a significant education followed by a royal career and been accepted when he took over the leadership. The river event must have been a thoroughly planned happening intended for a child of royal origins.
          King Sargon is the earliest known case of this ancient ritual for royal children - while the case of Moses is the most famous. There have been numerous others, - a well-known tradition in many countries. The latest known and of several features similar case is Dalai Lama.
          We owe a lot not the least to the anthropologists, and as well to archaeologist, historians, Egyptologists, and linguists, for today being able to learn much more about the humans of the past and their rich knowledge on man and the world.
          From the earliest time man has ritualized a connection with providence or the gods, thus including the problematic features that also contributed shaping the culture - the residual elements of which to be recognized in much later times by, among others, the psychoanalists.

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Ove von Spaeth,  writer, researcher - copyright © 2006 og © 1998

The article includes extracts from Ove von Spaeth's book "The Supressed Record" ("De Fortraengte Optegnelser"), wol. 1 in his series "Assassinating Moses". More information: www.moses-egypt.net

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Bibliography - Literature on a Pattern in the Ancient Birth Myth

Books and articles concerning a special pattern in ancient myths about the birth of kings.

Ackerman, James S.:  The Literary Context of the Moses Birth Story (Exodus 1-2), Literary Interpretations of Biblical Narratives, vol. 1, (ed. K.R.R. Gros Louis), Nashville 1974.

Childs, Brevard S.:  The Birth of Moses, Journal of Biblical Literature, 84, 1965, pp. 109-122.

Cohen, Jonathan:  The Origins and Evolution of the Moses Nativity Story, (Numen Books Series, 1992 - &:) Studies in the History of Religions, 58, (Brill) 1993.

Foster, B.R.:  Birth Legend of Sargon of Akkad, in "The Context of Scripture: Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World, vol. 1", edited by W.W. Hallo, (E.J. Brill), Leiden, 1997.

Gressmann, Hugo:  Mose und seine Zeit, Göttingen, 1913.

Lacoque, A.:  La naissance de Moïse, Veritatem In Caritate 6, Hague 1961, pp. 111-120.

Lewis, Brian:  The Sargon Legend: A Study of the Akkadian Text and the Tale of the Hero Who Was Exposed at Birth, American Schools of Oriental Research, Diss. 4, Cambridge, MA. 1980.

Meyer, Eduard: ("Moses" in:) Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme, Halle 1906, pp. 46ff.

- - :  "Sitzungsberichte der Königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaft", Band 31, Berlin 1905, pp. 640-652.

Rank, Otto:  ("Moses" in:) The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, (Rank: "Die Mythus von der Geburt des Helden, Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde", Herausgeb. von Sigmund Freud, Heft 5, Leipzig 1909), New York 1952.

Redford, Donald B.: ("Moses" in:) The Literary Motif of the Exposed Child, Numen, 14, 1967, pp. 209-228.

Smith, George:  ("Sargon" in:) Early History of Babylonia, Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, vol. 1, London 1872, pp. 28-51.

Spaeth, Ove von:  The Suppressed Record. - "Assassinating Moses", vol. 1, 2nd ed., Copenhagen (1999) 2004, pp. 23-54, 166-169.

Westenholz, Joan Goodnick:  Legends of the Kings of Akkade: The Texts, Mesopotamian Civilizations 7, Winona Lake IN, Eisenbrauns, 1997, pp. 36-49.

- - (Review): The Sargon Legend:  A Study of the Akkadian Text and the Tale of the Hero Who Was Exposed at Birth: By Brian Lewis (1980), Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Jan.), 1984, pp. 73-79.

Wiedemann, A.:  On the Legends Concerning the Youth of Moses, Part 1 and 2, Proceedings of The Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. 11, 1889, (London), pp. 29-43 & 267-282.

Wundt, Wilhelm:  Völkerpsychologie, Band 2:3, Leipzig 1909.

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Bibliography - Examples of Specialist Literature concerning Freud about Moses"

The bibliographical list illustrating some of the overwhelmingly many books and articles, in which researchers are seriously occupied with Freud's considerations and interest of Moses.

Armstrong, Richard H.:  Contrapuntal Affiliations: Edward Said and Freud's Moses, American Imago, Volume 62, Number 2, Summer 2005, The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 235-257.

Assmann, Jan:  Moses the Egyptian. The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism,(Jan Assmann: Moses der Ägypter. Entzifferung einer Gedächtnisspur. Hanser, München 1998), Harvard University Press, (October 15) 1998, pp. 16, 147-148, 159-162.

Black, Margaret J.:  The murder of memory: Freud, Moses, and the death of Rabin, Mortality, Volume 7, Number 1, 1 March 2002, Routledge, pp. 83-95 (13).

Bakan, David:  Moses in the Thought of Freud, Commentary Magazine (1945-2007), October 1958.

Bergmann, Martin S. (Review):  Freud's Moses-Studie Als Tagtraum: By Ilse Grubrich-Simitis (1991), Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 42:898-901, 1994.

Bernstein, Richard J.:  Freud and the Legacy of Moses, Cambridge Studies in Religion and Critical Thought (No. 4), Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Blum, E.:  Über Sigmund Freuds: Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion, Psyche, 10, 1956-57, pp. 367-390.

Bori, Pier Cesare:  Il 'Mosè' di Freud: per una prima valutazione storico-critica, in Bori: "L'estasi del profeta ed altri saggi tra Ebraismo e Cristianismo", Bologna: Il Molino 1989, pp. 179-222.

Briefel, Aviva:  Sacred Objects/Illusory Idols: The Fake in Freud's "The Moses of Michelangelo", American Imago - Volume 60, Number 1, Spring 2003, The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 21-40.

Dawkins, Richard:  The God Delusion, London 2006.

Edmundson, Mark:  (on Freud:) Defender of the Faith?, New York Times Magazine, September 9, 2007.

Faessler, M.:  Le nom de Moïse et le nom de Dieu. L'interprétation Freudienne et son dépassement théologique possible, "La figure de Moïse", (ed. R. Martin-Archard), 1978, pp. 143-156.

Freud, Sigmund: Drei Abhandlungen:  Der Mann Moses und die monotheistischen Religion, Wien 1934-38, (English, "Moses and Monotheism", London 1939; transl. from German: Katherine Jones, 1939).

- - :  The Moses of Michelangelo, Standard Edition, 13, (1914) 1955, pp. 211-238.

Gay, Volney Peter (Review):  Freud and Moses: The Long Journey Home: By Emanuel Rice (1990), Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 59, No. 4, Winter, 1991, pp. 862-864.

Gilman, Sander L. (Review):  Freud's Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable: By Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (1991), The American Historical Review (American Historical Association), Vol. 97, No. 4 (Oct.), 1992, pp. 1178-1179.

Goldstein, Bluma:  Reinschribing Moses: Heine, Kafka, Freud and Schoenberg in a European Wilderness, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1992.

Grübrich-Simitis, Ilse:  Freuds Moses-Studie als Tagtraum: ein Bibliographisher Essay, Die Sigmund-Freud-Vorlesungen, Band 3, Verlag Internationale Psychoanalyse, Weinheim, 1991.

- - :  Early Freud and Late Freud: Reading Anew Studies on Hysteria and Moses and Monotheism, (paperback) 1998.

Hsu, Michael (Review):  Freud and the Non-European: By Edward Said (2003), The Asian Review of Books, 01, 08, 2003.

Hyatt, J. Philip:  Freud on Moses and the Genesis of Monotheism, Journal of Bible and Religion, Vol. 8, No. 2, (Oxford University Press), (May) 1940, pp. 85-88.

Jones, Ernest:  The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. Vol. 3: The Last Phase (1919-1939), New York NY, Basic Books, 1957.

- -  :  The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, edited and abridged into one volume by Lionel Trilling & Steven Marcus (Basic Books, Inc. Publishers), New York 1961, p. 502 (: Freud's own view on the historical basis of his Moses story).

Kakutani, Michiko:  Judaism, Anti-Semitism And Freud: A New View. - A Review of: Freud's Moses Judaism Terminable and Interminable: By Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (1991), Books of The Times, New York Times, September 13, 1991.

Kestenberg, Judith S. (Review):  Freud's Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable: By Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (1991), Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 63, 1994, pp. 383-387.

Koehler, Ludwig Hugo:  Freud und Moses..., Neue Zürcher Zeitung, No. 667, 16. April 1939.

Lehmann, Johannes:  Moses - der Mann aus Ägypten,(Hoffmann und Campe Verlag), Hamburg 1983, pp. 187-189.

Levi, Iakov:  Freud und (Theodore) Reik - Was Moses an Egyptian?, Psychohistory, www.geocities.com/psychohistory2001/WasMosesAnEgyptian.html , July 20, 2002.

Levy-Valensi, E. Amado:  Le Moïse de Freud ou la référence occultée, Monaco 1984.

Merkur, Dan: Moses and Civilization:  The Meaning Behind Freud's Myth: By Robert A. Paul (1996), Religion, Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2000, University of Toronto, pp. 76-78.

Miller, J.-A.:  Religion, Psychoanalysis, trans. B.P. Fulks, Lacanian Ink, 23, 2004, pp. 8-39.

NN:  Was Moses an Egyptian? Psycho-Analysis of Monotheism - Dr Freud on the Jews, Times Literary Supplement, May 27, 1939, p. 312.

NOMOS International Conference:  Freud's Moses and the Traumatized Human Subject. Ramifications for Culture and Education, at Columbia University, New York City, October 16-17, 2004, - published on-line at www.CERobins.com

Paul, Robert A.:  Moses and Civilization: The Meaning Behind Freud's Myth, Yale University Press, New Haven CT, 1996.

Radzinowicz, Mary Ann:  "Tendentious purposes": Milton and Freud on Moses, Criticism, Vol. 35, Summer (6/22/93), 1993.

Rice, Emanuel:  Freud and Moses. The Long Journey Home, Albany NY, State University of New York Press, 1990.

Robert, Marthe:  D'Oedipe à Moïse: Freud et la conscience juive, (transl. "From Oedipus to Moses", London 1977), Paris 1974.

Rosenvasser, Abraham:  Egipto e Israel y el monoteismo Hebreo: A proposito del libro Moisés y la religión monoteista de Sigmund Freud, 2nd ed., Buenos Aires University Press, 1982.

Roth, Nathan (Review):  A Godless Jew: Freud, Atheism, and the Making of Psychoanalysis: By Peter Gay (1987), Journal of American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 17, 1989, pp. 682-683.

Sabin, Stefana:  Freud's Moses as a Trope af Memory, Studia Hebraica, 3, 2003, pp. 355-361.

Said, Edward W.:  Freud and the Non-European, with Jacqueline Rose (Foreword, Introduction), Christopher Bollas (Introduction, Afterword), London and New York NY, Verso, 2003.

Schlossman, Howard H. (Review):  Freud and Moses. The Long Journey Home: By Emanuel Rice (1990), Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 62, 1993, pp.329-332.

Schorske, Carl E.:  (Moses in) Freud's Egyptian Dig, The New York Review of Books, May 27, 1993, pp. 35-40.

Shapiro, Theodore (Review):  Freud's Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable: By Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (1991), Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 42, 1994, pp. 904-908.

Spaeth, Ove von:  (Freud in:) Historical Research Inhibited by Odd Portrait of Moses, chapter 8 of the author's The Suppressed Record. Moses' Unknown Egyptian Background, "Assassinating Moses, Vol. 1", 2.ed., Copenhagen (1999) 2004,, pp. 60-68. (Spaeth, Ove von: Forskningen hæmmet af kunstigt Moses-billede, kap. 8 i forfatterens "De Fortrængte Optegnelser. Moses' ukendte historiske baggrund. - Attentatet på Moses, bind 1", 2.udg., København (1999) 2004, pp. 60-68.

- - :  Freud and Moses - and another view on history, www.moses-egypt.net/book-series/ovs_related-articles-c_en.asp, November 2007.

- - :  Freud og Moses, debating article in Flix.dk Internet-newspaper, of 10th May 2006, http://flix.dk/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3553

Stemberger, Brigitte:  Der Mann Moses' in Freuds Gesamtwerk, Kairos, 16, 1974, pp. 161-225.

Strachey, James Beaumont:  Editor's Note to Moses and Monotheism, Standard Edition, 23, 1964, pp. 3-5.

Walzer, Michael:  Exodus and Revolution, (Basic Books), 1986.

Weissberg, Liliane (Review):  Freud and the Legacy of Moses: By Richard J. Bernstein (1986), The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 91, No. 1/2 (Jul.-Oct.), 2000, University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 272-275.

Williams, James G.:  Freud's Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable: By Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (1991), COV&R-Bulletin, No. 3 (Sept.), 1992, p. 10.

Wistrich, Robert S. (Review):  Freud's Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable: By Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (1991), AJS Review (Association for Jewish Studies), Vol. 18, No. 2, 1993, Cambridge University Press, pp. 326-329.

Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim:  Freud's Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1991.

Zeligs, Dorothy F.:  Moses:  A Psychodynamic Study, "Psychoanalysis and the Bible: A Study in the Depth of Seven Leaders", New York (1974, 1986), 1988.

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