A research of an unusual character has been performed here in our old nation, Denmark. It is about a decisive historical discovery on Moses, the greatest prophet of the Bible, and his special Egyptian background. As will appear, it also is of relevance to us here in our Northern European cultural circles.
          It is a question about untraditional material, a re-examined spectrum of sources - for the first time collected here and presented altogether. Everything is very comfortably accessible in a book published a few months ago as "The Suppressed Report" ("Assassinating Moses, vol. 1") by the Researcher, Ove von Spaeth.
          Sensational, dashing reviews - when it was reviewed at all. Ove von Spaeth's incredible research work received well deserved comments - as did his impressive check of development and exchanges in the Mediterranean area of Antiquity, being an immense research, and of the character of the book as a pioneering Moses research!
          Shortly, however, almost silence. A mysterious, sudden "oblivion". And therefore an absolute shame that many potentially interested people will not know the existence of this book at all.
          Now, why am I interested in this? Because of the way von Spaeth presents the history of Moses, the book deserves to be experienced as being relevant and important to all of us. Moses stands as the initiator - 3,400 years ago - of some essential matters which became a turning point in our cultural history: It affected several important parts of the development - the impact still being in existence today in our everyday life, our linguistic usage, our customs, and attitudes.
          By letting the rare and re-discovered material speak for itself and not letting the text being dominated by one long, continued discussion about the predecessors' handling of the topics, von Spaeth presents, goal-directed, his applied re-evaluating suggestion to the early history of Moses.
          I find the book especially important in two decisive fields. First of all it has been written in a language and with a progression that also qualifies it as being genuinely exciting. This also not the least for people to whom the name of Moses would otherwise symbolize old-fashioned classroom, stove, and scratching pens dipped into the ink well of the upper edge of the desk. But in reality the book can and should be read by everybody who appreciate a gripping and at the same time thoroughly documented book.
          And secondly - and especially important - von Spaeth's book sets nothing less than a scientific new breakthrough.


Unprejudiced research

All the same, some critics have pointed to the fact that this author is autodidact. Completely irrelevant and even unserious. On the contrary, the writer's special research attitude has proved to be a major advantage. Here, because results from different, contributing research areas have been used without the automatic acceptance and specialist sectarian response. This researcher has been able, thus, to get around without prejudice and with a wider perspective and understanding of coherence.
          And what great freedom, not always having to adapt one's good name and reputation in specialist circles, where a research result, which is not considered "politically correct", under certain circumstances may be neglected.
          Especially, von Spaeth's research has caused an apparent increase in the number of convincing indications about Moses and a more fixed historical time. The material indicated that the era of Moses was 200-300 years more back in time than often "accepted" so far. A point bound to cause severe criticism from parts of the established researchers.
          However, this new course leads the book to valuable results. These are results opening up for a closer examination of the stored up, yet numerous interesting, old traditions from Antiquity about Moses and his life in Egypt. From now on, this may better than ever be related to archaeology and history.
          The material appears to be able in a most probable way to demonstrate relevant details about Moses while being connected with the pharaonic court in the 18th dynasty in 1500-1400 B.C. And it seems to prove that in this Egyptian scenario Moses had been held out the prospect of another fate than the one we know from the Bible.
          With one surprise after another, most of the book deals with - and presents - a veritable wealth of new information about the first part of the life of Moses and the drama during different pharaohs of the great civilization of Ancient Egypt.
          Conclusive of the qualifications of a researcher is especially his quality research behind the presented results. And this is absolutely the case here - whether one agrees to the conclusions or not.
          I should like to point out a few elements:
1.      To a degree I have never experienced in research, this book is based on closely correct, astronomical dates. This is executed, for instance, based on information from the oldest parts of the Rabbinical Writings.
Many of these data have only been possible to verify in present time. The writer emphasizes - obviously correctly - that consequently they have to stem from sources close to the original ancient notes. And he shows courage and abilities to draw the necessary conclusions.
2.      The book is brilliantly capable of presenting and interpreting events based on the way the past was looking at the world - and not with present time's oblique light which is often influencing modern interpretations of events in a distant past.
3.      Ritual mystery plays, the practise of which may almost seem inaccessible today, are now being placed in the right connection, where they so obviously belong, i.e. as something vital and extremely important also in the everyday life of the past. And this researcher shows that their substance contain more valuable historical and anthropological data than previously noted.
4.      The bibliography alone is worth a book. Internationally seen, this contains the largest collection, so far, of scientific books and articles on Moses. And in addition, one of the largest collection of Egyptian astronomy and chronology. For everybody who wants to get further knowledge in these fields, such a bibliography is indispensable.


The Astronomy

Even several researchers have pointed to the fact that the time of Moses, as previously mentioned, should be removed a couple of centuries back. However, as the first, Ove von Spaeth has been able to confirm this by using a chronology based on astronomy. That is the most precise, specified method of dating known in these fields. Also in many other points the writer makes convincing a higher age than usually anticipated concerning the age of oldest Rabbinical Writings.
          Like von Spaeth - other authorities and experts have emphasized that Moses has to be the genuine child of the daughter of Pharaoh. However, also here this writer is the first to support this, based on a wealth of sources - not least the Jewish Rabbinical Writings - as well as historians of Antiquity - and on exact knowledge of a detailed background concerning Egyptian-historical conditions.
          Interested researchers have associated the writer of "The Suppressed Report" with the, likewise, autodidact Schliemann's successful proof of the otherwise forgotten site of ancient Troy. This, however, may also be somewhat irrelevant, compared to the fact that von Spaeth by himself has produced an exact result able to bring out certain parts of modern biblical studies of its stagnation in "myth research" - and lead it to more real-historic inclined research.
As the book points out (p. 68), "… The Moses Assassination - made by his contemporary Egyptian opposition and later, to a certain extent, by ancient biblical editors - has now been recurrent in present time …".
          Also: "….Anthropologists were among the first to scientifically enlarge our view on the contents of the old biblical texts, while researchers of theology and linguistics were mislead by the "documentary"-theory - still not proved - which unfortunately was developed prior to the scientific development of archaeology and history …".


The Royal Library

That it should be a Danish researcher who traced the facts and placed the conclusive steps, was apparently contributed by, not the least, the presence of the Judaistic Department of the Royal Library in Copenhagen with the - envied abroad - exclusively fine and comprehensive collections. And in addition, the special contact to a considerable number of other researchers, a close contact which a country of this minor size (Denmark) is able to present. It was necessary when, as well known in those circles, the work of the writer was started a long time ago before the great times of the Internet.
          Reading of the book - with our different backgrounds and at different times - most of us would feel invited to disagreement and challenged to discussions. The book may be able to annoy, also because it chaffs our habitual ways of thinking.
          Nevertheless, neither I nor most other people have the possibility to make out a final scientific conclusion of the amazing indications of the book and the results. In this area only a few prior definite conclusions exist. But at least I am allowed to evaluate the new way, through which von Spaeth so obviously right has chosen to lead his project, as being the most exactly convincing and consistently logical.
          In the Moses research such an abundant break-through has hardly been seen ever. But in his preface the writer says more conservatively about the discovery of the rare and also controversial material and the conclusions that, "it is an offer for the performances of further research". We have to anticipate that future researchers will be prepared to use this productive chance and inspiration.
          On May 25 (1999) C.A. Reitzel Publishers published this book - clearly and so well deserved with best seller qualities in its field - a culture historical deposit of knowledge of a unique character. And correspondingly that is why it deserves a wide circulation.
          This work vitalizes a period, to many almost surrounded by a mystical light. Simultaneously, however, the pattern of events and mind sets of the contents convey a lot to every modern person, who want to step a bit behind the set-piece of the present.

J.J.

(Jens Jorgensen, Historian, M.A., Examiner of History at the Universities of Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Odense, and Headmaster of Slagelse College/High School; for several years he was also a Member of Parliament, the Conservative Party's Spokesman on Educational subjects).

Ove von Spaeth:  De Fortrængte Optegnelser, - Attentatet på Moses, vol. 1
C.A. Reitzel Publisher, May 1999, 236 pages, 248 DKK

Ove von Spaeth in his literary debut has created a highly original and yet, at least to the non-expert, believable story of the life of Moses and of his times. The period covered in this first of five planned volumes ranges from Moses' celestial (and biological) conception and birth to the then reigning queen Hatshepsut as "Son of Pharaoh's Daughter", through the famous episode in the bulrushes, to his crowning, at the age of three, as heir apparent and coming Pharaoh of Egypt.

          The book ends with an introduction to the next volume (which will deal with Moses as a young man) giving hints as to the reason for his banishment and his supposed flight from court intrigue and a "false" accusation of manslaughter, to live with his father-in-law (who, according to von Spaeth, is probably his biological father) Jethro in the desert. This is a detective story based on a great deal of circumstantial evidence but the case could just ring true. But even if this version of a controversial subject is fiction, it is interesting fiction.

          I truly enjoyed my second straight-through reading of this short story (told in less than 150 pages) because von Spaeth's glimpse of history, arrived at after a half-lifetime of research into primary and secondary sources, results from his combining this unique collection of information to create a logical framework for a series of lifelike characters.

          I have just returned from a series of travels where I visited Isis' temple at Philæ near Aswan and marvelled at the images of the goddess suckling her son Horus (a drawing of which is the front paper illustration while a colour image of a Horus hieroglyphic is on the cover), walked unknowingly past the spot near the massive temple at Karnak where the basket with the infant Moses presumably was found in the little basin at the then edge of the Nile (shown in detailed illustration in the text), climbed a bit of what perhaps is the Mt. Sinai of the Bible and then viewed the possible descendant of the burning bush and Moses' well in the Monastery of St. Catherina, drove past nearby Serabit el-Khadim where Moses is proposed to have sought refuge with Jethro, and finally stood on the summit of Mount Nebo/Nevo (in Jordan) with the intention of seeing the same view, as I assumed did Moses, of the for him never-to-be-reached promised land.
          I had not intended these trips to be in the footsteps of Moses but after reading von Spaeth's story I realise that I have been near to much more of his history than I thought, and am thankful and pleased for having been given this additional insight and new perspective.

          The book starts with a review of Egyptian history, and a reminder that Moses' existence as a historical character is not universally accepted (and especially disputed, it seems, in Denmark. The scene is set in the 18th Dynasty when during the times of Queen Hatshepsut (1509-1487 BC) (known as "The Pharaoh's Daughter" as a crown princess is called in Egyptian texts), a rare celestial conjunction at new moon, recorded in old Jewish sources (and shown by modern astronomical calculations to probably have been the one that occurred at new moon between February-March 1537 BC) together with mention of a prophecy that in three years a royal son will be born who will change the course of Egyptian history. This places Moses' birth in 1534 BC, predating a contemporary concept of the age of the Biblical version by 200 years.
          The biblical story of the finding of the three-month old boy child is shown to be identical to a ritual played out in Egypt to separate the celestial birth of a crown prince from his biological birth from a human mother, common to similar rituals in many places in the ancient world including Denmark.
          In this case the biological mother and the royal stepmother are argued plausibly to be the same person, and the scenario around the ceremonial discovery of the child in an ark made as a woven basket is part of the theatre of a mystery/passion-play with the real actors representing at the same time their celestial equivalents. Hatshepsut is playing Isis, mother to Horus, of whom Moses is the embodiment and receives this child of heaven well knowing that it is her own and her appearance on the banks of the Nile at the right moment just follows stage directions: Jethro is playing the Nile-god Jitru (Jtrw/It(e)ru) (the Egyptian word for Nile or river), who delivers the child whose father is identified with the god Amon-Ra. Shakespeare got it partly right: life is but a stage, but these actors live on.

          What makes this and the rest of the tale believable is the extent to which von Spaeth has been able to assimilate a vast amount of information from a wide variety of sources, utilising research into Hebrew, Egyptian and other contemporary language documents. With this knowledge he then reconciles the relationships between the Egyptian proper names and titles of these wonderful characters, and their Hebrew equivalents in the many records of the Old Testament and the writings and transcriptions of Hebrew rabbis and scholars during the past 3500 years.
          Especially intriguing, and convincing, is von Spaeth's ability to find, combine and sort out the content of the many Egyptian puns and word plays in which they seem to have enjoyed indulging.

          To name several of the arguments presented, the common understanding of the Hebrew name for the biological mother of Moses is Jochebed  and his father's name Amram.
          Jochebed is Egyptian with roots in Jah(w) (moon) and Kebet (Qebhut, Qebhit) (heaven), names identified with Isis and used when referring to Hatshepsut.
          Amram is related to an attempt at the Hebrewification of Amon-Ra(-Re) (Egyptian's highest god). Since vowels(-markers) were only added to Hebrew texts around the 6-10th century AD, it is easy to understand why interpretation and correspondences with earlier Egyptian writing and oral history has often gone awry and the entire field of nomenclature is difficult and full of potential pitfalls and surprises.

          The name Moses, it turns out, is related to the Egyptian word for boy-child (mosis) and is linked to Tuth-mosis, both the name of Hatshepsut's father and also of her later consort, and most probably used to denominate her royal child as well. The subsequent divergences between Egyptian and Hebrew versions of the "legend" are explained in a long review and logical analysis of studies of the Hebrew texts of this and later times: consistent suppression of the Egyptian origins of the heroic Moses emphasises the idea of his being a Hebrew (hence the book's title and subtitle), although his personal behaviour is more suggestive of a non-Jewish background (i.e. marrying his half-sister).

          I must explain my need to have read the book twice. When I first took up this handsome volume, I was, in spite of the author's caveat that it was not a scientific work but an attempt at a transdisciplinary popularisation of history, convinced that I was about to read a (quasi)scientific treatise which it strongly resembles. The book contains many illustrations together with appendices on: older versions of the Moses myth; celestial conception in the time of the Pharaohs; dating of Moses and the Egyptian calendar and reigns of the Pharaohs; and a review of the astronomical calculations used in the dating and their sources. There is also a 32 page bibliography divided into 12 thematic sections and 14 subsections.

          As I started to read I was conscious that von Spaeth is preaching to the converted so that his repetitions, whether pedantic or for emphasis, are somewhat misplaced. Furthermore, the use of references in the text is frustrating: just when you want to know from where a piece of information comes (i.e. that DNA testing on mummies has revealed great inbreeding amongst Egyptians of these dynasties) there are few clues given to the source of his conclusions. And references which do appear in the text are difficult to find in the bibliography since most of the 1000 citations are of secondary sources and one must search through many of 26 separately alphabetised sections. So reading and understanding is accomplished in fits and starts: "what is the reason for this conclusion?" one frequently asks oneself, and then says, "oh well, never mind, lets just get on with it!", proceeding to the next complex explanation of who was doing what to whom and why.

          The remarkable accomplishment of von Spaeth in "Assassinating Moses" is his collecting in one place all the arguments he has found in support of his story: but it is impossible even to guess what he has left out to avoid possibly negating his thesis. There is little differential diagnosis here. The reader has to take von Spaeth's word for what is written, but thereafter going from one intellectual problem and its solution to the next is a relatively easy question of faith. The last two chapters disconcert since they serve mainly as further advertisement for the next volume, whetting the readers appetite, which can grow only after deciding to forget false expectations and suspending disbelief in the facts of the story as presented, and then making him wait.

          Anyone with a non-specialist interest in these far-off times from a religious or historical perspective will enjoy having this volume at hand. But there is also something for almost every taste, and certainly enough grist for years of grinding of the mill of controversy amongst the many specialist historians, Egyptologists, anthropologists, and Hebrew scholars who will not be able to suspend their disbelief in the story as I have. I must also admit that I had found the plot so believable that I grew to expect quoted dialog between some of the characters (Just what did Jethro and Moses talk about in their hideaway in the desert?), but I guess I will have to wait to see the movie, the screenplay of which is certain to be made from these tales.

          I look forward to the next four volumes of this exciting story now that I know how to sit back and enjoy them: I also think I'll read Exodus again to refresh my memory of the biblical version. But I do hope that von Spaeth's publisher will provide him with the services of a good and patient editor. The series also deserves an English translation so that it can be appreciated and argued about by a broad international audience.

R.M.S.    Copenhagen, 15 October, 1999.

(Richard M. Stern, a New Yorker and long-term resident of Denmark, is a widely published former professor of physics, toxicologist and occupational health researcher and past manager of environment and health information systems for the World Health Organization in Europe, and has a recently awakened interest in the history of Egypt and Israel.)

Moses was not a Hebrew, he was Egyptian, probably his name was Tuth-mosis, and he was the genuine child of Hatshepsut, the daughter of the former pharaoh, and he was the heir to the throne in the vast Egyptian kingdom. He was born on Tuesday, February 8, 1534 B.C.
          Such a spectacularly precise dating is established by Ove von Spaeth in his current book, "The Suppressed Record", which is the first volume of a planned series of five about Moses and his time. And which has caused as much amazement and admiration with a number of scientists and researchers of religion, as it has been met with a mixture of noisy silence and neglecting shrugs of shoulders by the theological establishment.

          Ove von Spaeth make his take-off by the thesis that the widespread dating of Moses is approx. 200-300 years too late, partly due to an error made more than 150 years ago (1840ties) by Lepsius, the Egyptologist. Lepsius claimed that Moses was contemporary with Pharaoh Ramses II around 1500 B.C. However, when it was later discovered that Ramses II was probably living in 1200, the dating of Moses was also removed to 1200, because in the meantime the anticipation of the time of the two persons being the same had become evident.
          Since it was not possible to find a shadow of a trace of Moses around 1200, the theological consensus was widespread that Moses, the most important personality of the Old Testament, had to be - only and definitely - a fictive figure. And furthermore that one of the most conclusive features of Jewish self-understanding was, thus, to be reduced to being an odd idea among Jewish priests, who themselves had produced the myth of Moses without any historical evidence whatsoever.
          However, by demonstrating that Moses and Ramses II are not at all contemporaries and that dating of the life of Moses to 1500-1400 BC is much more realistic, the jigsaw puzzle pieces are finding their correct position. And although they at certain moments are somewhat distorted in the Old Testament - which for instance makes the Egyptian heir to the throne a Hebrew - convincing outlines of Moses as a historical person are established.


The theologians are missing the Egyptian factor

"The Suppressed Record" (C.A. Reitzel Publishers, 1999) is a comprehensive and severe showdown with wide habitual anticipations of the Moses research.
          As von Spaeth says (Danish version, p. 58), heading openly towards a clash with prevailing theological schools: "Research is being done as if only the biblically known Moses exists."
          And (von Spaeth) continuing: "... offshoots from the German school (of theological research) - as well as in the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian framework, e.g. "the Copenhagen School", who deprives Moses of any historical authenticity - (have) avoided to see the Egyptian factor among the most important elements of understanding of the many claimed textual discrepancies. A 'filter of knowledge' has been created, which automatically is sorting out what is not acceptable within the prevailing theories; However, critics of those schools would designate this as committing murder on history. The Egyptian factor has been better represented by the less partial 'French school', which to a broader extent has been influenced by Egyptologists ..." ("The Suppressed Record", p. 67).

          Thus, von Spaeth's opinion is especially supported on Egyptian sources as well as Jewish traditions not included in the Old Testament. These traditions describe among other things that the "daughter of Pharaoh", in the Moses-narrative, actually seemed to be pregnant prior to the birth of Moses. It is being noted that Moses was genuinely royal and was to become a future pharaoh, and that he was crowned as a crown prince at the age of three. And further that the specific offices and posts possessed of Moses were simply the traditional tasks of pharaonic princes.
          The surnames and features - presented in the Jewish traditional commentaries, The Rabbinical Writings - are so very well corresponding with Hatshepsut, who was in power ca. 1509-1487 B.C. This person, "the daughter of Pharaoh" is in the von Spaeth analysis being the mother of Moses and, thus, not his adoptive mother, as the Old Testament is suggesting.

          However, the Bible is trying to delete the Egyptian background of Moses; nevertheless it appears in the text now and then, for instance when the daughter of Jethro talks about Moses as an "Egyptian" (Book of Exodus, 2:19); likewise, when Yahwe in a fit of anger says in the face of Moses that he is going to "exterminate" the Israelites, whereas he intends to make Moses to be "a people greater and stronger than that" (Book of Numbers, 14:12) - statements hardly corresponding, unless Moses is belonging to another people than the Israelites. Nowhere in the books of Pentateuch is Moses referring to "my people" about the Israelites, and he does not mention Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as his ancestors - while the Israelites talk about their great leader as "this Moses, who took us out of Egypt" (Book of Exodus, 32:1).
          Artapanos, the Egyptian-Jewish Historian wrote (ca. 100 B.C.) that "the Egyptian priests honoured Moses as a god and called him Thoth" - this could be corresponding to the well-known pharaonic name, Tuth-mosis. A couple of centuries earlier, Manetho noted about Moses that "he only took the name of Moses" around the great Exodus.

          Within the 18th dynasty (ca. 1585-1310 B.C.) and thus also during the times of Hatshepsut, his title, i.e. "Son of Pharaoh's Daughter", mentioned in the Bible, was particularly important. This being the fact, because at that time evidently the women of royal blood carried on the order of succession according to the habits of the time, while their less royal spouses normally and primarily became pharaohs by virtue of their marriage. Only three times during the 18th dynasty a son was born and considered a genuinely royal son, which is the reason why the designation, "Son of the Pharaoh's Daughter" was used about Moses as a special emphasis of his right to the throne.
          Speaking against being the legitimate Son of Pharaoh's Daughter is the Old Testament's own narrative about the pharaonic decree to drown all boys in the Nile, where Moses as is known to have been put on a vehicle and incidentally discovered and saved by Pharaoh's Daughter.
          However, this narrative is so contradictive that it is reasonable to consider it a deliberate disguise of the actual events. Why should Moses have been placed on the Nile, helpless and in danger of being discovered in the area of the pharaonic court, the court that according to the narrative was seeking the lives of all Hebrew boys? And the fact that the very daughter of Pharaoh should wash herself in public in the dirty waters of the Nile, which already at that time could be unhygienic, is not likely, unless the narrative of the Old Testament might have made a slight re-written version of something completely different: - an Egyptian ceremony for a royal child - according to von Spaeth's suggestion. In that case it would be more than realistic that the very Daughter of Pharaoh made her ritual cleansing in the sacred Nile, before she received the (her) royal child, who came floating on the Nile according to the same ritual context.

          In myths, this is a scenario that is universally circulated in slightly different versions: - the royal child arrives on a ship or a vehicle on the sea or a river. (Cf. for instance our Danish king Shield or king Sheaf, - or Karna, the Indian sun god's royal son, Romulus on the Tiber, Sargon I on the Euphrates, etc.).
          Ove von Spaeth combines features from the Moses narrative with the Horus child: The teaching about Orisis, the mythological, royal god, who, after he passed away, was placed in a sailing coffin - correspondingly described by the Rabbis as "the little ark" on the Nile. By the help of Isis, the goddess, he was to resurrect in the shape of Horus, his son with Isis, a royal child bound to become the new king. In other words - exactly corresponding to Moses ("The Suppressed Record", p. 27).
          In texts of non-biblical, Jewish origin, from which von Spaeth is frequently making quotations, this event is also referred to as "the holy event on the divine River Nile", and the daughter of Pharaoh says, "… consequently, I will bring up this child for the purpose of his succession to the throne".
  

Kristeligt Dagblad (Danish daily): "Ove von Spaeth lacks a scientific method"

Ove von Spaeth recites numerous other Egyptian conditions relating to Moses, and the first book of his five-volume work presents a wide selection of arguments for referring these traces to a whole line of exact names, ideas, themes, and rituals in Egyptian royal cults. Of course this is not the first occasion that Moses has been claimed to be of Egyptian origin, or that his time should be dated to 1400-1500 B.C. - but rarely, if ever, has the dating been so clearly defined or the implications elaborated in such meticulous detail combining comprehensive studies in history, Egyptology, history of religions, archaeology, and astronomy.
          For a long time the theological reaction to the challenge - in particular from the so-called Copenhagen School - was silence. Obviously, a contributory reason for this was the spectacular statement, which probably caused a lot of theological hesitation to go deep into the extensive and very detailed references in so many fields of knowledge. An exceptional amount of more prestige is at stake than immediately anticipated, because if Ove von Spaeth is correct even only in the main features, many years of dominant theological perceptions in this field are simply going to tumble like Dominoes pieces.

          On November 11, 1999, more than six months after the book had been published, Tine Lindhardt, the Theologian, reviewed the book in the Kristeligt Dagblad (Danish daily). However, the review is revealing that the newspaper had probably not the desire to find a qualified reviewer, since the dealing with the book bears the notion of lack of elementary knowledge about the subject, but is taking into use a square scientific idol, hardly acceptable any longer except than in the simplified text books of the elementary school.
          Of course it is possible to agree or disagree with the scientific view of "The Suppressed Record". When Lindhardt, however, maintains that it "lacks scientific method", it is close to being an unbecoming arrogance in relation to a work, which is dispassionately combining factual recognitions within many fields of knowledge, while she is demonstrating low-key "scientific treatment".
          Thus, Lindhardt "instructs" von Spaeth with the following tautology: "In order for us to say that something is historically true, it must really have happened", - followed by her irrelevant and erroneous oversimplifying as if she was correcting a child: "Therefore, we are selecting between historical facts, which have really happened, and myths, legends, adventures. The last mentioned may very well be true to the extent that they deal with some kind of truth in human life, but they are not true to the extent that they inform us about what has happened".
          Evidently, historical "facts" are problematic and are being depending on different sources and interpretations, which again are depending on different, historical as well as modern situations of observation. A hardcore difference between mystery or history or fiction or facts may thus be currently removed and sometimes deleted, which is the reason for the fact that an ordinary assessment separating fiction from fact, at its best is unnecessarily insignificant. And at its worst, implying a classical, positivistic, scientific idol, which can be said to be even more controversial than the von Spaeth hypotheses about the life of Moses, and thus the poorest argument against these.

          Lindhardt's contention about Moses seems to be apparently blindfolded, deliberately inferior performance, when she says: "Not many sources besides the Bible can tell anything about him". The fact that she has a book in her hand, the entire purpose of which is a methodical explanation of a possible relation between the many references to Moses from sources outside the canon of the Old Testament (for instance Talmud and Midrash as well as Philo, Manetho, and Josephus), is apparently irrelevant to her, as is her negligence to consider the relation between these sources and the Old Testament.
          Therefore, the starting point of Tine Lindhardt appears to be symptomatic for the lack of theological, factual criticism and discussion, when detailed arguments and painstaking analyses are being presented contradicting predominant theological trends. Such a reaction being also known from the strategy of the theological establishment to (the journal) "Faklen"s philological criticism of the (Danish) Bible Society's manipulative, but authorised translation of the Bible in 1992. In general, not only research is to pity - it is a theological admission of failure.


The astronomical-historical angle

Besides Ove von Spaeth's convincing claim that Moses is of Egyptian descent, and the identification of Hatshepsut as the mother of Moses - of course the most spectacular about the present book is its exact precision of the birth of Moses by means of modern, astronomical computation of surviving star data in accordance with these circumstances.
          Here von Spaeth draws a line to Isaac Abrabanel (1437-1508) the Spanish Rabbi, who in one of his commentary works reproduces the tradition about a special, astronomical event - a very rare grand conjunction in a certain section of the sky three years prior to the birth of Moses. On this background the phenomenon of the sky can be determined and dated to have happened exactly in the course of a certain new moon in February/March, 1537 B.C.

          Peder Moesgaard, D.Sc., Professor at the Department of History of Exact Sciences, Aarhus University, and also Director of the Steno Museum, the Science Museum of Denmark, writes in his preface to the book, "... from the astronomical-historical point of view I find the starting point at a specific planetary constellation in 1537 B.C. worth a trial in relation to biblical research, Egyptology, archaeology, and general history."
          And it is just by the means of being able to piece the traditions together with these and several other fields of knowledge that the parts may find their proper place with a considerable, mutual harmony, used by von Spaeth to date the birth of Moses to be exactly on Tuesday, February 8, 1534 B.C. In the book this is followed by such a thorough analysis of religion-historical value in many other fields than those specifically related to Moses, and which - also irrespective of whether the next volumes will live up to the present standard - is bound both to encourage new breaches and corrections for a long time to come.

R.E.L.

Rune Engelbreth Larsen, is M.A., History of Ideas & History of Religion, and Editor-in-chief of "Faklen" Journal ( www.faklen.dk ).

(This article is from the "Faklen" Journal, No 14, 5th year, and is reproduced by OvS. with acceptance of the writer on January 7, 2000).