Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism | Date: 28 April 2011, 06:25
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Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism
By Jan Assmann
* Publisher: Harvard University Press
* Number Of Pages: 284
* Publication Date: 1997-01-01
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0674587383
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780674587380
Summary: Brilliantt and crystal clear historical analysis
Rating: 5
Jan Assmann is a giant among scholars, and that most incredible find: a man with genius insight who knows how to write! This book is about the story of Moses and how it is told and retold in Western culture. Except for a few untranslated quotes in German, French, etc., this work is beguilingly instructive enough for a beginner, and its points are made with such beauty that they will spur one to further biblical or Egyptian research. I value the book for it's in depth analysis of Akhnaten and the extent of his monotheistic "revolution" as much as anything else. This scholar is also gentle in his approach to all the materials he treats. For that reason he inspires considerable trust. I can not recommend this book and this man too much! The whole subject of the connection between Ancient Israel and Egypt is a rich load of treasure beyond imagining, and here is a great mind to open pathways and draw our attention to things we think we see but perhaps do not. Dazzling work!
Summary: Searching Moses in the Memory of Kemetic Egypt
Rating: 5
"One would call this work monumental ..., if there were no risk of distracting the reader thereby with what might otherwise appear as a facile and predictable pun." T. Lawson, Folklore Bulletin
Prologue, Assmann's Models:
In 1984 Jan Assmann undertook the ambitious task of investigating the nature of Ancient Egyptian theology that has so fundamentally influenced studies on Egyptian religion. His impact was so great that many of his models have since been adopted in recent scholarship. Building on M. Halbwach's concept of memory as a social phenomenon as well as an individual one, the Freudian psychodrama of repressing and ultimately resurrecting the past, he writes a unique study, Moses the Egyptian.
Amarna Monotheism:
The 'Amarna heresy', or Atenism is thought to be the earliest monotheistic religious revelation ever, with a wealth of devotion and worship hymns of Aten. Atenism was associated mainly with the eighteenth dynasty Prophetic Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, better known as Akhenaten, the name he adopted. Recent Egyptologists indicate there are proofs that Aten was becoming more known during the eighteenth dynasty - notably Amenhotep III calling of his royal barge as the 'Spirit of the Aten.' Ultimately, it was Amenhotep IV who introduced Aten as the sole deity in his revolution, in a series of decreed steps culminating in the official endorsement of Aten as the sole universal god for the Egyptian Empire, and beyond. It was established as Egypt's state religion for around two decades, in the 14th century BC, before a violent return to the traditional Amen and Egyptian pantheon gods, while the name of the 'heretic Pharaoh' associated with Aten was completely erased from the Egyptian records.
The Mind of Egypt:
Our western civilization is influenced in many ways by perspectives that originated in the Heliopolitan theology, such as the concept of monotheism. How and why monotheism became what it did has its source in Egypt as well. Without an understanding of how the Egyptians viewed the idea of the unity principle, 'one god, Lord of the Pantheon,' it will be difficult to see how this concept became corrupted through misapplication over time.
The enormous influence of the mind of Egypt on our continuing present is one of the stronger messages here, and this influence has made itself felt in a number of areas, not least the very modern study of religion itself. Assmann points out that even our concepts of monotheism and polytheism were hammered out in the burgeoning discourse of seventeenth century Egyptology. Todd Lawson, Toronto University.
Heidelberg's Egyptologist in America:
Would you have visited Heidelberg, it's castle and university, you will have appreciated the rigor in color of German scholarship in a field that was a quasi monopoly for few European students of the great Civilization, formulated as the science of Egyptology. The idea of biblical revelation that stunned the young American Orientalist J. H. Breasted, when he studied ancient Egypt's moral codes, persuaded him to pursue his great adventure into the 'Dawn of Conscience', in ancient Egypt, a comparative study of Hebrew wisdom poetry with its analogous Egyptian parallels; impacted the twenty century religious imagination from Freud to Assmann. When Professor Assmann was invited by J. P. Getty center for a sabbatical in California, he decided to explore 'the vast terrain between Akhen'Aten and Freud.' in reply to 'Freud's Moses', and recap on his search of almighty God in Egypt (The Mind of Egypt), as an introduction to the same author's Moses the Egyptian
Assmann's Themes:
Assmann gave his work an Egyptian concept, advancing onto seven consecutive waves, inscribed onto the chapters of his book. He starts with a para-psychological definition of Egyptian thought construction as Mnemo-history, advancing into Suppressed history of Repressed memory of Akhenaten in Moses conscience, proceeding to Spencer's findings as 'before the Law.' The crux of his advancement to his ultimate thesis lies in a historical review of eighteenth century discourse on Moses. Freud shows up in a psychological spear head idea; 'the Return of the repressed,' the roots of Egyptian monotheistic theology of the elite was conceived in the 'One,' the master of Egyptian Pantheons, Aten, or Amon-Rae. Concluding into what breasted initiated eighty years ago: abolishing the Mosaic monopoly of revelation. Marvelous!
Scholar's Evaluation:
The Egyptians' experiment and successes with the modalities and rhetoric's of religion and politics would be felt not only by the heroes of the venture of Ebionite Islam, but also their Semitic kins amongst the Hebrews. All these various actors and audiences, the Greeks, Romans and Persians, were imbued to some degree or another with something of the Mind of Egypt since ancient times, through the triple agency of what the author calls Traces, Messages and Memories. ... Professor Assmann has fashioned for the scholar and general inquirer a key to ancient Egypt that is a pleasure to read, thrilling in its insights, and awe-inspiring as regards the multiple scholarly tools so clearly and masterfully employed.
Conceiving Reality:
I refrain from my all for Assmann old/new thesis which he perfected to quoting a more informed evaluation of A. Grafton, in New Republic; "A brilliant study...Assmann combines great technical virtuosity in his chosen field with wide-very wide-theoretical and comparative interests... Moses the Egyptian offers challenging new findings on the early history of monotheism, and a new reading in the place of Egypt in Modern Western culture-"
While the Hebrews were collaborative in the Egyptian prince Moses' liberation scheme, in both senses of body and soul, the Jewish people rejected the Messiah of their own national stock!
Summary: The mnemohistory of Egyptian monotheism
Rating: 4
As several readers have pointed out, Assmann's work is not really suitable to the casual reader, nor the reader unlearned in Latin. That said, most reviewers have suggested that the book be reviewed by someone fairly up on the field.
Assmann calls his project a "mnemohistory," meaning by this a history of the way certain aspects of an ancient history are remembered and distorted over time. The central focus of this mnemohistory, as indicated by the title, is Moses and his Egyptian origins. Assmann is a distinguished Egyptologist, so he wants to root this mnemohistory in Egypt, not in any of the numerous pseudo- or para-Egyptian texts (the Hermetica, for example, or P
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