Moses the EgyptianStanding at the very foundation of monotheism, and so of Western culture, Moses is a figure not of history, but of memory. As such, he is the quintessential subject for the innovative historiography Jan Assmann both defines and practices in this work, the study of historical memory--a study, in this case, of the ways in which factual and fictional events and characters are stored in religious beliefs and transformed in their philosophical justification, literary reinterpretation, philological restitution (or falsification), and psychoanalytic demystification. To account for the complexities of the foundational event through which monotheism was established, Moses the Egyptian goes back to the short-lived monotheistic revolution of the Egyptian king Akhenaten (1360-1340 B.C.E.). Assmann traces the monotheism of Moses to this source, then shows how his followers denied the Egyptians any part in the origin of their beliefs and condemned them as polytheistic idolaters. Thus began the cycle in which every counter-religion, by establishing itself as truth, denounced all others as false. Assmann reconstructs this cycle as a pattern of historical abuse, and tracks its permutations from ancient sources, including the Bible, through Renaissance debates over the basis of religion to Sigmund Freud's Moses and Monotheism. One of the great Egyptologists of our time, and an exceptional scholar of history and literature, Assmann is uniquely equipped for this undertaking--an exemplary case study of the vicissitudes of historical memory that is also a compelling lesson in the fluidity of cultural identity and beliefs. |
Contents
1 | |
Moses and Akhenaten | 23 |
John Spencer as Egyptologist | 55 |
4 The Moses Discourse in the Eighteenth Century | 91 |
The Return of the Repressed | 144 |
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Common terms and phrases
ÄHG Akhenaten Aleida Assmann Amarna religion Amun Ancient Egypt Ancient Egyptian Athanasius Kircher Bible Biblical called Christian Clement of Alexandria concept context Corpus Hermeticum cosmic cosmotheism counter-religion creation creator Cudworth cult cultural memory deity discourse on Moses Divine Legation Egyptian hieroglyphs Egyptian religion Egyptology eighteenth century Enlightenment Exodus figure gods Greek Hebrew Hen kai pan Hermes Trismegistus Hermetic hidden hieroglyphs Horapollo Hyksos hymn idea idolatry inscription institutions interpretation Isis Israel Jewish Jews king Leiden lepers magical Maimonides Manetho means mnemohistory monotheism monotheistic Mosaic distinction Moses the Egyptian Moses/Egypt discourse nations nature normative inversion origin Osiris pagan Papyrus philosophical political polytheism quoted reconstruction refer Reinhold religious rites ritual Sabians Schiller script secrecy secret Sigmund Freud sources Spencer Spinoza story Strabo sublime Supreme symbols temple term theology theory things tion Toland tradition trans translation truth veiled visible Warburton wisdom worship writing