Who was Abraham? (13)

Based on the works of scholars, who will be revealed when the blogging for this topic ends. Works of other authors may be included, but where these are done, full acknowledgement will be made.

Advice: Those who may take offence in seeing biblical (OT) quotations or liberal discussion of OT biblical characters should not read this topic.
Carrying on from Who was Abraham? (12), Keith Laidler, author of The Head of God suggested that Sigmund Freud should have drawn an important conclusion from the reverse hero myth that was detected in the Moses story.

Instead of the typical “royalty to humble upbringing, trials and tribulations, and back to royalty” process, Moses’ life was one of “humble upbringing to royalty, trials and tribulations, and back to humble beginning” – Hebrew slave to Egyptian prince brought up by the Crown princess, ran away from Egypt because he murdered an Egyptian, to Hebrew commoner.

By writing an inverted hero myth, the author of the Book of Exodus was attempting to disguise Moses' royal heritage. Laidler suggested that might be because the Judean author wanted Moses as one of their own rather than an Egyptian royalty.

Though Freud noticed that oddity, he didn’t draw another conclusion from it. Rather, he went on to identify one of the Pharaoh's princes or high officials, Tutmoses as the real Moses.

Though his book caused some stir in Europe when it was published (undoubtedly he would have been condemned or accused of blaspheming, as he is still today because of this story), interest faded away after he died in 1939, three weeks into World War II.

The War brought about the tragic Holocaust, which consequentially made his book involving a prophet of Judaism too sensitive to delve into. As today, there were then the same intimidating frowns and discouragements from both Judaic and Christian authorities.

Many decades later, Ahmad Osman, an Egyptian and British trained Egyptologist investigated deeper into Freud’s book, and made extensive studies on other related Egyptian and Hebrew texts, and came up with a more startling conclusion. He presented the findings in his book Moses and Akhenaten: The Secret History of Egypt at the Time of the Exodus.

Laidler bemoaned that Freud didn’t come up with the same obvious findings as the great man was obviously a victim of his very own words when he expounded his study in his book Moses and Monotheism, that “the awe of Biblical tradition was insuperable.” 

Thus Freud was still, in some ways, constrained by his religious subconscious to conclude the obvious, that the Egyptian official who practised monotheism was and would be the one who taught it to the Hebrew slaves.

The Hebrew’s greatest prophet, Moses was none other than the Pharaoh Akhenaten.

Keith Laidler then went about showing how this came to be.

To be continued ........