Freud and Genesis 41

A while back a friend gave me a very nice hardcover Suhrkamp of Freud’s Mann Moses, pictured below:

The volume (published in English as Moses and Monotheism) contains three essays published in the last years of Freud’s life. He began to prepare the last of the three essays in Vienna, but only managed to publish it after fleeing to England following the German invasion of Austria.

In case you aren’t familiar, this is Freud’s claim in a nutshell: Moses existed, but he was never a Jew. Instead, he was a high-ranking Egyptian who was loyal to a monotheistic cult which worshipped the sun god Aten, which was briefly the state religion of Egypt under Akhenaten. After Akhenaten’s death and the official reestablishment of polytheism, Moses decided to leave Egypt. He brought with him a Semitic tribe (read: the forefathers of the Jews), upon whom he more-or-less forced his religion. At some point in the desert, the proto-Jews rebelled and killed Moses. They then met up with related tribes and formed some sort of confederation. The Moses-religion was disavowed but survived among the Levites, whom Freud claims were the clique of Egyptians that Moses brought along with him. At some point a couple of generations later, the proto-Jews take up the worship of a Midianite volcano-god named [ʀᴇᴅᴀᴄᴛᴇᴅ], under the direction of an unnamed prophet. But the Moses-followers had grown in number and influence during the intervening generations, and so a compromise was made between them and the followers of the volcano-god. The new prophet was identified with Moses, and the attributes of [ʀᴇᴅᴀᴄᴛᴇᴅ] and Aten were melted together. The murder of Moses then has all manner of psychoanalytic effects, sets the scene for Christianity, etc.

Freud himself repeatedly admits that the historical evidence for all this is rather sparse, but it seems he more-or-less believes it to be true. It’s a bit of a crackpot theory, but its very entertaining to read and good food for thought. Reading these essays feels a little like reading (forgive the comparison) Däniken: you can’t really believe these fantastic claims about the secret origins of the world we live in, but you’re glad to be along for the ride, and maybe there’s a little bit of truth in there somewhere… Or, perhaps to offend in the other direction, Freud has written a sort of psychoanalytic Midrash which uses biblical and historical scholarship, along with the Hebrew Bible itself, as building blocks. Read as a parable, its shaky claim to historical truth becomes less important.

For textual support, Freud resorts to the work of Ed. Sellin, and Mose und seine Bedeutung für die israelitisch-jüdische Religionsgeschichte (1922) in particular. I haven’t read the article, but apparently, there is evidence in Hosea and elsewhere that Moses was killed by the Israelites during one of their many (biblically documented) uprisings. Here is Freud on Sellin:

Er fand beim Propheten Hosea (zweite Hälfte des achten Jahrhunderts) die unverkennbaren Anzeichen einer Tradition, die zum Inhalt hat, daß der Religionsstifter Moses in einem Aufstand seines widerspenstigen und halsstarrigen Volkes ein gewaltsames Ende fand. Gleichzeitig wurde die von ihm eingesetzte Religion abgeworfen. Diese Tradition ist aber nicht auf Hosea beschränkt, sie kehrt bei den meisten späteren Propheten wieder, ja, sie ist nach Sellin die Grundlage aller späteren messianischen Erwartungen geworden. Am Ausgang des babylonischen Exils entwickelte sich im jüdischen Volke die Hoffnung, der so schmählich Gemordete werde von den Toten wiederkommen und sein reuiges Volk, vielleicht dieses nicht allein, in das Reich einer dauernden Seligkeit führen. Die naheliegenden Beziehungen zum Schicksal eines späteren Religionsstifters liegen nicht auf unserem Weg. ¹

Now, like I said, I don’t really believe this stuff, but nonetheless I think I’ve found a nice piece of evidence for Freud’s claims which he doesn’t mention. Last night I thought that it might be fun to read a random chapter of Genesis every day, and so today I put the range 1-50 in a random number generator, got 41 as output, and sat down to read Genesis 41. This is the chapter where Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dreams: the scrawny cows eating the healthy cows, and the scrawny grain eating the healthy grain, both of which are so excellently illustrated by R. Crumb (below).

As part of his reward for successfully interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams, in verse 45 Joseph is married to Asenath, daughter of Poti-phera, priest of On. ² On (aka Heliopolis) is mentioned repeatedly by Freud as the place of origin of the monotheistic worship of Aten which the Egyptian Moses practiced and semi-successfully transmitted to his chosen Semitic tribe.

That the leader of the people Israel who preceded Moses was the son-in-law of a priest of Aten seems like a perfect piece of evidence for Freud. The lineage of Jewish leadership dovetails with the lineage of Egyptian Aten priests! If Freud is to be believed, this is to be read as a distorted confirmation that the origin of Jewish monotheism is Egyptian. When coupled with the Traumdeutung which plays such a significant role in this chapter, it’s very strange that Freud left this out. I wonder if he knew of this chapter and, if so, what he thought of it…

Before I go, there’s a passage in the second essay that’s particularly cool, which may or may not be related:

Es ist gewiß, daß recht verschiedene Elemente zum Aufbau des jüdischen Volkes zusammengetreten sind, aber den größten Unterschied unter diesen Stämmen muß es gemacht haben, ob sie den Aufenthalt in Ägypten, und was darauf folgte, miterlebt hatten oder nicht. Mit Rücksicht auf diesen Punkt kann man sagen, die Nation sei aus der Vereinigung von zwei Bestandteilen hervorgegangen, und dieser Tatsache entsprach es, daß sie auch nach einer kurzen Periode politischer Einheit in zwei Stücke, das Reich Israel und das Reich Juda, auseinanderbrach. Die Geschichte liebt solche Wiederherstellungen, in denen spätere Verschmelzungen rückgängig gemacht werden und frühere Trennungen wieder hervortreten. Das eindrucksvollste Beispiel dieser Art schuf bekanntlich die Reformation, als sie die Grenzlinie zwischen dem einst römisch gewesenen und dem unabhängig gebliebenen Germanien nach einem Intervall von mehr als einem Jahrtausend wieder zum Vorschein brachte. ³

Isn’t that nice? Pieces of the broken vessel, fitted together and painted over — but the crack is still there, just below the surface, waiting for just a little more pressure…