FROM THE DUST JACKET 

The text below is from the hard-cover copy of the first edition
(Front Flap)

“Bold! Courageous! Potentially a paradigm shift in biblical scholarship.” —Professor Edgar A. Gregersen, professor of anthropology, Queens College and Graduate Center, City University of New York

Sure to cause controversy in both academic and religious circles, The Moses Mystery examines the troubling question of why ancient Israel has no archaeological or documentary presence prior to and just after the Exodus from Egypt and challenges the conventional wisdom on the origins of the pre-Exodus bible stories. Marshaling an astounding amount of research in the fields of biblical archaeology and Egyptian history, literature, and mythology, Greenberg shows that the first Israelites were native Egyptians and that the history of Israel before the Exodus is based almost entirely on Egyptian mythology.

The Moses Mystery is a fascinating interpretation of one of the world’s most essential texts, challenging the Judeo-Christian and Islamic world’s most basic beliefs. Even readers who remain unconvinced by Greenberg’s argument will be impressed by his scholarship and erudition.

(Back Cover)

A Book That Will Challenge Basic Assumptions About the Bible

The Moses Mystery Contends:

• The Twelve Tribes of Israel never existed.

• Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were characters from Egyptian mythology. The biblical story of Jacob and Esau, for example, draws together several myths about the Egyptian gods Horus and Set (the feuding twin brothers who fought even in their mother’s womb) and weaves them into a story about biblical patriarchs.

• The first Israelites were Egyptians, followers of Pharaoh Akhenaten, whose attempts to introduce monotheism into Egypt engendered rage among the religious establishment.

• Moses served as chief priest in Akhenaten’s cult and, after Akhenaten’s death, had to flee Egypt to avoid execution.

• Pharaoh Horemheb waged a bitter campaign to eradicate all vestiges of Akhenaten’s heresy, eliminating the evidence stone by stone and word by word. As a result, Akhenaten remained lost to history until nineteenth-century Egyptologists discovered the ruins of his capital city.

• When Horemheb died, Moses returned to Egypt, united his followers with other enemies of Egypt, and attempted to seize the throne from Ramesses I. The coup failed, but to avoid a civil war Moses and his allies were allowed safe passage out of Egypt. This was the real Exodus.

• After entering Canaan, the Egyptian followers of Moses formed military alliances with local Canaanite kings and with some of the recently arrived Greek invaders known as the Sea Peoples. This nontribal alliance of small kingdoms and city-states became biblical Israel.

“Greenberg offers some engaging new insights into the age—old problem of the Moses story. This volume should be of interest to all those curious about the intimate links between ancient Egypt and Israel.” — Robert Stieglitz, associate professor, Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations, Rutgers University