From the publisher’s dust jacket
(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:
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The Twelve Tribes of Israel never existed.
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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
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