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MOSES

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The Sphinx to the Jews

Author : Zenon Kelper
First Edition 1996/07 - present Ed. 1999/01

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PURPOSE and STRUCTURE of this PAGE

The first part of this page is not a demonstration but an interpretation. It is based on a demonstration which is made by A.Osman and E.L.People. Together they have made a reading of the Egyptological data and the latter has added the Oedipian information in their former report. Myself, Z.Kelper, intervenes at this point. I suggest how these discovery stages can be understood, and how E.People's report can be illustrated by the Lacanian formula.
As a matter of fact, E.People's reading  - at the moment when my interpretation took place - was confused and in a way which tends towards a specific simplification - Lacan's Optical Model exactly describes this confusion as well as the simplified deduction. I must also make clear that I do not guaranty any truth in this three layered Osman/People/Kelper hypothesis; yet I believe that only its first layer (Akh=Mos=Oed) is reasonably probable. Ethics and/or method impose to lay their advanced deductions even when they seem quite farfetched. In any case, what I offer in the following is the interpretation of what would be a symptom as building history. With this understanding, this page can be read and used as an analysis, for the critic of our present time, its discoveries and its illusions.

The second part of this page is its 1st Edition, when akhnaton.net web site began as one of the few and limited essays and reports (re: the pages about Akhnaton, Oedipus, Trismegistus, Freud, etc... ) which present the major characters of Akhnaton's identity and identification.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

- Purpose
- UPDATE 2nd Edition
- The End of the 18th Dynasty
- Analysis of Representation and Representatives
- The Symptom
- modification of datation
- 1st Edition
- announcement of a scholar/critic page
- foot notes

MOSES PAGE - FIRST PART = Update and 2nd Edition

THE OBJECTIVE STORY OF THE LATE 18TH DYNASTY
an Essay about the reality of the end of the 18th Dynasty

A political wedding in Thebes: Akhnaton & Nefertiti, a princess from TFM.

TFM stands for Trojan Family of Mari  - it is an invention which supports the still mysterious origins of Nefertiti.
My essay  on the pre-Aegean influence on Akhnaton's application of Atonism
makes a possible explanation for the history of Greece after Akhnaton
and later, its function in the origins of Christianity

Akhnaton & Nefertiti move to the city (Amarna) which is prepared by his father and the Atonists.

There is a childish way of seeing Akhnaton sole responsible
for the choice of Amarna's experiment (Akhtaton). History shows that such events are always planed
prior to the actor (who sometimes and later becomes independent and escapes control..).

During a visit, his father discovers Akhnaton's super-advanced projects.

Amarna represents the cross-road of the countries that the Aton project aims to unify.
As he adds to Egyptian customs, art and rules of Hebrew, Babylonian and Hittite,
Akhnaton takes there an independence which diverges from his father's project.

With a deadly worried mind. Amenophis III returns back to Thebes.

It is the moment when Amenophis III dies.
Akhnaton's goal overpass what Thebes' socialite imagine or tolerate
Alone in the midst of the controversy, Tiye spend more time in her domain in Zwar.

Akhnaton reigns from the City of the Horizon, institutes the Experiment upon Egypt,

I call an experiment the experience of Akhnaton at this time in Amarna
For it follows a project, which is yet not included in the real politics of his administrees.
Once Thebes' Priesthood explicitly rejects it, Akhnaton's secession represents the partition of the Red Sea.
His position at this moment it constitutes the first delivery of the Law

Political troubles impose his presence in Midian

While South Thebes oppose his edits, East and beyond, cities dissociate,
economy crumbles and civil war threatens. Akhnaton travels in search of reconstituting alliances.
He organises councils, often supported by tribes which are close to his mother families

Back in Amarna, he finds Semenkhare compromised with Amonism

During his absence the Theban opposition has infiltrated Amarna's government.
Akhnaton blame Semenkhare and repudiates his policy.
This is remembered as the breaking of the Tables of the Law

Akhnaton leaves with the Hebrews in Sinai,

Akhnaton must leave Amarna. He moves to the Sinai with part of the population.
With the still split Egypt, the leak of influential characters an secret  knowledge cannot be stopped by Thebes

Semenkhare (Polynices) rejoins him to seeking his help

While Akhnaton has begun to understand what is his implication in his mother's alliance,
along with the effects of disregarding his father's rule, the plea of Semenkhare is dismissed.
It is the time for the new delivery of a second version of the Law adapted to the new hebrew situation.

Back to Akhtaton Semenkhare is killed by the partisans of a Tut project.

Tiye has kept a position for negotiating the Amonization of Tutankhaton in Tutankhamon.
In the deal, Semenkhare is lost , but she still keeps her territory in Zwar

Nefertiti/Tiye builds a necropolis by Zwar

The Non-Thebean part of the Aton project persists in hope of keeping their Northern domain
A tomb for Akhnaton may be found in this region

Nefertiti gets Tut killed

Yet, eventually, Nefertiti and/or her House have found only impossibilities in Zwar
In order to preserve or restore an independence of her TFM domain which has been compromised with Thebes
and now endangered with the Amonian restoration, Nefertiti and/or her House get Tut killed.

While Thebes makes as least Tut a hero, Akhnaton abandon all project to be buried in an Egyptian land

This is Oedipus at Colonus, when he manages for having his body away from all Thebean exploitation

- -

If this analysis is correct, it perfectly explains the symptom as it is expressed in E.People's account of the Ancient East-Mediterranean - and reciprocally, if this is explaining so well E.People's symptom, there is a good probability that the above description of the late 18th dynasty events is correct. Acknowledging these probabilities, we may find usefully, from a symptom, the plus-meaning (see plus-value) that it offers :

THE INTERPRETATIVE READING OF...
THE DISCOURSE OF THE SYMPTOM - alias "incoherent plausible deduction"

After he accepted Osman's dual description (Akhnaton-Moses),  E.People, impromptu, integrates Oedipus; he thus exhibits the step towards the resolution of the Oedipus Complex while, leaping from the ancient place of identification (Akh-Mos), he leaves it for a vacant short lapse - this is where the symptom is said in an instant. The next moment is expected to be one of re-writing, repression and closure again. Fortunately, recording techniques (psychoanalysts listening, other memory banks) allow for an availability and on observation of this genuine blink. E.People's first description of the triade Akh-Mos-Oed makes this opening, from which the symptom is released as a text. Instead of an analysis at length of this artifact which remains private to any analysand, the present page offers its mounted interpretation.

In a short intermediary passage which stands for a confession, E.People reveals the key perspective of his message. He says "why do we identify with Moses?"
His position indeed is remarkably well illustrated at the place where pic.20 (above) indicates the 'Moses point of view'. It is a unique perspective, in reflection of the other side (left), where Sophocles speaks from an Oedipus point of view, if not simply form Akhnaton's.

According to Sophocles' point of view, Laios is clearly Oedipus' father - but after being removed from his father's house, Oedipus is adopted and educated in Corinth. There, he is educated with a lie which fools him about his real father; he will believe that his father is the impotent Polybe (King of Corinth). From this mis-placement, he then believes that Polybe's wife was impregnated with the seed of an anonymous servant. In the Oedipian play, Moses is this identity who grew and away from his father's house and knowledge. In the Bible, Moses is Moses who questions who stands for a father.
This para-perspective is shown in pic.20. As Akhnaton evolves toward its reflection, which is called Moses point of view, the model shows that Oedipus' Corinth equals Moses' Midian (actually, Egyptology notes that there is no traces of Akhnaton's youth in Thebes - this is suggesting that he may have been raised indeed in his Mother's family).

From an identification with Moses, E.People does no search for the identity of the child who has disappeared from Thebes. He starts with the appearing perspective based on the virtual character. Hence, he testifies for the belief that this position induces.

More obviously that dreams - which can use surrealism as they are spared from addressing reality - symptoms are tied to the context of realism; they present direct forms of absurd. The first optical illusion comes when Oedipus must answer for the murder of his father - in E.People's view, it is Polybus who is the victim and it is with his adoptive mother that he is thought to be incestuous.
Confused and illogical as the text of a symptom should be, E.People then identifies Polybus, Laius and Amenophis.3 as the same one father. His Moses point of view is also expressed when the logic implies that he murders his anonymous egyptian father (re: the servant's seed) - as it is said of Moses who kills an Egyptian who is kept anonymous.

The captivating naming of the father  persists in the reflected sons whose delusion complete the symptom  :

While the incoherence of the father's identification in E.People's reading is drawn from Oedipus Rex - the confusion between the sons of Oedipus follows his reading of Antigone.
As in pic.20, the yellow spot is not seen from Moses point of view, for it is superimposed and confused with the blue 'successor' coming from the Midian space. E.People thus declares that there is no representation of Tut in the Oedipodies - and believes that Eteocles (the yellow spot which represents indeed Tut in the Oedipian plays) represents in fact Sememkhare (as the green spot of the confusion) Therefore, he takes Polynices (the blue circle which represents Semenkhare in the Oedipian play) for the red spot that the move from Akhnaton towards Moses point of view makes emerging (see the said 'real image' in the optical definition which is built in a concave mirror  ) . In his reconstitution E.People qualifies this red spot for being "not as a man, but treasonously" - yet with the rest of E.People's text it must be concludes that this image represents Nefertiti in place of Akhnaton.

Evidently we face a farfetched and intolerable deduction - the woman Nefertiti would have stand for Moses in Israel's fate !! This is something which can make the entire study, a delictuous object for good sake. So here I am, at that point - with not much more to say about the civilization symptom that this reading of E.People's session.

Moses is one of the greatest Hebrew prophets. He guided his people to freedom from Egypt and gave them the written Laws which allowed the foundation of the state of Israel. He is largely acknowledged to be an historical figure who lived between 1400 and 1200 B.C., yet major dimensions of his story are kept secret by the Jewish Tradition. Firstly `his face must be kept veiled` - meaning that his identity must not be revealed to the people of Israel, or even to mankind, according to the Ancient Alliance; second, `his end - or his disappearance - must remain secret`. Those measures aim to protect his soul and his work from misuse by his enemies (Satan, alias Seth, see also the pharaoh Seti).

The first secret has probably been disclosed by Jesus who presented Moses unveiled (see Transfiguration  / New Alliance) to his disciples while he explained to them his major disagreement with the rabbis. Nevertheless, the Bible gives many clues which depict the history of Moses. We shall underline some of the similarities which support the historical coincidences of Akhnaton and Oedipus.

Being groomed to become an important representative in Egypt is a basic similarity between Akhnaton and Moses. But recently it became more striking when the egyptologist Osman showed the highest probability that the lineage of pharaoh Akhnaton was linked to the Hebrew people through his mother. Thus the similarity between the Hebrew Akhnaton and the Hebrew Moses reaches a degree which compares with their end: they both disappeared to the point where their traces suddenly vanished...

To be precise: at a certain point, the ruler Akhnaton disappears from all egyptological records and, while his successors launch increasing attacks against his memory, his tomb and his sarcophagus remain unoccupied by his mummy. Similarly Moses, at a certain point, which is the time of his alleged natural death, decided to step aside and leave his Hebrew people in secret. Both moves are either identical or repetitive.

There is a good description of the behavior of the fugitive in the play Oedipus at Colonus, when the former King of Thebes is warned that his pursuers intend to use his corpse if they arrest him. He therefore decides to run away, in secret - which was exactly the situation of Akhnaton. Moses behaved this same way: he quits Egypt and later disappeared to avoid his pursuers' intent to use his corpse or his memory.

Beside this sound and logical behavior, clearly indicated by many clues, I discovered interesting notions about Moses and his other postulated identities.

A first excerpt is from a major Egyptian reference, the Historian Manetho:

<<Moses, a son of the tribe of Levi, educated in Egypt and initiated at Heliopolis, became a High Priest of the Brotherhood under the reign of Pharaoh Amenhotep [Akhnaton]. He was elected by the Hebrews as their chief, and he adapted to the ideas of his people the science and philosophy which he had obtained in the Egyptian mysteries; proofs of this are to be found in the symbols, in the Initiations, and in his precepts and commandments....The dogma of an 'only god' which he taught, was the Egyptian Brotherhood interpretation and teaching of the Pharaoh, who established the first monotheistic religion known to man.>>

- Egyptian High Priest Manetho (3rd Century b.c.)

In this excerpt, Manetho brings Moses close to Akhnaton; but this relation becomes more precise with another famous historian, Strabon 58 b.c - 25 a.d., in the moment when Rome took possession of the Ptolemaic Egypt. This is Strabon's report, according to an excerpt from St Y.d'Alveydres (see excerpt in French in Akhenaton_ou_la_Veritable_identite_de_Moise_et_d'Oedipe  ) :

<< I will leave it to the Egyptian priests to tell themselves the history of Moses, such that they relayed it to foreigners, especially to Romans:
When Strabon visited Egypt with Aelius Gallus, who was the prefect, and with Athenodore of Tarse, Stoic philosopher, the priests of Egypt told them the following:

"Moses was a priest of Osiris, who reigned over a part of the southern country.
In dissidence with the external cult, he left the congregation, followed by a crowd of men who adored the Divinity in the same manner.
He professed that the animal symbolism kept the people in error regarding the topic of the divine - and that the android symbolism of Libyans and Greeks had the same disadvantage - and that if the Living God demonstrated himself completely through the Universe, it stood to reason not to particularize Him by attributing to Him any partial form of the Cosmos.
He added that one had just to adore the Ineffable in a deserving sanctuary for Him, surrounded by a devoted territory, and devoid of all representative images, any signs and any figured attributes.
He recommended that men should sleep at night in the Temple, to receive communications from dreams or from other interesting ways, regarding either individuals or society.
According to Moses, only people of Wisdom and Justice deserved this favor, and had to constantly be prepared to receive the benefaction, always deserving to be honored by the manifestation of the Supreme Will.
Nothing, in Moses, indicated intolerance.
God and sciences which relate to His cult: this was his force.
A neutral territory, a base for a temple - a University of God: this was his goal.
He promised to institute a Religion, a social Synthesis, without priestly exactions, without imaginative fantasy under the pretext of revelation, without excessive formalism, and without abuse of practices.
Moses gained a great power in public opinion in the community."

Until now, the preceding refers to Moses before the Exodus.
Here now, is how the post-Exodus-Mosaism was described by the priests of Egypt who were speaking to Strabon :

"Number of adjacent tribes came to enlarge his following. His Teachings and his Promises led his people, and he succeeded in creating a new State of relative importance. His successors conformed to its precepts and walked in the right ways for Justice and true Religion; but not for long. Soon this collectivity degenerated, and passed from ignorance to superstition and fanaticism.">>

Since Strabon describes Moses so precisely as a pharaoh (displaying Akhnaton's distinct feature), it is difficult to imagine that oncoming Christianity would not have been interested in this report. Studies of Christianity show, indeed, that the first Christians referred to an enigmatic Egyptian King who was closely related to Moses.

Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactance, St Augustin, Cyril d'Alexandrie, Suidas, and others, as well as the philosophers Zosimus, Jamblichus, Julian the Emperor, Fulgentius the mythographer, and others, called him Hermes Trismegistus  .

So his legend continued until the Renaissance; at that time European Christianity considered Moses' identification as an Egyptian administrator to the point of probably being the King himself. That matches today's paradigm of Akhnaton.

We can therefore see the deep relation which ties Moses-Akhnaton with Egypt's Royal Family and its policies. Since the Renaissance understood the pharaonic identity of Moses, it reacted in a regressive investment in the Egyptian background of Moses, and accused Christianity of hiding it. Concurrently the lack of elucidation of his Hellenic foreground proves that the international context of Akhnaton's time must be considered - e.g. the Minoan and Hittite interests (people from the North, located by the Aegean Sea, before the foundation of Athens).

This political context adds to the mysteries of Moses' birth and death. While leading the Exodus, Mose-Akhnaton prepares, between these two fundamental secrets, an organization that compels our attention: it plans what appeared, less than a century later, as "The First International Organization in Human History" - known also as Quadesh  which determined the settlement of Israel at the completion of Akhnaton's revolution and flight.

Besides detailed examination of this question, written in French, I abstracted some positions stating, in English, the understanding of the allocation to Israel of the Promised Land.

In this series you can also find:

Akhnaton, Moses, Oedipus, Triple Hermes, Freud, Lacan, Velikovsky, Osman, Theaux.