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...while I find your investigations
of interest, my sense is that the historical
evidence is too scanty, and the
religions too divergent
(Judaism, and its God, appear
to advocate a very different kind of moral basis
- i.e., the ten commandments,
etc., and the Jewish God is a storm God while
Aknaton is a `sunny'
God) to warrant any assumption of
possible identitybetween them
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 About the general historical
evidence - one must picture the geopolitics of the East Mediterranean
in Akhnaton's time. The Sinai was part of Egypt (which extended even much
norther). One must also consider the archeological artifacts - Egyptian
settlement in the Sinai were numerous - to such an extent that one of
the most famous statue of Akhnaton's mother was found by the Sinai.
We know also that Tiy's family was probably Haribu (Hebrew?)- and that she
had important 'domains' in Northern of Egypt.
This is
just to give a general idea of the context at that time.
About the
quality of the historical evidence - if there are ever 'evidences'
- the discoveries in the period of Egypt are perhaps the most documented
in archeology. I draw a graph
 some times ago which
evoques the concentration of information we have recently gathered from this
period.
Of course,
this regards mostly Egypt and not the Sinai - but it gives an idea of the
intensity of information that we must consider today. I believe that the
idea of 'scanty' documentation must be slighty revisited. For instance, we
can compare our present situation within that of M.
Ficinus, when he made his translations for C.de Medicis - he concluded
that Hermes Trismegistus was not only the Egyptian King who had initiated
Moses, but was Moses himself. It caused the final turmoil of the
Renaissance
, yet this
revision of our Western memory could already be done with much less historical
evidences than today. For instance, in Ficinus circumstances
- the hellenique data was missing. Ficinus could only argue that the manuscripts
bought by Medicis originated from Macedonia ; that was little for supporting
the disclosure up to Orpheus (who was the hellenic component of the Triple
Hermes Thot - aka Trismegistus - at that time).
The
identification of Pharao-Moses being insufficently shouldered by Orpheus,
the Renaissance collapsed (according to Yates). Very different is the situation
today, when Egyptology allowed the strict recognition of Oedipus by Velikovsky
(that at his turn asks us to consider the
exile depicted in Oedipus at Colonus).
There
again, I agree, all this do not refer directly to the Sinai event/religion
- but I had to mention this context first.
Now we can
look at Moses enigma - with mentioning Oedipus to begin:
Freud
who was so interested by the 'Oedipus Complex', repressed a
Oedipus-Akhnaton that his disciple K.Abraham suggested to him by 1912.
Freud never mentioned him, nor his hypothesis, in his further reports.
It is so blatant that even his docile disciples have regularly remarked and
questioned this repression.
According
to Freud, the Oedipus Complex depicts how the psychology
- the morality and its representations - evolves and passes through
transformation during the acquisition of the mind of civilization. For instance
Freud has been very good at describing how psychological values and images
would reverse radically (as it proceeds in the Unconscious etc...) along
these phases-process.
Even closer to Moses,
one have Freud's study - _Moses_and_Monotheism_ - itself.
I would like to make a note at this point. It is legitimate to consider
Freud as a reference in this matter. For during half a century he has been
the only one who has stated on the affair - though it is clear that
the matter is serious enough for large and collective studies. Such a general
silence combined with Freud isolation indicates a process regarding the
collective psychology - so that Freud was 'charged' with an important point
of view of the subject (right and/or false, yet
certainly significant).
Freud
made exactly the same observation as you did. The difference was so big between
the mentality of the two religions (Atonism & Judaism) that
he could not imagine that the same man had delivered both. As I said, he
forgot well his Oedipus Complex transformative law. First Freud did
not mentioned that the leader of the Exodus could have been Akhnaton
himeself (it is remarkable that in thebook he wrote during
nearly 20years in his cabinet under his hudge poster of Ramses.2 (the
powerful pharaoh who organized the detetion of Akhnaton! See Quades
below) - he could not think of an Exile in Akhanton's case / though it
is blattant that Akhnaton disappeared, only the very recent
Egyptology admit that it was probably an exile).
Freud
thought that a disciple of Atonism was responsible for the Exodus - and
second, he declared that he had been assassinated, by the Hebrews.
It was big thing for Freud - the Murder-of-the-Father ! He claimed that,
consequently, a guilt was so intense that the Hebrew re-enthroned a new Moses
- a stand-in, so that they would deny and hide their crime later.
With this second guy and their guilt, they would have invented the frightening
Yavhe - as you noticed - very different from the gentle Aton.
Yet,
the repression of the transformative Oedipus, and the silence on the possible
exiled Akhnaton, is indicative that Freud was still repressing a lot with
his Moses.
Today,
we have the strict Egyptological report by Osman, stating Moses-Akhnaton.
Egyptological events following the end of Amarna would be very difficult
to explain is Akhnaton had died in Egypt and/or if he was not exiled.
As I also mentioned in my page about Osman, when he declares
that Akhnaton has been murdered during his exile by the Sinai - he had no
indications, but wanted just to fit with Freud on that point.
We must finally consider
that - either assassinated, or having escaped further - the Hebrews were
first warrant of an Atonism which was adjusted to their
circumstances (there is a revised versions of the Tables after the golden
calf) - and moreover, in the following years they had to
negociate in the Ramses-Hittite Quades international
re-organizations. It is clear that the land of Israel must be given to them
at that moment - and most propably under the condition that the Egyptian
Aton was absolutely erased (at the same time Egyptian and even
Hittite were deleting 'forever' from their history the Amarnian experience
as well as a specific relation that the father of the Hittite king had with
Akhnaton's project) - this is enough of a experience for establishing
the Judaic dogma that the Hebrew refer as the dispute of 'Kadesh'
(in their Kadesh, the tribes debate what will be the tale of
their history).
There are
also arguments beyond Moses, evidently :
You may
have noticed that I have also written an essay
which explores and suggests
a pre-Hellenique influence in the set up of Atonism. This would explain how
and why Akhnaton's exile had to (and could) reach as far as the pre-Aegean
area. It explains enough that a missing character of Atonism had been kept
in Greece while protected by the ferocious figure of the Hebrew wagging the
dog(1) (the very strategy, by the way, depicted in
_Oedipus_at_Colonus_ when leaving his first exile stage - sort of "Let
them beleive that I am dead and that they have changed my God, so we
can quietly continue the work in the woods)" ...
NOTE (1) If you allow for my poor English
the help of this contemporary metaphore...
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