The Hero’s Story

Biblical scholarship, however, discounts Moses’ authorship and maintains that the first five books were written by different scribes at different time periods. The story of Moses as related in Exodus is the hero’s story as elaborated by Joseph Campbell in works such as The Hero with a Thousand Faces or Transformations of Myth Through Time. Although Moses is born a Hebrew he is separated from his people shortly after birth and denied his cultural heritage. Upon discovering who he is he must leave the life of comfort he has grown used to and embarks on a journey which leads to his recognition of his purpose in life. He is afraid to accept what he knows he must do but does it anyway and succeeds. The Exodus story resonates as it does because it touches on universal themes and symbols regarding personal identity, purpose in life, and the involvement of the divine in human affairs.

Moses’ entrance to the story purposefully employs the motif of the infant born of humble parents who becomes (or is unknowingly) a prince. At the time of the writing of Exodus this story had been known in the Middle and Near East for almost 2,000 years through the Legend of Sargon of Akkad. Sargon (2334-2279 BCE) was the founder of the Akkadian empire, the first multi-national empire in the world. His famous legend, which he made great use of in his lifetime to achieve his aims, relates how his mother was a priestess who “set me in a basket of rushes and sealed my lid with bitumen/ She cast me into the river which rose over me. The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me. Akki/the drawer of water, appointed me as his gardener” (Pritchard, 85-86). Sargon grows up to overthrow the king and unite the region of Mesopotamia under his rule.

The writer of Exodus also wanted his hero associated with Sargon: a true hero who would rise from inauspicious beginnings to achieve greatness.

The Egyptian Priest Theory

The Egyptian historian Manetho (3rd century BCE), however, tells the story of an Egyptian priest named Osarsiph who led a group of lepers in rebellion against the wishes of the king who wanted them banished. Osarsiph, Manetho claims, rejected the polytheism of Egyptian religion in favor of a monotheistic understanding and changed his name to Moses meaning “child of…” and usually used in conjunction with a god’s name (Ramesses would be Ra-Moses, son of Ra, for example). Osarsiph would have attached no god’s name to his own, it would seem, since he believed himself a son of a living god who had no name human beings could – or should – utter.

Manetho’s story of Osarsiph/Moses is related by the historian Flavius Josephus (c. 37-100 CE) who cited Manetho’s story at length in his own work. The Roman historian Tacitus (c. 56-117 CE) tells a similar story of a man named Moses who becomes the leader of a colony of Egyptian lepers. This has led a number of writers and scholars (Sigmund Freud and Joseph Campbell among them) to assert that the Moses of the Bible was not a Hebrew who was raised in an Egyptian palace but an Egyptian priest who led a religious revolution to establish monotheism. This theory links Moses closely with the pharaoh Akhenaten (1353-1336 BCE) who established his own monotheistic belief in the god Aten, unlike any other god and more powerful than all, in the fifth year of his reign. Akhenaten’s monotheism may have been born of a genuine religious impulse or could have been a reaction against the priests of the god Amun who had grown almost as wealthy and powerful as the throne. In establishing monotheism and banning all the old gods of Egypt, Akhenaten effectively eliminated any threat to the crown from the priesthood. The theory advanced by Campbell and others (following Sigmund Freud’s Moses and Monotheism in this) is that Moses was a priest of Akhenaten who led like-minded followers out of Egypt after Akhenaten’s death when his son, Tutankhamun (c. 1336-1327 BCE), restored the old gods and practices. Still other scholars equate Moses with Akhenaten himself and see the Exodus story as a mythological rendering of Akhenaten’s honest attempt at religious reform.

Still, there is an Egyptian record of an event which, some claim, inspired the Exodus story in Manetho’s account of the Egyptian priest Osarsiph and his leadership of the community of lepers. Manetho’s account has been lost but is quoted at length by Josephus and later by the Roman historian Tacitus. According to Josephus, the king Amenophis of Egypt (who is equated with Amenhotep III, c. 1386-1353 BCE) wished to “see the gods” but was told by an oracle that he could not – unless he cleansed Egypt of lepers. He therefore banished the lepers to the city of Avaris where they were united under the leadership of a monotheistic priest named Osarsiph. Osarsiph rebelled against the rule of Amenophis, instituted monotheism, and invited the Hyksos back into Egypt. In Tacitus’ version, the Egyptian king is named Bocchoris (the Greek name for the king Bakenranef, c. 725-720 BCE) and he exiles a segment of his population afflicted with leprosy to the desert. The exiles remain in the desert “in a stupour of grief” until one of them, Moses, rallies and leads them to another land. Tacitus goes on to say how Moses then taught the people a new belief in one supreme god and “gave them a novel form of worship, opposed to all that is practiced by other men”