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The Moses Mystery: The African Origins of the Jewish People

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Gary Greenberg's research and analysis of biblical history is interesting but not new. Much of what was presented has already be speculated by the english scholar Gerald Massey who wrote extensively on the orgins of Jewish ancient history and the relationship of that history to the ancient Kemet people during the late 1800's. Gerald Maasey's work was banned in much of the United States. He wrote the following books: Book of the Beginnings Vol 1 and 2 Egypt: Ancient Light of the World Vol 1 and 2 Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ These books have ben republished by A&B Books (Brooklyn) and Black Classic Press (Baltimore). Gary Greenberg does probe deeper into the theory by making comparisions between the Old Testament and what is know of the various Egyptian Dynasties. Much deserve propers are given attributed to the ancient pharoah Ankhaten, the first true contributor to monotheism. He and his followers gave the world the 42 Negative Affirmations of Ma'at which were precusors to what is known today as the 10 Commandments. Unless you have a thorough background in Ancient Egyptian history and religion, his dissertation could be very difficult to follow. As a prerequisite to reading the Bible Myth, I strongly urge the novice to read Anthony Browder's Nile Valley Contribution of Civilization. Using modern text book and teaching techniques, Browder provides an excellent foundation to allow you to decipher much of what Greenberg is presenting. Other scholars who has done an enormous amount of research in the these areas are: Josef Ben-Jochanan African Origins of Western Religions Civilization or Barbarism We, the Black Jews Chiek Ante Diop Precolonial Black Africa African Origins of Western Civilzation

Who was the historical Moses?

Using writings from the second century BCE Egyptian priest of Thoth Manetho and some deductive reasoning, Gary Greenberg thinks he's found him.

Best known for his fascinating book 101 Bible Myths, Greenberg an attorney and amateur biblical scholar is always good reading and can always be counted on for providing interesting speculation in answering bible mysteries. His strength is bringing solid legal reasoning to biblical speculation and his weakness is bringing solid legal reasoning to biblical speculation.

This book is an excellent case in point for showing the limits of using legal reasoning to comprehend bible mysteries. Greenberg builds his case that there really was an Exodus and that it really did take place in Egypt by showing similarities between ritual practices in Judaism and those in Egyptian religion (for example, circumcision and not eating with foreigners). However circumcision was practiced far and wide in antiguity including the fijians and samoans of Polynesia, some peoples in Australia, and even among the ancient Assyrians and Phoenicians. Likewise, variant dietary practices are known and have been known not only in the west but the east as well.

Next, Greenberg looks to Manetho a second century BCE priest of Thoth assigned by Ptolemy II to write a history of Egypt from its inception to the time of Alexander the Great. In writing his history, Manetho recounted an Egyptian version of the Exodus wherein he called Moses by the name of Osarseph and placed him around the time of Ahknaten, the renegade Pharoah who suppressed all but his religion of Atenism or sun worship. According to Greenberg Moses was himself a holdover priest of Thoth who was forcibly expelled from Egypt with his followers following the downfall of Ahknaten and the discrediting of Atenism. Again, though the theory no doubt has an ostensible plausibility it flies in the face of the way ancient historians plied their task. They didn't deny the fanstastic allegations of other writers, but merely rephrased them in way to strip their opponents claim of merit. A case in point is the second/third century debate between Celsus an anti christian and Origen a Christian proponent. For his part Celsus explained Jesus' lack of a father by naming a Roman solider Pantera as being his true but historically suppressed father. This process of rephrasing a minimization was common in ancient times and was in play when Manetho recounted his version of the Exodus.

What's more, Greenberg eschewed actual biblical archeological evidence in drawing his conclusions. Specifically, he failed to acurately weigh the lack of physical evidence in appraising the fact or existence of the Exodus. This would had a big effect on his work too because there is and has been a strong concensus in the biblical archeological community respecting the lack of factual evidence for the historical occurence of the Exodus.

Despite these failings, Greenberg has still managed to produce an interesting and thought provoking book. For those interested in perhaps a similar and more thorough treatment of the Isreal in Egypt position read Israel in Egypt by James Hoffmeier.

The author approaches histhesis from two directions. First by matching Egyptian dates with chronologies of the Bible, in an exercise that often appears to be tenuous and exhaustive. But combined with the much more intriguing second half of the book, which deals with comparative mythology, creates a very convincing point of approach for understanding the source of Biblical myths. By the end, I was glad I read this book.

The Bible Myth is a compelling theory and Mr. Greenberg's research was quite thought provoking. I am a student of history and probably have a better than average knowledge of Egyptian history, yet I found myself quite lost on several occasions. It would be to the reader's advatage to have a general knowledge of Egyptian history especially between the Pharoahs of Akahanaten and Ramases II. If Bible or Egyptian studies interest you this is a truly fascinating book!

There really IS a lot of mystery about the biblical Moses. For example,...Why did Moses even GO into the desert for 40 years????? It never made sense to me.
Mr. Greenberg postulates a reasonable answer to my question.
He postulates that Moses was the High Priest of Pharoah Akhnaten's new monotheistic religion,...Aten worship. Historians know that the old Amun worship was persecuted by Pharoah Akhnaten,...and when Akhnaten died the Amun priests returned to power once more and persecuted the Aten worshippers,...probably enslaving them.

According to Greenberg,..(in MY words) Moses went into the desert for the same reason that Ayatollah Khomeini went to France for 15 years,....Both had religio-politico reasons for being a persona non grata in his homeland.
And BOTH, after their periods of exile, RETURNED to their homelands,...but here is where their experiences diverge. Whereas the Ayatollah succeeded in re-establishing himself at home and became prominent once more,...the opposite happened to Moses. Moses returned to Egypt, where he used to be High Priest of the Aten Monotheitic religion, but faced hostility and failure,...to the extent that he once more had to leave Egypt,...this time taking his people with him saying "Let my people go."

Greenberg goes quite deeply into Egyptian history showing how the biblical Moses existed at the very same time that Akhnaten. He also mentions the lack of archelogical evidence to support the biblical story of a "Hebrew" people from Palestine having been enslaved in Egypt.

This is a very interesting book with lots of historical back-up. Unfortunately a Peter Temes of the NW Times gave the book the kind of review one would expect from someone who is not able to let go of bible stories he has known from childhood. He just summarily pooh-poohs the whole idea,...a not very intelligent approach.

I would certainly recommend buying and studying this book. It will keep you busy for quite a few nights,....that is,...if you are sufficiently open minded. :-)

"There's a lot of myth that contains history. There's a lot of history that's mostly myth. .. I was starting to do some independent study, and it resulted in looking at some early parts of the Bible." Gary Greenberg


Novel Old Notions:
For a curious, learned reader of a book of this genre, to know that the Hebrew Bible stories are tinted with Ancient Mideast folklore and legend, are not novel notions. Archaeologists have long emphasized that there is no physical record of many ancient locations mentioned in the Bible, while there are conflicting dating issues of some Hebrew Bible events. Egyptian roots for the 'biblical' Hebrews were mentioned by Herodotus and some other ancient historians. Recent African origins of Western Civilization debate, revived the 19th century Hebrew origins speculations. Professor T. Meek of Toronto university wrote two related books; Hebrew origins,& Primitive monotheism and the religion of Moses. (Published by Harper& Row from 1936 to 1960) Professor Jan Assmann, one of the most eminent Egyptologists wrote; The Search for God in Ancient Egypt & Moses the Egyptian, Harvard, 1997, analyzing many of the problematic issues which Greenberg argued.

Hebrews' Egyptian Rroots:
In his 'The Bible Myth: African Origins of the Jewish People,' (originally printed in 1997 as: The Moses Mystery), Greenberg repeated the arguement that there was no archaeological support for most of the stories of the Old Testament, and that no documentary evidence is founf for the Genesis accounts; Abraham journey from Ur, the four centuries of Hebrew sojourn in Egypt, the Exodus, or years of Sinai desert wandering, considering them as myths. The Hebrews' Egyptian roots which has undisputed extant ancient references, is expanded by Greenberg who supports a proposition that the Hebrews were Egyptian who followed Akhenaten's monotheism, while Moses was Aten high priest who fled Egypt, after King Akhenaten's death and the violent elimination of his religion.

Debated Biblical Accounts:
Greenberg's term of Bible Mythic Fables, in support of the literary influence of other ancient traditions, following the oral Hebrew era, and his reference to the quotations within the books of the Hebrew Bible, especially of Egyptian wisdom is supported by most Biblical scholars, and defended by many Jewish experts. Greenberg describes the Pentateuch, of today, as 'a mosaic of several ancient documentary sources, patched together, over the centuries, edited by the EJPD redactors. The Bible Creation accounts, he says are copies of older Egyptian creation myths, in one variant, Creation begins with a word from the deity Amen, just as in Genesis. The story of the Flood similarly involves suspicious resemblance to older flood myths by the Assyrians and the Egyptians. What 'is called' the Ten Commandments are commonsense prohibitions against murder, adultery, thievery, etc., quoted in several different ways, in different books of the Torah. Greenberg criticizes the whole 'confusing story' of how God gave Moses those commandments, written in stone as a good example of how it is patched-together fable. There are actually two non consistent versions of the Ten Commandments, one in Exodus, and a rather different list in Deuteronomy. The result, he claims, is that much of what you read in the Bible stories are illogical legends of contradictory rendering.


His Conclusion:
What is the grand lesson to be taken from this? The lesson, says Greenberg, basically, is to understand the book as a product of its times, attempting to explain what everybody understood to be history from a particular point of view. Greenberg allegation that, 'It's not a divinely inspired book,' comes from his narrow definition of revelation as a mechanical dictation. The Bible is not intended to be a historical record or an archeological archive. Greenberg's apology, that by exposing errors in the Bible, he is rescuing it from theologians, should be understood in the light of the former statement.

Gary Greenberg:
Greenberg, a trial lawyer, uses some of his interrogation techniques and gives a lot of attention focusing on the word: myth. In this sense, Greenberg asserts himself as a controversial biblical scholar, who while participates in related academic conferences to earn good publicity. The New York Times wrote him as an eccentric writer, while Egyptologists and biblical scholars, resented an amateur's attempt to delete the barriers between their distinct areas of scholarship.

The Biblical Archaeology Society:
Based in New York City, is a non-sectarian educational group that meets monthly to hear lectures on Ancient Egypt, and presents a number of lectures each year on aspects of ancient Near Eastern archaeology, history and literaturea. Gary Greenberg is its current president.

Library Journal review said: Despite the misleading subtitle???

I guess the Library Journal isn't breaking any laws for lying to the people. There is nothing misleading about the title of this book. It's called the The African Origins of the Jewish People for one reason. It happens to be the truth and this book as well as The African Origin of Modern Judaism, by Jose V. Malcioln and many many others makes it very clear. Don't let them fool you!

If you are interested in studying the origins of the Israelites (and the origins of the Hebrew Bible) then this should be one of the books that should be on your reading list. The Israelite history and religion have a lot of connections to ancient Egypt. This isn't a perfect bridge between ancient Egypt and the Israelites but, it builds a good foundation for the research. It's a `must' read for those involved in biblical scholarship.

After you read this book you would be insane to follow the bible. Times are changing and people are learning the truth and books like this sure help.

Gary Greenberg is a New York City criminal defense attorney, and president of the Biblical Archaeology Society of New York; he is also the author of books such as 101 Myths of the Bible: How Ancient Scribes Invented Biblical History, The Sins of King David: A New History, and Judas Brief: Who Really Killed Jesus?.

He writes in the first chapter of this 1996 book, "In this book I offer a radical new solution to the mystery of Israel's origins, one that places its earliest roots in fourteenth-century B.C. Egypt during the reign of the monotheistic pharaoh Akhenaten. I call this the Atenist theory, after the unique deity that he worshipped. It holds that the refugees departing Egypt during what later became known as the Exodus were native Egyptians, devoted followers of the pharaoh Akhenaten."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"Why does the Bible have such a detailed history of Israel's ancestors, from the Creation to the death of Joseph, and such a detailed history of Israel, from the birth of Moses to the end years of biblical history, and virtually no description of what occurred in the centuries between?" (Pg. 17)
"It is one thing to point out that there is no evidence corroborating the biblical account of Israel's early years; it is quite another to substitute whatever theory one wants. After all, without evidence to the contrary, it is possible that the broad outlines of biblical history are correct." (Pg. 21)
"This image of a ladder to heaven has puzzled biblical scholars looking for Semitic antecedents for the concept... To find its origin we need look no further than the Egyptian Pyramid Texts." (Pg. 232-233)
"Although the twelve tribes existed only as myth, it is worth spending some time on some Egyptian traditions that may have been responsible for this belief." (Pg. 268)
"So, Israel was not created out of a confederation of twelve tribes. Joshua did not conquer Canaan. And there were no ten lost tribes." (Pg. 274)