by Robert J Littman, M.Litt., Ph.D.

A Look at the Man Moses

February 2026

The figure of Moses represents two main traditions; one is the Prince of Egypt, and the other is the charismatic Midianite desert leader who gives the Israelites the Ten Commandments. To understand the stories of Moses, we need to know who the Israelites were, their origins and what their relationship was to the rest of the population of the Levant. Their origins are a separate issue from their ethnicity. Ethnicity is based on a sense of identity by a particular group and the recognition of that identity by others. Golda Meir said in Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: “There was no such thing as Palestinians,” (The Sunday Times June 15, 1969). While the region was under the control of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century there was widespread immigration from other Arab lands, including Egyptians, Algerians, Circassians, and the Arabian Peninsula. During the British Mandate (1917-1947) many Arabs from the Middle East and melded with the local Arab population.

While Golda Meir’s statement in 1969 might have been partially true at the time, over the past 50 years, the Arab residents of the West Bank and Gaza have developed a national and ethnic identify. If they were not Palestinians, they have become Palestinians. The local population of the Levant consisted of numerous Semitic groups, including, Canaanites, Moabites, Israelites, Ammonites, Edomites, Shasu, and from the 12th century, Philistines (Greek Sea Peoples). The Israelites developed as an ethnic group in the late second millennium in Syro-Palestine. Although the United Kingdom of David and Solomon split into Israel in the north and Judah in the south in the late 10th century, by the 9th century BCE both kingdoms, whatever the disparate origins of the Israelites, had absorbed the general population of Canaan, intermarried with them and produced one people. The ethnicity of the population of north and south was Israelite.

In material remains, language, and culture, and most likely DNA, the population of Israel / Judah was Canaanite. Not only did they share an ethnicity, but they had developed a shared sacred history, the Pentateuch and the Prophets. While we can demonstrate archaeologically that the Israelite population had become one people, the origins of their shared sacred history as portrayed in the Pentateuch and Prophets are almost impossible to establish. But, if we have a heterogeneous population, we can surmise that each element had their own foundation myths and sacred histories. What the Pentateuch represents then, is an amalgamation of sacred histories and myths of the various groups that became Israel. That means any attempt to understand the original foundation myths has to look beyond the original Israelite population and expand to the Canaanite, Ammonite, Edomite and other populations.

The story of Moses as a prince of Egypt defies the historical and social structure of Egyptian rulers. There is no way that an Israelite could become a Prince of Egypt. If this is so, then where did the story come from? There was a period of Egyptian history when Semites conquered Egypt, that is the 17th century BCE. A group of Semites from Canaan conquered first the Delta and then most of Egypt. The Egyptians called them “haka-hasut,” or “Foreign Rulers.” These Canaanite rulers adopted Egyptian customs and styled themselves as pharaohs. One such pharaoh wrote on a scarab his cartouche, which reads, “The son of Ra, Jacob the mighty, giving life.” These Hyksos were driven out of the Delta back to Canaan in a mass Exodus in around 1550 BCE by the founder of the 18th dynasty, Ahmose I.

It is very possible that a Hyksos Canaanite named Moses was a prince of Egypt. The other figure called Moses was a charismatic desert leader of a group who had as their god YHVH. This group is identified in Egyptian records as Shasu. The term Shashu refers to Bedouin-like peoples and includes various groups. One of these Shasu groups was associated with YHVH. When Moses encounters God on Mount Sinai (Exodus 6.2) God says to him “My name is YHVH. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew me as El Shadai.” This is a clear example of El, which is the name of God among the Canaanites, becoming one with the god of the Shasu YHVH. Two peoples have come together, and they have melded their God, and they have melded their sacred histories, two Moses, one a Hyksos and the other a Midianite charismatic leader have become one foundation story.

Moses and Monotheism

Moses Was Not a Monotheist

August 2025

Sigmund Freud wrote a work Moses and Monotheism in which he posited that Judaism got its monotheism from Moses, who was an Egyptian, a priest of Akhenaten, who fled Egypt after the death of the pharaoh.  He saw Moses as the founder of monotheistic Judaism.   Freud was wrong on almost all counts. Archaeology and increased understanding of Egypt and Near Eastern cultures in the almost 100 years since Freud’s book, show how wrong he was.   Since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, there have been over 250 archaeological excavations and over 4000 salvage excavations.  This has transformed our knowledge of the origins of ancient Israel.   We now know that the Israelites did not coalesce as a distinct ethnic group until the middle of the 13th century BCE, 100 years after Akhenaten lived.    Akhenaten was the first true monotheist.  He rejected the worship of the Egyptian pantheon and elevated the sun god Aten to the position of the sole god of the universe.   After his death, the priests of Amun reestablished the polytheistic religion of Egypt with Amun-Ra at its head.  The name of Akhenaten, his images and his existence were stamped out.  He, and his successor Tutankhamun, do not even appear in the official lists of pharaohs, kept by the ancient Egyptians.     While Akhenaten was a true monotheist, Moses and early Judaism were not monotheistic.  Rather early Judaism from the time of Moses In the 13th century BCE to the end of the first Temple in the late 7th century was henotheistic, that is the worship of one god without denying the existence of other gods.   This early Judaism was aniconic-it forbade any images of God.  The Ten Commandments, given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai are clearly henotheistic.  The commandment says, “You shall have no other gods “before my face”  which means “in preference to me.”  It is not like the watch cry of Islam, “There is no God but Allah”

When Moses crosses the Sea of Reeds and sings the Song at the Sea, in praise of YHVH, he sings, “who is like you among the gods”, which clearly indicates that there were other gods, none as great as YHVH.  When we turn to the prophets, during the Kingdom of Israel, we find polytheism abounds.  Saul’s son who ruled for two years after the death of his father, bears the name of Ishbaal, or “man of Baal,” which suggests the worship of Baal alongside that of YHVH.   The prophets name bad kings and good kings.  The bad kings had temple prostitution, worship of Asherah, idols in the temple, compared with the good kings.  After the split into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judea, all the rulers of the Northern Kingdom are called “bad kings.”    Very few made the grade as “good kings,” which include Hezekiah and Josiah.   At least two thirds of the First Temple period had “bad kings.”

The Shma has become the credo for Jews and has been interpreted as the watch cry of monotheism.   This prayer appears only in Deuteronomy.  This last book of the Pentateuch is a revision of the account of Moses, and is most likely the “the book of the Law” discovered in the Temple of Jerusalem about 622 BCE (2 Kings 22:8; 2 Chronicles 34:15).   Hezekiah rid the Temple of idols and reinstituted the sole worship of YHVH, only to have his reforms reversed by his son Manassah (687-643 BCE), who restored polytheistic worship of Baal and Asherah (2 Kings 21) in the Temple.   Josiah (640–609 BCE) took after his grandfather Hezekaiah, and removed the worship of other gods.  He validated his reforms through the book of Deuteronomy.   The central [something missing] to Deuteronomy is the shma.

   שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד׃.

In subsequent centuries the Shma has been translated in a way to reflect monotheism.  But if we look at its historical context the translation becomes clearer.  The key to understanding is the word אֶחָד.  Given the motive of eliminating idols and polytheism, the translation should be “Hear (and obey), Israel, YHVH is our God, YHVH alone.”   

It was not until the 5th century BCE that Judaism becomes truly monotheistic.   A main influence of this monotheistic trend may have been Zoroastrianism, which, though not monotheistic, has monotheistic tendencies.  We find in the writing of Deutero-Isaiah the first clear statement of YHVH as the only god who exists:

ישעיה מד:ו כֹּה אָמַר יְ־הוָה מֶלֶךְ יִשְׂרָאֵל וְגֹאֲלוֹ יְ־הוָה צְבָאוֹת אֲנִי רִאשׁוֹן וַאֲנִי אַחֲרוֹן וּמִבַּלְעָדַי אֵין אֱלֹהִים.

Isa 44:6 Thus said YHWH, the King of Israel, their Redeemer, YHWH of Hosts: I am the first and I am the last, and there is no god but Me.

ישעיה מה:ה אֲנִי יְ־הוָה וְאֵין עוֹד זוּלָתִי אֵין אֱלֹהִים…

Isa 45:5 I am YHWH and there is none else; beside Me, there is no god…

As Judaism became monotheistic, אֶחָד came to be translated “one” to reflect the development of monotheism.  Moses was not a monotheist, but he was the inventor of Judaism.  When Judaism became monotheistic, Moses received the title of the inventor of monotheism.

Some Other Thoughts on Moses

1. The Name of Moses

Moses may not have been a priest of the pharaoh Akhenaten, but he was a Jewish Egyptian and brought Egyptian religion and culture with him to found the Jewish nation.   Today, an American Jew will have his Judaism, but often bear an American name, dress like an American, think like an American and talk like an American.  The same could be said for the French Jew, the British Jew, the Italian Jew.  Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan argued that all Jews living outside of Israel lived in two civilization, a Jewish one and the civilization where they were born.  American Jews bear American names, Italian Jews Italian names.  So Moses had an Egyptian name.   Exodus (2:10) relates that Moses was named by Pharaoh’s daughter after a Hebrew verb that means “draw out” since she drew him from the Nile.  Even the medieval Jewish commentators, such as Ibn Ezra and Hezekiah ben Manoah were puzzled how an Egyptian princess could know Hebrew.  Hezekiah ben Manoa suggested that the princess either converted to Judaism or had the name suggested by Moses’ mother Jochebed.   The attempt to identify Moses’ name is a folk etymology, based on similarity of sounds rather than reality.   In fact, Moses is a typical Egyptian name, often of Pharaohs or royalty.  It means “is born,” from the Egyptian word ‘mese’, and was a very common theophoric element in pharaonic names.  For example, Rameses (Ra is born), or Thothmose (Thoth is born).  Ramses in one inscription is called simply “Mose”.   

1. Moses has horns?

Many of us have seen the famous statue of Moses in the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, by Michelangelo.   Moses is depicted with horns.  When Moses comes down from Mount Sinai in Exodus, he is described as “qaran” which can mean “rays of light” or horns.   Most translations have interpreted “qaran” as rays of light.  However, the Latin translation in St. Jerome, is cornu, which can mean either rays of light or horns.  Starting in the 11th century CE Moses is depicted with horns, and that continues until the early 16th century, when “cornu” started to be translated as “rays of light.”   But did the original Hebrew text preserve the picture of Moses with horns?   At the time of Moses, Israel and the Levant had been under Egyptian influence for hundreds of years.  For much of the second millennium the Levant had been Egyptian territory or an Egyptian vassal state.  Egyptian border fortresses, dozens of Egyptian scarabs and material remains have been found in archaeological excavations in Israel.  The events at Mount Sinai are full of Egyptian material.   If we examine the 10 Commandments, 6 are present in the Confession of Righteousness of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.   The Golden calf is probably the Apis bull of Egypt.  So who has horns in Egypt?  The god Amun Ra.    When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in the 4th century BCE, he was depicted with the horns of Amun Ra.  So perhaps Michelangelo was right-Moses was wearing horns when he descended from Mount Sinai.