Moses Memory Book

Moses recalls the adventures God led him on including freeing the Israelites, the miracles from God, and traveling across the desert.

Standing at the very foundation of monotheism, and so of Western culture, Moses is a figure not of history, but of memory. As such, he is the quintessential subject for the innovative historiography Jan Assmann both defines and practices in this work, the study of historical memory--a study, in this case, of the ways in which factual and fictional events and characters are stored in religious beliefs and transformed in their philosophical justification, literary reinterpretation, philological restitution (or falsification), and psychoanalytic demystification. To account for the complexities of the foundational event through which monotheism was established, Moses the Egyptian goes back to the short-lived monotheistic revolution of the Egyptian king Akhenaten (1360-1340 B.C.E.). Assmann traces the monotheism of Moses to this source, then shows how his followers denied the Egyptians any part in the origin of their beliefs and condemned them as polytheistic idolaters. Thus began the cycle in which every "counter-religion," by establishing itself as truth, denounced all others as false. Assmann reconstructs this cycle as a pattern of historical abuse, and tracks its permutations from ancient sources, including the Bible, through Renaissance debates over the basis of religion to Sigmund Freud's Moses and Monotheism. One of the great Egyptologists of our time, and an exceptional scholar of history and literature, Assmann is uniquely equipped for this undertaking--an exemplary case study of the vicissitudes of historical memory that is also a compelling lesson in the fluidity of cultural identity and beliefs.

Originally published: London: Methuen & Co., 1952.

In Memoir of Moses, A. J. Culp explores the role of the book of Deuteronomy as the chief memory producer of Israel's covenant with Yahweh instead of a product of memory from ancient Israel.

Lawgiver and liberator. Seer and prophet. The only human permitted to converse with God "face-to-face." Moses is the most commanding presence in the Old Testament. Yet as Jonathan Kirsch shows in this brilliant, stunningly original volume, Moses was also an enigmatic and mysterious figure--at once a good shepherd and a ruthless warrior, a spiritual leader and a magician, a lawgiver who broke his own laws, God's chosen friend and hounded victim. Now, in Moses: A Life, Kirsch accomplishes the wondrous feat of revealing the real Moses, a strikingly modern figure who steps out from behind the facade of Sunday school lessons and movie matinees. Drawing on the biblical text and a treasury of both scholarship and storytelling, Kirsch examines all that is known and all that has been imagined of Moses. In these vivid pages, we see the marvels and mysteries of Moses's life in a new light--his rescue in infancy and adoption by an Egyptian princess; his reluctant assumption of the role of liberator; his struggles to wrest his people from the pharaoh's dominion; his desperate vigil on Mount Sinai. Here too is the darker, more ominous Moses--the sorcerer, the husband of a pagan woman, the military commander who cold-bloodedly ordered the slaying of innocent people; the beloved of God whom God sought twice to murder. Jonathan Kirsch brings both prodigious knowledge and a keen imagination to one of the most compelling stories of the Bible, and the results are fascinating. A figure of mystery, passion, and contradiction, Moses emerges from this book very much a hero for our time.

"This exhaustive and important study of the meaning of Moses in the Bible demonstrates conclusively 'the Mosaicization of the canon'... Nohrnberg possesses a remarkable typological imagination. No summary can do justice to the sheer brilliance of the congruities and disparities he discovers on every page." -- Journal of Religion "LIKE UNTO MOSES proposes a series of challenging perspectives on theprocess of canon-formation in the Bible. James Nohrnberg's ability totrace connections among different elements of the biblical corpus isunflaggingly resourceful, sometimes provocative, and often deeplyinstructive." -- Robert Alter "... an insightful study of the traditions of Moses in the Bible." -- Choice "This is a formidably argued, large book.... It is also certainly the most sophisticated book on Moses and one of the most sophisticated readings of the Bible which I have ever had the pleasure of reading.... I think it is a brilliant achievement and would recommend it to every reader of the Bible." -- R. P. Carroll, The Society for Old Testament Study Book List The Moses of the Bible is a veiled figure who exists both inside and outside the text which describes and defines him. "Moses" is a creation of Israelite literary and scriptural tradition, an ideological construct, a reinvented memory, a projection of what Israel wished to see in Moses. Nohrnberg examines the texts of "Moses" for their representation of the tradition's self-doubt and its revisionary, "deuteronomic" content.

What if there was another Moses, very different from the one we know? According to tradition, Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. He is depicted there in a surprising way: with and against God; with and against his people; bringer of the Tablets of the Law, which he breaks; a stuttering prophet, guide to a Promised Land entry to which remains forbidden to him, and dead in an unknown tomb... Highly confusing for those who imagine a Moses carved out of a single block. By way a series of possible portraits - including one of a female Moses - Jean-Christophe Attias follows the metamorphoses of the Hebrew liberator through ages and cultures. Drawing on rabbinical sources as well as the Bible itself, he examines the words of the texts and especially their silences. He discovers here a fragile prophet, teacher of a Judaism of the spirit, of wandering, and of incompleteness. Receive and transmit. Listen, even when the message is confusing. Insistently question, especially when there is no answer. And always, remain free. This seems to be the Judaism of Moses. A Judaism that speaks to believers and others - to Jews, of course, but also far beyond them, inviting its hearers to have done with tribal pride, the violence of weapons, and the tyranny of a special place.

"This is the deceptively simple story of Moses, a street child who scrounges a living on the harsh streets of Dar es Salaam. His ingrained need to be free takes him deep into the Tanzanian wilderness, where he faces both the tragedy of life and the hope it offers."--Back cover.