The Exodus Quest

ELEVEN
I

'Monotheism,' declared Stafford.

'I beg your pardon,' frowned Fatima.

'Monotheism. That's the key. Moses was the original champion of the One True God. "Thou shalt have no other gods but me." And what sets Akhenaten apart from any other pharaoh?'

'Monotheism?' suggested Fatima.

'Exactly. Monotheism. Before him, Egypt had always had a multitude of gods. But under Akhenaten, everything changed. For him, there was only one God. The sun disc. The Aten. All others were fabrications of the human mind and the craftsman's art. And he did more than pay lip service to this idea. He acted upon it. He closed the temples of rival gods, particularly those of Amun, the Aten's chief rival. In fact, he had Amun's name excised from monuments all over Egypt. You'll acknowledge that much, I trust?'

'Acknowledge it? I wrote a book on the subject.'

'Good. Now, Manetho – he who claimed that Osarseph was Moses – based his history on the records of the Temple of Amun in Heliopolis. And what do you imagine the priests of Amun would have thought of Akhenaten, the man who'd closed down their temples and excised their God's name across the land? Do you not think they'd have considered him an interloper? His supporters lepers?' He took another swallow of wine then wiped his mouth, smearing dark hairs against his wrist. 'Good,' he said, taking silence for assent. 'Now, let's take another look at Moses. A Hebrew child, we are told, set upon the Nile in a basket of rushes, rescued by the pharaoh's daughter who gave him the name Moses because it was Hebrew for "drawn out". But that whole tale has the ring of folklore, doesn't it? Why would a pharaoh's daughter give a foundling a Hebrew name, after all? She wouldn't have known he was Hebrew, for one thing. Nor would she have spoken Hebrew, not least because it didn't exist back then. No. The true explanation is simple. Moses means "son" in Egyptian, and it's a common part of pharaonic names, as in Tutmosis, son of Thoth, or Ramesses, son of Ra. The foundling myth was merely a retrospective attempt to claim Moses as a born Jew; but the truth is that he was born an Egyptian prince.'

'The Bible says he murdered an Egyptian soldier, doesn't it?' frowned Fatima. 'And that he fled to the land of Kush. I can't recall Akhenaten doing that.'

'You're never going to get a perfect match,' said Stafford. 'The question is whether the fit's close enough. It clearly is. And that's without even going into the remarkable parallels between the doctrines of Akhenaten and Moses.'

'Which parallels are those exactly?'

'I'll tell you, if you give me a chance.'

'Please,' said Fatima. 'Be my guest.'

'I already am your guest,' observed Stafford, gesturing grandly with his glass, slopping wine like blood onto his borrowed galabaya. He brushed the droplets irritably away, then composed himself to complete his thesis.