Jan Assmann

A groundbreaking account of how the Book of Exodus shaped fundamental aspects of Judaism, Christianity, and IslamThe Book of Exodus may be the most consequential story ever told. But its spectacular moments of heaven-sent plagues and parting seas overshadow its true significance, says Jan Assmann, a leading historian of ancient religion. The story of Moses guiding the enslaved children of Israel out of captivity to become God's chosen people is the foundation of an entirely new idea of religion, one that lives on today in many of the world's faiths. First introduced in Exodus, new ideas of faith, revelation, and above all covenant transformed basic assumptions about humankind’s relationship to the divine and became the bedrock of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Revised and expanded, this volume deals with the religious traditions of ancient Egypt, which have come down to us in a state which is both extremely fragmentary and complex. New material - especially hymns collected in Theban tombs - now allows a much more precise allocation of religious texts and ideas in terms of time, place and social context. Within the field of solar religion, no less than five different traditions have to be distinguished: 1) the liturgical traditions of the royal solar cult, which for their secrecy and exclusivity are labelled the mysteries of the sun cult; 2) the traditional mythology of the solar course expressed in hymns and pictorial representations; 3) the revolutionary process culminating in the Amarna period, which discards the mythic images and gives a monotheistic construction of the solar course, a process which starts before Akhenaten's revolution; 4) the theology of Amun-Re, the God of Thebes, before the Amarna Period, a theology of primacy where one god acts as chief of a pantheon; and 5) the quite different theology of this same Amun-Re after Amarna, a theology which answers the monotheistic experience by developing a kind of pantheism - the concept of the hidden god - who is both cosmic god and personal saviour.

A groundbreaking account of how the Book of Exodus shaped fundamental aspects of Judaism, Christianity, and IslamThe Book of Exodus may be the most consequential story ever told. But its spectacular moments of heaven-sent plagues and parting seas overshadow its true significance, says Jan Assmann, a leading historian of ancient religion. The story of Moses guiding the enslaved children of Israel out of captivity to become God's chosen people is the foundation of an entirely new idea of religion, one that lives on today in many of the world's faiths. The Invention of Religion sheds new light on ancient scriptures to show how Exodus has shaped fundamental understandings of monotheistic practice and belief.Assmann delves into the enduring mythic power of the Exodus narrative, examining the text's compositional history and calling attention to distinctive motifs and dichotomies: enslavement and redemption; belief and doubt; proper worship and idolatry; loyalty and betrayal. Revelation is a central theme--the revelation of God's power in miracles, of God's presence in the burning bush, and of God's chosen dwelling among the Israelites in the vision of the tabernacle. Above all, it is God's covenant with Israel—the binding obligation of the Israelites to acknowledge God as their redeemer and obey His law—that is Exodus's most encompassing and transformative idea, one that challenged basic assumptions about humankind's relationship to the divine in the ancient world.The Invention of Religion is a powerful account of how ideas of faith, revelation, and covenant, first introduced in Exodus, shaped Judaism and were later adopted by Christianity and Islam to form the bedrock of the world's Abrahamic religions.

"Egiptlane Mooses" (1997) analüüsib Moosese kui omaette "mälufiguuri" retseptsiooni Lääne kultuuris Vana-Kreekast Sigmund Freudini, rõhuasetusega 17.-18. sajandil. Selle analüüsi käigus avab uurimus aga monoteistliku mõtlemise juuri ja loomust üldiselt. Autor nimetab monoteistlikku pööret inimkonna ajaloos, mis asus vastandama ainuõige ainujumala usku kõigile ülejäänutele, Moosese eristuseks, tuues välja selle olulised tagajärjed Lääne kultuurile. Uurimus liigitub autori sõnutsi mitte ajaloo, vaid mäluajaloo valdkonda: erinevalt tavapärasest ajaloost ei huvitu mäluajalugu mitte minevikust kui sellisest, vaid minevikust, nii nagu seda on mäletatud, mineviku faktuaalsuse asemel uurib mäluajalugu mineviku aktuaalsust. Jan Assmann (snd 1938) on tänapäeva tuntumaid egüptolooge ja religiooniajaloolasi, kes on avaldanud suure hulga uurimusi nii Vana-Egiptuse kultuurist kui ka selle retseptsioonist hilisematel sajanditel. Viimasel paarikümnel aastal on tema huvi fookuses olnud monoteismiuurimine. Assmann töötas alates 1976. aastast kuni emeriteerumiseni 2003 Heidelbergi ülikooli egüptoloogiaprofessorina. Ta on valitud mitme ülikooli audoktoriks ja pälvinud palju hinnalisi tunnustusi.

The shift from polytheism to monotheism changed the world radically. Akhenaten and Moses-a figure of history and a figure of tradition-symbolize this shift in its incipient, revolutionary stages and represent two civilizations that were brought into the closest connection as early as the Book of Exodus, where Egypt stands for the old world to be rejected and abandoned in order to enter the new one.The seven chapters of this seminal study shed light on the great transformation from different angles. Between Egypt in the first chapter and monotheism in the last, five chapters deal in various ways with the transition from one to the other, analyzing the Exodus myth, understanding the shift in terms of evolution and revolution, confronting Akhenaten and Moses in a new way, discussing Karl Jaspers' theory of the Axial Age, and dealing with the eighteenth-century view of the Egyptian mysteries as a cultural model.