The Mystery of the Copper Scroll of Qumran

by Robert Feather

  This strange pseudo-Jewish Community that survived at Elephantine has always been a puzzle for historians. Most admit they do not know where it came from. Its inhabitants are variously described as militaristic, or priestly, or both, but their presence has never been satisfactorily explained.

  We know quite a lot about the Community from numerous papyri found in the vicinity.2 Its religious and social customs were quite different from those of the Jews in Canaan. The Community did not celebrate the usual Jewish festivals or, apparently, the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt.

  There is archaeological evidence that the colony existed before 800 BCE. From the papyri documents we learn that the Community was collectively affluent, and its members had built a substantial Temple for worship. It is assumed that when the Temple was destroyed (around 400 BCE), the Community came under mortal threat because there is no evidence of its existence after 410 BCE. History just does not know what happened to the members of the Community.

  ATEN IN HIDING

  With the return of polytheism to Egypt after Akhenaten’s death, it is inconceivable that the ideas of monotheism just sank out of sight, out of mind. Apart from the circumstantial evidence of the ‘Aten’ symbol continuing to appear on inscriptions around Egypt (and, for example, on Tutankhamun’s throne chair; (see Plate 8 (bottom)), ideas are universally recognized as the hardest things to kill off.3

  The priests of Akhetaten who fled north to On also kept the ideas of Akhenaten alive there.

  The City of On was the site of the first known sun temple, dedicated to Ra-Horakhty, c.2600 BCE. By the time of Akhenaten (1349–1332 BCE), all of the other major gods of Egypt had been subsumed by the god Ra, indicated by the addition of Ra to their titles. Akhenaten’s concept of monotheism removed all these previous anthropomorphic figures of a universal god and replaced them with an abstract representation, in the form of a sun disc. A temple to Aten had been built at On, and the priests there were known to be sympathetic and receptive to this new concept of one Supreme God.4

  The pseudo-Jewish Community at Elephantine may be the strongest indication that a form of monotheism survived in Egypt. There is considerable evidence, as we shall see later, that the Community was not the result of re-imported Judaism from the Holy Land. It followed a unique form of Judaism and originally appeared to have no post-Exodus religious knowledge.

  In the rapidity of events that overtook Joseph and the priests of Aten at Akhetaten, there can have been little time to bury all the precious items that had accrued to the Temple and the Treasury: to the Temple through traditional donations of ‘tithes’ – a tenth of a person’s earnings – and to the Treasury through possessions handed down from pharaoh to pharaoh, together with ongoing gifts and levies garnered from throughout Egypt and through foreign tributes. Some of the more portable treasures might have been spirited away; the bulk would have been too heavy to remove easily and would have been buried.

  Knowledge of this treasure trove’s whereabouts would have gone with the priests of Aten whom, as I have said I believe, fled north to On, or south to the Island of Yeb, in a land also known as ‘Cush’.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MOSES – PRINCE OF EGYPT

  The scene now shifts. We have moved on about 150 years from the time of Akhenaten and Joseph to the time of Pharaoh Ramses II. The Hebrews have long been enslaved by the Egyptians, toiling in the fields and building monumental structures for successive Pharaohs. The dust of the quarries and the sand of the desert has ingrained their very being, just as the customs and superstitions of the Egyptians have ingrained their souls. Deliverance is, however, at last approaching with the birth of Moses.

  We know Moses was brought up at the Court of the reigning Pharaoh, generally assumed to be Ramses II. His strong personality and outspoken manner won him few friends at Court and his enemies intrigued behind his back to get rid of him. His name itself is perhaps a clue to his radicalism. There is a linkage to the Tutmoses’ family of pharaohs, and we know that this family almost certainly intermarried with, and was familiar with, the Amenhotep family philosophies that culminated in the thinking of Akhenaten.1

  We also know that after the death of Akhenaten, although there was a return to polytheism, there was, nevertheless, a key change in the style of worship and approach to the reinstated old gods. Knowledge of the so-called ‘heretic Pharaoh’, of whom Moses, as a Royal Prince, might have been a direct descendant, would have been available to him – particularly as there is evidence from Manetho (an high priest of Heliopolis during the third century BCE) that Moses received much of his early education from priests at Heliopolis.2 If Moses was sympathetic to those ideas he would have been viewed as a radical at Court and made unwelcome.

  This historical tradition fits in well with my theory that Moses learned, quite early on in his life, a philosophy of religion that flourished at Heliopolis during the time of a religious revolution in Egypt and that remained hidden there for centuries after.

  Both Josephus and the Old Testament maintain that Moses, later in his life, spent some time in the region of ‘Cush’ in the extreme southern part of Egypt. According to Josephus, he was sent there at the connivance of Pharaoh’s courtiers who wanted to get rid of the ‘dissident’. Their solution was to get Moses sent off to fight against the Ethiopians – the people of ‘Cush’ – in a remote region of Egypt’s southern border. Another angle on the story is recorded in the Old Testament and in Midrash, which relate that Moses found a wife in ‘Cush’.

  It is in this distant land of ‘Cush’ that, I believe, Moses got more than a wife. He encountered another outpost of monotheism, on the Island of Yeb (Elephantine) where some of the priests of Aten had originally fled to after Ahkenaten’s death. The wife he married could indeed have been the daughter of a priest of that colony – especially in view of all the difficulties the Old Testament has in naming his father-in-law, and the incongruity of the Bible’s statement that he was a Midianite priest who kept sheep, which I discussed in Chapter 4.

  There are, therefore, two defined locations where Moses might have learned about the monotheism of Akhenaten: From the priests of On, and from the priests living on the Island of Yeb. He may also have learned, from one or other of these sources, about the treasures that still remained hidden at Akhetaten.

  It is in his period of isolation from Egypt that Moses has his Biblical vision and encounters God in a burning bush. The wording in Exodus 3:6 relating to this event, warrants closer examination.

  Moreover He said, ‘I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob…’

  This appears to be an unequivocal statement that God is the God of Moses’ father, as well as of the Patriarchs. If Moses was a Royal Prince of Egypt, as I maintain, the ‘father’ being referred to might well be represented by Akhenaten, or a member of his line. We know Akhenaten could not have been his immediate father, but that, as a ‘Prince of Egypt’, Moses was of a pharaonic parentage.

  The academic Philip Hyatt’s analysis of the phrase ‘God of thy father’ concludes that the use of the Hebrew word ‘Jahweh’ for God implies that ‘Yahweh’ may originally have been a patron deity of one of Moses’ ancestors – though not necessarily of his father, grandfather or even a more remote patrilineal relation. That the ancestor in question may have been from his mother’s side of his family is seen by Hyatt as more probable because Moses’ mother’s name was ‘Jochebed’, a theophoric name*30 that uses the first element of ‘Jahweh’.3 Could this be the same God of Akhenaten?

  On the surface there seems little connection between the name ‘Jahweh’ and the name Akhenaten uses to address his God – ‘Aten’, apart from the fact that they both have two syllables. However, a number of scholars have suggested that a name Akhenaten may also have used to address his God transliterates as ‘Jati’,4 not a million miles away from the Hebrew name ‘Jahweh’.

  One only has to look at the works of E. A. Wallis Budge, Keeper of Assyrian and Egyptia
n Antiquities at the British Museum, who lived from 1857 to 1934, or the American archaeologist James Breasted to see the large number of Hebrew words that are adopted from the ancient Egyptian language.5 Irvin Zeitlin, Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, agrees with Hyatt: ‘Hyatt’s thesis commends itself because of the strong support it receives from the texts,’ he says.6

  The implications of this thesis also tie in with the possibility, alluded to in Chapter 8, that Moses might have been a descendant of Sarah, through her encounter with Amenhotep I, and therefore that Moses had a direct lineal link to the Patriarchs.

  Bit by bit Moses learns about his ancestor’s belief in one God and determines to break out of the yoke of idolatry surrounding him.

  THE ARBEITWERKE**31

  Now fully immersed in this new philosophy of monotheism, Moses, to his surprise, finds that the Hebrew slaves in his land, who had clung on to their belief in God through the years of slavery, share his beliefs. What more natural, then, than that Moses, a dissident at Court, should adopt the Hebrews as his chosen people? A huge cohesive mass of humanity, a potential army, a potential nation.

  Whilst I am on this point, we might just tidy up an anomaly that worried Sigmund Freud. He, you will recall (in Chapter 4), postulated that Moses was a contemporary of Akhenaten and had actually encountered him.7 This theory is inconsistent with an Exodus date of around 1200 BCE, or historically related data. By dating Moses to around 1375 BCE, rather than the now generally accepted dating of around 1200 BCE, Freud set himself a riddle. Why would a high-born Egyptian choose to adopt a throng of ‘culturally inferior immigrants’? Especially as there was then a well-known Egyptian contempt for foreigners. Freud cites this riddle as the main reason why historians have tended to reject the idea of Moses as an Egyptian.

  The answer to Freud’s riddle lies in his wrongly equating Moses with Akhenaten, rather than with Ramses II. If, as I propose, the Hebrews had already come under the influence of a pupative form of Amenhotep I’s monotheistic religion, through Abraham, and a refined version through Joseph and Jacob’s direct contact with Akhenaten, their attractiveness to Moses becomes much more feasible. Here was a body of people who already had absorbed many of the ideas Moses had imbibed from his Tutmoses/Amenhotep ancestry.

  The Name of an ‘Hebrew’

  I think it useful at this juncture to take a look at the possible derivation of the word ‘Hebrew’, as it gives us some clues as to how Moses might have viewed what must have been a motley collection of arbeitwerke living in Egypt. There is absolutely no record in Egyptian literature or inscriptional works referring to the name ‘Hebrew’. If there is mention it is to a class of slaves or foreigners.

  There are numerous theories, many of them philologically based, as to how the word ‘Hebrew’ arose. One of these is that it comes from the name ‘Habiru’, derived from the Sumerian term for groups of incursive Semites coming into Mesopotamia from the west, around 2150 BCE. From this period onwards a number of different strands of ‘Habiru’ – some mercenaries, some traders, others semi-nomadic tribes – have been identified.

  In the Tel-El-Amarna tablets, discovered in Egypt in 1887, there are requests from Egyptian dependancies in Canaan and Syria, calling for military reinforcements to help repel invaders who are referred to as ‘Habiru’. The use of this term, from other references, appears to refer to loose-knit bands of warrior groups that harassed parts of the Near East during the Second Millennium. If it did refer to the Hebrews it would imply that there was more than one group of them (i.e., additional to the Biblical Hebrews), and that they had left Egypt not later than 1350 BCE.

  What seems clear is that the Hebrews of Egypt were not the same grouping as the ‘Habiru’, who continued to maraud in and around Canaan whilst the Hebrews were still kept in slavery.

  Another possibility derives from the use of the word ‘Aperu’, which appears frequently on monuments in Egypt and refers to groups serving as labourers or mercenaries. This may well be the correct explanation.

  However, one theory, which does not appear to have been considered previously, is the possible derivation from the Egyptian word ‘Khepru’. One has to bear in mind that attempts to spell in English words that have not been heard by a living person for thousands of years are, at best, close approximations and, at worst, suspect. A relevant example is that of the English transliteration of the name of the Amenhotep pharaohs, which is often read as Amenophis.

  We know that the ‘Highest God’, in early Egypt, went through a series of transformations from initial comprehension in the Primeval Waters, and one of these later manifestations was in the form of ‘Khnum’, the ram god of Elephantine, who shaped mankind on a potter’s wheel. Growing alongside all these transformations was the concept of the ‘soul’, of the divinity in a form no mere human could begin to comprehend. The sun, for example, was the ‘soul’ of the ‘High God’. This ‘soul’ was called ‘Khepru’, and in the light of the development of monotheism through the patriarchal descendants in Egypt, it is not inconceivable that Moses looked on his new found people as a collective holy manifestation of God’s purpose, and referred to them as ‘Khepru’ – ‘Hebrew’ – equating them with the name of God. The idea that ‘God gave His name to his people’ is a familiar concept in Hebrew literature.

  At the emotionally moving ‘unconsumed burning bush’ encounter, Moses is instructed by God to go to Pharaoh and seek the release of the Hebrews from slavery. He is told that God will support him in his endeavours and lead the people to Canaan, a land of milk and honey.

  Moses protests that he is not eloquent enough for the task, so Aaron, his Biblical ‘brother’, is recruited to be his spokesman.

  The excuse that Moses puts forward for needing a spokesman in talking to Pharaoh prepares the ground for the solution to another problem in the Biblical story. How to explain why Moses could not speak easily to the Hebrews? He would have had little difficulty in speaking to Pharaoh, but, brought up as a high-caste Egyptian, his language would be quite different even from the everyday Egyptians, let alone the Hebrews. The Biblical writers could hardly state that he used an interpreter when speaking to the Hebrews, as the story must have come down to them. Their explanation, that he stuttered and needed someone to speak more clearly on his behalf, gets over the reason why Moses could not speak directly to the Hebrews – he did not speak their language.

  Fresh from his encounters at the distant southern borders of Egypt, Moses returns to Court bent on obtaining the release from slavery of his new found people.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE EXODUS – MOSES DOES A SCHINDLER1

  Moses and Aaron go together to speak to Pharaoh, who does not recognize their God or their plea to free the Hebrews. (Our Biblical writers cannot quite face up to the confusion of whether Moses needs an interpreter or not when he goes to speak to Pharaoh; the Hebrew text refers to them in the singular.) Perversely, the Bible records, Pharaoh takes umbrage at the insolent request and makes the Hebrews work even harder, piling injury on insult by depriving them of straw for their brick-making. Not surprisingly the Hebrew slaves are none too pleased with Moses, who is himself having doubts about God’s support.

  However, God reassures him and Moses goes again to see Pharaoh, and this time tries some magic. This doesn’t impress Pharaoh too much either, so God sends a succession of ten disasters on Egypt – turning rivers to blood, plagues of frogs, lice, flies, dead cattle, boils and blains on men and cattle, hail and fire, locusts and darkness. With each catastrophe Pharaoh promises to let the Hebrews go but then reneges on his word. The last plague is the killing of all the Egyptian first-born, whilst the Hebrew first-born are ‘Passed Over’. Finally Pharaoh cracks.

  Traditionally Ramses II is seen as the pharaoh of oppression, reigning when the Hebrews escaped from Egypt. It is my view that, whilst the environment from which the Hebrews were to emerge was almost certainly established by Ramses II, he was not the pharaoh in power during the Hebrew Ex
odus. I think the Exodus took place shortly after Ramses II’s demise in 1215 BCE. His rule was too secure to have allowed a mass escape of slaves.

  What kind of a man was Ramses II? He was certainly a prolific builder and left more monuments across Egypt than any other pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty. The evidence of his work can still be seen, a short distance from Medinet-el-Fayuim, where there are over four square kilometres of ancient ruins, known as Crocodilopolis-Arsinoe. Here a Middle Kingdom Temple was restored and expanded by Ramses II. In the adjacent eastern Delta region of Goshen, the Bible records that the Hebrew slaves were put to work on the Pharaoh’s construction programme at Ramses and Pithom.

  This ‘localization’ of workers is quite consistent with our understanding of the immobility of labour in ancient Egypt. Very little population movement occurred in Egyptian society, nor would the Hebrews’ presence, as ‘foreigners’, be tolerated in traditional construction areas. The artisan villagers of Deir el-Medineh near Thebes, for example, remained for centuries fulfilling the needs of the Valleys of the Kings and the Queens. Expertise in crafts was handed down from generation to generation of embalmers, coffin varnishers, carpenters, leatherworkers, brickmakers, stonemasons, metalworkers and jewellery workers – the latter invariably being dwarfs. All this added up to a veritable team of ‘undertakers’ for all funereal and tomb requirements.

  We know that Ramses was a warrior king from the extensive records carved on the outer walls of the Temple of Luxor, which record his defeat of the Hittites at Kadesh. We also know, from reliefs on the wall of the Great Temple of Amun-Re at Karnak, that he was a pragmatic king who could show mercy on his defeated enemies. This inscription relates details of a complicated peace treaty that was concluded with the Hittites – a wise move, because the Hittites were far from eliminated from the scene by one Egyptian victory. He died c.1215 BCE, and his mummified body was discovered in 1881, amongst a cache of New Kingdom pharaohs buried at Deir el-Bahir opposite Luxor.2