The Development of Biblical Prayer - Jewish Bible Quarterly

that he could arrive at his monotheistic creed? If, on the other hand, he was an
Egyptian, why should he be interested in the loathed and disease-ridden Hebrews,
whom the humanitarian Schiller characterizes as the most savage, most
malevolent and most depraved people on the face of the earth, an unheroic people
of almost animal-like stupidity?
The providential force that guides the universe found the answer: it took a
Hebrew infant, removed it from its savage people, and gave it an opportunity to
partake of Egyptian wisdom. In this way, a Hebrew, educated as an Egyptian,
became the instrument by which his nation was delivered from slavery. Schiller
followed the Biblical description of the exposure of Moses among the bulrushes of
the Nile, his discovery by Pharaoh's daughter, and his being handed over to a
Hebrew wetnurse. From her, his true Hebrew mother, he learned the language
and ways of the enslaved group and was imbued with sympathy for them. When
the boy was returned to the princess, she adopted him as her own child, gave him
the Egyptian name of Moses, and provided him with a princely upbringing. At
priestly academies, he was introduced to the most advanced learning and to the
mysteries of the religious establishment. This wisdom later found expression in his
deeds and doctrines.
It was among the Egyptian priests that the concept of monotheism first arose.
The original, fortunate discoverer of this sublime idea did not dare to give it wide
currency because it would have undermined the theocratic, political structure that
was based on polytheism. But he did seek out among the members of his circle
talented, trusted disciples to whom he could safely transmit his precious, new
insight about the one God. This insight, bequeathed for many generations from
one thinker to another, finally became the mysterious property of a small coterie
of priests who were able to grasp its significance and to develop it further. Moses
belonged to that select group from whom no priestly secrets were withheld. The
wisdom of the Torah is, therefore, Egyptian wisdom.
A century before the hieroglyphic inscriptions on Akhnaton's religious
reformation were deciphered and a century and a half before Sigmund Freud's
theory of an Egyptian Moses, Schiller credited the votaries of the mysteries of
Memphis and of Heliopolis with the religious innovations embodied in the Torah,
such as monotheism, specific priestly rituals, circumcision, belief in immortality,
the ark of God, and even the name of the one supreme deity. These doctrines and
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