The Family Romance of Moses

Very little concerning the childhood of Moses is recorded in the Bible. The story of his birth takes place against the background of Pharaoh's expressions of enmity towards the Hebrew population in his land. A royal decree goes forth to destroy all newborn male infants. The mother of Moses succeeds in concealing her baby for three months; then, fearful that he would be discovered, puts him in a watertight basket and places him on the brink of the Nile River among the reeds. The daughter of Pharaoh comes to bathe in the river and finds the infant. Through the intervention of Miriam, the sister, who has concealed herself at a distance to watch over the child, he is given into the care of a Hebrew nurse who is, in reality, his own mother. After the period of weaning, the young Moses is brought to the princess, who adopts him as her son (Ex. II: 1-10). Nothing further is said about the early years of his life.

In Moses and Monotheism, Freud did not question the mythological character of the rescue story (4, p. 11). It fitted into the pattern of the myths of the birth of a hero commonly found in the traditions of other ancient peoples. The original factor which Freud contributed was his interpretation of one element in the myth which he saw as significant for his hypothesis that Moses was an Egyptian nobleman by birth. Freud pointed out that in the typical myth, the family which abandons the child is the noble one, while the second family, in which the child grows up, is of humble background. Moses comes from a Hebrew family, a despised and outcast group in the social hierarchy of Egypt, and is brought up as an Egyptian prince.

Freud then presents a new approach to the interpretation of the typical myth. He suggests that the second family, the one in which the child grows up, is the real one. Freud assumes therefore that the royal household in which Moses was brought up is his original background while the Hebrew family represents the people whom he late