No Gods But Mine

About the Book

Moses, a Jew, is brought up in the luxury of the court of the Pharaoh, is schooled in egyptian lore, language, and religion.

There are two large gaps in the story of Moses:

First gap: Between the age of three months when, as a baby, he is found in the bulrushes of the Nile by the daughter of the Pharaoh, and the age of the forty when, in Egypt, he kills an Egyptian overseer of Jewish slaves. During the time from three months to forty years he would have been educated as a Prince of Egypt and exposed to their multiple gods, their worship of idols, the religious practices of human sacrifices and the sacrifice of children to the fire of Molech (Baal). He would not have known of a single god at that time.

Second gap: Between the age of forty when he was taken in by Jethro, the High Priest of the Kenite clan of Midian, and the age of eighty when he believes that he has been called by God to rescue the Jews from bondage in Egypt. During the forty years he spent as a shepherd for Jethro he would have known that Jethro, the High Priest, taught that there was only one God. Yahweh, and that all males should be circumcised. Since Moses later chose Yahweh as the sole God of the Jews, it would appear that this concept was learned from Jethro.

Why did Moses learn Hebrew? How did he find out that he was a Jew? Why, at age forty, was he still unmarried? How did he come to believe that there was only one God? Why did he covet the land of Canaan so badly? How did he manage to free the Jews from bondage? How did the Jews cross the Sea of Reeds? Why did he hate the Amalekites and Canaanites? Why did he order the execution of thousands of his own people?

In many different places it is stated that God will destroy, wipe out, eradicate the Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, Canaanites, and that the characteristics of God of vanity, anger, jealousy, vindictiveness and murderous intent which Moses describes are actually those of Moses himself.

About the Author

The author is a retired radiation oncologist, a graduate of the University of Iowa and Harvard Medical School and former Professor of Medical Schools at Pittsburgh, and Nebraska.

He is the publisher of many medical articles, magazine articles on health and exercise, and a book on the Restless legs Syndrome.

The grandson of a Methodist minister, he was brought up in the usual Christian tradition of Sunday School and Church, being spoon fed various verses of the Bible without ever having read it in any great detail. In church he sang the hymns, repeated the creeds and contributed to the collection as everyone else did.

After retiring with more time to pursue non-medical subjects, he became intrigued by the actions of the primary protagonist of the Christian religion, St. Paul, as portrayed in "The Last Temptation of Christ" by Kazantzakis and in "Paul, the Mind of the Apostle" by Wilson.

Challenged to read the Torah in detail he was surprised to find numerous atrocities ordered by Moses on both his own and other peoples that had never been mentioned in any of the bible stories to which he had been exposed. In asking around most other people, including some who had studied the Torah in the original Hebrew, had never been aware of these terrible things done by Moses. Moses was a tyrant with all of the characteristics which he ascribed to God: vanity, jealousy, anger, murderous intent and vindictiveness.

The story of the real Moses needs to be told.

Table of Contents and Excerpts

Page 5

"Mother, you're digressing. What about the baby?"

"Yes, I know. I think it is because I find it so difficult to say what I have to tell you. Emperah and I decided that the baby was probably the son of one of the Hebrew women."

What did you do with the baby?"

"Please, don't interrupt me again. I'm getting to that. He was so adorable that despite the edict, Tutankhamen allowed me to keep him. My brother agreed that most likely one of the Jewish women had placed the baby in the basket in an effort to save his life. Horemheb never knew that the baby was not mine and Thaman's.

Moses, she gasped, "You were that baby."

He sat there immobilized, stunned. He simply could not believe it. The only mother he had ever known had just told him that she was not his real mother.

"You mean I might be a Jew?"

Page 12

"Please sit, Moses, there is something the Pharoah wants you to do."

Moses, somewhat surprised, sat and faced the Vizier with some trepidation, fearing what was to come.

"Moses, we have noticed that you frequently visit the Jews where they are working. Is this not so? Why?"

Fearing that someone had found out that he might be a Jew, Moses carefully phrased his answer:

"I find them an interesting people although I can't understand them when they don't speak Egyptian."

Page 27

When Moses was thirty, he decided to try to seek out his heritage. He did this very cautiously, occasionally questioning the Jews who served in his household about their religion, their rites, and their practices. He tried not to be too obvious.

One day a shy, young Jewess approached him.

"May I speak to you privately?"

This request was so unusual for a servant that he was startled but agreed and led her aside to a small enclosure.

Moses asked, "Now then, what is this all about?"

She said, "We have all been wondering why you have been questioning us about our ways. I think I know."

"You do? Why is it?"

Page 28

When he was forty, while he was watching them work, one elderly Jew collapsed to his knees. When he couldn't get up, the burly overseer began to beat him with his whip, drawing blood that showed through his garment... When the old man still couldn't get up, the overseer kicked him in the stomach.

That was more than Moses could stand. Years of aggravation swelled up inside of him. Looking around to be sure no one was watching, he grabbed the whip from the surprised overseer's hand and hit him in the temple with the butt end of the whip, knocking the man unconscious to the ground. His anger not abated, Moses wrapped the whip around the man's neck and choked him till he stopped breathing. Realizing that the man was dead, he quickly buried the body under the sand and hurriedly departed after helping the old man to his feet.

Page 41

That evening he was finally able to get a chance to talk to Jethro.

He joined him in his tent and said that he wanted to know more about the God of the Midianites.

"You say there's only one God. How do you know this?"

"We have been taught it by our forefathers and we believe it by faith. My father and his father before him believed it."

"Does Yahweh, your God, control everything that happens both good an devil? When something terrible happens like the death of a small child, is it because Yahweh willed it that way? Why would He do such a thing?"

Page 48

Back at the main camp, Mazurka, one of the daughters cried out, "Father! Father! Moses is coming. He is bringing the sheep with him, and he seems to be in a terrible hurry."

As Moses arrived in the camp, Zipporah and Jethro greeted him.

We didn't expect to see you this soon. Why the rush?"

"Jethro, I have seen God."

"Yes, said Moses. "He appeared to me as a burning bush and he spoke to me."

"He spoke to you? What did he say?"

"He told me that I was on holy ground, take off my sandals."

"Where was this?"

"At the base of Mount Horeb"

Page 88

They were so insistent that I feared a riot. I had no other choice, there was nothing I could do, there were so many of them demanding that I provide them with something they could worship."

"Well, there's something I can do," said Moses.

"Gather the Levites and have them come armed to meet me."

"What are you going to have them do?"

"It is against the laws of God to worship anyone but him and to have any form of graven image."

"Where are these laws of God written?"

"They were written on the tablets."

"But Moses, you broke the tablets. How are the people supposed to know what was on them?"

Page 95

"Each time you went up to the mountain you stayed for forty days and nights and returned with two tablets upon which were inscribed the ten Cardinal Laws. Why did it take so long? Could not the almighty God have carved them in a flash of lightning?"

Moses bristled noticeably, his face reddened, and he shouted angrily, "Are you implying that I carved the tablets myself?"

Page 97

Aaron added: "I have some questions about several of the Commandments."

Heads popped up around the fire and everyone turned and stared at him, then at Moses waiting for Moses' response, which was quick in coming.

Moses, angrily glaring at Aaron said:

"You care to question the Commandments of God?"

Page 134

It took three days for hundreds of men to build an escape-proof compound. When it was finished, thousands of soldiers descended on the worshippers of Baal-peor. They bound them and dragged them back to the compound.