A Perverse Spirit in the Land
                         Exodus and Akhenaten                by G. H. Ritz

     In our diligent effort to understand the historial aspects of the Bible 
we have sought to view the events described as elements of an ongoing record. 
To focus on an event without regard to its place in the overall sweep of 
history is to open the way to error and uncertainty, ultimately to the 
question as to whether the even occurred at all. So it is with Exodus.
     Several dates have been proposed, as we have cited in our article, 
Exodus: When did it Happen? The errors become obvious when analysed alongside 
known historical fact and relevant information, such as: that neither Ahmose 
I or Rameses II led the hosts of Egypt to the disaster at the Red Sea. Also, 
as we have shown, the early estimate for the year in which Exodus took place 
is disabled by the fact that the migration of the Israelites into Egypt would 
have to have taken place at a most inopportune time in Egyptian history, the 
reorganization of the land under Ahmenemhe I after the collapse of theMiddle 
Kingdom. But this article is not concerned with these matters.
     In our book, The Time of the End, chapters seven and eight, we presented 
evidence that the Exodus was anything but the happy sojurn of a liberated pe-
ople going to a Promised Land. The record is one of terror, death, and almost 
continual conflict. Moses is seen to be much less than the vaunted figure so 
popularly portrayed. Far from being a spiritual leader, he comes off as not
much more than an opportunistic lackey. In his several confrontations with 
the Jehovah, Yaweh, he expresses his desperation with the people, doubt about 
his place in the Lord's esteem, and in general Moses seems to be overwhelmed 
by the issues he faces with both.
     The subject we wish to address in this article is the aftermath of this 
epic.We have shown how the Israelites quickly turned away from the Jehovah 
when the Exodus was finished. And we have, correctly we feel, attributed this 
reverse to the harsh treatment the Lord visited upon the people during the 
Exodus. The first nineteen chapters of Isaiah carry the point further. 
      One can hardly read very far into the Book of Isaiah and not be aware 
of the central theme that blares out from every chapter: The people have 
turned away from the Lord and he will spare no effort, overlook no intrigue, 
and engage in any nefarious activity, such as allying himself with Assyria 
against Judea, to bring the Israelites under his influence once more. None of 
the powers of the day escape his notice; he has plans for Assyria, Syria, 
Babylonia, Persia (Damascus), and others including Egypt.
     Isaiah [19] begins with the words: The burden of Egypt. The chapter goes 
on to detail some of the mischief the Lord Jehovah intends for the Land of 
the Pharaohs. But we are fascinated by a verse, buried in the extensive 
verbiage, which suggests a rather involved plot to wreak havoc upon the 
Egyptians. Isaiah [19:14]: "The Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in the 
midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof..." We 
believe that this perverse spirit can be none other than Amenhotep IV, the 
renegade pharaoh who took the name Akhenaten and introduced monotheism into 
Egypt.

     Going back to the period of the migration into Egypt, we note, if the 
Genesis account is any indication, that there were friendly relations between 
that nation and Canaan at that time. The last twelve chapters of Genesis are 
devoted to this subject. Beginning with Joesph's abduction which has been 
represented as his being sold into slavery in Egypt, we find in Chapter 39, 
that this was not exactly slavery according to the popular conception of that 
state. Potiphar, his first master, placed him in charge of his house and, 
Genesis [39:4]: "and all that he (Potiphar) had he placed into his hands." 
Subsquently Joseph became second only to pharaoh in all of Egypt. But there 
is a curious statement preceeding the foregoing. Genesis [39:2-3]: "And the 
Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of 
his master, the Egyptian."
     "And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made 
all that he did to prosper in his hand." Was the Lord of Jacob also the Lord 
of Egypt?
     Further along, in Chapter 41, when Joseph has done interpreting 
pharaoh's dreams, the king asks, Genesis [41:38-39]: "Can we find such a one 
as this is, a man in whom the spirit of God is?"
     "And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee all 
this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art;"
     Egypt has always been known as a polytheistic culture, but here we have 
Potiphar, captain of Pharaoh's guards, then Pharaoh himself, referring to 
either Lord or God as a singular being. Furthermore, Joseph's influence as 
Pharaoh's second, during the years of plenty when the corn was gathered and 
during the famine years when it was distributed, extended into Canaan as 
well. If so, and it appears to be, then we have some insight into the further 
developments concerning Exodus and the aftermath we are presently concerned 
with. This is that the Lord(s), (or God as careless, or deliberate, transla-
tion would confuse the two) were away from Egypt during the 430 years that 
Israel resided in Egypt, and that during this time Egypt turned away as the 
Israelites themselves eventually did. This would explain the Lord's preoc-
cupation with Egypt both during and after Exodus. Egypt apparently became a 
polytheistic culture during this period, or reverted back to an earlier 
modality, and when the Lord(s) returned their attention to the place, decided
that it would be best if the Children of Israel were removed from this influe
nce.
     We would further remark on the Lord's statements in Exodus [14:17-
18]:'..: and I will get me honor upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host, upon 
his chariots, and upon his horsemen."
     "And the Egyptians hall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten me 
honor upon Pharaoh, upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen." And further 
along, in Chapter Thirty-two, Jehovah "repents of the evil he though to do to 
his people" (verse 14) at Moses' mere mention of what the Egyptians would 
say. This was when Moses was up on Sinai receiving the Law and the Lord sees 
the Golden Calf that the Israelites prevailed upon Aaron, Moses' brother, to 
make for them. Exodus [32:7]: "And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get the 
down; for [thy] people, which [thou] broughtest out of the land of Egypt, 
have corrupted themselves." (Brackets by author.) It seems that when the 
Jehovah sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh with the message, "Let [my] people 
go" they were his; when they corrupted themselves they were Moses' people! 
But Moses only has to ask (verse 12), "Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, 
and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, 
and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, 
and repent of this evil against [thy] people." And Jehovah does just that! It 
is perhaps Moses' finest hour in the whole adventure.
     We feel this to be convincing testimony that the connection between the 
Lord of Israel and the Egyptians was much stronger and of greater depth than 
hitherto may have been supposed. If it was simply a matter of getting the 
people out of Egypt, the Lord certainly had the power to impose his will upon 
Pharaoh forthwith and without delay. Yet he chooses to antagonize Pharaoh, 
and by sending underlings to the royal house to demean Pharaoh and "harden 
his heart" against the appeal. Surely Jehovah could have gone to Pharaoh 
himself and demonstrated the power he ultimately wielded against the 
Egyptians with the plagues and the killing of the firstborn children and cat-
tle. But he chooses rather to play with Pharaoh as a cat would with a bug
caught in the open. From what other cause could these excesses of cruelty 
have sprung but a deep and long-standing resentment against Egypt that goes 
well beyond the mere "enslavement" of the people. We have used quotation 
marks here because of the several times the people ask Moses why he brought 
them out of Egypt; there they have enough to eat and didn't seem to mind the 
labors they were required to do. It was better than the reign of terror that 
Exodus soon became.
     And what of this?  From the incident of the Golden Calf onward, when the 
people seem to have reverted to idolatry, Jehovah treats the Israelites to a 
reign of terror that is easily a match of the more recent Holocaust of World 
War part Two. In fact we find it remarkable, based on the information in The 
Time of the End, Chapter 7, and the further reading we encourage the questing 
soul to do (that is: read the whole story of Exodus objectively and without 
any preconceived ideas) that the Jews celebrate this ordeal as if it were a 
blessing. We would equate this posture with celebrating the mass extermina-
tion of the Jews in gas chambers as a deliverance and Hitler as a great spi-
ritual leader. In fact, in Mein Kampf, Hitler often refers to Providence in 
reference to his political theories and plans for the world.

     Our dating of the events surrounding the Exodus is taken from Sir Alan 
Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs. We feel these to be the most reliable, and 
if they are a little off, the relative time frame of events would still be 
the same if shifted forward or backward in time. From this base we have 
determined that the Exodus must have occurred in 1490 BC (see article, 
Exodus: When Did it Happen?). The Hyksos invasion would have occurred in 1700 
BC, two-hundred ten years earlier, or after the Hebrews had been in Egypt 
two-hundred twenty years. That this armed force from Canaan took Memphis 
without any difficulty, subdued most of the rest of Egypt, and ruled for 150 
years is a matter of historical fact. But what history does not tell us is; 
why did these "shepherd kings" conquer Egypt? After 200 years the Israelites 
would certainly have grown significantly in number, and since the Land of Go-
shen was nearby Memphis there is certainly the suggestion that they had an 
influence on the fortunes of the Hyksos. But that still doesn't tell us why 
the conquest.
     One possibility is that the Hyksos invasion had something to do with the 
religious aspect of Egyptian culture at the time. Referring to our observa-
tion that Pharoah and Joseph seemed to worship the same God, it could be that 
the drift toward polytheism, either as original or as an old idea renewed, 
complete with a pharaoh who was himself god, so distressed the Jews that they 
summoned help from their fellow Canaanites. Recall that Jacob brought the 
people into Egypt from Canaan.
     It seems that the more we delve into this mysterious set of 
circumstances the more we see the emergence of a long-standing imbroglio that 
reached over centuries. And things were none too quiet after the Hyksos were 
driven off and a new ruling class established that we have come to know as 
the XIIIth Dynasty. Only 45 years after the establishment of the new kingship 
by Ahmose I, his grandson undertook the conquest of all the present Middle 
East; Canaan, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and extended the empire to the 
shores of the Euphrates River.
     Tuthmose I, son of Amenhotep I, was perhaps the most brilliant military 
leader of ancient Egypt. The ivasion of the Middle East which he understook 
was initially a campaign against the Hyksos, or Canaanites, as a retribution 
for their earlier incursion into his native land. But the glory of conquest, 
which came naturally to him, and the appetite for plunder, which taste he 
acquired as a compliment for his natural bent, led him on to conquests of 
such magnitude that his reputation as a military genius has lived on.
     If the predisposition to brilliant military exploits is genetic, then it 
must be a skip-gene, as Tuthmose II, about whom little has come down to us in 
the record, and whom we feel was the Pharaoh of Exodus for the reasons 
outlined in the article on that subject, seems to have had little aptitude 
for the art of war. But the third in line, Tuthmose III, was his gradfather's
rival in military aptitude, sometimes called the "Napoleon of Ancient Egypt."
     Tuthmose III was the son of Tuthmose II and Hatsepsut, who became 
pharaoh herself during the tumultuous period following her husband's untimely 
death. The queen-pharaoh suppressed her son's role as prince of the realm. 
Whether he was her true son, or son in the symbolic sense, as pharaohs of the 
time were wont to designate their heirs, is debatable. But she did try to 
frustrate his claim to the succession until he grew in physical aspect and 
political connection to the point of irresistability. He was about eighteen 
years of age when he assumed the power and majesty of the kingship. Soon 
after that, he was about the business of re-conquering all the lands in the 
Middle East that his ancestor had secured some seventy years earlier. What 
happened in the interim may be surmised from the fact that Egypt had fallen 
upon hard times, a weakened state ruled by a nanny-pharaoh whose main accomp-
lishment, Gardiner tells us, was the refurbishing of many temples that had 
been allowed to fall into disrepair, and the restoration of the people in 
their religious faith. 
     If Tuthmose III began his military adventure against Cannan, Palestine, 
and the rest of the Middle East at age twenty, that would have been about 
1470 BC, twenty years after the Exodus from Egypt. This would have been at 
the time when the Jehovah, for reasons none too clear, decreed that the 
children of Israel would have to spend another twenty years in the desert. 
Was this to avoid contact with a formidable Egyptian army under the command
of a brilliant military mind? We have remarked elsewhere that the Lord of 
Israel seems to have had some kind of military establishment at his disposal 
- and from the swiftness with which they dealt with Egypt during the time 
just preceeding Exodus, it must have been a modern army as we would presently 
acclaim a military organization. If this is true, then why would he not com-
mit them against the Egyptians?
     The answer may be that, as we also noted in The Time of the End, Chapter 
7, the Lord of Israel was himself under an higher authority. Why else would 
he have restrained himself from destroying his people, against whom he bore an 
undisguised resentment throughout? Jehovah Yaweh just never seemed too 
enthusiastic about shepherding this "stiff necked people" around the wilder-
ness, and the death and destruction he bore upon them for whatever infraction 
of his endless rules are further evidence his intense dislike for them.
     The Exodus was completed after forty years, about 1450 BC, by which time 
Pharaoh Tuthmose III had completed his conquests, hunted elephants in Niy on 
the way home, and returned to Egypt to stay. The co-incidences of time are 
hard to ignore. The appearance of Amenhotep IV, suddenly and from God only 
knows where, may be safely dated to 1377 BC, seventy-three years after 
Exodus.
     Of all the conundra of history the story of Akhenaten must rank among 
the most mysterious, paradoxical, and contradictory of all. There is no 
record in all the first thirty years of his supposed father, Amenhotep III, 
of a son. Five daughters, no sons. A picture of this enigmatic figure appears 
on the webpage source of this article; his features are arguably Semitic. And 
he certainly introduced a perverse (for the time and place) religious prac-
tice, to the utter dismay of the priests of Amon in particular, and the 
people at large in general. Where did he come from?
     No one can say with any certainty. But he exploded onto the scene and, 
it appears, was appointed to a co-regency, joint rule, with the incumbent 
pharaoh for some seven years. A number of scholars have disputed the validity 
of this shared rule, but a cartouch in which the two men are depicted in the 
same frame, facing the same way, indicates that they were both alive at the 
same time, thus the co-regency. If our analysis is correct, then the joint 
rule is an unavoidable fact.
     The distinguishing difference between between the Lord of Exodus and 
Isaiah's Lord is one of temperament and approach. Where Yaweh was given to 
outbursts of rage, acting in the moment to vent his ire on anyone misfortun-
ate enough to earn his contempt, Isaiah's Lord is given more to subtlety and 
intrigue. One only has to read the first nineteen chapters of Isaiah to 
discover this anticipation of Machiavelli.
     Where historians agonize over the origins of Akhenaten, who introduced 
the worship of one God into multi-godded Egypt, sometimes grasping at straws 
to rationalize their a priori conclusion that he HAD to be Amenhotep III's 
son, we find our answer in an obscure legend which has the ring of truth to 
it, and answers all objections very neatly.
     According to this account, when Amenhotep III was getting on in years 
and growing fat, unconcerned with matters of state, preferring rather the 
companionship of his harem than that of his minsters, the priests of Amon 
began considering the succession to the throne. This priesthood was a 
political body as much, perhaps more, than a religious community, and the 
selection of a pharaoh was likely as crucial to them as the election of a 
president would be to a congress, a prime miniter to a parliament. But, as 
the story goes, there was no one they considered suitable to succeed the 
incumbent king. Therefore they sought an oracle. She told them that a man 
would be found wandering in the desert wearing a lion skin; he would be the 
next pharaoh.
     The Oracle at Thebes was believed to be in direct contact with the gods, 
and when she was presented with an issue to resolve her word was final. The 
utterings of the Oracle superceded all else, including the formula for the 
succession to the pharaonic throne. According to this formula, any man who 
married pharaoh's eldest daughter by his Great Wife, the queen, would be the 
new pharaoh. But Amenhotep IV did not marry Amenhotep III's eldest daughter, 
or any of the others, but the beautiful Nefertiti, daughter of the pharaoh's 
chief minster, Ay. No other cause but an Oracle could have authorized such an 
exception.
     Further, a man named to the pharaonic throne by such a powerful, div-
inely inspired forecast would not be kept in the wings awaiting the death of 
the incumbent. He would be elevated immediately to the throne as co-regent, 
as had been the long-standing practice over some six-hundred years, at least. 
So, even as the legend is obscure, the facts seem to justify its acceptance 
on an as-if basis: the details are as if the Oracle had been given and fol-
lowed.
     Now as to the Lord of Israel's role in all this: we feel that the 
preponderance of the evidence strongly suggests corruption. It is all-too 
coincidental that an interloper, whose coming is prophesied in such precise 
terms, suddenly appears on the scene, rises to the highest office in the land 
in contravention of all tradition and past practice, and throws the nation 
into great turmoil by introducing a religion based on one God. Corruption in 
high places has been around as long as high places have been, and religion is 
no guarantee against it. A tithe is a bribe; the bigger the bribe the more 
influence does the donor enjoy in the congregation.
     We are, admittedly, at the threshhold of speculation but this time the 
door swings wide. Consider that the presence of upward of one-million Hebrews 
in Egypt for 430 years. May we suggest that this presence exerted a signifi-
cant cultural influence and political pressure in the land? It's obvious that 
these people had some connection with the Hyksos invasion as this was carried 
out by their ethnic peers and in the vicinity of the land they occupied. Is 
it too much to suggest that such influences continued to be felt even after 
their departure? Did all the Jews leave Egypt? This seems highly unlikely, 
given the universal propensity for intermarriage between natives and foreign-
ers in any land. And among those left behind are we to believe that none 
would have retained their religious connection with the Jehovah of Israel. 
After all, these people would not have suffered the horrors of the journey, 
and likely would not have believed the account if told to them. Could a dau-
ghter of one of these mixed marriages not have entered into service at the 
Temple in Thebes, eventually becoming the Oracle?
     In all this we are not necessarily suggesting a long range conspiracy; 
that seems rather unlikely. If our surmise is correct then the daughter of 
the mixed marriage would likely have entered temple service for her own, or 
family reasons. There need have been no connection with Jehovah, the Exodus, 
or any part of the whole drama. But once there, she could have, indeed must 
have, been in a position to be manipulated by the aggrieved Lord. The only
quetion remaining is; Why would the Lord of Israel go to such lengths to pun-
ish Egypt?
    Recall that the pharaoh of the Migration and Joseph apparently worshipped 
one God. Jacob brought the people to the Land of Goshen (near Memphis) with 
the Lord's blessing. After they had been there a while, the priests of Ptah, 
Ra, and Amon, each with political and economic interests in their resective 
cities, reinstated the old polytheisms. At first, we believe, the Hebrew 
resisted this movement and enlisted the aid of their fellows from their
homeland, the Hyksos, who invaded and conquered Egypt. But these were over-
thrown and expelled after about one-hundred fifty years and the ancient 
religion was firmly rooted.
     Then we come to the Exodus, specifically the episode of the Golden Calf, 
which must have aroused great consternation with Yaweh to realize that these 
"stiff necked" people had, by then, become idolators themselves. Later on in 
the account we find the Hebrews joining with the Moabites in a religious 
celebration of some sort, and tarrying with the daughters of Midian. Moses 
himself takes an Egyptian wife. And even after the Exodus, the Lord's remarks 
in Isaiah concerning Israel and Judea are rife with references to the persis-
tent paganism of the people.
     Thus we close with the conclusion that the Jehovah of Isaiah's time 
hatched a plot to bring Egypt to ruin, taking advantage of a fortunately 
placed daughter of a sympathetic family, bought a prophesy, and arranged for 
the "discovery" of the man wandering in the desert who would be the 
instrument of the treachery. And all this because the Egyptians had corrupted 
the people, turning them away from the true path, as they too had turned away 
from the worship of one God. Here we would also note a common human failing 
of the Lord(s) themselves.
     For the entire 430 years the Jews were in Egypt there is no mention of 
the Lords, who seem to have been absent the whole time. It seems that the 
Lord(s) of Isreal, unwilling to accept that their neglect may have brought 
about the fall of their people, found it much easier, and ego satisfying, to 
blame the Egyptians. "Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord.
     The Jews have been a damaged people owing to the influences bearing down 
on them from every quarter. Accepting the fiction that they are "chosen" they 
have placed themselves apart from the rest of humankind (above, in their 
collective mind) and have since suffered the consequences; persecutions, 
pogroms, dislocations, enslavements, and the final tragedy of the Holocaust 
at the hands of another breed of "chosen people," this time the Aryans who 
bought the clever Hitler's lies.
     There are no Chosen People.