Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Jan Assmann" in English language version.
In my book Moses the Egyptian, which I wrote in California 20 years ago, I tried to define the conceptual core of the Exodus narrative as the "Mosaic distinction" between true and false religion or true and false Gods (Assmann 1997; see also Assmann 2007, 2010). This theory has met with much criticism and I would not hold it any longer. The distinction as such, and as a defining feature of monotheism, still seems to me irrefutable, but I would no longer call it "mosaic." It is true that the distinction between true and false in religion seems somehow implied in the prohibition of the worship of other gods and images, but it becomes a question of truth only later in antiquity with a certain concept of revelation... Ifthere is any "Mosaic distinction," it is the distinction between matrimonial faithfulness and adultery, political loyalty and apostasy, filial love and rebellion, and, in this sense, between friend and foe, love and wrath.
In my book Moses the Egyptian, which I wrote in California 20 years ago, I tried to define the conceptual core of the Exodus narrative as the "Mosaic distinction" between true and false religion or true and false Gods (Assmann 1997; see also Assmann 2007, 2010). This theory has met with much criticism and I would not hold it any longer. The distinction as such, and as a defining feature of monotheism, still seems to me irrefutable, but I would no longer call it "mosaic." It is true that the distinction between true and false in religion seems somehow implied in the prohibition of the worship of other gods and images, but it becomes a question of truth only later in antiquity with a certain concept of revelation... Ifthere is any "Mosaic distinction," it is the distinction between matrimonial faithfulness and adultery, political loyalty and apostasy, filial love and rebellion, and, in this sense, between friend and foe, love and wrath.
