Preliminary notes
Mosheh (Moses) reflects the names of several Mitsri (Egyptian) Pharaohs, for whom either Mousa or Mosis was probably the Egyptian pronunciation, with a god-name or epithet then attached.
Thus Ach-Mousa or Ahmose, Thut-Mosis or Thutmose, and Ra-Mousa (Rameses); in the latter case Ra the sun god plus whatever Mousa may have meant: probably "drawn from the water", exactly as the Yehudit denotes it (Exodus 2:10), which is an allusion to the birth of Osher (Osiris) in his role as god of the reeds and bulrushes of the river Nile.
Ra-Mousa may then be a declaration that Ra and Osher are to be understood as the same deity (we see many similar double god-names in the Tanach - e.g Eli-Melech, Avi-Yah), which would be historically significant, as the worship of a pantheon led by Ra and his family was replaced by the one led by Hor (Horus) and his family at the time of the Hyksos, and then reinstated after their expulsion.
The bulrushes story suggests Hor as well as Osher (Osiris), but also Perseus, which was probably a Greek variant of the Osher myth.
The burning bush of Exodus 3 may have been an incident of spontaneous combustion, or the mythologisation of a sacred fire burning on the altar of a shrine; some scholars, accepting the Biblical version of an actual bush, presume that it was [probably] the flaming red leaves or berries of some cultic plant (loranthus?), and that the vision was therefore drug-induced and part of a ceremony of priestly initiation.
His banner was Nechushtan, the brass serpent, used to avert plague which would become the Caduceus pole associated with Hermes, and the symbol of the the Greek medic Asclepius, later on. Numbers 21:4-9 calls it a Seraph (שָׂרָ֔ף, in 21:8), which Isaiah 6:2 explains as the flying serpents of his vision (for more, click here).
At Sukot (Succot) he built a stone circle equivalent to Gil-Gal. In Exodus 24 he set up twelve stone herms at the foot of a sacred hill, offered bull-sacrifices, and sprinkled half the blood on a thirteenth herm in the middle of the circle; the rest of the blood was put in basins. Then he and his brother Aharon (Aaron), plus 72 colleagues, feasted on the roasted flesh (72 was a sacred number in Mitsrayim according to Robert Graves). Blood sprinkled on the people was a charm of sanctification; eucharistically the blood is used to revive the oracular hero and help his return to life.
Mosheh is associated with several mountains, though in fact Mount Sinai does not exist as such; it is really the name of the range. The incident of the burning bush and the giving of the law both took place on Mount Chorev (חורב - Horeb), which by extraordinary coincidence comes from the same root as the flaming sword (Lahat ha Cherev - לַ֤הַט הַחֶ֙רֶב) which was placed as a guard at the entrance to Eden after the expulsion (Genesis 3:24): Mount Swastika would therefore be an accurate translation, though Mount Chorev (Horeb) is usually translated as "mountain of glowing heat", which strongly infers that it was volcanic; see my commentaries on Exodus 16-25, where it is demonstrated that the pillar of fire and smoke were volcanic and that a major eruption took place at this time; perhaps the reason for the journey into the wilderness was to placate or propitiate a very angry god: Vulcan by whatever Egyptian name: possibly the original form of YHVH.
Eli-Yahu (אֵ֣לִיָּ֔הוּ - Elijah) rested on Mount Chorev, under a wild broom tree (1 Kings 19); there is a wonderful irony in the Eli-Yahu story, the contrast of Mosheh's volcanic eruption with Eli-Yahu's still small voice of calm. Maybe he knew the real story!
Deuteronomy 3:27 and 34:1 have Mosheh sent to die on the summit (Pisgah - פִּסְגָּ֗ה) of Mount Nevo (נְב֔וֹ - Nebo), which may mean "the mountain of the prophet" from Nevi (נביא) = "a prophet" (the final letter Aleph being treated as the regular Aramaic spelling); though Gesenius associates it with the planet Mercury and points out that Nevo recurs in the name Nebuchadnezzar. Note that the Arabs call Passover the Feast of Nebi Mousa.
Passover was Pesach (פסח), linked to the heel-god and meaning "to limp". See my commentaries in the Book of Exodus.
The laws "given" at Sinai almost certainly came much later, introduced from Bavel (Babylon), and based on the Code of Hammurabi, at the time of the exile, though there were other law-documents in existence at the time as well (e.g. the much older Sumerian Ur-Nammu Law Code).
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Aharon making the Golden Calf (Exodus 32) confirms his being Hor, for the golden calf - or more precisely the "solar calf" - was the image in which Hor was represented, and the stated purpose of the journey to the holy mountain was the celebration of the ancient Egyptian spring-harvest festival of Pesach (Exodus 5:1). Aharon (Aaron - אַהֲרֹן) died on Mount Hor (הֹר הָהָר), which is not the same as Mount Chorev (חורב - Horeb), though it sounds similar in English. Above I have suggested that he was really a humanisation, and a Yisra-Elisation at that, of Hor, and his death at Hor's mountain confirms this.
Mosheh and Aharon both dying on a hill-top may reflect the sacrifice of the king: Dionysus was disrobed, dismembered, and the pieces sewn together and buried in a chest to await resurrection. Interesting then to wonder if Sha'ul's attempts to kill both David and Yonatan (Jonathan) were not a substitution myth for the sacred king, and his own highly ritualised death (1 Chronicles 10), and those of his sons later on (2 Samuel 21), variants on the same theme. Leviticus 10 has two sons of Aharon burned by fire from heaven.
Or it may re-endorse the original divinity of both: their deaths being their return to their "Olympian" realms, with Mosheh's death on Mount Nevo a reflection of the Midyanite version, and most likely the Midyanite origins, of his legend.
Mosheh at the battle against the Amalekites had his arms held upright by two companions, and recorded the event (Exodus 17:15) in an altar inscribed to YHVH Nisi (יְהוָה נִסִּי); the inscription is translated as being his "banner", which confuses, as we know - see above - that his "banner" was the brass serpent Nechushtan. Aharon held one of his arms; the other was held by Chur (חוּר), a name that has nothing to do with the god Hor, or the name Aharon, but does connect him etymologically with Mount Chorev.
Aharon's magic wand was made of hazel. Menorah sconces were in the form of almonds representing the rod when it budded open. Yirme-Yahu (Jeremiah) was shown this in a vision to confirm his initiation as a prophet: "The word of the Lord came to me: 'What do you see, Yirme-Yahu?' 'I see the branch of an almond tree,' I replied. YHVH said to me, 'You have seen correctly, for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled.'" (Jeremiah 1:11-12)
Oak trees (terebinths in particular) were sacred to Av-Raham, as the pomegranate was to Sha'ul (Saul) – further evidence of the latter's role as King of the Underworld. The alder was banned from Temple worship. The pomegranate was also sacred to Rimmon, a name for Adonis, from whose blood it is said to have sprung. The paschal victim was split on a stake of pomegranate wood, and pomegranate was the only fruit allowed inside the holy of holies (being sewn in miniature on the High Priest's robes on his yearly entry; and now reflected in the Rimmonim, the ornaments atop the Torah scrolls).
The Menorah in the temple faced WSW. Why? Follow it on a map and it takes you directly to On-Heliopolis! Which is not just connected to Yoseph, but also the original home of the sun-god whom Yoseph served as priest. Bin-Yamin was named Ben-Oni by Rachel (Genesis 35:18). The menorah is said in the Zohar to get its light from the sun.
The Reem: correctly Re'em (ראם) = the aurochs or wild ox; thought by some to be the unicorn. Bil'am's (Balaam's) parable (Numbers 23:22) says that El brought the Beney Yisra-El out of Mitsrayim, and that "he has as it were the strength of the re'em." Mosheh's blessing gives Yoseph horns as "horns of two Re'ems" (Deuteronomy 33:17) These are the same Karnayim (קרנים) that were seen on Mosheh's own head when he came down from Mount Sinai in Exodus 34:29; they have been understood by scholars as metaphorical, suggesting rays of light in the form of a halo of some sort, but much more likely, in his capacity as the intermediary with the deity, he was wearing the traditional Egyptian priestly garb, which included that primitive version of the Kohanic mitre, the Horns of Anubis (see illustration above). Mediaveal anti-Semitism, as in the sculpture at the top of this page, preferred to see the horns demoniacally.
Oak trees (terebinths in particular) were sacred to Av-Raham, as the pomegranate was to Sha'ul (Saul) – further evidence of the latter's role as King of the Underworld. The alder was banned from Temple worship. The pomegranate was also sacred to Rimmon, a name for Adonis, from whose blood it is said to have sprung. The paschal victim was split on a stake of pomegranate wood, and pomegranate was the only fruit allowed inside the holy of holies (being sewn in miniature on the High Priest's robes on his yearly entry; and now reflected in the Rimmonim, the ornaments atop the Torah scrolls).The Menorah in the temple faced WSW. Why? Follow it on a map and it takes you directly to On-Heliopolis! Which is not just connected to Yoseph, but also the original home of the sun-god whom Yoseph served as priest. Bin-Yamin was named Ben-Oni by Rachel (Genesis 35:18). The menorah is said in the Zohar to get its light from the sun.
The Reem: correctly Re'em (ראם) = the aurochs or wild ox; thought by some to be the unicorn. Bil'am's (Balaam's) parable (Numbers 23:22) says that El brought the Beney Yisra-El out of Mitsrayim, and that "he has as it were the strength of the re'em." Mosheh's blessing gives Yoseph horns as "horns of two Re'ems" (Deuteronomy 33:17) These are the same Karnayim (קרנים) that were seen on Mosheh's own head when he came down from Mount Sinai in Exodus 34:29; they have been understood by scholars as metaphorical, suggesting rays of light in the form of a halo of some sort, but much more likely, in his capacity as the intermediary with the deity, he was wearing the traditional Egyptian priestly garb, which included that primitive version of the Kohanic mitre, the Horns of Anubis (see illustration above). Mediaveal anti-Semitism, as in the sculpture at the top of this page, preferred to see the horns demoniacally.
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