A research of an unusual character has been performed here in our old nation, Denmark. It is about a decisive historical discovery on Moses, the greatest prophet of the Bible, and his special Egyptian background. As will appear, it also is of relevance to us here in our Northern European cultural circles.
          It is a question about untraditional material, a re-examined spectrum of sources - for the first time collected here and presented altogether. Everything is very comfortably accessible in a book published a few months ago as "The Suppressed Report" ("Assassinating Moses, vol. 1") by the Researcher, Ove von Spaeth.
          Sensational, dashing reviews - when it was reviewed at all. Ove von Spaeth's incredible research work received well deserved comments - as did his impressive check of development and exchanges in the Mediterranean area of Antiquity, being an immense research, and of the character of the book as a pioneering Moses research!
          Shortly, however, almost silence. A mysterious, sudden "oblivion". And therefore an absolute shame that many potentially interested people will not know the existence of this book at all.
          Now, why am I interested in this? Because of the way von Spaeth presents the history of Moses, the book deserves to be experienced as being relevant and important to all of us. Moses stands as the initiator - 3,400 years ago - of some essential matters which became a turning point in our cultural history: It affected several important parts of the development - the impact still being in existence today in our everyday life, our linguistic usage, our customs, and attitudes.
          By letting the rare and re-discovered material speak for itself and not letting the text being dominated by one long, continued discussion about the predecessors' handling of the topics, von Spaeth presents, goal-directed, his applied re-evaluating suggestion to the early history of Moses.
          I find the book especially important in two decisive fields. First of all it has been written in a language and with a progression that also qualifies it as being genuinely exciting. This also not the least for people to whom the name of Moses would otherwise symbolize old-fashioned classroom, stove, and scratching pens dipped into the ink well of the upper edge of the desk. But in reality the book can and should be read by everybody who appreciate a gripping and at the same time thoroughly documented book.
          And secondly - and especially important - von Spaeth's book sets nothing less than a scientific new breakthrough.


Unprejudiced research

All the same, some critics have pointed to the fact that this author is autodidact. Completely irrelevant and even unserious. On the contrary, the writer's special research attitude has proved to be a major advantage. Here, because results from different, contributing research areas have been used without the automatic acceptance and specialist sectarian response. This researcher has been able, thus, to get around without prejudice and with a wider perspective and understanding of coherence.
          And what great freedom, not always having to adapt one's good name and reputation in specialist circles, where a research result, which is not considered "politically correct", under certain circumstances may be neglected.
          Especially, von Spaeth's research has caused an apparent increase in the number of convincing indications about Moses and a more fixed historical time. The material indicated that the era of Moses was 200-300 years more back in time than often "accepted" so far. A point bound to cause severe criticism from parts of the established researchers.
          However, this new course leads the book to valuable results. These are results opening up for a closer examination of the stored up, yet numerous interesting, old traditions from Antiquity about Moses and his life in Egypt. From now on, this may better than ever be related to archaeology and history.
          The material appears to be able in a most probable way to demonstrate relevant details about Moses while being connected with the pharaonic court in the 18th dynasty in 1500-1400 B.C. And it seems to prove that in this Egyptian scenario Moses had been held out the prospect of another fate than the one we know from the Bible.
          With one surprise after another, most of the book deals with - and presents - a veritable wealth of new information about the first part of the life of Moses and the drama during different pharaohs of the great civilization of Ancient Egypt.
          Conclusive of the qualifications of a researcher is especially his quality research behind the presented results. And this is absolutely the case here - whether one agrees to the conclusions or not.
          I should like to point out a few elements:
1.      To a degree I have never experienced in research, this book is based on closely correct, astronomical dates. This is executed, for instance, based on information from the oldest parts of the Rabbinical Writings.
Many of these data have only been possible to verify in present time. The writer emphasizes - obviously correctly - that consequently they have to stem from sources close to the original ancient notes. And he shows courage and abilities to draw the necessary conclusions.
2.      The book is brilliantly capable of presenting and interpreting events based on the way the past was looking at the world - and not with present time's oblique light which is often influencing modern interpretations of events in a distant past.
3.      Ritual mystery plays, the practise of which may almost seem inaccessible today, are now being placed in the right connection, where they so obviously belong, i.e. as something vital and extremely important also in the everyday life of the past. And this researcher shows that their substance contain more valuable historical and anthropological data than previously noted.
4.      The bibliography alone is worth a book. Internationally seen, this contains the largest collection, so far, of scientific books and articles on Moses. And in addition, one of the largest collection of Egyptian astronomy and chronology. For everybody who wants to get further knowledge in these fields, such a bibliography is indispensable.


The Astronomy

Even several researchers have pointed to the fact that the time of Moses, as previously mentioned, should be removed a couple of centuries back. However, as the first, Ove von Spaeth has been able to confirm this by using a chronology based on astronomy. That is the most precise, specified method of dating known in these fields. Also in many other points the writer makes convincing a higher age than usually anticipated concerning the age of oldest Rabbinical Writings.
          Like von Spaeth - other authorities and experts have emphasized that Moses has to be the genuine child of the daughter of Pharaoh. However, also here this writer is the first to support this, based on a wealth of sources - not least the Jewish Rabbinical Writings - as well as historians of Antiquity - and on exact knowledge of a detailed background concerning Egyptian-historical conditions.
          Interested researchers have associated the writer of "The Suppressed Report" with the, likewise, autodidact Schliemann's successful proof of the otherwise forgotten site of ancient Troy. This, however, may also be somewhat irrelevant, compared to the fact that von Spaeth by himself has produced an exact result able to bring out certain parts of modern biblical studies of its stagnation in "myth research" - and lead it to more real-historic inclined research.
As the book points out (p. 68), "… The Moses Assassination - made by his contemporary Egyptian opposition and later, to a certain extent, by ancient biblical editors - has now been recurrent in present time …".
          Also: "….Anthropologists were among the first to scientifically enlarge our view on the contents of the old biblical texts, while researchers of theology and linguistics were mislead by the "documentary"-theory - still not proved - which unfortunately was developed prior to the scientific development of archaeology and history …".


The Royal Library

That it should be a Danish researcher who traced the facts and placed the conclusive steps, was apparently contributed by, not the least, the presence of the Judaistic Department of the Royal Library in Copenhagen with the - envied abroad - exclusively fine and comprehensive collections. And in addition, the special contact to a considerable number of other researchers, a close contact which a country of this minor size (Denmark) is able to present. It was necessary when, as well known in those circles, the work of the writer was started a long time ago before the great times of the Internet.
          Reading of the book - with our different backgrounds and at different times - most of us would feel invited to disagreement and challenged to discussions. The book may be able to annoy, also because it chaffs our habitual ways of thinking.
          Nevertheless, neither I nor most other people have the possibility to make out a final scientific conclusion of the amazing indications of the book and the results. In this area only a few prior definite conclusions exist. But at least I am allowed to evaluate the new way, through which von Spaeth so obviously right has chosen to lead his project, as being the most exactly convincing and consistently logical.
          In the Moses research such an abundant break-through has hardly been seen ever. But in his preface the writer says more conservatively about the discovery of the rare and also controversial material and the conclusions that, "it is an offer for the performances of further research". We have to anticipate that future researchers will be prepared to use this productive chance and inspiration.
          On May 25 (1999) C.A. Reitzel Publishers published this book - clearly and so well deserved with best seller qualities in its field - a culture historical deposit of knowledge of a unique character. And correspondingly that is why it deserves a wide circulation.
          This work vitalizes a period, to many almost surrounded by a mystical light. Simultaneously, however, the pattern of events and mind sets of the contents convey a lot to every modern person, who want to step a bit behind the set-piece of the present.

J.J.

(Jens Jorgensen, MA Historian, Examiner of History at the Universities of Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Odense, and Headmaster of Slagelse College/High School; for several years he was also a Member of Parliament, the Conservative Party's Spokesman on Educational subjects).

Ove von Spaeth:  De Fortrængte Optegnelser, - Attentatet på Moses, vol. 1
C.A. Reitzel Publisher, May 1999, 236 pages, 248 DKK

What deserves a special attention is the work by Ove von Spaeth and which has got the title: "The Suppressed Record" - as volume 1 of his series "Assassinating Moses", (first published in May 1999). It is not too much to say that it is an epoch-making book. It not only it revises the popular opinion of who Moses was but provides also a comprehensive picture of the religious and even stellar-cultic circumstances, and in addition the politics of power - all in the picture of the Middle East in the time of Moses.
          An almost unimaginably large material is the basis of the book. Its bibliography of special books and publications comprises more than 30 close described pages. Among his book's sources Ove von Spaeth highlights in particular:
          1.  the Rabbinical Writings in which the rabbis from various early centuries had maintained additional information to the biblical text -
          2.  ancient historians and -
          3.  ancient very accurate astronomical - and history connected 'astrological' - data, which can be verified through modern astronomical computing techniques.

          Based on such astronomical computer calculations by processing the traditional information, Ove von Spaeth points out that Moses must have been born about 200 years before what was previously thought. The precise time is 1534 BC (probably on a date that corresponds to Tuesday, 8th February by New moon, local time by at 10 in the morning in Thebes/Luxor).
           Furthermore, the Pharaoh's daughter who found him by the Nile bank and took care of him and brought him up, must have been none other than the famous Queen Hatshepsut.
          "Pharaoh's daughter" was a title not given to any daughter of pharaoh but only to crown princesses. Hatshepsut was exactly this kind of high ranking princess because of her full royal descent when both her parents were of the royal family and cultic initiated. Even while her father was alive, she was his co-regent, and in her later years she herself was regularly crowned as female pharaoh.

          However, according to Ove von Spaeth, Hatshepsut was not only the Pharaoh's daughter, who found Moses and brought him up as her son - she was his real mother. In the Egyptian culture but also in other parts of the world the future kings in their three-month age were provided by the gods from a river or the sea, all being presented in the way of a religious mystery play.
          The queen or princess giving birth had in the time before and after birth remained at an isolated place and first became officially the mother of the child after the ceremony by the water. (A traditional re-founder of the Athens, King Kekrops, migrated from Egypt in Moses' time, had at the new place used the royal infant ritual in the same way, according Church history writer Eusebius).

          Also it was very unlikely, says Ove von Spaeth, that a Hebrew foundling should have received an upbringing under which he was inaugurated in the Egyptian mysteries in the same way as the Egyptian heirs to the throne. In fact, Moses was brought up to be a pharaoh. The author presents the theory that the from the Bible known priest Jethro at Sinai was Moses' father. Jethro was both a relative and an adviser to the Pharaoh at that time.
          Hatshepsut's royal mother, the queen, had arranged that her daughter was born as a full royal family member, therefore the queen had unite with the god during one of the more specific celestial constellations at the World-axis in the sky, circumstances considered favourable to such an intercourse, as during such case the god had resided in the husband. When young, Hatshepsut had not been able to do the same, because her half-brother who was 'assigned' as her husband was not yet an adult. In this situation the god had to be represented by another high ranking member of her family of royal blood, Jehtro.
          When Moses was around 40 years, Jethro first - and later Moses himself - were pulled out of Egypt by plots carried out by Moses' half-brother, the later Tuthmosis III in collusion with many of the priests. Thus, it happened that Moses - instead of being the ruler of Egypt - became the founder of the monotheistic religion - still existing in our present time.

          The book is fascinating reading - and requires by the reader no prerequisites beyond general knowledge of biblical accounts on the Moses figure. From professionals in the relevant disciplines many appreciative words have been stated about the book.
          One of the book's prewords is written by Dr.scient. Kristian Peder Moesgaard, Professor at the Institute for the History of the Exact Sciences and also Director of the Steno Museum, Denmark's Museum for the History of Science and Medicine. From an astronomical professional angle of view, i.e. the mentioned planet constellation in the text, he finds the book's re-evaluation of the date of Moses: "... worthy of testing in relation to research in archaeology and general history ...".
          Also, Moesgaard also points out that this basic point of the astronomical phenomena sheds new light on the cohesion of the other material and content.

A.B.

Ove von Spaeth: "The Suppressed Record" - Assassinating Moses; - C.A. Reitzel Publishers, 1999 - 238 pages, illustrated.

(Agnete Bay's written permission for free text use by Ove von Spaeth)