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Jan Assmann

Johann Christoph "Jan" Assmann (7 July 1938 – 19 February 2024) was a German Egyptologist and cultural theorist specializing in ancient Egyptian religion, literature, and the dynamics of cultural memory.^[1]^[2] Born in Langelsheim in the Harz Mountains and educated in Egyptology, Assmann served as professor of Egyptology at Heidelberg University from 1976 to 2003, later becoming an honorary professor of cultural and religious studies at the University of Konstanz.^[1]^[3] His seminal work introduced the concept of mnemohistory, distinguishing it from historical fact by focusing on the remembered past's role in shaping collective identity and cultural continuity.^[4] Assmann's scholarship emphasized the connective structures of ancient Egyptian thought, as explored in The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs (2002), which reconstructs the worldview underlying pharaonic civilization through texts and rituals.^[5] He advanced understandings of Egyptian polytheism as a "primary religion" tolerant of diverse divine expressions, contrasting it with what he termed the "Mosaic distinction" in biblical monotheism—a revolutionary shift that demarcated "true" religion from "false" faiths, fostering exclusivity and, in his analysis, latent intolerance.^[6]^[7] This perspective, prominently articulated in Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (1997), provoked significant debate by tracing monotheism's origins to Egyptian influences while critiquing its civilizational "price" of religious violence and exclusion, a thesis Assmann defended against charges of oversimplification in subsequent works like The Price of Monotheism (2009).^[7]^[8] His broader oeuvre, including Das kulturelle Gedächtnis (1992), influenced fields beyond Egyptology, informing studies in memory, religion, and politics by highlighting how societies construct normative pasts to legitimize present orders.^[4]^[9]

Biography

Early Life and Education

Jan Assmann, originally named Johann Christoph Assmann, was born on July 7, 1938, in Langelsheim, a town in the Harz Mountains region of Germany.^[1]^[10] He spent his formative years during World War II in Lübeck, where he grew up amid the challenges of wartime conditions in northern Germany.^[1] Assmann pursued higher education in Egyptology, classical archaeology, and Greek studies across multiple institutions, attending the universities of Munich, Heidelberg, Paris, and Göttingen.^[11]^[5] This interdisciplinary approach laid the groundwork for his later scholarly focus on ancient civilizations. In 1965, he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Heidelberg, marking the culmination of his formal training in Egyptology.^[5]^[12]

Academic Career

Assmann studied Egyptology, classical archaeology, and related disciplines at the universities of Munich, Göttingen, Paris, and Heidelberg, completing his Ph.D. in 1965. From 1971 to 1976, he worked as a research assistant and lecturer in Egyptology at Heidelberg University, where he also completed his habilitation in 1972, qualifying him for a full professorship.^[13] In 1976, Assmann was appointed Professor of Egyptology at Heidelberg University, a position he held until his retirement in 2003, during which he directed the Egyptology seminar and contributed to the institution's research on ancient Near Eastern cultures.^[13] ^[3] Following retirement, he was named Professor Emeritus of Egyptology at Heidelberg.^[3] Concurrently, from 2003 onward, he served as Honorary Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Constance, expanding his focus to interdisciplinary work in cultural theory and religious studies.^[13] Assmann held additional honorary appointments, including visiting professorships and honorary doctorates from institutions such as the University of Münster, reflecting his influence beyond Egyptology into comparative religion and cultural history.^[1] His academic roles emphasized empirical analysis of ancient texts and artifacts, often integrating philological and anthropological methods to reconstruct historical memory practices.^[14]

Personal Life and Family

Jan Assmann married Aleida Assmann (née Bornkamm) in 1968, with whom he collaborated on academic projects including joint excavation trips to Egypt.^[1]^[15] The couple had five children and resided in Konstanz, Germany.^[9]^[15] Aleida Assmann, a professor of English and literary studies, met her future husband while studying English and Egyptology as he served as an assistant.^[1] Assmann was survived by his wife upon his death on 19 February 2024 in Konstanz.^[10]

Core Scholarly Contributions

Advances in Egyptology

Assmann advanced Egyptology by integrating cultural semantics and hermeneutics into the discipline, shifting focus from purely philological or event-based analyses to the collective mentalities and meaning-making processes underlying ancient Egyptian civilization. This methodological innovation emphasized "cosmohermeneutics," a framework for interpreting the interplay between cosmic order, divine concepts like cosmotheism, and human cultural expressions drawn from literary, iconographic, and archaeological sources. Unlike traditional Egyptology, which often prioritized chronological narratives or religious stagnation as posited by earlier scholars like James Henry Breasted, Assmann's approach highlighted long-term cultural continuity and self-reflective paradigms spanning approximately 4,500 years from the 5th millennium BCE to the rise of Christianity.^[16] In his theological studies, Assmann refined understandings of ancient Egyptian religion by distinguishing between implicit polytheism—embedded in rituals, myths, and cosmic structures—and explicit theology addressing theodicy and monotheistic experiments, as seen in the Amarna period under Akhenaten. His analysis of solar hymns and divine nomenclature revealed a sophisticated piety and evolving god-concept, employing semiotic and comparative methods to uncover theological depth previously underexplored in Egyptological literature. Key works include The Search for God in Ancient Egypt (2001), which distills these insights, and Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt (2005 English edition, originally German), which elucidates funerary religion's role in achieving eternal life through rituals and texts like the Book of the Dead, portraying salvation as a transformative process rather than mere preservation.^[17]^[16] Archaeologically, Assmann directed extensive fieldwork in the Theban necropolis over 36 years, focusing on Ramesside-period tombs (ca. 1292–1075 BCE) and their role in constructing sacred space. His excavations and analyses around Thebes, as head of Heidelberg University's Egyptology Institute, integrated material remains with textual evidence to interpret tomb architecture as microcosms of cosmic order and afterlife journeys, advancing interpretations of elite burial practices and their cultural symbolism.^[18]^[19] Through The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs (2003 English edition, originally 1996), Assmann synthesized these elements into a comprehensive cultural history, periodizing Egyptian civilization by paradigmatic shifts—such as Old, Middle, and New Kingdom templates—while stressing notions of time (linear and cyclical), immortality, and social justice as unifying threads. This work illuminated the "hidden face" of Egyptian history, revealing how ancient actors constructed their past through literature and monuments, thereby providing Egyptologists with tools for analyzing cultural identity beyond surface chronologies.^[16]

Development of Cultural Memory and Mnemohistory

Assmann introduced the concept of cultural memory in his 1992 book Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, distinguishing it from communicative memory as a framework for analyzing how ancient high cultures preserved collective identity through institutionalized forms of remembrance.^[20]^[21] Communicative memory, limited to roughly three living generations and transmitted orally in everyday interactions, contrasts with cultural memory, which operates on a transgenerational scale via "figurations of memory" such as writing, monuments, rituals, and festivals that objectivize and stabilize the past.^[22] This distinction emphasized cultural memory's role in constructing political and religious identities, particularly in literate societies like ancient Egypt, where scribal traditions and temple practices encoded normative pasts disconnected from direct eyewitness accounts.^[23] Building on this foundation, Assmann posited that cultural memory reconstructs rather than reproduces the past, adapting it to contemporary needs through processes of selection, emphasis, and potential distortion.^[24] He described it as comprising a "potential cultural memory"—a vast, latent archive of traditions—and an "actual cultural memory," the activated subset relevant to a given group's self-understanding.^[25] In application to Egyptology, Assmann used the framework to interpret pharaonic texts and iconography as mechanisms for perpetuating a "connective" structure linking present elites to archaic origins, thereby legitimizing authority amid historical discontinuities like foreign conquests.^[26] Assmann further developed these ideas through mnemohistory, a term he coined to denote the historical study of remembrance itself, prioritizing the dynamics of how events achieve or lose commemorative potency over their factual occurrence.^[27]^[28] Unlike empirical history, which seeks verifiable events, mnemohistory examines the "afterlife of events" in mythic and symbolic forms, revealing how societies mythologize traumas or triumphs to forge identity—evident in his analyses of the Exodus narrative's evolution from Egyptian motifs.^[24]^[29] This approach, elaborated in works like Moses the Egyptian (1997), integrates with cultural memory by tracing the connective tissue between factual kernels and their cultural elaboration, cautioning against conflating reconstructed traditions with historical reality.^[6] Mnemohistory thus serves as a meta-discipline for interrogating biases in source traditions, applicable to cross-cultural receptions such as Greco-Roman views of Egypt or modern nationalist historiographies.^[30]

Analyses of Monotheism and Religious Distinctions

Assmann characterizes ancient polytheistic religions, exemplified by Egyptian traditions, as inherently tolerant systems grounded in a "cosmotheistic" framework where deities from different cultures could be equated through processes of translation and semantic identification, fostering interreligious communication rather than exclusion.^[31] In contrast, he argues that monotheism represents a radical departure, introducing an emphatic distinction between "true" and "false" religion that rejects such equivalences and views other gods as idolatrous fabrications, a binary absent in pre-Axial Age polytheisms.^[32] This shift, according to Assmann, emerged prominently in the Hebrew Bible's portrayal of Mosaic revelation around the 13th-6th centuries BCE, marking monotheism's evolution from inclusive "primary" forms—potentially influenced by Egyptian henotheism under Akhenaten circa 1350 BCE—to exclusive "secondary" variants that prioritize orthodoxy over orthopraxy.^[15] In his examinations, Assmann posits that polytheism operates via a "theology of signs" and ritual efficacy, where divine plurality reflects cosmic harmony without demanding exclusive truth claims, as seen in Egyptian temple practices spanning the Old Kingdom (circa 2686-2181 BCE) to the Ptolemaic period.^[33] Monotheism, however, imposes a "normative inversion" that reinterprets ancestral traditions as corrupted, leading to the construction of a counter-history that demonizes prior polytheistic norms, a dynamic he traces through biblical polemics against Canaanite and Egyptian cults documented in texts like Exodus 20:3-5.^[34] He emphasizes that this distinction's political ramifications include the formation of ethnic-religious identities under minority conditions, such as Israelite exilic experiences in Babylon (586-539 BCE), where monotheism solidified as a resistance ideology against imperial polytheisms.^[31] Assmann further analyzes monotheism's dual legacy: its promotion of ethical universalism and social cohesion through covenantal fidelity, as in Deuteronomy's legal corpus, contrasted with the "price" of intolerance, evidenced historically in persecutions from the Maccabean Revolt (167-160 BCE) to later Abrahamic conflicts.^[32] Unlike polytheism's hierarchical pantheons, which allowed for syncretism—such as Greco-Egyptian god mergers in the Hellenistic era—monotheistic exclusivity demands anathema toward deviation, a principle he links to the first commandment's prohibition on other gods, operative by the late Second Temple period (circa 516 BCE-70 CE).^[35] This framework, Assmann contends, distinguishes "evolved" historical religions from primordial, ahistorical ones, with monotheism's revolutionary potential lying in its capacity to critique and reform inherited practices, though at the cost of cultural memory fractures.^[36]

Major Theories and Concepts

The Mosaic Distinction

The Mosaic distinction, as formulated by Jan Assmann, denotes the radical separation between true and false religion originating in the Mosaic tradition of the Hebrew Bible.^[34] Assmann defines it explicitly as "the distinction between true and false in religion," attributing its traditional origin to Moses as the revealer of an exclusive divine truth that rejects all competing forms of worship.^[34] This binary opposition serves as the foundational "first distinction" in Western monotheistic thought, underpinning subsequent cultural and religious divides such as those between Jews and Gentiles, Christians and pagans, or Muslims and unbelievers.^[34] In biblical terms, the distinction unfolds narratively in the Book of Exodus, which depicts Egypt as the archetype of pagan falsehood from which Israel is liberated, and normatively in the Torah's legal framework, particularly the Second Commandment's prohibition against graven images and idolatry.^[34] Books 2 through 5 of the Pentateuch elaborate this through both story and statute, establishing Yahweh's worship as the sole valid nomos while condemning alternative deities and practices as counterfeit.^[37] Assmann posits this as a revolutionary "counter-religion" that inverts polytheistic norms, inventing the very concept of "paganism" as a category of error and exclusion.^[34] Assmann contrasts the Mosaic distinction sharply with ancient Egyptian polytheism, which relied on "techniques of translation" to equate foreign gods with native ones—such as identifying the Greek Zeus with the Egyptian Amun—thereby enabling cosmopolitan compatibility and intercultural exchange without deeming others false.^[34]^[38] In this inclusive system, divine plurality allowed for hermeneutic equivalence rather than rejection, fostering tolerance through mutual recognition.^[38] The Mosaic framework, by contrast, blocks such translation, insisting on an emphatic truth that segregates the divine from the idolatrous and generates mutual antagonism, as seen in biblical polemics against Egyptian practices.^[34] Assmann traces a potential precursor to the 14th-century BCE Amarna period under Akhenaten, whose Atenist reforms emphasized solar monotheism but retained elements of henotheism and were swiftly erased from Egyptian memory after his death in circa 1336 BCE.^[34] Unlike Akhenaten's evanescent innovation, the Mosaic distinction endures as a permanent cultural memory, shaping monotheism's exclusivist trajectory and, in Assmann's view, contributing to historical patterns of religious intolerance by prioritizing identity over accommodation.^[38] He develops this theory through mnemohistory, focusing on how the distinction persists in collective remembrance rather than verifiable events, as explored in his 1997 book Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism.^[39] Later works, such as The Price of Monotheism (2009), extend its analysis to implications for violence and pluralism in Abrahamic traditions.^[40]

Connections Between Egyptian and Biblical Traditions

Assmann argues that the origins of biblical monotheism trace back to Egyptian religious innovations, particularly Pharaoh Akhenaten's exclusive worship of the Aten in the 14th century BCE, which represented an early form of monotheism that rejected traditional polytheism.^[38] This "revolutionary monotheism," as Assmann terms it, parallels the Mosaic tradition's emphasis on one God to the exclusion of others, evident in texts like the first two commandments and Deuteronomy's condemnations of idolatry.^[38] However, Assmann emphasizes that biblical narratives suppress these Egyptian roots through what he calls the "Mosaic distinction"—a foundational counter-religion that brands polytheistic traditions, including Egypt's, as false and demonic, thereby establishing monotheism's claim to absolute truth.^[38] ^[41] In his analysis of cultural memory, or mnemohistory, Assmann posits that traces of Egyptian influence persist in biblical portrayals, such as the Exodus story potentially echoing distant recollections of the Amarna period's religious upheavals under Akhenaten, roughly eight centuries prior to the traditional dating of the Exodus.^[41] He rejects speculative direct historical links, like Sigmund Freud's theory of Moses as an Akhenaten follower, due to chronological and conceptual mismatches, but highlights how the biblical Moses embodies Egyptian wisdom, as referenced in Acts 7:22: "Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians."^[42] ^[41] This wisdom encompassed practical and intellectual knowledge, akin to Egyptian instructional texts, which Assmann sees reflected in biblical wisdom literature's moral and advisory forms, though adapted to monotheistic norms.^[42] Assmann contrasts Egyptian "connective theology," which integrated diverse deities into a harmonious pantheon, with the biblical "normative theology" that enforces strict distinctions, yet he identifies underlying connections in shared motifs like divine order (ma'at in Egypt paralleling biblical justice themes).^[38] These links manifest in the Western monotheistic tradition's repressed "memory of Egypt," where early modern scholars like John Spencer revived notions of Hebrew rituals deriving from Egyptian mysteries, challenging the exclusivity of Mosaic origins.^[42] Assmann's framework thus reveals biblical traditions not as isolated but as engaging—and then rejecting—Egyptian precedents to forge a distinct identity, with evidence drawn from textual parallels and historical discourses rather than archaeological proofs.^[38] ^[41]

Controversies and Criticisms

Accusations of Promoting Religious Intolerance Narratives

Jan Assmann's formulation of the Mosaic Distinction, introduced in works such as Moses the Egyptian (1997), posits that ancient Israelite religion established a binary opposition between "true" monotheism and "false" paganism, which he argues engendered a semantics of religious intolerance absent in the more inclusive polytheism of ancient Egypt.^[43] Critics, including biblical scholars, have accused Assmann of thereby promoting a narrative that locates the roots of Western religious violence and exclusivity in Judaism, potentially excusing historical antisemitism by implying that biblical polemics against Egyptians fostered reciprocal enmity.^[43] For instance, in analyzing Exodus narratives, Assmann contends that the Hebrew portrayal of Egyptians as idolatrous foes disrupted ancient notions of "divine translatability" among gods, leading to theological conflict; detractors claim this framework inverts victimhood, portraying monotheistic "othering" as the primal intolerance rather than pagan aggressions.^[43] Such accusations intensified with The Price of Monotheism (2010), where Assmann links the Mosaic innovation to monotheism's "price" of intolerance, citing biblical episodes like the golden calf massacre (Exodus 32:27-28, approximately 3,000 deaths) and the Baal Pe'or incident (Numbers 25, 24,000 deaths) as exemplars of enforced exclusivity.^[43] Observers such as Ronald Hendel have characterized this as recycling the "shopworn canard" that Jews bear responsibility for antisemitism, arguing Assmann's emphasis on monotheistic "holy war" (herem) overlooks Judaism's ethical universalism, as in Leviticus 19:33-34's mandate for stranger-love, and idealizes polytheistic tolerance despite evidence of pagan conquests, like those on the Moabite Stone (circa 9th century BCE).^[43] These critiques frame Assmann's theory as not merely historical analysis but a subtle imputation of Judaism's culpability for enduring religious divisions, with implications for contemporary debates on monotheism's political consequences.^[44] Further contention arises from Assmann's suggestion that the Mosaic Distinction's legacy persists in Christianity and Islam, yet accusations center on its Jewish origins as the purported catalyst for intolerance, with some scholars warning that this echoes antisemitic tropes by downplaying transcendent ethics in favor of cultural antagonism.^[45] In German intellectual circles, figures like Thomas Assheuer have highlighted how Assmann's narrative risks minimizing the Holocaust's uniqueness by tracing hatred back to biblical "traumas," thereby shifting explanatory burden onto monotheistic innovation rather than perpetrator ideologies.^[43] While Assmann maintains his work confronts Germany's monotheistic heritage to mitigate violence, critics contend the effect promotes a revisionist view privileging cosmotheistic harmony over monotheism's disciplinary rigor.^[43]

Responses from Theological and Historical Scholars

Richard J. Bernstein, a philosopher and reviewer of Assmann's works, commended the Egyptologist's refinements to the Mosaic Distinction in Of God and Gods (2008), where Assmann differentiates "evolutionary" monotheism—gradual developments within polytheistic frameworks—from "revolutionary" forms that introduce sharp true/false divides, thereby mitigating charges of oversimplifying biblical monotheism as inherently intolerant.^[46] Bernstein argued that Assmann's mnemohistory framework effectively traces how religious memories shape cultural semantics without endorsing intolerance or undermining the ethical contributions of monotheism.^[6] In The Price of Monotheism (German 2009; English 2010), Assmann directly counters theological critics by reiterating that the Mosaic Distinction represents a historical innovation in religious cognition, not a normative call for exclusion, and Bernstein praised this as a thoughtful engagement that demystifies the "intolerance" label by framing it as a structural feature of truth-claims in any exclusive system.^[7] Scholars like Bernstein emphasized that such analysis privileges empirical reconstruction of ancient texts over modern ideological projections, defending Assmann against accusations of bias by noting his avoidance of moralistic judgments on contemporary faiths.^[47] Historian of religion Guy Stroumsa has responded by contextualizing the Mosaic Distinction within broader patterns of ancient religious conflict, arguing that while monotheism's exclusivity can foster division, polytheistic societies—such as those in Egypt or Rome—frequently exhibited coercive intolerance through state-enforced cults and suppression of dissent, thus challenging the narrative that Assmann uniquely vilifies monotheism as violence-prone.^[48] Stroumsa maintains that Assmann's work contributes to understanding religion's dual role in both liberal values (e.g., human dignity from monotheistic ethics) and conflict, without promoting a relativistic rejection of truth distinctions.^[48] This perspective underscores the historical realism in Assmann's theories, prioritizing causal analysis of religious evolution over politically motivated dismissals.

Empirical Challenges to Interpretive Frameworks

Scholars have challenged Assmann's Mosaic distinction on empirical grounds, arguing that it lacks direct support from ancient Near Eastern archaeological and textual evidence, portraying instead a later theological construct rather than a revolutionary innovation in Israelite religion. Biblical and extra-biblical sources, including inscriptions from Iron Age Judah and Samaria, indicate a gradual evolution toward monolatry and monotheism amid persistent polytheistic practices, such as worship of Yahweh alongside Asherah and Baal, rather than an abrupt binary opposition between "true" and "false" religions as Assmann posits.^[49]^[38] Archaeological data from sites like Kuntillet Ajrud (circa 800 BCE) reveal inscriptions equating Yahweh with other deities, suggesting syncretism rather than the exclusionary intolerance central to Assmann's framework. This coexistence undermines the notion of an early, foundational "Mosaic" rupture with polytheism, as Israelite religion appears to have integrated Canaanite elements without systematic rejection until the late monarchy or exilic periods.^[50] Assmann's contrast between tolerant Egyptian "religions of loyalty" and intolerant "religions of truth" faces empirical counterexamples in Egyptian history, notably Akhenaten's Amarna period (circa 1353–1336 BCE), where the pharaoh systematically suppressed traditional cults by defacing Amun's name, closing temples, and enforcing Aten's exclusivity, actions paralleling the iconoclasm Assmann attributes uniquely to monotheism. Egyptian records, including the Great Hymn to the Aten and post-Amarna restorations under Horemheb and Ramses II, document state-enforced religious conformity and persecution, eroding the empirical basis for Assmann's idealized view of pre-monotheistic tolerance.^[41]^[6] In mnemohistory, Assmann treats the Exodus as a cultural memory shaping monotheistic identity, yet empirical archaeology yields no corroboration for a historical mass migration or enslavement of Semites in the Ramesside period (circa 1292–1070 BCE), with settlement patterns in Canaan indicating indigenous development from local Late Bronze Age populations rather than external influx. Egyptian administrative papyri and tomb inscriptions mention Semitic laborers but no large-scale expulsion or plagues, challenging the framework's reliance on unverified "remembered" events as causal drivers of religious innovation without distinguishing them from mythic invention.^[51]^[52]

Recognition and Legacy

Awards and Honors

Assmann received the Max Planck Research Award in 1996 for his contributions to humanities research.^[13] In 1998, he was awarded the German Historians' Prize for his work on historical memory and cultural studies.^[13] That same year, he earned an honorary doctorate in theology from the Faculty of Theology at the University of Münster, recognizing his interdisciplinary analyses of religion and history.^[13] In 2006, Assmann was bestowed the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, a high civilian honor for his scholarly impact on Egyptology and comparative religion.^[9] He received the Thomas Mann Prize in 2011 for his essays bridging literature and cultural theory.^[9] Assmann was jointly awarded the Sigmund Freud Prize for Scientific Prose by the German Academy for Language and Poetry in 2016, honoring his lucid writing on cultural and religious phenomena.^[53] With his wife Aleida Assmann, he shared the Karl Jaspers Prize in 2017 for philosophical and cultural insights into memory.^[54] That year, they also received the Balzan Prize for their research on collective memory, valued at 750,000 Swiss francs.^[55] In 2018, the couple was granted the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, a €25,000 award from the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, for promoting understanding through historical and cultural scholarship.^[56] In 2020, both were admitted to the Order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts, one of Germany's most prestigious honors for intellectual achievement.^[57]

Influence on Subsequent Scholarship

Assmann's framework of cultural memory, introduced in Das kulturelle Gedächtnis (1992), has exerted significant influence on memory studies by distinguishing between short-term communicative memory, spanning approximately three generations, and long-term cultural memory preserved through institutions, texts, and rituals.^[58] This binary has been extended by scholars in sociology and cultural theory, including applications to multicultural crises where cultural memory is invoked to analyze identity preservation amid globalization.^[59] In biblical studies, German scholars like Sandra Hübenthal have integrated Assmann's Halbwachs-derived tradition to examine scriptural transmission and performative elements, expanding Egyptology's methodological reach into exegesis.^[19] The concept of mnemohistory, emphasizing remembered rather than factual history, has informed subsequent Egyptological and intellectual historical work on Egypt's Western reception, as seen in collaborative volumes tracing mutable cultural traumas from the Amarna period onward.^[42] A 2018 special issue of Ägypten und Altes Testament dedicated essays to mnemohistory and cultural memory in Assmann's honor, featuring contributions from Dieter Borchmeyer and Florian Ebeling that apply his ideas to literary and musical interpretations of ancient texts.^[60] This approach has bridged Egyptology with comparative religion, prompting analyses of Akhenaten's reforms as precursors to monotheistic shifts.^[61] Assmann's Mosaic Distinction—positing monotheism's binary of true/false religion as a rupture from polytheistic cosmotheism—has shaped debates in political theology and biblical scholarship, influencing examinations of intolerance's metaphysical roots, such as separations between divine transcendence and immanence.^[62] Scholars have built on this to explore canon formation and messianic identity, viewing the distinction as enabling identity beyond territorial bounds, as in analyses linking it to Pauline theology.^[63] Intersections with Walter Benjamin's thought have further extended its reach, converging on monotheism's canonical disruptions in modern critical theory.^[64] These developments underscore Assmann's role in reframing Abrahamic exceptionalism through empirical-historical lenses, though adaptations often refine his emphasis on normative inversion against Egyptian polytheism.^[45]

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[31]
[PDF] Monotheism and its political consequences
' Page 10 150 JAN ASSMANN Israel develops the pure form of monotheism only under minority conditions, in the Babylonian exile and under Persian rule.Missing: controversies | Show results with:controversies
[32]
(PDF) The Price of Monotheism: by Jan Assmann - ResearchGate
concept that Assmann calls “Mosaic distinction” throughout the book. Assmann acknowledges that monotheism is a religion of intolerance. of translation. The ...
[33]
[PDF] Polytheism and Monotheism in Jan Assmann's Concept of Mosaic ...
Exclusive monotheism beliefs in one God, distinctive and superior to the universe; other gods are non-existent, i.e. they are false gods. 8 Cf. Jan ASSMANN, ...
[34]
[PDF] The Mosaic Distinction: Israel, Egypt, and the Invention of Paganism
Five hundred years after Maimonides, his project of a historical expla nation of the Law was explicitly taken up by the Christian scholar who opens the second ...
[35]
[PDF] Polytheism and Monotheism in Jan Assmann's Concept of Mosaic ...
Nov 26, 2022 · Exclusive monotheism beliefs in one God, distinctive and superior to the universe; other gods are non-existent, i.e. they are false gods. 8 Cf.
[36]
6 - The price of monotheism: some new observations on a current ...
May 20, 2010 · Assmann proposed a structural division between primary and secondary forms of religion which broadly conforms to the divide between polytheism ...
[37]
The Mosaic Distinction: Israel, Egypt, and the Invention of Paganism
Therefore, there have always been attempts to over- come the conflict by reexamining the true-false distinction, albeit at the risk of losing cultural meaning.
[38]
[PDF] Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism and J. Assmann, Of God
In 1997, Jan Assmann, one of the world's leading Egyptologists, published an extraordinarily provocative book, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in ...
[39]
Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism
Assmann traces the monotheism of Moses to this source, then shows how his followers denied the Egyptians any part in the origin of their beliefs and condemned ...<|control11|><|separator|>
[40]
https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780804772860-003/html?lang=en
[41]
[PDF] RBL 05/2018 Jan Assmann From Akhenaten to Moses
Assmann rejects Freud's theory that Moses was an Egyptian follower of Akhenaten and argues that there was no direct relationship between the two.
[42]
[PDF] “The Wisdom of the Egyptians”: Revisiting Jan Assmann's Reading ...
Assmann deems the contribution of the Cambridge scholar to be. “the starting point of the discourse on Moses and Egypt”. Spencer was a. “pioneer”, with whom ...
[43]
Biblical Blame Shift - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Apr 15, 2013 · ... Jan Assmann argues that the ancient Hebrews ... ” establishes what Assmann characterizes as a cultural semantics of religious intolerance ...
[44]
Philosophy and Monotheism, Politics and Democracy | The Trott Line
May 19, 2016 · Jan Assmann argues that monotheism changes the shape of religion by construing the one god as the only true god among false gods.Missing: controversies | Show results with:controversies<|control11|><|separator|>
[45]
A Matter of Distinction: On Recent Work by Jan Assmann - jstor
Assmann's mnemohistorical analysis of the Mosaic distinction. Because he weaves together elements of history, memory, and theology, his analyses of the.Missing: explanation | Show results with:explanation
[46]
"Bernstein on Assman" by Richard J. Bernstein
Review of. Jan Assmann, Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. 196 pp.
[47]
Richard J. Bernstein, Jan Assmann's Moses the Egyptian - PhilPapers
Assmann explores the image of Egypt in Western thinking; he probes the dynamics of religious intolerance and tolerance, and the origins of anti-Semitism. He ...<|separator|>
[48]
Open Society, Closed Religion - Sources Journal
Apr 25, 2021 · IS MONOTHEISM AT THE ROOT OF RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE? That most famous ... This view has been advocated most recently by my friend Jan Assmann ...<|separator|>
[49]
[PDF] THE ARGUMENT OF JAN ASSMANN - Revista Sefarad
Assmann emphasizes that he is not speaking of biblical monotheism as a “political revolution, perhaps not a historical event at all” (p. 108). Page 5. THEISM ...<|control11|><|separator|>
[50]
Review of: Jan Assmann, From Akhenaten to Moses: Ancient Egypt ...
The review critiques Assmann's limited perspective on the biblical evidence and highlights the potential for more tolerant forms of monotheism.Missing: criticism persecution
[51]
The Exodus Story as Jewish Mnemohistory - TheTorah.com
Jan 5, 2015 · Basing himself on these theories, Egyptologist Jan Assmann has posited that it is possible to write a history of collective memory, a subfield ...
[52]
The "Late" Origins of Judaism - The Archaeological Evidence - Vridar
Nov 17, 2022 · Archaeological evidence suggests Judaism's origins are no earlier than the Persian era (ca 500-300 BCE), possibly as late as the Hellenistic ...
[53]
Jan Assmann / 2016 / Sigmund-Freud-Preis / Deutsche Akademie ...
Auszeichnungen. Georg-Büchner-Preis · Sigmund-Freud-Preis · Friedrich-Gundolf-Preis · Johann-Heinrich-Merck-Preis · Johann-Heinrich-Voß-Preis · Ihr Engagement.
[54]
Karl-Jaspers-Preis für das Forscherpaar Aleida und Jan Assmann
May 5, 2017 · Mit persönlichen Worten dankten die beiden Preisträger für die Ehrung mit dem Karl-Jaspers-Preis. Es sei die erste große gemeinsame Auszeichnung ...
[55]
Aleida and Jan Assmann: 2017 Balzan Prize for Collective Memory
Her husband Jan Assmann, born on 7 July 1938 (*1938 – †2024) in Langesheim, read Egyptology, Classical Archaeology and Greek and received his Habilitation ...Missing: family | Show results with:family
[56]
Aleida and Jan Assmann - Peace Prize of the German Book Trade
Oct 14, 2018 · Aleida Assmann is a German scholar and professor of English and Cultural Studies. She was born on 22 March 1947 in Bethelnear Bielefeld to the ...
[57]
Orden Pour le mérite für Aleida und Jan Assmann
Oct 28, 2020 · Prof. Dr. Aleida Assmann und Prof. Dr. Jan Assmann wurde der Orden Pour le mérite verliehen. Der Orden zählt zu den höchsten Auszeichnungen, mit ...
[58]
In Memory of Jan Assmann – SlowMemory – CA20105
Jan Assmann died on Monday 19 February 2024. He was 85. Jan Assmann's landmark study of cultural memory, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, was published in 1992.Missing: key | Show results with:key
[59]
(PDF) Jan Assmann's Concept of “Cultural Memory” and the Crisis of ...
Mar 31, 2021 · ... cultural memory" by the famous. German Egyptologist, cultural critic and religious. scholar Jan Assmann has been increasingly. attributed in ...
[60]
No. 3 (2018): Mnemohistory and Cultural Memory - Essays in ...
Jul 6, 2018 · No. 3 (2018): Mnemohistory and Cultural Memory - Essays in Honour of Jan Assmann ; Dieter Borchmeyer. 15-26 ; Florian Ebeling. 27-58 ; Peter Gülke.
[61]
From Akhenaten to Moses: Ancient Egypt and Religious Change
Oct 8, 2015 · Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Jan Assmann, Honorary Professor of Cultural and Religious Studies at the University of Constance ...Missing: subsequent | Show results with:subsequent
[62]
A Political Theology of the Mosaic Distinction (Chapter 6)
Chapter 6 outlines a political theology of monotheism using Assmann's concepts of the Mosaic distinction, supplemented by other scholars like Mark S. Smith ...<|control11|><|separator|>
[63]
[PDF] The Relationship of Canon and Messiah
This was the single act, what Assmann terms the. “Mosaic distinction”, which strengthened the Jews into a people beyond any national, land-based identity. And ...Missing: impact | Show results with:impact
[64]
[PDF] The Convergence of Jan Assmann and Walter Benjamin on a ...
Jan Assmann on the monotheistic canon and the 'Mosaic distinction'. The work of contemporary Egyptologist Jan Assmann has run over a breadth of ideas throughout.Missing: review | Show results with:review