That monotheism must have been
a foreign importation, because it is contrary to that sexual
dualism of Godhead which is the fundamental characteristic of
Semitic religion, is an untenable exaggeration which has recently
become popular out of opposition to the familiar thesis about the
monotheistic instinct of the Semites (Noldeke, Literar.
Centralbl., 1877, p. 365). Moab, Ammon, and Edom, Israel's
nearest kinsfolk and neighbours, were monotheists in precisely
the same sense in which Israel itself was; but it would be foolish
surely in their case to think of foreign importation.
Manetho's statements about the Israelites are for the most part
to be regarded as malicious inventions: whether any genuine
tradition underlies them at all is a point much needing to be
investigated. The story of Exod. ii. 1 seq. is a mythus of
frequent recurrence elsewhere, to which no further significance is
attached, for that Moses was trained in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians is vouched for by no earlier authorities than Philo and
the New Testament. According to the Old Testament tradition his
connexion is with Jethro's priesthood or with that of the Kenites.
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