Super Short Summary

Moses and Monotheism is a 1939 religious philosophy book by Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, consisting of three essays and expanding Freud’s work on psychoanalytic theory to generate hypotheses about historical events. Freud argues that Moses was not Hebrew as stated in the Bible, but was actually born into Ancient Egyptian nobility and was likely a follower of the early Egyptian monotheist Akhenaten. Freud provides his own retelling of events leading to the Biblical Exodus and applies his beliefs on the psychological impact of guilt to the events. Exploring themes of religious history, historical inaccuracy, and collective guilt, Moses and Monotheism remains widely read and debated today.