The following is my assertion and theory that Moses brought a message of the oneness of one God. The concept of oneness, radical nonduality, is foreign to many of the scholars, archeologists, philosophers, religious authorities, and historians who have put forth their own theories on Moses and monotheism.
As a result, the meaning of the burning bush is lost to them. Their beliefs and assumptions surrounding monotheism are totally based on dualistic consciousness and on intellectual knowledge, as their hypotheses are not derived from experience or a knowing.
Moses knew oneness as he had experienced it, Jesus knew oneness as he had experienced it, and I know oneness as I have experienced it. My following theory is based on my intellectual knowledge as well as my experience and common sense of life and nature…
The three major Western religions are monotheistic due to the revolutionary efforts, trials, and tribulations of Moses, who led his people out of exile and supposedly established the first religion based on one God. His divine revelation to begin this quest was the burning bush.[i] This was a visionary and actual physical experience of interpenetrative radical nonduality, divine and matter as one—oneness.[ii]
During Moses’s time the majority of religious beliefs and practices in the lands of the ancient Near East were pagan, basically polytheistic. Some were tribal, but none were monotheistic, except for one.[iii]
At this point, I continue to explain my theory in my book until….
The words recorded in the Torah were written by the Jewish scribes of approximately 600 BCE based on the handed-down oral knowledge of Moses’s teachings and words from approximately 1200 BCE. After approximately six hundred years, common sense dictates that the words and teachings transcribed in the Torah may not have been the verbatim ones of Moses. Emphasis could have been put on certain things, while other aspects of the oral knowledge, and even written knowledge, could have been changed, minimized, or suppressed.
It is very evident that there were two primary areas of focus and emphasis for the scribes in their writing of the Torah—the traditionally known Laws of Moses, Israelites being the chosen people of God, and the establishment of a patriarchal religion. To the scribes Moses’s divine experience of the burning bush was a divine statement of God speaking to the select one, Moses, which further established their mission of promoting their agenda of being special—the chosen people of God.
Was Moses’s encounter with the burning bush true experience or metaphor? I would have to believe that the experience of the burning bush was real, as I have experienced oneness—interpenetrative radical nonduality. And it is recorded that Jesus experienced the interpenetration of spirit and matter when the dove descended upon him during bathing. But I question the exact religious teachings, practices, and words. This leads me to my assertion that Moses brought the concept of oneness, the One and many, and not solely a religion of one God.[iv] I believe that his message was of oneness, which also indicates one God—the Absolute, the All. It seems that either by chance or on purpose, Moses’s knowing and teachings of oneness got lost in the concept of one God.
If we delve further, we realize that a theology of one God based on knowledge of universal oneness is not dualistic in concept and cannot be classified as such or as solely patriarchal or matriarchal. Contrary to this theology of the oneness of one God, today’s monotheism of the three main Western religions is masculine based and dualistic in dogma and doctrine.[v]
The Jewish scribes in their versions of the oral histories twisted Moses’s oneness into a religion of a patriarchal God with the Jewish people as his chosen people. Fast forward to the originator of Christianity, Saul (Paul of Tarsus), and we have not the one god of a chosen people but the actual flesh-and-blood Son of God. They one-upped Judaism. They actually had the physical presence of God on earth. Each of the three Western religions ended up patriarchal and dualistic in context, far from the oneness of Moses or Jesus.
[i] By all accounts Moses would have been awestruck with this “proof” of the oneness of creation—the divine and intrinsic nature of all things and their interpenetration. Of course, I can’t prove that this was his thinking or revelation from this divine visionary experience. Neither can it be disproved, as we are discussing orally transmitted stories, teachings, and legends that were written down hundreds of years after the actual events had taken place.
But our reason and common sense, without the influence of the dogma and the doctrine of organized religion, would have to acknowledge that Moses would have been greatly impressed with this proof of divine oneness and intrinsic identity. Moses was spiritually evolved, intelligent, and wise. In addition, he had been schooled in the Egyptian mystery religion of his time and married to a daughter of a priest (shaman) of Midian. Would not this indicate that he understood this vision as one of divine oneness—the interpenetration of spirit and matter?
[ii] Moses’s concept of oneness did filter down to the Jewish belief in the divine spark. According to internationally renowned professor, theologian, and spiritual leader Rabbi Jack Bemporad, “Judaism teaches us that all human beings are created in the divine image and therefore are linked to God by the Divine Spark within them” (http://theollendorffcenter.org/principles.html). Please see my paper on Image or Reflection?
[iii] According to Michael Baigent, the belief in one god “has been seen by some scholars as deriving from ancient Mesopotamia: the name of the god of the Assyrians, Ashur (Assur), means the ‘One,’ the ‘Only,’ the ‘Universal God’” (Michael Baigent, The Jesus Papers, 217).
[iv] There is further consideration to the fact that the Israelites were recognizing and honoring the goddess Asherah (Venus) until King Hezekiah “removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it” (2 Kings 18:4 [New International Version]).
This indicates that the Israelites were following in the footsteps of Moses by recognizing the one and the many by their worship of the goddess Asherah. Additionally, they recognized the sanctity of nature (many), as indicated by their practice of worshipping in sacred groves and high places, but not in temples. Why would they not do this, since one of their prophets received his vision while out in nature sleeping on the ground and using a stone for his pillow?
[v] Earth, nature, and the feminine are subordinate, second-rate, and second-class citizens to these patriarchal monotheistic religions, which first and foremost highlight and stress the preeminence of heaven and the masculine. We are witness to the legacy of thousands of years of the rule of these patriarchal monotheistic religions through ever-present war, destruction of indigenous peoples, the ever-widening destruction of the biosphere, and the ongoing suppression and repression of women.
Of the three patriarchal monotheistic religions, Judaism, by far, is less patriarchal and is friendlier to the earth and nature, with more equality between men and women than the other two Western religions.
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