Between Pharaohs and Nomads | 131gods and brought misery and disease to Egypt. These legends lacked historical
accuracy, since the historical Hyksos apparently conformed to Egyptian cus-
toms, their kings styling themselves sons of the sun god; in contrast, Akhenaten
was a domestic phenomenon, an eruption of intolerant monotheism from within
Egyptian culture itself. However, Assmann hypothesizes that in later years when
Egyptians had forgotten these particulars and had learned of the customs of their
neighbors the Israelites, history and legend became mixed, resulting in the kind
of anti-Israelite, counter-Exodus narratives reported by Strabo, Manetho, and
others. Whatever the merits of Assmann’s “mnemohistorical” hypothesis, he
combines, as two possible historical precedents for the activity of Moses (in both
the Egyptian imagination and the reality of history), the actions of two political
rulers, representatives of the principle of settled civilization.
Buber reaches back to the Habiru migrants. For him it is not ultimately im-
portant whether there is a real etymological connection between Habiru and Ivri
(Hebrew), or what these terms mean in themselves (options include “unsettled,”
“rovers,” “comrades,” “those who come from beyond”); what matters is that the
archaeological reports of Habiru activity match the “human type” exemplified by
Abraham and his descendants.^29 In negotiating with the Philistine king, Abra-
ham says that the Elohim, the divine forces, made him stray from his father’s
house; Buber links this to what he believes to be the oldest language from the
prayer for the first fruits, arami obed avi (“A wandering Aramean was my father”;
Deuteronomy 26:5). Thus Buber maintains the connection between Abraham and
Moses, now along the lines of the cultural-political struggle between nomad-
ism and settlement. Abraham can serve as the proper precedent for Moses, the
man who “came back to his forefathers by way of his flight” to Midian, where he
resumed the seminomadic shepherd life his people lost under enslavement: “A
man of the enslaved nation, but the only one not enslaved together with them,
had returned to the free and keen air of his forebears.”^30 The theme of the con-
flict between the settled and the nomadic thus finds expression in Moses’ own
biography.
While Buber seems to prefer nomadic to settled civilizations, he does not
valorize nomadic life per se. His attitude towards it can be quite detached:
They seemingly... wander to and fro in the wilderness with their flocks of
sheep and goats, they hunt wherever they can do so; they conduct a fleeting
form of cultivation with primitive tools wherever they find suitable sites; they
pitch their tents near towns with which they exchange their produce; but they
also endeavor to establish themselves more securely.... If a warrior band can-
not advance on its own, it temporarily becomes a mercenary body for some
party waging war. If it is broken up, the individual members gladly accept
service in public works as overseers, scribes, etc.; they are given preference on
account of their qualifications and achievements, and rise to leading positions.
What this type of life requires is a “particular combination of the pastoral with