Reconstructing Freud's Moses-Texts (1934–8): From Character Study to Contribution to Trauma Theory

Abstract

Since the publication in 2021 of the first version of Freud’s Moses and Monotheism written in 1934, it is possible to reconstruct the genesis of the book as it was published in 1939, and to compare the two versions. The present article aims to contribute to this effort. It first presents a critical discussion of the reconstructions provided by Grubrich-Simitis and Gindele & Fagard. Then the hypothesis is elaborated that in the Moses project one can detect a shift from a study of the positive traits of the Jewish character (self-esteem, intellectuality) towards a study dominated by the problem of the significance of trauma for the formation of a people and their religion, the theoretical reflections on the interaction between constitutional and accidental factors in the aetiology of pathological formations, and the development of a theory of the murder of Moses as traumatic experience within the framework of a psychoanalytic theory of sexual trauma.