© Charles Chandler

 

Tanakh

commentary

Exodus 2:1-10

Ramose was born. In the Torah, Moses was a descendant of Levi, while in the Egyptian records, Ramose was the son of Nebi, and it's possible that Levi was an obfuscation of Nebi. If there was a son of Jacob named Levi, it was a different person, not an ancestor of Moses, since Jacob wasn't born yet. Moses' father was said to be Amran, which matches the second cartouche in the Aten's name (Im-r-n). Perhaps this was Ramose swearing allegiance to the Aten, which was later sanitized by the Hebrews, who refused to acknowledge living gods, or anybody descended from them. So Amran was demoted to a human, and then put in the clan of Levi to legitimize Moses as a descendant of the Patriarchs.