Rage and the Word: Gilgamesh, Akhenaten, Moses and the Birth of the Metaphysical Age

The metaphysical age, according to Martin Heidegger, extends from Plato to Husserl, but in this new book by John David Ebert, the middle of the second millenium BC--a time of cultural collapse and disintegration--becomes its essential prelude. By 1300 BC, the Gilgamesh Epic was at the apogee of its popularity, while the utopian reforms of the rebel pharaoh Akhenaten had recently collapsed in failure. Moses was about to lead the Hebrews on the Exodus out of Egypt and the Trojan War, together with the collapse of most of the societies of the eastern Mediterranean, was only a century away. Ebert examines the three figures of Gilgamesh, Akhenaten and Moses as laying down the basic prototypes for rebellion against the reigning authorities of the instituted state religions in favor of the creation of new forms of renegade spirituality that will ultimately establish the foundations for the Western religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In the process, the birth of the metaphysical age is shifted from Greece to the Near East in this short book that examines its earliest origins.