프로이트와 아버지 종교의 회귀 -모세교에 대한 정신분석학적 해석을 중심으로-

Abstract

This paper is intended to examine Sigmund Freud's concept of religion by analyzing his last religious work, Moses and Monotheism (1939). In order to evaluate the meaning of Freud and his psychoanalysis among the scholars of religious studies. the author classifies existing views into three categories: positive, negative and mixed positions. This diversity represents the difficulty of interpretation on Freud's works. but the author suggests that we need to interpret Freud's works within his existential and cultural context. In Moses and Monotheism, Freud attempted to explain the psychological origin of anti-Semitism and Judaism. He argues that Moses was an Egyptian leader and that the nationalistic motive of Israelites changed the religious and ethnic identity of Moses into a Jew. Moreover, he assumes that unlike Biblical narratives two Moses, Egyptian Moses and Jewish Moses, existed, claiming that monotheistic religion of Egypt, the religion of Aton, influenced Moses' religion and the formation of Judaism. Comparing Judaism with other religions, Freud regard Islam as the return of father's religion. For him, since as son's religion Christianity became polytheistic, the religious ethos of Judaism returned as a form of Islam. He regards the forced conversion of ancient Europeans to Christianity as the psychological reason of Christian's persecution of Jews. Though the foundations of his argument is not strong, Freud's interpretation is a human effort to explain his context by his psychoanalysis, which we can regard as a religious system.