Prof. Thomas Schneider is Professor of Egyptology and Near Eastern Studies at the University of British Columbia and currently serves as Chief Executive of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU). He studied Egyptology, Hebrew Bible and Ancient History at the University of Zurich, the University of Basel and the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, earning a Lizentiat (1990), a doctorate (1996), and a Habilitation (1999) in Egyptology at the University of Basel. Schneider is the founding editor of the “Journal of Egyptian History” (2008-2014) and was the editor of “Culture and History of the Ancient Near East” (Brill, 2006-2013) and “Near Eastern Archaeology” (American Schools of Oriental Research, 2012-2017). He is the author of Language Contact in Ancient Egypt (2023); and co-editor of Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Egypt (2025); The Gift of the Nile? Ancient Egypt and the Environment (2020); Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective - Text, Archaeology, Culture, and Geoscience (2015); Egyptology from the First World War to the Third Reich: Ideology, Scholarship, and Individual Biographies (2013).
Last Updated
August 31, 2026
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Pharaoh’s daughter names the baby מֹשֶׁה, “for I drew him out of the water”—a Hebrew wordplay from an Egyptian princess?! Since the 19th century Egyptologist, Karl Lepsius, scholars have dismissed this biblical explanation as folk etymology, and instead posited that the name derives from Egyptian mśy, “to give birth,” as in Ramesses or Ahmose. But neither the consonants nor the vowels line up, and no ancient author ever made the connection. Rather, Moses’ name derives from the Semitic מ.שׁ.י, “to draw or glean.”
Pharaoh’s daughter names the baby מֹשֶׁה, “for I drew him out of the water”—a Hebrew wordplay from an Egyptian princess?! Since the 19th century Egyptologist, Karl Lepsius, scholars have dismissed this biblical explanation as folk etymology, and instead posited that the name derives from Egyptian mśy, “to give birth,” as in Ramesses or Ahmose. But neither the consonants nor the vowels line up, and no ancient author ever made the connection. Rather, Moses’ name derives from the Semitic מ.שׁ.י, “to draw or glean.”
