The diffusion of Hebrew-Phoenician culture throughout the Mediterranean world took place in many successive waves, long before the advent of Christianity made the Torah of Moses known in the Roman Empire by Latin translations of the Hebrew Bible. Even the name of Rome, founded by the Hebrew-speaking Aeneas, is a Hebrew word meaning "Acropolis", as the Greek city of Thebes was founded as a Jewish colony by the Hebrew-speaking Kadmos, and named after King David.

Saint Augustine writes that Prometheus lived at the time of Moses, both of them great teachers of mankind, who were not only contemporaries, but identical. Both are descendants of families with twelve children, the 12 children of Israel and the 12 Titans, children of Heaven and Earth, Uranus and Gaea, the Hebrew Asherah and El, whence Isra-El. The name of pro-Methe-us yields Moses, if stripped of its Aryan prefix and suffix, for the "th" in Methe becomes "sh" in Hebrew Mosheh.

To Greek or Roman ears Mosheh, the Hebrew form of Moses, transcribed as Mousai or Musae, does not sound like a masculine singular, but like a feminine plural, and hence the personification and deification of the Mosaical arts and sciences adopted by the Graeco-Roman world led to the nine goddesses known as the Muses. In keeping with the Torah of Moses, the Muses are concerned with music and literature rather than sculpture and painting prohibited as objects of idol worship.

In the 10th century B. C. E., which is the golden age of Israel, the Mosaical arts and sciences began to be adopted by Greeks and other Mediterranean peoples. This is the time, when the Mycenaean Cretans played an important role at the court of the Israelite dynasty of Egypt under the House of David-Thutmosis I, and when the ships of King Solomon and his Tyrian allies sailed west to Crete, as borne out by the stories of Europa (from Hebrew ha-Ereb "the evening"), and Kadmos.

Foremost among the Mosaical arts and sciences is the art of alphabetic writing, which according to Eupolemus (ca. 150 B. C. E.) was invented by Moses in the Sinai, who taught the people of Israel, the Phoenicians got it from the Jews, and the Greeks from the Phoenicians. From Herodotus we learn that Kadmos brought it to Thebes, which does not mean that he invented it. This is confirmed by Diodorus Siculus, who ascribes the invention of the alphabet to the Muses, i.e. to Moses.

Music is named after the Muses, but what Moses had to do with music was hitherto unknown. The history of European musical theory begins with Pythagoras, who is credited with inventing our diatonic scale, and said to have perceived the harmony of the 10 spheres. After my discovery of the 3D structure of the Ten Commandments, I was able to prove that Pythagoras owed his geometry as well as his religion and musical theory to the Jews, as claimed by Hermippus of Smyrna.

The Hebrew origin of the Muses is corroborated by their companion Apollo, transliterated from Hebrew ha-Baal, whom the Israelites worshipped at Mount Carmel. Although Apollo is depicted with a lyre, its invention is attributed to Hermes. His name can now be derived from Greek harma "chariot" as a translation of Hebrew Merkavah, after the harmony of the 10 spheres is identified with the Ten Commandments and the Ark of the Covenant, similarly Mercurius < Merc(a)v(a)rius.

The deification of the Tablets of the Law resulted from their being buried in the temple, built by King Solomon in Jerusalem almost 500 years after Moses had made them in the Sinai, thus idolizing the very same stone that prohibits idol worship, and naming Israel's god YaHUH (Yahuweh) after its first two words. The 10 lines (Sephirot) of their inscription became the 10 heavenly spheres, and the wooden box, in which they were carried, turned into the celestial chariot (Merkavah) of mysticism.

Anthropomorphism changed the box in which the two stone tablets lay into the dwelling (Mishkan), in which YaHUH resided, the throne on which he sat, or the chariot (Merkavah) that he rode. The Ark of the Covenant or divine chariot (Harma) was also personified as Harmonia, who became the wife of Kadmos, and deified as Hermes, the Latin Mercurius (by syncope from Mercavarius), who like the Harma (Merkavah) whence his name travels between heaven and earth.

The spurious brother of Moses, Aharon (by metathesis from ha-Aron "the Ark") who allegedly, but quite appropriately is charged with having made the Golden Calf, is likewise a personification of the Ark of the Covenant, that was transformed into an object of idol worship by the kings of Israel, after they had abolished the ancient Israelite Republic, for which it stood. As Jews wear hats before the Ark, so does Hermes or Mercury holding his caduceus or Aaron's rod (see below).