Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:29, 13 August 2006

Moses or Móshe (מֹשֶׁה, Standard Hebrew Mošə, Tiberian Hebrew Mōšeh, Arabic موسى Mūsa, Ge'ez ሙሴ Musse) is a legendary Hebrew liberator, leader, lawgiver, prophet, and historian. Moses is one of the greatest figures in Jewish history.

Moses in the Bible

According to the Book of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible, Moses was a son of Amram and his wife, Jochebed, a Levite. Jochebed (Moses' mother), was Amram's (Moses' father) father's sister. (Exodus vi 20) Aaron is Moses' older brother.

Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and into the desert, and received the Torah from God on Mount Sinai. There are various conjectures and calculations for when this event might have occurred, ranging from the 13th to the 16th centuries BCE (see History section below). Arising in part from his age, but also because 120 is elsewhere stated as the maximum age for Noah's descendants (one interpretation of Genesis 6:3), "may you live to 120" has become a common blessing among Jews. Jewish tradition holds that his original name was Yekutiel.

Moses' legacy was probably expounding the doctrine of monotheism, which was not widely accepted at the time, codifying it in Jewish religion with the 1st Commandment and punishing polytheists. He is considered a prophet in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Bahá'í Faith.

In the Exodus account, the birth of Moses occurred at a time when the current Egyptian Pharaoh had commanded that all male children born to Hebrew slaves should be killed by drowning in the Nile. The Torah leaves the identity of this Pharaoh unstated. But he is believed by some to be Thutmose III or Ramses II; other, earlier pharaohs have also been suggested including a Hyksos pharaoh or one shortly after the Hyksos had been expelled.

Jochebed, the wife of the Levite Amram, bore a son, and kept him concealed for three months. When she could keep him hidden no longer, rather than deliver him to be killed, she set him adrift on the Nile river in a small craft of bulrushes coated in pitch. The daughter of Pharaoh discovered the baby and adopted him as her son, and named him "Moses" (considered to mean "to draw out"). By Biblical account, Moses' sister Miriam observed the progress of the tiny boat. Miriam then asked Pharaoh's daughter if she would like a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby. Thereafter, Jochebed was employed as the child's nurse, and he grew and was brought to Pharaoh's daughter and became her son.

After Moses had reached adulthood, he went to see how his brethren who were enslaved to the Egyptians were faring. Seeing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, he killed the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand, supposing that no one who would be disposed to reveal the matter knew of it. The next day, seeing two Hebrews quarreling, he endeavored to separate them, whereupon the Hebrew who was wronging the other taunted Moses for slaying the Egyptian. Moses soon discovered from a higher source that the affair was known, and that Pharaoh was likely to put him to death for it; he therefore made his escape to the Sinai peninsula and settled with Hobab, or Jethro, priest of Midian, whose daughter Zipporah he in due time married. There he sojourned forty years, following the occupation of a shepherd, during which time his son Gershom was born. In Numbers 12, Miriam and Aaron taunt Moses for marrying a "Cushite" (literally an Ethiopian). Josephus explains the marriage of Moses to this Ethiopian in the Antiquities of the Jews (see Moses in History in the later part of this article).

One day, as Moses led his flock to Mount Horeb, he saw a burning bush that would not be consumed. When he turned aside to look more closely at the marvel, God spoke to him from the bush revealing his name to Moses.

God also commissioned him to go to Egypt and deliver his fellow Hebrews from their bondage. He then returned to Egypt. Moses was met on his arrival in Egypt by his elder brother, Aaron, and gained a hearing with his oppressed brethren. It was a more difficult matter, however, to persuade Pharaoh to let the Hebrews depart. This was not accomplished until God sent ten plagues upon the Egyptians. These plagues culminated in the slaying of the Egyptian first-borns whereupon such terror seized the Egyptians that they ordered the Hebrews to leave.

The long procession moved slowly, and found it necessary to encamp three times before passing the Egyptian frontier — some believe at the Great Bitter Lake, while others propose sites as far south as the northern tip of the Red Sea. Meanwhile, Pharaoh had a change of heart, and was in pursuit of them with a large army. Shut in between this army and the sea, the Israelites despaired, but God divided the waters so that they passed safely across on dry ground. When the Egyptian army attempted to follow, God permitted the waters to return upon them and drown them.

When the people arrived at Marah, the water was bitter, so the people murmured against Moses. Moses cast a tree into the water, and the water became sweet (Ex. 15:23-25) Later in the journey the people began running low on supplies and murmured against Moses and Aaron and said they would have preferred to die in Egypt. Manna from the sky in the morning and quail in the evening took care of the situation (Ex. 16). When the people camped in Rephidim, there was no water, so the people complained again and said, "Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?" Moses struck a rock with his staff, and water came forth (Ex. 17:1-7).

When the Amalekites came to Rephidim to fight against the Israelites, Moses had Joshua lead the men to fight while he stood on a hill with the rod of God in his hand. When Moses held his hands up, Israel had the better of the fight, but if Moses let down his hands, Amalek had the better of the fight. Because Moses was getting tired, Aaron and Hur had Moses sit on a rock. Aaron held up one arm, Hur held up the other arm, and the Israelites routed the Amalekites (Ex. 17:8-13).

Jethro, Moses's father-in-law, came to see Moses and brought Moses's wife and two sons with him. After Moses had told Jethro how the Israelites had been brought from Egypt, Jethro went to offer sacrifices to the Lord, and then ate bread with the elders. The next day Jethro observed how Moses sat from morning to night giving judgement for the people. Jethro suggested that Moses appoint judges for lesser matters, a suggestion Moses heeded (Ex. 18).

When the Israelites came to Sinai, they pitched camp near the mountain (Ex. 19:1-2). Moses commanded the people not to touch the mountain (Exodus 19:10-25). Moses received the ten commandments orally (but not yet in tablet form) and other moral laws (Ex. 20-23). Moses then went up with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders to see the God of Israel (Exodus 24:9-10). Before Moses went up the mountain to receive the tablets, he told the elders to direct any questions that arose to Aaron or Hur (Exodus 24:14).

While Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving instruction on the laws for the Israelite community, the Israelites went to Aaron and asked him to make gods for them. After Aaron had received the golden earrings from the people, he made a calf of gold and said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt." A "solemnity of the Lord" was proclaimed for the following day, which began in the morning with sacrifices and was followed by revelry. After Moses had persuaded the Lord not to destroy the people of Israel, he went down from the mountain and was met by Joshua. Moses destroyed the calf and rebuked Aaron for the sin he had brought upon the people. Seeing that the people were uncontrollable, Moses went to the entrance of the camp and said, "Who is on the Lord's side? Let him come unto me." All the sons of Levi rallied around Moses, who ordered them to go from gate to gate slaying the idolaters (Exodus 32).

Following this, according to the last chapters of Exodus, the Tabernacle was constructed, the priestly law ordained, the plan of encampment arranged both for the Levites and the non-priestly tribes, and the Tabernacle consecrated. Moses was given eight prayer laws that were to be carried out in regards to the Tabernacle. These laws included light, incense and sacrifice.

After leaving Sinai, the Israelites camped in Kadesh. After more complaints from the Israelites, Moses struck the stone twice, and water gushed forth. However, because Moses and Aaron had not shown the Lord's holiness, they were not permitted to enter the land to be given to the Israelites (Num. 20:1-13). This was the second occasion Moses struck a rock to bring forth water; however, it appears that both sites were named Meribah after these two incidents.

While the Israelites were making their journey around Edom, they complained about the manna. After many of the people had been bitten by serpents and died, Moses made a brass serpent and mounted it on a pole, and if those who were bitten looked at it, they did not die (Num. 21:4-9). This brass serpent remained in existence until the days of King Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:1-4).

When the Israelites encamped in the plains of Moab, Balak had Balaam come to curse the Israelites, but instead Balaam blessed them (Num. 22-24). It appears, however, that Balaam later informed Balak and the Midianites that, if they wished to overcome the Israelites for a short interval, they needed to seduce the Israelites to engage in idolatry Antiquities of the Jews, Book IV, Chapter VI, Paragraph 6. The Midianites sent beautiful women to the Israelite camp to seduce the young men to partake in idolatry, and the attempt proved successful. Phinehas put an end to the matter by slaying two of the prominent offenders, but by that time a plague inflicted upon the Israelites had already killed about twenty-four thousand persons. Moses was then told that because Phinehas had averted the wrath of God from the Israelites, Phinehas and his descendents were given the pledge of an everlasting priesthood Num. 25:1-13.

After Moses had taken a census of the people, he sent an army to avenge the evil brought upon the Israelites by the Midianites. The expedition was very successful, and among the slain were five Midianite kings: Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba. The Israelites also slew Balaam, the son of Beor, who had apparently been the instigator of the matter Num. 31:1-11.

Moses appointed Joshua, son of Nun, to succeed him (Num. 27:15-23). Moses then died at the age of 120 (Deut. 34:7).

Moses in Jewish thought

There is a wealth of stories and additional information about Moses in the Jewish genre of rabbinical exegesis known as Midrash, as well as in the primary works of the Jewish oral law, the Mishnah and the Talmud.

Moses in Christian thought

For Christians, Moses -- mentioned more often in the New Testament than any other Old Testament figure -- is often a symbol of the contrast between traditional Judaism and the teachings of Jesus. New Testament writers often made comparison of Jesus' words and deeds with Moses' in order to explain Jesus' mission. In Acts 7:39-43,51-53, for example, the rejection of Moses by the Jews that worshipped the golden calf is likened to the rejection of Jesus by the Jews that continued in traditional Judaism.

Moses also figures into several of Jesus' messages. When he met the Pharisee Nicodemus at night in the third chapter of John, he compares Moses' lifting up of the bronze serpent in the wilderness, which any Israelite could look upon and be healed, to his own lifting up (by his death and resurrection) for the people to look upon and be healed. In the sixth chapter, Jesus responds to the people's claim that Moses provided them manna in the wilderness by saying that it was not Moses, but God, who provided. Calling himself the "bread of life", Jesus states that he is now provided to feed God's people.

Moses is also regarded as a symbol of the law. He is presented in all three Gospel accounts of the Transfiguration in Matthew 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9, respectively.

Later Christians found numerous other parallels between the life of Moses and Jesus to the extent that Jesus was likened to a "second Moses." For instance, Jesus' escape from the slaughter by Herod in Bethlehem is compared to Moses' escape from Pharaoh's designs to kill Hebrew infants. Such parallels, unlike those mentioned above, are not pointed out within Scripture. See the article on typology.

Moses in Muslim Thought

In the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, the life of Moses (Arabic: Musa) is narrated and recounted more than any other prophet recognized in Islam. The Bible and Qur'an agree on the basic outline of Moses' life. But one of the distinctive accounts which is found in the Qur'an but not the Bible, is the story of Moses and Khidr.

Moses in Mormon thought

The Book of Moses is a text published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and believed by many within Mormonism to be the translated writings of Moses. It is published today as part of the Pearl of Great Price.

The first chapter describes an encounter between Moses, God, and Satan. This chapter was supposedly prepended to the Bible but lost through translation and omission. The encounter describes the magnificence of deity, and Moses' understanding of man's insignificance in comparison. Moses is shown the entirety of the history of the world and all that will come to pass. After this vision God leaves Moses to himself, whereupon Satan comes tempting Moses to worship him. Moses recognizes the weakness of Satan, and drives him away in the name of Jesus. Afterwards, God returns to Moses and shows him the numberless worlds with numberless people that God has created. A prophecy alluding to Joseph Smith is given in the final verses.

Textual origin of the Torah

It has been traditionally assumed that Moses received from God and subsequently transcribed all, or almost all, of the Torah, and this is still the view of most fundamentalist Christians and most of Orthodox Judaism. However, many liberal scholars, following the practice of higher criticism have become convinced that this work, in the form we know it today, was edited together from several earlier sources. This idea is discussed in the entry on the documentary hypothesis.

Moses in history

Skeptical historians, generally called "Biblical minimalists", suggest that Moses never actually existed as a historical figure, and that the Exodus is mythical. On the other hand, historical records are so fragmentary that extra-Biblical records of Moses may have been long lost. For example, if the Exodus occurred during the end of the Hyksos era in Egypt (16th century BCE), as some scholars believe, then any Hyksos records of Moses would have been deliberately destroyed by victorious Egyptians as they drove the Hyksos out of Egypt. Destruction of unfavorable records by unsympathetic Pharaohs, and even mass obliteration of cartouches from monuments, is known to have occurred at several epochs in Ancient Egyptian history.

Known extra-Biblical references to Moses date from many centuries after his supposed lifetime, and contain significant departures from the Biblical account. In addition to the Judaeo-Roman historians Flavius Josephus and Philo, a number of pagan historians including Polyhistor, Manetho and Tacitus make reference to him. The extent to which any of these accounts rely on earlier sources is unknown.

According to the historian Flavius Josephus, Moses led the Egyptians in a campaign against invading Ethiopians and routed them. While Moses was besieging the city, Tharbis, the daughter of the Ethiopian king, fell in love with Moses and wished to marry him. He agreed to do so if she would procure the deliverance of the city into his power. She did so immediately, and Moses promptly married her. This marriage is also mentioned in Numbers 12:1 (Cushite meant Ethiopian; Zipporah was Midianite, definitely not Ethiopian). The account of this expedition is also mentioned by Irenaeus, and it explains why St. Stephen refers to Moses as "mighty in his words and in his deeds" before Moses slayed the Egyptian (Acts 7:22).

Moses also features prominently in later traditions such as the Midrash, Mishna and Qur'an; these texts draw on and diverge from Biblical accounts. See the article on The Bible and history. In the 3rd century BCE, Manetho, a Hellenistic Egyptian chronicler and priest, alleged that Moses was not a Jew, but an Egyptian renegade priest, called Osarseph, and portrayed the Exodus as the expulsion of a leper colony.

The Roman historian Tacitus mentions several possible origins of the Jews that were taught by those of his time.

As I am about to relate the last days of a famous city, it seems appropriate to throw some light on its origin. Some say that the Jews were fugitives from the island of Crete, who settled on the nearest coast of Africa about the time when Saturn was driven from his throne by the power of Jupiter. Evidence of this is sought in the name. There is a famous mountain in Crete called Ida; the neighbouring tribe, the Idaei, came to be called Judaei by a barbarous lengthening of the national name. Others assert that in the reign of Isis the overflowing population of Egypt, led by Hierosolymus and Judas, discharged itself into the neighbouring countries. Many, again, say that they were a race of Ethiopian origin, who in the time of king Cepheus were driven by fear and hatred of their neighbours to seek a new dwelling-place. Others describe them as an Assyrian horde who, not having sufficient territory, took possession of part of Egypt, and founded cities of their own in what is called the Hebrew country, lying on the borders of Syria. Others, again, assign a very distinguished origin to the Jews, alleging that they were the Solymi, a nation celebrated in the poems of Homer, who called the city which they founded Hierosolyma after their own name.

Most writers, however, agree in stating that once a disease, which horribly disfigured the body, broke out over Egypt; that king Bocchoris, seeking a remedy, consulted the oracle of Hammon, and was bidden to cleanse his realm, and to convey into some foreign land this race detested by the gods. The people, who had been collected after diligent search, finding themselves left in a desert, sat for the most part in a stupor of grief, till one of the exiles, Moyses by name, warned them not to look for any relief from God or man, forsaken as they were of both, but to trust to themselves, taking for their heaven-sent leader that man who should first help them to be quit of their present misery. They agreed, and in utter ignorance began to advance at random. Nothing, however, distressed them so much as the scarcity of water, and they had sunk ready to perish in all directions over the plain, when a herd of wild asses was seen to retire from their pasture to a rock shaded by trees. Moyses followed them, and, guided by the appearance of a grassy spot, discovered an abundant spring of water. This furnished relief. After a continuous journey for six days, on the seventh they possessed themselves of a country, from which they expelled the inhabitants, and in which they founded a city and a temple.(Histories, Book 5, Paragraphs 2 & 3).

Even if Moses is accepted as a historical figure, various aspects of the Biblical tale can be re-interpreted. Manetho's claim that Moses was an Egyptian is quite plausible. This is not very different from the assumption that he was adopted into an Egyptian family, so the theory may only be one of perspective, not an actual challenge to the traditional narrative. It has been suggested that he may have been an Egyptian nobleman or prince influenced by the religion of Aten (see Freud's theory below), or simply sympathetic to Hebrew culture. Moses is an Egyptian name-element meaning "-gave birth to him" or "-formed him" and was usually combined with a theophoric element, as in "Ramose" which had the meaning "child of Ra" or "Ra formed him". The Hebrews might have fabricated the "bulrushes" story along the lines of the tales of Sargon of Akkad (Mesopotamian) or Oedipus (Greek) to legitimize his position. On the other hand, infants were sometimes abandoned by the lower classes in ancient times, and "Moshe" is a Hebrew word (meaning "one who draws water").

Dating the Exodus has also proved challenging. Views include:

• it occurred around the end of the Hyksos era, as expressed above;
• it occurred about 1420 BCE, since records exist of "Habiru" invasions of Canaan forty years later - this theory fits well the modern idea that the historical persona of Moses was the early 15th century BCE Crown Prince of Egypt called Ramose, who also disappeared from Egyptian records around the time of Queen Hatshepsut's death;
• or it occurred during the 13th century BCE, as the pharaoh during most of that time, Rameses II, is commonly considered to be a pharaoh with whom Moses squabbled - either as the 'Pharaoh of the Exodus' himself, or the preceding 'Pharaoh of the Oppression' who is said to have commissioned the Hebrews to "(build) for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses." These cities are known to have been built under both Seti I and Rameses II, possibly making his successor Merneptah 'Pharaoh of the Exodus.' This is considered plausible by those who view the famed stele of Merneptah's 5th year (ca. 1208 BCE), claiming that "Israel is wasted, bare of seed", as propaganda covering up his own loss of an army in the sea.
• A more recent and controversial view places Moses as a noble in the court of the Pharaoh Akhenaten (See below). Many scholars from Sigmund Freud to Joseph Campbell suggest that Moses may have fled Egypt after Akhenaten's death (ca. 1358 BCE) when much of the pharaoh's monotheistic reforms were being violently reversed. The principal ideas behind this theory are: the monotheistic religion of Akhenaten being a possible predecessor to Moses' monotheism, and a contemporaneous collection of "Amarna Letters" written by nobles to Akhenaten (Amarna was Akhenaten's capital city) which describe raiding bands of "Habiru" attacking the Egyptian territories in Mesopotamia. (Transformations of Myth Through Time, Joseph Campbell, p. 87-90, Harper & Row)

Finally, there is the challenge of interpreting the many miracles in the Moses story. Most of them are simply dismissed by scholars as legends, but some can be explained. For example, some of the plagues strongly resemble exaggerated versions of actual pestilences common in the ancient world (see The Ten Plagues), the famous Red Sea crossing may have been a marsh (the "Reed Sea") through which the Egyptian chariots could not penetrate, the manna which God bestowed on the hungry Israelites may have been the secretion of the hammada shrub, and the swallowing of Korah (Numbers 16) could have been an earthquake.

There is also a psychoanalytical interpretation of Moses' life, put forward by Sigmund Freud in his last book, Moses and Monotheism, in 1937. Freud postulated that Moses was an Egyptian nobleman who adhered to the monotheism of Akhenaten. Freud also believed that Moses was murdered in the wilderness, producing a collective sense of patricidal guilt which has been at the heart of Judaism ever since. "Judaism had been a religion of the father, Christianity became a religion of the son," he wrote. A recent alternative suggestion resulting from interpreting Biblical and Egyptian history (by Egyptologist Ahmed Osman) proposes that Moses and Akhenaten are the same person (Moses and Akhenaten, Dec. 2002). Opponents of this view point to the fact that the religion of the Torah seems very different to Atenism in everything except the central feature of devotion to a single god.

Several professors of archaeology claim that many stories in the Old Testament, including important chronicles about Moses, Solomon, and others, were actually made up for the first time by scribes hired by King Josiah (7th century BCE) in order to rationalize monotheistic belief in Yahweh. This claim is backed by the ancient work Geography, which is remarkably still intact and written by the historian Strabo. Strabo writes that Moses was an Egyptian priest who dissented from the other Egyptians' images of God and he took his followers to a docile Jerusalem:

An Egyptian priest named Moses, who possessed a portion of the country called Lower Egypt, being dissatisfied with the established institutions there, left it and came to Judea with a large body of people who worshiped the Divinity. He declared and taught that the Egyptians and Africans entertained erroneous sentiments, in representing, the Divinity under the likeness of wild beasts and cattle of the field; that the Greeks also were error in making images of their gods after the human form. For God, said he, may be this one thing which encompasses us all, land and sea, which we call heaven, or the universe, or the nature of things. Who, then, of any understanding would venture to form an image of this Deity, resembling anything with which we are conversant? On the contrary, we ought not to carve any images, but to set apart some sacred ground as a shrine worthy of the Deity, and to worship Him without any similitude...By such doctrine Moses persuaded a large body of right-minded persons to accompany him to the place where Jerusalem now stands. He easily obtained possession of it as the spot was not such as to excite jealousy, nor for which there could be any fierce contention; for it is rocky, and, although well supplied with water, it is surrounded by a barren and waterless territory... Instead of arms, he taught that their defense was in their sacred things and the Divinity, for whom he was desirous of finding a settled place, promising to the people to deliver such a kind of worship and religion as should not burden those who adopted it with great expense, nor molest them with so-called divine possessions, nor other absurd practices. Moses thus obtained their good opinion, and established no ordinary kind of government. All the nations around willingly united themselves to him, allured by his discourses and promises.

There is also no surviving written records from Egypt, Assyria, etc., refering to the stories of the Bible or its main characters before ~850 BCE. Such claims are detailed in Who Were the Early Israelites? by William G. Dever (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 2003). Another such book, by Neil A. Silberman and Israel Finkelstein, is The Bible Unearthed (Simon and Schuster, New York, 2001).

Traditionalists point out that many of the details of the Pentateuch are consistent with the time period, such as the price of a slave (30 shekels as opposed to around 60 at the time of the Babylonian captivity), the practice of blood covenants and the discovery of what some claim are 'chariot wheels' on the bottom of the Red Seas. Skeptics view most of these as inconclusive or otherwise inconsequential and point out that the depth of the Red Sea exceeds that of Arizona's Grand Canyon.

Ethical dilemmas

If the Bible gives an accurate description of Moses' views, then by "postmodern standards" some of his commands might amount to calls for murder, war crimes or slavery. For instance, according to Numbers 31:15-18, he called for the massacre of boys and the enslavement of female children to Israelite veterans of the Midian war ("They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people. Now kill all the young men. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.").

For those Jews who practice Judaism, as well as some Christians, the five books of Moses are holy books revealed by God, and the message within them is eternal. For Unitarian Universalists, and other liberal movements, it is regarded as a sacred text, but not as a divinely revealed work. Adherents of all these faiths understand the serious ethical dilemmas that arise when reading certain parts of the Bible. As such, Jews and Christians have developed a number of responses to understanding such texts. There are two basic positions that one can assume when approaching such texts, both of which offer a variety of responses.

One using the traditional approach was originally called a fundamentalist. The fundamentalist term has evolved to reflect other meanings however, including that of "a person with an unthinking devotion to an agenda without regard to reason." The traditional approach assumes that Biblical characters, the situations described, and the words said took place as the Bible says. The Bible is believed to be divinely revealed truth, unique among historical texts. This view does not exempt humans from a carefully reasoned examination of the scriptures, however, and in fact requires it. Translation, historical context and assumptions, and the definition and applicability of terms used in the original text not only affect what the Bible "says," they define it.

A fundamentalist may believe there is one valid source (organization, person, etc.) for the interpretation of the "truths" of the Bible. The traditional Christian view implies however that a "literal interpretation of the Bible" is an oxymoron. The important characteristic of the traditional Christian view comes from the Bible itself--that scripture is useful in the context of personal applicability (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Thus, blind adherence to an organization's or one's own static interpretation is rejected in this view, as devotion to the "living" God prohibits devotion to a static ideology. The traditional Christian view implies that the Bible is unique among texts in its truthful nature (lack of falsehood), while simultaneously implying that truth is meaningful only in living application through a personal relationship to God - attempting to adhere to a static set of moral laws is believed to lead to death (see, e.g., Romans 7). The traditional Christian believes one arrives at this view by "answering the call of God," who speaks to all mankind through revelation, where revelation is never contradictory and consists of both the Bible and experience gained through life. When faced with an ethical dilemma in Moses's writings, a traditional Christian might employ critical examination of available historical context, critical examination of how the writing should be translated, and critical examination of his or her understanding of God's nature to determine what the passage means, all the while believing the Bible contains no falsehood. For an example of this process applied to the Midian war, see this exploration of Moses's writing from a traditional Christian point of view: Moses and the Midianites. Moses, in the traditional Christian view, was considered a good man not because of his ethics, but because of his trust in God. In this view, only Jesus was a good man for what he did, the rest of mankind (including Moses and his contemporaries) can only become good by believing and trusting God. Traditional Christianity believes that one who honestly looks for God will find God, as this is stated in the Bible, and that honest, rational exploration yields the Bible as the most rational explanation for human experience.

Liberal Christian denominations and congregations reject this view. They hold that the texts of the Bible were edited together from a number of sources over a long period of time, and the authorship and timing of the Torah is debated. In this view, the situations described in the Bible do not necessarily represent divinely inspired truth but instead represent the views of the editors of the Bible.

Horned Moses

Exodus 34:29-35 tells that after meeting with God the skin of Moses' face became radiant, frightening the Israelites and leading Moses to wear a veil. Jonathan Kirsch, in his book Moses: A Life, thought that, since he subsequently had to wear a veil to hide it, Moses' face was disfigured by a sort of "divine radiation burn".

This story has led to one longstanding tradition that Moses grew horns. This is derived from a mistranslation of the Hebrew phrase "karnu panav" קרנו פניו. The root קרן may be read as either "horn" or "ray", as in "ray of light". "Panav" פניו translates as "his face".

If interpreted correctly those two words form an expression which means that he was enlightened, and many rabbinical studies explain that the knowledge that was revealed to him made his face metaphorically shine with enlightenment, and not that it suddenly sported a pair of horns.

The Septuagint properly translates the Hebrew word קרן as δεδοξασται, 'was glorified', but Jerome translated it as cornuta, 'horned', and it was the latter image that became the more popular. This tradition survived from the first centuries well into the Renaissance. Many artists, including Michelangelo in a famed sculpture, depicted Moses with horns.

Moses in popular media

• Moses appears as the central character in the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille movie , The Ten Commandments. He is played by Charlton Heston. A Ten Commandments television remake was shown in 2006.
• Moses is the central character in the 1996 Turner Network Television Movie, "Moses". He is played by Ben Kingsley.
• Moses appears as the central character in the 1998 Dreamworks Pictures animated movie, The Prince of Egypt. He is voiced by Val Kilmer.
• In the play 'Abridged Africa' by English playwright Thomas Wooltorton the main character Ebert ironically gives a pea he finds floating in the Nile river the name Moses.
• In the Metallica song "Creeping Death", The Exodus and Moses' decrees are detailed. The song title refers directly to the "black death" that comes in the night to kill first born males. Clear influence from the Cecil B. DeMille movie is indicated.
• In the South Park episodes "Jewbilee" and "Super Best Friends," Moses is represented as a three-dimensional figure (a parody of the Master Control Program from Tron). He also rather resembles a dreidel. He demands pictures of macaroni and other pre-school style crafts.
• Moses is also the name of Joshua Kadison's cat, made famous by the song 'Jesse'.
• Moses is the name of a song by the band Coldplay which was premiered while on the A Rush of Blood to the Head Tour (2002-2003). The song was included on the band's DVD, "Live 2003". Moses is also the name of the second child of Coldplay's lead singer Chris Martin and his wife, actress Gwyneth Paltrow.
• Moe Howard of The Three Stooges was born Moses Horowitz.
• In the 1981 film History of the World, Part I, Moses is portrayed by Mel Brooks. Moses is shown coming down from Mount Sinai after receiving the Law from God. When announcing the giving of the reception of the Law to the people, Moses proclaims "I have given unto you Fifteen..." (his proclamation is interrupted by his dropping of one of three tablets) "Oy!... Ten! Ten Commandments! For all to obey!"

Notes

1. In the time of Emperor Constantine I, Mount Horeb was identified with Mount Sinai, but scholars think it was located much farther north.
2. Strabo, The Geography Book XVI.ii.34-38, 40, 46
3. See WorldNetDaily article, 'Pharaoh's Chariots Found in Red Sea?' for a history of the 'chariot wheel' finds.

See also

• The Exodus
• Aaron
• Joshua
• Joshua Kadison
• Biblical figures
• List of founders of major religions
• Passage of Red Sea
• Code of Hammurabi
• Manu Smriti
• Ipuwer Papyrus

External links

• "Difficult Texts" by Bonna Devora Haberman. How do we study difficult Jewish texts without apologizing for, justifying, or historicizing them?
• Unitarian Universalist approach to reading the Bible
• Prof. E.Anati: Archaeological discoveries at Har Karkom
• by Richard Darlow, puts forward the idea that Moses was Prince Ramose
• BBC: Presents a theory of a volcanic eruption causing phenomena similar to those described in Exodus
• Ahmed Osman: Providing evidence that Akhenaten and Moses are the same person
• The Geography, Book XVI, Chapter II The entire context of the cited chapter of Strabo's work

Further reading

• Kirsch, Jonathan. Moses: A Life. New York: Ballantine, 1998.
• Osman, Ahmed. Moses and Akhenaten. The Secret History of Egypt at the Time of the Exodus. (December 2002, Inner Traditions International, Limited) ISBN 1591430046
• Werding, Hans. "Moses war Tutenchamun" ISBN 3-9803892-1-9

• Jewish prophets
• Christian prophets
• Islamic prophets
• Torah people
• Characters in Paradise Lost
• Ancient Jewish Egyptian history