Moses: Difference between revisions

Moses (

Moses' name is given to him by Pharaoh's daughter: "He became her son, and she named him Moshe (Moses)." This name may be either Egyptian or Hebrew. If connected to an Egyptian root, via msy "to be born" and ms, "a son", it forms a wordplay: "he became her son, and she named him Son." There should, however, be a divine element to the name Moses (bearers of the Egyptian name are the "son of" a god, as in Thutmose, "son of Thut"), and his full name may therefore have included the name of one of the Egyptian gods. If the name is from a Hebrew root, then it is connected to the verb "to draw out": "I drew him (masha) out of the water," states Pharaoh's daughter, possibly looking forward to Moses at the well in Midian, or to his role in saving Israel at the Red Sea. Most scholars agree that the name is Egyptian, and that the Hebrew etymology is a later interpretation.[8]

Biblical narrative

Exodus and Leviticus

The

From Egypt Moses led Israel to Mount Sinai, where God and the elders entered into a covenant, by which Israel would become the people of YHWH, obeying his laws, and YHWH would be their god. Through Moses delivered laws to Israel, (the Exodus Code and the Ten Commandments), instituted the priesthood under the sons of Moses' brother Aaron, and destroyed those Israelites who fell away from his worship.

In his final act at Sinai God gave Moses instructions for the Tabernacle, the mobile shrine by which he would travel with Israel to the Promised Land.

Numbers and Deuteronomy

Moses led the Israelites from Sinai to Paran on the border of Canaan. There Moses sent twelve spies into the land. The spies returned with samples of the land's fertility, but warned that its inhabitants were giants. The people were afraid and wanted to return to Egypt, and some rebelled against Moses and against God, but God destroyed them. Moses told the Israelites that they were not worthy to inherit the land, and would wander the wilderness for forty years until the generation who had refused to enter Canaan had died, so that it would be their children who would possess the land.

Journey to the borders of Canaan

When the forty years had passed, Moses led the Israelites east around the

The Book of Kings relates how a "law of Moses" was discovered in the Temple during the reign of King Josiah (r. 641–609 BC). This book is mostly identified as an early version of the Book of Deuteronomy, perhaps chapters 5-26 and chapter 28 of the extant text. This text contains a number of laws, dated to the 8th century BC kingdom of Judah, a time when a minority Yahwist faction was actively attacking mainstream polytheism, succeeding in establishing official monolatry of the God of Israel under Josiah by the late 7th century BC.

The law attributed to Moses, specifically the laws set out in Deuteronomy, as a consequence came to be considered supreme over all other sources of authority (the king and his officials), and the Levite priests were the guardians and interpreters of the law.^[9]

The Book of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 31:9 and Deuteronomy 31:24–26) describes how Moses writes "torah" (instruction) on a scroll and lays it beside the Ark of the Covenant.^[10] Similar passages include, for example, Exodus 17:14, "And YHWH said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven;" Exodus 24:4, "And Moses wrote all the words of YHWH, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar under the mount, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel;" Exodus 34:27, "And Yahweh said unto Moses, Write thou these words, for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel;"^[11] and Leviticus 26:46 "These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the LORD established on Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelites through Moses."

Based on this tradition, "Mosaic law" came to refer to the entire legal content of the Pentateuch, not just the Ten Commandments explicitly connected to Moses in the biblical narrative. The content of this law was excerpted and codified in

Sources

All that is known about Moses comes from the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, plus a few scattered references elsewhere in the Jewish scriptures.^[12] No Egyptian sources mention Moses or the events of Exodus-Deuteronomy, nor has any archeological evidence been discovered in Egypt or the Sinai wilderness to support the story in which he is the central figure.^[13]

Moses in Hellenistic literature

Non-biblical writings about Jews, with references to the role of Moses, first appear at the beginning of the

The figure of Osarseph in Hellenistic historiography is a renegade Egyptian priest who leads an army of lepers against the pharaoh and is finally expelled from Egypt, changing his name to Moses.

In Hecataeus

The earliest existing reference to Moses in Greek literature occurs in the Egyptian history of Hecataeus of Abdera (4th century BC). All that remains of his description of Moses are two references made by Diodorus Siculus, wherein, writes historian Arthur Droge, "he describes Moses as a wise and courageous leader who left Egypt and colonized Judaea."^[16]: 18 Among the many accomplishments described by Hecataeus, Moses had founded cities, established a temple and religious cult, and issued laws:

After the establishment of settled life in Egypt in early times, which took place, according to the mythical account, in the period of the gods and heroes, the first . . . to persuade the multitudes to use written laws was Mneves [Moses], a man not only great of soul but also in his life the most public-spirited of all lawgivers whose names are recorded.^[16]: 18

Droge also points out that this statement by Hecataeus was similar to statements made subsequently by Eupolemus.^[16]: 18

In Artapanus

The Jewish historian Artapanus of Alexandria (2nd century BCE), portrayed Moses as a cultural hero, alien to the Pharaonic court. According to theologian John Barclay, the Moses of Artapanus "clearly bears the destiny of the Jews, and in his personal, cultural and military splendor, brings credit to the whole Jewish people."^[17]

Jealousy of Moses' excellent qualities induced Chenephres to send him with unskilled troops on a military expedition to

Raguel [Jethro], the ruler of the district." ^[18]

Some historians, however, point out the "apologetic nature of much of Artapanus' work,"[19]^: 40 with his addition extra-biblical details, as with references to Jethro: The non-Jewish Jethro expresses admiration for Moses' gallantry in helping his daughters, and chooses to adopt Moses as his son.^[19]: 133

In Strabo

Strabo, a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher, in his Geography (c. AD 24), wrote in detail about Moses, whom he considered to be an Egyptian who deplored the situation in his homeland, and thereby attracted many followers who respected the deity. He writes, for example, that Moses opposed the picturing of the deity in the form of man or animal, and was convinced that the deity was an entity which encompassed everything – land and sea:^[14]: 1132

35. An Egyptian priest named Moses, who possessed a portion of the country called the Lower Egypt, being dissatisfied with the established institutions there, left it and came to Judaea with a large body of people who worshipped 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 in 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. . . .

36. By such doctrine Moses persuaded a large body of right-minded persons to accompany him to the place where Jerusalem now stands. . . . ''^[20]

In Strabo’s writings of the history of Judaism as he understood it, he describes various stages in its development: from the first stage, including Moses and his direct heirs; to the final stage where "the Temple of Jerusalem continued to be surrounded by an aura of sanctity." Strabo’s "positive and unequivocal appreciation of Moses’ personality is among the most sympathetic in all ancient literature." ^[14]: 1133 His portrayal of Moses is said to be similar to the writing of Hecataeus who "described Moses as a man who excelled in wisdom and courage."^[14]: 1133

Egyptologist

The Roman historian Tacitus (ca. 56—120 AD) refers to Moses by noting that the Jewish religion was monotheistic and without a clear image. His primary work, wherein he describes Jewish philosophy, is his Histories (ca. 100), where, according to Murphy, as a result of the Jewish worship of one God, "pagan mythology fell into contempt."^[22] Tacitus states that, despite various opinions current in his day regarding the Jews' ethnicity, most of his sources are in agreement that there was an Exodus from Egypt. By his account, the Pharaoh Bocchoris, suffering from a plague, banished the Jews in response to an oracle of the god Zeus-Amun.

A motley crowd was thus collected and abandoned in the desert. While all the other outcasts lay idly lamenting, one of them, named Moses, advised them not to look for help to gods or men, since both had deserted them, but to trust rather in themselves, and accept as divine the guidance of the first being, by whose aid they should get out of their present plight.^[23]

In this version, Moses and the Jews wander through the desert for only six days, capturing the Holy Land on the seventh.^[23]

In Longinus

The

The writer quotes Genesis in a "style which presents the nature of the deity in a manner suitable to his pure and great being," however he does not mention Moses by name, but instead calls him "the Lawgiver of the Jews." Besides its mention of Cicero, Moses is the only non-Greek writer quoted in the work, and he is described "with far more admiration than even Greek writers who treated Moses with respect, such as Hecataeus and Strabo.^[14]: 1140

In Josephus

In Josephus' (37 – c. 100 AD) Antiquities of the Jews, Moses is mentioned throughout. For example Book VIII Ch. IV, describes Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple, at the time the Ark of the Covenant was first moved into the newly built temple:

When

ten commandments, which God spake to Moses in Mount Sinai, and which were engraved upon them...^[24]

According to Feldman, Josephus also attaches particular significance to Moses' possession of the "cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice." He also includes piety as an added fifth virtue. In addition, he "stresses Moses' willingness to undergo toil and his careful avoidance of bribery. Like Plato's philosopher-king, Moses excels as an educator."^[19]: 130

In Numenius

Numenius, a Greek philosopher who was a native of Apamea, in Syria, wrote during the latter half of the 2nd century AD. Historian Kennieth Guthrie writes that "Numenius is perhaps the only recognized Greek philosopher who explicitly studied Moses, the prophets, and the life of Jesus . . . "^[25]: 194 He describes his background:

Numenius was a man of the world; he was not limited to Greek and Egyptian mysteries, but talked familiarly of the myths of Brahmins and Magi. It is however his knowledge and use of the Hebrew scriptures which distinguished him from other Greek philosophers. He refers to Moses simply as "the prophet", exactly as for him Homer is the poet. Plato is described as a Greek Moses.^[25]: 101

In Justin Martyr

The Christian saint and religious philosopher Justin Martyr (103–165 AD) drew the same conclusion as Numenius, according to other experts. Theologian Paul Blackham notes that Justin considered Moses to be "more trustworthy, profound and truthful because he is older than the Greek philosophers."^[26] He quotes him:

I will begin, then, with our first prophet and lawgiver, Moses . . . that you may know that, of all your teachers, whether sages, poets, historians, philosophers, or lawgivers, by far the oldest, as the Greek histories show us, was Moses, who was our first religious teacher.^[26]

Historicity

According to the documentary hypothesis, which holds that the Torah was compiled over the course of several centuries, the tradition of Moses as a lawgiver and culture hero of the Israelites can be traced to the Deuteronomist source, corresponding to the 7th-century Kingdom of Judah. Moses is a central figure in the Deuteronomist account of the origins of the Israelites, cast in a literary style of elegant flashbacks told by Moses. The mainstream view is that the Deuteronomist relies on earlier material that may date to the

There is a wealth of stories and additional information about Moses in the Jewish apocrypha and in the 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 is also given a number of bynames in Jewish tradition. The

Jewish historians who lived at Alexandria, such as Eupolemus, attributed to Moses the feat of having taught the Phoenicians their alphabet,^[44] similar to legends of Thoth. Artapanus of Alexandria explicitly identified Moses not only with Thoth / Hermes, but also with the Greek figure Musaeus (whom he calls "the teacher of Orpheus"), and ascribed to him the division of Egypt into 36 districts, each with its own liturgy. He names the princess who adopted Moses as Merris, wife of Pharaoh Chenephres.^[45]

Ancient sources mention an Assumption of Moses and a Testimony of Moses. A Latin text was found in

To Orthodox Jews, Moses is called Moshe Rabbenu, `Eved HaShem, Avi haNeviim zya"a. He is defined "Our Leader Moshe", "Servant of God", and "Father of all the Prophets". In their view, Moses received not only the Torah, but also the revealed (written and oral) and the hidden (the `hokhmat nistar teachings, which gave Judaism the Zohar of the Rashbi, the Torah of the Ari haQadosh and all that is discussed in the Heavenly Yeshiva between the Ramhal and his masters). He is also considered the greatest prophet.^[46]

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.

Christianity

For

Moses also figures in several of Jesus' messages. When he met the Pharisee Nicodemus at night in the third chapter of the Gospel of John, he compared Moses' lifting up of the bronze serpent in the wilderness, which any Israelite could look at and be healed, to his own lifting up (by his death and resurrection) for the people to look at and be healed. In the sixth chapter, Jesus responded 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 stated that He was provided to feed God's people.

Moses, along with Elijah, is presented as meeting with Jesus in all three Gospel accounts of the Transfiguration of Jesus 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 in Scripture. See the article on typology.

His relevance to modern Christianity has not diminished. Moses is considered to be a saint by several churches; and is commemorated as a prophet in the respective Calendars of Saints of the

Members of

Moses is mentioned more in the

Huston Smith (1991) describes an account in the Qur'an of meetings in heaven between Moses and Muhammad, which Huston states were "one of the crucial events in Muhammad's life," and resulted in Muslims observing 5 daily prayers.^[56]

Moses is mentioned 502 times in the Qur'an; passages mentioning Moses include

In the Moses story related by the Qur'an, Jochebed is commanded by God to place Moses in an ark and cast him on the waters of the Nile, thus abandoning him completely to God's protection.[54]^[57] Pharaoh's wife Asiya, not his daughter, found Moses floating in the waters of the Nile. She convinced Pharaoh to keep him as their son because they were not blessed with any children.

The Qur'an's account has emphasized Moses' mission to invite the Pharaoh to accept God's divine message^[58] as well as give salvation to the Israelites.^[54][59] According to the Qur'an, Moses encourages the Israelites to enter Canaan, but they are unwilling to fight the Canaanites, fearing certain defeat. Moses responds by pleading to Allah that he and his brother Aaron be separated from the rebellious Israelites.^[60]

According to Islamic tradition, Moses is buried at Maqam El-Nabi Musa, Jericho.

Baha'i Faith

In the

Wikiquote has quotations related to Moses.

Thomas Mann's novella The Tables of the Law is a retelling of the story of the exodus from Egypt, with Moses as its main character.

In Freud

Sigmund Freud, in his last book, Moses and Monotheism in 1939, postulated that Moses was an Egyptian nobleman who adhered to the monotheism of Akhenaten. Following a theory proposed by a contemporary biblical critic, Freud believed that Moses was murdered in the wilderness, producing a collective sense of patricidal guilt that 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. The possible Egyptian origin of Moses and of his message has received significant scholarly attention.^[21]

Opponents of this view observe that the religion of the Torah seems different from Atenism in everything except the central feature of devotion to a single god,^[64] although this has been countered by a variety of arguments, e.g. pointing out the similarities between the Hymn to Aten and Psalm 104.^[65][66] Freud's interpretation of the historical Moses is not well accepted among historians, and is considered pseudohistory by many.^[67]

Criticism

In the late 18th century the

Moses appears eight times in carvings that ring the Supreme Court Great Hall ceiling. His face is presented along with other ancient figures such as Solomon, the Greek god Zeus and the Roman goddess of wisdom, Minerva. The Supreme Court building's east pediment depicts Moses holding two tablets. Tablets representing the Ten Commandments can be found carved in the oak courtroom doors, on the support frame of the courtroom's bronze gates and in the library woodwork. A controversial image is one that sits directly above the chief justice's head. In the center of the 40-foot-long Spanish marble carving is a tablet displaying Roman numerals I through X, with some numbers partially hidden.[73]

Michelangelo's statue

Moses was portrayed by Theodore Roberts in DeMille's 1923 silent film The Ten Commandments. Moses appears as the central character in the 1956

Burt Lancaster played Moses in the 1975 television miniseries Moses the Lawgiver. In the 1981 film History of the World, Part I, Moses is portrayed by Mel Brooks.^[80] Sir Ben Kingsley is the narrator of the 2007 animated film, The Ten Commandments.

Moses appears as the central character in the 1998 DreamWorks Pictures animated movie, The Prince of Egypt. He is voiced by Val Kilmer.^[81]

See also

• Mosaic authorship
• Osarseph
• Passage of the Red Sea
• Table of prophets of Abrahamic religions

Notes

Further reading

• Asch, Sholem. Moses. New York: Putnam, 1958. ISBN 0-7426-9137-3.
• Assmann, Jan. Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism. Harvard University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-674-58738-3.
• Barenboim, Peter. Biblical Roots of Separation of Power, Moscow : Letny Sad, 2005, ISBN 5-94381-123-0, http://lccn.loc.gov/2006400578
• Barzel, Hillel. "Moses: Tragedy and Sublimity." In Literary Interpretations of Biblical Narratives. Edited by Kenneth R.R. Gros Louis, with James S. Ackerman & Thayer S. Warshaw, 120–40. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1974. ISBN 0-687-22131-5.
• Buber, Martin. Moses: The Revelation and the Covenant. New York: Harper, 1958.
• Card, Orson Scott. Stone Tables. Deseret Book Co., 1998. ISBN 1-57345-115-0.
• Chasidah, Yishai. "Moses." In Encyclopedia of Biblical Personalities: Anthologized from the Talmud, Midrash and Rabbinic Writings, 340–99. Brooklyn: Shaar Press, 1994.
• Cohen, Joel. Moses: A Memoir. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8091-0558-6.
• Dozeman, Thomas B. (2009). Commentary on Exodus. Eerdmans. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Daiches, David. Moses: The Man and his Vision. New York: Praeger, 1975. ISBN 0-275-33740-5.
• Fast, Howard. Moses, Prince of Egypt. New York: Crown Pubs., 1958.
• Freud, Sigmund. Moses and Monotheism. New York: Vintage, 1967. ISBN 0-394-70014-7.
• Gjerman, Corey. Moses: The Father I Never Knew. Portland: Biblical Fantasticals, 2007. ISBN 978-1-4241-7113-2.
• Halter, Marek. Zipporah, Wife of Moses. New York: Crown, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-5279-3.
• Hoffmeier, James K. 'Moses and the Exodus.' In: Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition, pp. 135–63. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
• Ingraham, J. H.. The Pillar of Fire: Or Israel in Bondage. New York: A.L. Burt, 1859. Reprinted Ann Arbor, Mich.: Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2006. ISBN 1-4255-6491-7.
• Kirsch, Jonathan. Moses: A Life. New York: Ballantine, 1998. ISBN 0-345-41269-9.
• Kohn, Rebecca. Seven Days to the Sea: An Epic Novel of the Exodus. New York: Rugged Land, 2006. ISBN 1-59071-049-5.
• Lehman, S.M. (translator), Freedman, H. (ed.), Midrash Rabbah, 10 volumes, The Soncino Press, London, 1983.
• Mann, Thomas. "Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me." In The Ten Commandments, 3–70. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1943.
• Murdock, D.M. Did Moses Exist? The Myth of the Israelite Lawgiver. Seattle: Stellar House Publishing, 2014. ISBN 0-9799631-8-4.
• Salibi, Kamal. The Bible Came from Arabia. London: Jonathan Cape, 1985.
• Sandmel, Samuel. Alone Atop the Mountain. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973. ISBN 0-385-03877-1.
• Southon, Arthur E. On Eagles' Wings. London: Cassell and Co., 1937. Reprinted New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954.
• Wiesel, Elie. “Moses: Portrait of a Leader.” In Messengers of God: Biblical Portraits & Legends, 174–210. New York: Random House, 1976. ISBN 0-394-49740-6.

• Van Seters, John (2004). "Moses". In Barton, John (ed.). The Biblical World. Taylor & Francis. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Wildavsky, Aaron. Moses as Political Leader. Jerusalem: Shalem Press, 2005. ISBN 965-7052-31-9.
• Westminster Press
  , 1949.
• Van Seters, John: Life of Moses
• K. van der Toorn, Bob Becking, Pieter Willem van der Horst: Dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible

External links

Look up משה in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Moses (Biblical figure).

Wikiquote has quotations related to Moses.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Moses". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.

• The Geography, Book XVI, Chapter II The entire context of the cited chapter of Strabo's work

Moses Levite
Preceded by NA	Lawgiver	Succeeded by Joshua

Template:Link FA Template:Link GA