Contents:
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 By such doctrine Moses persuaded a large body of right-minded persons to accompany him to the place where Jerusalem now stands In Strabo's writings of the history of Judaism as he understood it, he describes various stages in its development: Egyptologist Jan Assmann concludes that Strabo was the historian "who came closest to a construction of Moses' religion as monotheistic and as a pronounced counter-religion.
The Roman historian Tacitus c. His primary work, wherein he describes Jewish philosophy , is his Histories c. 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.
In this version, Moses and the Jews wander through the desert for only six days, capturing the Holy Land on the seventh.
The Septuagint , the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, influenced Longinus , who may have been the author of the great book of literary criticism, On the Sublime. The date of composition is unknown, but it is commonly assigned to the late Ist century C. In Josephus ' 37 — c. 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 King Solomon had finished these works, these large and beautiful buildings, and had laid up his donations in the temple, and all this in the interval of seven years, and had given a demonstration of his riches and alacrity therein; The Feast of Tabernacles happened to fall at the same time, which was kept by the Hebrews as a most holy and most eminent feast.
So they carried the ark and the tabernacle which Moses had pitched, and all the vessels that were for ministration to the sacrifices of God, and removed them to the temple. Now the ark contained nothing else but those two tables of stone that preserved the ten commandments , which God spake to Moses in Mount Sinai , and which were engraved upon them According to Feldman, Josephus also attaches particular significance to Moses' possession of the "cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice.
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. Numenius , a Greek philosopher who was a native of Apamea , in Syria, wrote during the latter half of the 2nd century CE. Historian Kennieth Guthrie writes that "Numenius is perhaps the only recognized Greek philosopher who explicitly studied Moses, the prophets, and the life of Jesus 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. The Christian saint and religious philosopher Justin Martyr — CE 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. I will begin, then, with our first prophet and lawgiver, Moses Most of what is known about Moses from the Bible comes from the books of Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy.
Moses is also given a number of bynames in Jewish tradition. The Midrash identifies Moses as one of seven biblical personalities who were called by various names. Jewish historians who lived at Alexandria , such as Eupolemus , attributed to Moses the feat of having taught the Phoenicians their alphabet , [85] similar to legends of Thoth.
He named the princess who adopted Moses as Merris, wife of Pharaoh Chenephres. Jewish tradition considers Moses to be the greatest prophet who ever lived. Arising in part from his age of death according to Deut. Moses is mentioned more often in the New Testament than any other Old Testament figure. For Christians , Moses is often a symbol of God's law , as reinforced and expounded on in the teachings of Jesus. New Testament writers often compared Jesus' words and deeds with Moses' to explain Jesus' mission.
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. Jesus refers to the scribes and the Pharisees of the Temple as "seated in the chair of Moses" Greek: 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 Eastern Orthodox Church , the Roman Catholic Church , and the Lutheran churches on September 4.
However, in addition to accepting the biblical account of Moses, Mormons include Selections from the Book of Moses as part of their scriptural canon. Latter-day Saints are also unique in believing that Moses was taken to heaven without having tasted death translated. In addition, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery stated that on April 3, , Moses appeared to them in the Kirtland Temple located in Kirtland, Ohio in a glorified, immortal, physical form and bestowed upon them the "keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north.
Moses is mentioned more in the Quran than any other individual and his life is narrated and recounted more than that of any other Islamic prophet. Moses is defined in the Quran as both prophet nabi and messenger rasul , the latter term indicating that he was one of those prophets who brought a scripture and law to his people.
Huston Smith describes an account in the Quran 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. Moses is mentioned times in the Quran; passages mentioning Moses include 2. Most of the key events in Moses' life which are narrated in the Bible are to be found dispersed through the different Surahs of the Quran, with a story about meeting Khidr which is not found in the Bible. In the Moses story related by the Quran, 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.
She convinced the Pharaoh to keep him as their son because they were not blessed with any children. Moses responds by pleading to Allah that he and his brother Aaron be separated from the rebellious Israelites. After which the Israelites are made to wander for 40 years.
He is described as having been "for a long time a shepherd in the wilderness," of having had a stammer , and of being "much hated and detested" by the Pharaoh and the ancient Egyptians of his time. He is said to have been raised in an oppressive household, and to have been known, in Egypt, as a man who had committed murder — though he had done so in order to prevent an act of cruelty. Nevertheless, like Abraham, through the assistance of God, he achieved great things and gained renown even beyond the Levant. Chief among these achievements was the freeing of his people, the Hebrews, from bondage in Egypt and leading "them to the Holy Land.
Furthermore, through the law, Moses is believed to have led the Hebrews 'to the highest possible degree of civilization at that period. In a metaphorical sense in the Christian tradition, a "Moses" has been referred to as the leader who delivers the people from a terrible situation.
Bush and Barack Obama , who referred to his supporters as "the Moses generation. In subsequent years, theologians linked the Ten Commandments with the formation of early democracy. Scottish theologian William Barclay described them as "the universal foundation of all things… the law without which nationhood is impossible. References to Moses were used by the Puritans , who relied on the story of Moses to give meaning and hope to the lives of Pilgrims seeking religious and personal freedom in America. John Carver was the first governor of Plymouth colony and first signer of the Mayflower Compact , which he wrote in during the ship Mayflower ' s three-month voyage.
He inspired the Pilgrims with a "sense of earthly grandeur and divine purpose," notes historian Jon Meacham , [] and was called the "Moses of the Pilgrims. Next to the fugitives whom Moses led out of Egypt, the little shipload of outcasts who landed at Plymouth are destined to influence the future of the world. Following Carver's death the following year, William Bradford was made governor. He feared that the remaining Pilgrims would not survive the hardships of the new land, with half their people having already died within months of arriving. Bradford evoked the symbol of Moses to the weakened and desperate Pilgrims to help calm them and give them hope: Where is the meek and humble spirit of Moses?
Dever explains the attitude of the Pilgrims: And for that reason we knew who we were, what we believed in and valued, and what our ' manifest destiny ' was. On July 4, , immediately after the Declaration of Independence was officially passed, the Continental Congress asked John Adams , Thomas Jefferson , and Benjamin Franklin to design a seal that would clearly represent a symbol for the new United States. They chose the symbol of Moses leading the Israelites to freedom.
Upon the death of George Washington in , two thirds of his eulogies referred to him as "America's Moses," with one orator saying that "Washington has been the same to us as Moses was to the Children of Israel. Benjamin Franklin , in , saw the difficulties that some of the newly independent American states were having in forming a government, and proposed that until a new code of laws could be agreed to, they should be governed by "the laws of Moses," as contained in the Old Testament.
Moses did more than all their legislators and philosophers. Knight describes how leaders who emerged during and after the period in which slavery in the United States was legal often personified the Moses symbol. In the s, a leading figure in the civil rights movement was Martin Luther King Jr. This is something of the story of every people struggling for freedom.
Michelangelo 's statue of Moses in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli , Rome , is one of the most familiar masterpieces in the world. The Hebrew word taken from Exodus means either a "horn" or an "irradiation. Another author explains, "When Saint Jerome translated the Old Testament into Latin , he thought no one but Christ should glow with rays of light — so he advanced the secondary translation.
Stephen Lang points out that Jerome's version actually described Moses as "giving off hornlike rays," and he "rather clumsily translated it to mean 'having horns. Moses is depicted in several U. In the Library of Congress stands a large statue of Moses alongside a statue of the Paul the Apostle. Moses is one of the 23 lawgivers depicted in marble bas-reliefs in the chamber of the U.
House of Representatives in the United States Capitol. The plaque's overview states: Hebrew prophet and lawgiver; transformed a wandering people into a nation; received the Ten Commandments. The other twenty-two figures have their profiles turned to Moses, which is the only forward-facing bas-relief. 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 of the United States ' head. In the center of the foot-long Spanish marble carving is a tablet displaying Roman numerals I through X, with some numbers partially hidden. Thomas Paine and Numbers Paine considered Moses to be a "detestable villain ", and cited Numbers And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp; and Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle; and Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
Now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him; but all the women-children, that have not known a man by lying with him , keep alive for yourselves. The prominent atheist Richard Dawkins also made reference to these verses in his book, The God Delusion , concluding that Moses was "not a great role model for modern moralists". However, some Jewish sources defend Moses' role.
The Chasam Sofer emphasizes that this war was not fought at Moses' behest, but was commanded by God as an act of revenge against the Midianite women, [] who, according to the Biblical account, had seduced the Israelites and led them to sin. In Legend of the Jews , Phinehas son of Eleazar defend their innocent action in leaving the women remain alive because Moses instructed them to take revenge "only to the Midianites," without mentioning "Midianite women. Rabbi Joel Grossman argued that the story is a "powerful fable of lust and betrayal ", and that Moses' execution of the women was a symbolic condemnation of those who seek to turn sex and desire to evil purposes.
I want to preach this morning from the subject, 'The Birth of a New Nation. It is the story of the Exodus, the story of the flight of the Hebrew people from the bondage of Egypt, through the wilderness and finally, to the Promised Land. And I've looked over.
And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Moses disambiguation.
I hastily add that the name of the Balikh was also known anciently and cannot be associated with either a 'Kush' or a 'Havilah'. 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: God shall enlarge Japheth, and God shall dwell in the dwelling of Shem, and Canaan shall be his serv-ant. It is certain-ly rare, I have never seen it in a text. Retrieved from " https: However, in this meeting with God, something really awesome happens!
Moses with the Ten Commandments by Philippe de Champaigne. Zipporah Cushite woman [1]. Amram father Jochebed mother. Aaron brother Miriam sister. Moses in Judeo-Hellenistic literature. The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
You may improve this article , discuss the issue on the talk page , or create a new article , as appropriate. May Learn how and when to remove this template message. Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. Stuart 15 June The City of God. Greifenhagen, Egypt on the Pentateuch's Ideological Map: Salkin, Righteous Gentiles in the Hebrew Bible: His Age and His Work.
II", The Biblical World , 7 2: It was a real ecstatic experience , like that of David under the baka-tree, Elijah on the mountain, Isaiah in the temple, Ezekiel on the Khebar , Jesus in the Jordan , Paul on the Damascus road. It was the perpetual mystery of the divine touching the human. C; Neill, Stephen Dever 10 May Hoffmeier, 'The Egyptian Origins of Israel: Recent Developments in Historiography,' in Thomas E.
Levy, Thomas Schneider, William H. Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture, and Geoscience, Springer, pp. Eerdmans Publishing, pp. On the Reliability of the Old Testament. As for the role of a Moses, there is no factual evidence to exclude such a person at this period, or his having played the roles implied in Exodus to Deuteronomy.
Hoffmeier 18 March The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition. Martin Noth, for instance, after studying the Moses narratives in the Pentateuch, concluded that the lone historical tradition is the death and burial of Moses in Deuteronomy Stead, The Intertextuality of Zechariah 1—8: Smith, The Early History of God: Eerdmans Publishing, p. Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Wm. Eerdmans Publishing, 2nd edition p.
Geschichte und Legende, C. The pharaoh had quarantined everyone with leprosy into a city called Avaris, and Osarsiph used them to stage a revolt. He made himself the ruler of the lepers, changed his named to Moses, and turned them against the pharaoh. Moses lifts up the brass serpent, curing the Israelites from poisonous snake bites in a painting by Benjamin West. Moses and his army of lepers created the Jewish laws purely out of spite for the Egyptians. They deliberately made their laws the exact of opposite of everything the Egyptians believed. They sacrificed bulls, for example, purely because the Egyptians worshiped one.
Moses and his leper colony formed an alliance with the people living in Jerusalem. He built up an army of , people, then invaded Egypt. They conquered Ethiopia first, where they reigned as brutal despots. The ancient Egyptians worshiped sacred animals like Apis, who was a living bull treated as a god.
The priests were forced to burn their divine animals alive on top of a pyre made of sacred images. Then they were stripped naked and sent out into the wilderness to die. Eventually — after about 13 years — Amenophis managed to get a big enough army together to chase Moses out of Egypt. He chased him into Syria, where Moses and his people settled in Jerusalem.
According to the Egyptians, though, every Jewish law that makes the foundation of our modern society started in that leper colony as nothing more than spite against Egypt. Moses with the Ten Commandments by Philippe de Champaigne. He was just a philosopher who sat down, thought about it, and decided that monotheism made the most sense. God Appears to Moses in Burning Bush.
He was so convinced of this that he gave up his position and led a group of people out of Egypt to start their own country. Moses and his people made it to Jerusalem, which they did not have to conquer. There, he set up a lax religion with few rules, which was so popular that the surrounding nations willingly joined his kingdom. The Death of Moses, as in Deuteronomy Even the Jews had more than one version of the story of Moses.
The Book of Exodus: Moses, according to Atrapanus, was raised as the son of Chenephres, king of Upper of Egypt. Chenephres sent Moses to lead his worst soldiers into an unwinnable war against Ethiopia, hoping Moses would die in battle. Moses, however, managed to conquer Ethiopia. He became a war hero across Egypt. He also declared the ibis as the sacred animal of the city — starting, in the process, the first of three religions he would found by the end of the story. He started his second religion when he made it back to Memphis, where he taught people how to use oxen in agriculture and, in the process, started the cult of Apis.
His father started outright hiring people to assassinate him, and he had no choice but to leave Egypt. While in exile, he started his third religion after God burst out of the earth and told him to invade Egypt. Moses obeyed and, in the process, freed the Jews — but in this version of the story, he was much more efficient. Moses before the Pharaoh, a 6th-century miniature from the Syriac Bible of Paris. When the Roman Tacitus tackled the story of Moses, he was determined to get it right.
By the time he was alive, there were already a lot of different stories about him floating around. He did his best to sort out the parts that made sense to him. Instead of going to war, however, Moses and the other lepers were just expelled from the country altogether and sent out into the wilderness. Instead, he taught them, they should only trust their own judgment. Instead, Moses found underground channels of water by following patches of grass. Moses Striking the Rock.
He introduced the kosher diet because eating pork had given them leprosy. He introduced fasting as a way to commemorate their journey through the wilderness. It took seven days. Moses and the Israelites. Through Tacitus, though, we get a beautiful little glimpse into how history is created. Whoever the real Moses was, today we can only see him split through the prism of history — the truth broken up into little refractions of the truth, each one colored by the culture that tells it.
The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by William Whiston. Funk and Wagnalls Company, Translated by Kenneth Wellesley. My writing has appeared on the front pages of Yahoo, The Of course the Egyptian story is different from the Jewish story! They were enemies after all. The only thing it establishes is an historical basis for the existence of Moses. Moses was raised in the Egyptian palace so it's not surprising that some of the commandments are similar to Egyptian.
Register to become part of our active community, get updates, receive a monthly newsletter, and enjoy the benefits and rewards of our member point system OR just post your comment below as a Guest. By bringing together top experts and authors, this archaeology website explores lost civilizations, examines sacred writings, tours ancient places, investigates ancient discoveries and questions mysterious happenings. Our open community is dedicated to digging into the origins of our species on planet earth, and question wherever the discoveries might take us.
We seek to retell the story of our beginnings. Skip to main content.