Moses

This article is about the Biblical figure; for other meanings of Moses, see Moses (disambiguation).

Moses or Móshe (מֹשֶׁה, Standard Hebrew, Tiberian Hebrew Mōšeh, Arabic موسى Mūsa, Ge'ez ሙሴ Musse) is a legendary Hebrew liberator, leader, lawgiver, prophet, and historian.

Moses strikes water from the stone, by Bacchiacca

Moses in the Bible

Moses with the Tablets, by Rembrandt

According to the Hebrew Bible, Moses was a son of Amram and his wife, Jochebed, a Levite. Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and into the desert, and received the Torah of Judaism from God on Mount Sinai around 1445 BCE. The Torah contains the life story of Moses and his people until his death at the age of 120 years, according to Jewish count was in the year 2488, or 1405 BCE. Arising in part from his age, but also because 120 is elsewhere stated as the maximum age for Noah's descendants (Genesis 6:3), "may you live to 120" has become a common blessing among Jews.

Moses's 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.

The Bible places the birth of Moses around 1527 BCE. 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.

The finding of Moses, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

The finding of Moses, by Edwin Long

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 mistreating 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. Moses is also said to have had an Ethiopian wife, according to Numbers 12:1. (However, the 11th century Talmudic commentator Rashi stated that this is merely a reference to the beauty of Zipporah.)

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.

(In the time of Emperor Constantine, Mount Horeb was identified with Mount Sinai, but scholars think it was located much farther north.)

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.

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.

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 the book of Acts, for example, the rejection of Moses by the Jews when they worshipped the golden calf is likened to the rejection of Jesus, also by the Jews.

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, and so he is presented in all three Gospel accounts of the Transfiguration in Matthew 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9, respectively.

Moses in Islamic thought

Main article: Musa (prophet)

In the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, the life of Moses (Musa) is narrated and recounted more than any other prophet recognized in Islam. The Qur'an reiterates many stories found in prior scripture.

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 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. Whether or not they are reliant on Jewish tradition or also have access to additional sources is unknown. Polyhistor, Flavius Josephus, Philo, and Manetho refer to him, as do others. Also, of course, there are the above-mentioned stories in the Mishna and Qur'an. See the article on The Bible and history. In the 3rd century BC, 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. A similar assertion is made by the Roman historian Tacitus in the Book 5 of his Histories.

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. However, to be fair that's 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".[1] 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 BC) 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; and that no surviving written records from Egypt, Assyria, etc., refer 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 colleagues 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 appear to be chariot wheels on the bottom of the Red Sea. Skeptics view most of these as inconclusive or otherwise consequential.

Ethical dilemmas

If the Bible gives an accurate description of Moses' views, then by "modern 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 ("kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the little girls among the women, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves").

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, ie, 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.

The Horned Moses

Moses with horns, by Michaelangelo

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 AD 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 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.

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

Further reading

• Ahmed Osman, Moses and Akhenaten. The Secret History of Egypt at the Time of the Exodus, (December 2002, Inner Traditions International, Limited) ISBN 1591430046