Apart from a few scattered references elsewhere in the Jewish scriptures, all that is known about Moses comes from the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.[16] The majority of scholars date these four books to the Persian period, 538-332 BCE.[17]
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.[18]
Moses in Hellenistic literature
Further information: Moses in Judeo-Hellenistic literature
Non-biblical writings about Jews, with references to the role of Moses, first appear at the beginning of theHellenistic period, from 323 BCE to about 146 BCE. Shmuel notes that "a characteristic of this literature is the high honour in which it holds the peoples of the East in general and some specific groups among these peoples."[19]:1102
In addition to the Judeo-Roman or Judeo-Hellenic historians Artapanus, Eupolemus, Josephus, and Philo, a few non-Jewish historians including Hecataeus of Abdera (quoted by Diodorus Siculus), Alexander Polyhistor,Manetho, Apion, Chaeremon of Alexandria, Tacitus and Porphyry also make reference to him. The extent to which any of these accounts rely on earlier sources is unknown.[19]:1103 Moses also appears in other religious texts such as the Mishnah (c. 200 AD), Midrash (AD 200–1200),[20] and the Qur'an (c. 610—653).
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."[21]: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.[21]:18
Droge also points out that this statement by Hecataeus was similar to statements made subsequently byEupolemus.[21]: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."[22]
- Jealousy of Moses' excellent qualities induced Chenephres to send him with unskilled troops on a military expedition to Ethiopia, where he won great victories. After having built the city of Hermopolis, he taught the people the value of the ibis as a protection against the serpents, making the bird the sacred guardian spirit of the city; then he introduced circumcision. After his return to Memphis, Moses taught the people the value of oxen for agriculture, and the consecration of the same by Moses gave rise to the cult of Apis. Finally, after having escaped another plot by killing the assailant sent by the king, Moses fled to Arabia, where he married the daughter of Raguel [Jethro], the ruler of the district." [23]
Artapanus goes on to relate how Moses returns to Egypt with Aaron, and is imprisoned, but miraculously escapes through the name of YHWH in order to lead the Exodus. This account further testifies that all Egyptian temples of Isisthereafter contained a rod, in remembrance of that used for Moses' miracles. He describes Moses as 80 years old, "tall and ruddy, with long white hair, and dignified."
Some historians, however, point out the "apologetic nature of much of Artapanus' work,"[24]: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.[24]: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:[19]: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. . . . ''[25]
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." [19]: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."[19]:1133
Egyptologist Jan Assmann concludes that Strabo was the historian "who came closest to a construction of Moses' religion as monotheism and as a pronounced counter-religion." It recognized "only one divine being whom no image can represent. . . [and] the only way to approach this god is to live in virtue and in justice."[26]:38
- In Tacitus
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 hisHistories (ca. 100), where, according to Murphy, as a result of the Jewish worship of one God, "pagan mythology fell into contempt."[27] 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 PharaohBocchoris, 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.[28]
In this version, Moses and the Jews wander through the desert for only six days, capturing the Holy Land on the seventh.[28]
- In Longinus
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, although the true author is still unknown for certain. However, most scholars agree that the author lived in the time of Augustus or Tiberius, the first and second Roman Emperors.
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.[19]: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:
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."[24]: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 . . . "[30]:194 He describes his background:
- 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."[31] He quotes him:
Osarseph /ˈoʊzərˌsɛf/ or Osarsiph /ˈoʊzərˌsɪf/ is a legendary figure of Ancient Egypt who has been equated with Moses. His story was recounted by thePtolemaic Egyptian historian Manetho in his Aigyptiaca (first half of the 3rd century BC); Manetho's work is lost, but the 1st century AD Jewish historianJosephus quotes extensively from it.
The story depicts Osarseph as a renegade Egyptian priest who leads an army of lepers and other unclean people against a pharaoh named Amenophis; the pharaoh is driven out of the country and the leper-army, in alliance with the Hyksos (whose story is also told by Manetho) ravage Egypt, committing many sacrileges against the gods, before Amenophis returns and expels them. Towards the end of the story Osarseph changes his name to Moses.[1]
Also much debated is the question of what, if any, historical reality might lie behind the Osarseph story. The story has been linked with anti-Jewish propaganda of the 2nd and 1st centuries BC as an inversion of the Exodus story, but an influential study by Egyptologist Jan Assmann has suggested that no single historical incident or person lies behind the legend, and that it represents instead a conflation of several historical traumas, notably the religious reforms of Akhenaten (Amenophis IV).[2]
Contents
[hide]Story[edit]
Josephus's Against Apion[3] gives two long quotations from Manetho's Aigyptiaca.[4] The first is Manetho's account of the expulsion of the Hyksos (the name is given by Manetho) and their settlement in Judea, where they found the city of Jerusalem. Josephus then draws the conclusion that Manetho's Hyksos were the Jews of the Exodus, although Manetho himself makes no such connection.[5]
The second, set some two hundred years later, tells the story of Osarseph. According to Josephus, Manetho described Osarseph as a tyrannical high priest ofOsiris at Heliopolis. Pharaoh Amenophis had a desire to see the gods, but in order to do so he first had to cleanse Egypt of lepers and other polluted people, setting 80,000 of them to work in the stone quarries, and then confining them to Avaris, the former Hyksos capital in the Eastern Delta. There Osarseph became their leader and ordered them to give up the worship of the gods and eat the meat of the holy animals. The Osarsephites then invited the Hyksos back into Egypt, and together with their new allies drove Amenophis and his son Ramses into exile in Nubia and instituted a 13-year reign of religious oppression: towns and temples were devastated, the images of the gods destroyed, the sanctuaries turned into kitchens and the sacred animals roasted over fires, until eventually Amenophis and Rameses returned to expel the lepers and the Hyksos and restore the old Egyptian religion. Towards the end of the story Manetho reports that Osarseph took the name "Moses".[6]
Interpretations[edit]
Three interpretations have been proposed for the story: the first, as a memory of the Amarna period; the second, as a memory of the Hyksos; and the third, as an anti-Jewish propaganda. Each explanation has evidence to support it: the name of the pharaoh, Amenophis, and the religious character of the conflict fit the Amarna reform of Egyptian religion; the name of Avaris and possibly the name Osarseph fit the Hyksos period; and the overall plot is an apparent inversion of the Jewish story of the Exodus casting the Jews in a bad light. No one theory, however, can explain all the elements. An influential proposition by Egyptologist Jan Assmann[7] suggests that the story has no single origin but rather combines numerous historical experiences, notably the Amarna and Hyksos periods, into a folk memory.[8]
An alternative theory that identifies Osarseph as the historical figure of Chancellor Bay, identified as Irsu, an alleged Syrian usurper of the Egyptian throne after the Nineteenth Dynasty died out, is generally rejected;[9] another theory is that Osarseph's name is based on the biblical Joseph, as a combination of Osiris and Joseph.[10]
Some modern scholars have suggested that the Osarseph story, or at least the point at which Osarseph changes his name to Moses, is a later alteration to Manetho's original history made in the 1st century BC, a time when anti-Jewish sentiment was running high in Egypt; without this, Manetho's history has no mention of the Jews at all. If the story is an original part of Manetho's history of Egypt, as many other scholars believe, the question arises of where he would have heard it, as the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Torah (i.e., the Exodus narrative) had not been made when he was writing. It is therefore supposed that he had an oral (Jewish) informant, or possibly an otherwise unknown pre-Septuagint translation.
Historicity
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 United Monarchy, so that the biblical narrative would be based on traditions that can be traced roughly to the 10th century, or about four centuries after the supposed lifetime of Moses. By contrast, Biblical minimalists such as Philip Davies and Niels Peter Lemche regard the Exodus as a fiction composed in the Persian period or even later to give hope of return to Canaan for a Diaspora community, without even the memory of a historical Moses.[32][33] Given this possible late composition it would seem that the figure of Moses may be a composite drawn from a number of different sources.
The question of the historicity of the Exodus (specifically, the Pharaoh of the Exodus, identification of whom would connect the biblical narrative to Egyptological chronology) has long been debated, without conclusive result. There were at least two periods in Egyptian history in which Asiatic Semites were expelled from Egypt. One was associated with the expulsion of the Semitic Hyksos at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. The second was following the commencement of the reign of Setnakhte at the end of the 19th Dynasty. Manetho seems to confuse the two, for instance, in a distorted account reported in Josephus, he supposedly states that Moses was originally Osarseph, a renegade priest, who led a band of lepers out of Avaris (referred to as Raamses in the Bible).(Exodus 1:11) Osarseph, may be a memory of a shadowy visier, originally from Syria (Hurru), known as Yursu (self-made), who came to prominence as Chancellor Bay just prior to the second event. Pi Ramesses may be the "store city" Raamses mentioned in Exodus, which was the capital of the Egyptian Empire in the 19th to end of the 20th Dynasty of Egypt, giving quite a specific date to the Egyptian part of Exodus.
Some scholars, like Kenneth Kitchen and Frank Yurko suggest that there may be a historical core beneath the Exodus and Sinai traditions, even if the biblical narrative dramatizes by portraying as a single event what was more likely a gradual process of migration and conquest. Thus, the motif of "slavery in Egypt" may reflect the historical situation of imperialist control of the Egyptian Empire over Canaan over the period of the Thutmosides down to the revolt againstMerenptah and Rameses III, after which it declined gradually during the 12th century under the pressure from the Sea Peoples and the general Bronze Age collapse: Israel Finkelstein points to the appearance of settlements in the central hill country around 1200 as the earliest of the known settlements of the Israelites.[34]
A cyclical pattern to these highland settlements, corresponding to the state of the surrounding cultures, suggests that the local Canaanites combined an agricultural and nomadic lifestyles, particularly under Aramaean and Neo-Hittite influence. When Egyptian rule collapsed after the invasion of the Sea Peoples, the central hill country could no longer sustain a large nomadic population, so they went from nomadism to sedentism.[35] Canaanite refugees from the lowlands seem to have fused with Shasu, nomadic Aramaean elements, using pithoi cisterns for the capture of water, hillside terracing and other elements from the Aegean and Western Anatolian "Peoples of the Sea", living in scattered hamlets and avoding the husbandry of pigs, suggesting a new type of culture in the region.
However, Finkelstein states in the same book that at the earlier time proposed by most scientists for the Exodus, based upon the Biblical chronology 400 years prior to the reign of King David, Egypt was at the peak of its glory, with a series of fortresses guarding the borders and checkpoints watching the roads to Canaan. That means an exodus of the scale of over 600,000 soldiers described in the Torah would have been impossible.[36] This implies a total civilian population, with women and children, of over a million, which would have numbered between a third and a half of the total Egyptian population at the time.
While the general narrative of the Exodus and the conquest of the Promised Land may be remotely rooted in historical events, the figure of Moses as a leader of the Israelites in these events cannot be substantiated.[37][38][39][40] William Dever agrees with the Canaanite origin of the Israelites but allows for the possibility of some immigrants from Egypt among the early hilltop settlers, leaving open the possibility of a Moses-like figure in Transjordan ca 1250-1200.[41]
Martin Noth holds that two different groups experienced the Exodus and Sinai events, and each group transmitted its own stories independently of the other one, writing that "The biblical story tracing the Hebrews from Egypt to Canaan resulted from an editor's weaving separate themes and traditions around a main character Moses, actually an obscure person from Moab."[42] Given the existence of a Moabite king Mesha, etymologically identical to the Hebrew Moshe, it is possible that there was a memory of a culture hero who was associated with the end of Egyptian influence at Timna during the late Bronze Age.[43]
The "Kenite hypothesis", originally suggested by Cornelius Tiele in 1872, supposes that the figure of Moses is a reflection of a historical Midianite priest of Yahweh, whose cult was introduced to Israel from southern Canaan (Edom, Moab, Midian) by the Kenites. This idea is based on an old tradition (recorded inJudges 1:16, 4:11) that Moses' father-in-law was a Midianite priest of Yahweh, as it were preserving a memory of the Midianite origin of the deity. While the role of the Kenites in the transmission of the cult is widely accepted, Tiele's view on the historical role of Moses finds less support in modern scholarship.[44]
William Albright held a more favorable view towards the traditional views regarding Moses, and accepted the essence of the biblical story, as narrated between Exodus 1:8 and Deuteronomy 34:12, but recognized the impact that centuries of oral and written transmission have had on the account, causing it to acquire layers of accretions.[42]
Recently Aidan Dodson,[45] M. Georg[46] and R. Krauss[47] all suggest that the story of Moses as a Prince of Egypt may contain a distorted memory of Pharaoh Amenmesses. In texts written after his disappearance Amenmesses "was explicitly denied any royal status - being simply ´Mose´ and perhaps also ´enemy´... Indeed it has been suggested that Amenmesses´ memory has survived in a far more universal way, in that his career was transmogrified into the Old Testament story of Jewish law-giver, Moses." Dodson concludes "... this connection is beyond proof and such a survival of Amenmesses into world consciousness remains but an intriguing possibility".
Moses in religious traditions
Judaism
Main articles: Moses in Hellenistic literature and Moses in Rabbinic Literature
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 Midrashidentifies Moses as one of seven biblical personalities who were called by various names.[48] Moses' other names were: Jekuthiel (by his mother), Heber (byhis father), Jered (by Miriam), Avi Zanoah (by Aaron), Avi Gedor (by Kohath), Avi Soco (by his wet-nurse), Shemaiah ben Nethanel (by people of Israel).[49]Moses is also attributed the names Toviah (as a first name), and Levi (as a family name) (Vayikra Rabbah 1:3), Heman,[50] Mechoqeiq (lawgiver)[51] and Ehl Gav Ish (Numbers 12:3).[52]
Jewish historians who lived at Alexandria, such as Eupolemus, attributed to Moses the feat of having taught the Phoenicians their alphabet,[53] 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.[54]
Ancient sources mention an Assumption of Moses and a Testimony of Moses. A Latin text was found in Milan in the 19th century by Antonio Ceriani who called it the Assumption of Moses, even though it does not refer to an assumption of Moses or contain portions of the Assumption which are cited by ancient authors, and it is apparently actually the Testimony. The incident which the ancient authors cite is also mentioned in the Epistle of Jude.
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.[55]
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.
---Musaeus of Athens (Greek: Μουσαῖος, Mousaios) was a legendary polymath, philosopher, historian, prophet, seer, priest, poet, and musician, said to have been the founder of priestly poetry in Attica. He composed dedicatory and purificatory hymns and prose treatises, and oracular responses. Herodotus reports that, during the reign of Peisistratus at Athens, the scholar Onomacritus collected and arranged the oracles of Musaeus but inserted forgeries of his own devising, later detected by Lasus of Hermione.[1] The mystic and oracular verses and customs of Attica, especially of Eleusis, are connected with his name. ATitanomachia and Theogonia are also attributed to him by Gottfried Kinkel.[2]
---Musaeus of Athens (Greek: Μουσαῖος, Mousaios) was a legendary polymath, philosopher, historian, prophet, seer, priest, poet, and musician, said to have been the founder of priestly poetry in Attica. He composed dedicatory and purificatory hymns and prose treatises, and oracular responses. Herodotus reports that, during the reign of Peisistratus at Athens, the scholar Onomacritus collected and arranged the oracles of Musaeus but inserted forgeries of his own devising, later detected by Lasus of Hermione.[1] The mystic and oracular verses and customs of Attica, especially of Eleusis, are connected with his name. ATitanomachia and Theogonia are also attributed to him by Gottfried Kinkel.[2]
In 450 BC, the playwright Euripides in his play Rhesus describes him thus, "Musaeus, too, thy holy citizen, of all men most advanced in lore."[3] In 380 BC, Plato says in his Ion that poets are inspired by Orpheus and Musaeus but the greater are inspired by Homer.[4] In the Protagoras, Plato says that Musaeus was a hierophant and a prophet.[5] In the Apology, Socrates says, "What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiodand Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again."[6] According to Diodorus Siculus, Musaeus was the son of Orpheus, according to Tatian he was the disciple of Orpheus, but according to Diogenes Laertius he was the son of Eumolpus. Alexander Polyhistor, Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius say he was the teacher of Orpheus. Aristotle quotes him in Book VIII of his Politics: "Song is to mortals of all things the sweetest." According to Diogenes Laertius he died and was buried at Phalerum, with the epitaph: "Musaeus, to his sire Eumolpus dear, in Phalerean soil lies buried here." According to Pausanias, he was buried on the Mouseion Hill, south-west of the Acropolis.[7] where there was a statue dedicated to a Syrian. For this and other reasons, Artapanus of Alexandria, Alexander Polyhistor, Numenius of Apamea, and Eusebius identify Musaeus with Moses the Jewish lawbringer.[8]
----
Christianity
| Prophet Moses | |
|---|---|
Moses striking the rock
| |
| Prophet, Saint, Seer, Lawgiver, Apostle to Pharaoh, Reformer, 'One to Whom God Spoke',[56] 'Our Leader Moses',[57] Leader of the Exodus, Holy Forefather[58] | |
| Born | Goshen, Lower Egypt |
| Died | Mount Nebo, Moab |
| Venerated in | Judaism Christianity Islam |
| Feast | Orthodox Church & Catholic Church: Sept 4 |
| Attributes | Tablets of the Law |
For Christians, Moses — mentioned more often in the New Testament than any other Old Testament figure — 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. In Acts 7:39–43, 51–53, for example, the rejection of Moses by the Jews who worshiped the golden calf is likened to the rejection of Jesus by the Jews that continued in traditional Judaism.
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 Eastern Orthodox Church,Roman Catholic Church, and Lutheran churches on September 4.[59] He is commemorated as one of the Holy Forefathers in the Calendar of Saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church on July 30.
Mormonism
Main article: Book of Moses
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (colloquially called Mormons) generally view Moses in the same way that other Christians do. However, in addition to accepting the biblical account of Moses, Mormons include Selections from the Book of Moses as part of their scriptural canon.[60] This book is believed to be the translated writings of Moses, and is included in the Pearl of Great Price.[61]
Latter-day Saints are also unique in believing that Moses was taken to heaven without having tasted death (translated). In addition, Joseph Smith, Jr. andOliver Cowdery stated that on April 3, 1836, Moses appeared to them in the Kirtland Temple 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."[62]
Islam
Main article: Moses in Islam
Moses is mentioned more in the Quran than any other individual and his life is narrated and recounted more than that of any other prophet.[63] In general, Moses is described in ways which parallel the Islamic prophet Muhammad,[64] and "his character exhibits some of the main themes of Islamic theology," including the "moral injunction that we are to submit ourselves to God."
Moses is defined in the Qur'an 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 (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.[65]
Moses is mentioned 502 times in the Qur'an; passages mentioning Moses include 2.49-61, 7.103-160, 10.75-93,17.101-104, 20.9-97, 26.10-66, 27.7-14, 28.3-46, 40.23-30, 43.46-55, 44.17-31, and 79.15-25. and many others. Most of the key events in Moses' life which are narrated in the Bible are to be found dispersed through the different Surahs of Qur'an, with a story about meeting Khidr which is not found in the Bible.[63]
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.[63][66] 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[67] as well as give salvation to the Israelites.[63][68] 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.[69]
According to Islamic tradition, Moses is buried at Maqam El-Nabi Musa, Jericho.
Baha'i Faith
In the Baha'i Faith, Moses is considered a messenger from God who is considered equally authentic as those sent in other eras.[70] An epithet of Moses in Baha'i scriptures is Interlocutor of God.[71] Moses is further described as paving the way for Baha'ullah and his ultimate revelation, and a teacher of truth, whose teachings were in line with the customs of his time.[72]
Modern reception
Literature
 | 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 ofAkhenaten. 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.[26]
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,[73] although this has been countered by a variety of arguments, e.g. pointing out the similarities between the Hymn to Aten and Psalm 104.[74][75] Freud's interpretation of the historical Moses is not well accepted among historians, and is considered pseudohistory by many.[76]
Criticism
Main article: Criticism of Moses
In the late 18th century the deist Thomas Paine commented at length on Moses' Laws in The Age of Reason, and gave his view that "the character of Moses, as stated in the Bible, is the most horrid that can be imagined",[77] giving the story at Numbers 31:13-18 as an example. In the 19th century the agnosticRobert G. Ingersoll wrote "...that all the ignorant, infamous, heartless, hideous things recorded in the 'inspired' Pentateuch are not the words of God, but simply 'Some Mistakes of Moses'".[78] In the 2000s, the atheist Richard Dawkins referring, like Paine, to the incident at Numbers 31:13-18, concluded, "No, Moses was not a great role model for modern moralists."[79]
Figurative art
Moses is depicted in several U.S. government buildings because of his legacy as a lawgiver. In the Library of Congress stands a large statue of Moses alongside a statue of the Apostle Paul. Moses is one of the 23 lawgivers depicted in marble bas-reliefs in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives in the United States Capitol. The other twenty-two figures have their profiles turned to Moses, which is the only forward-facing bas-relief.[80][81]
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.[82]
Michelangelo's statue
Michelangelo's statue of Moses in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, is one of the most familiar masterpieces in the world.[citation needed] The horns the sculptor included on Moses' head are the result of a mistranslation of the Hebrew Bible into the Latin Vulgate Bible with which he was familiar. The Hebrew word taken from Exodus means either a "horn" or an "irradiation." Experts at the Archaeological Institute of America show that the term was used when Moses "returned to his people after seeing as much of the Glory of the Lord as human eye could stand," and his face "reflected radiance."[83] In early Jewish art, moreover, Moses is often "shown with rays coming out of his head."[84]
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.[85][86] However, writer J. 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.'"[87] It has also been noted that he had Moses seated on a throne, yet Moses was neither a King nor ever sat on such thrones.[88]
Film and television
Moses was portrayed by Theodore Roberts in DeMille's 1923 silent film The Ten Commandments. Moses appears as the central character in the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille movie, also called The Ten Commandments, in which he is portrayed by Charlton Heston. A television remake was produced in 2006.
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.[89] 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.[90]
In 2014, Ridley Scott directed the film Exodus: Gods and Kings, in which Christian Bale portrays the central character Moses.[91] It portrays Moses andRameses II as being raised by Seti I as cousins.
| Moses | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Goshen, Lower Egypt |
| Died | Mount Nebo, Moab |
| Spouse(s) | Zipporah |
| Children | Gershom Eliezer |
| Parents | Amram (father) Jochebed (mother) |
| Relatives | Aaron (brother) Miriam (sister) |
Moses (/ˈmoʊzɪz, -zɪs/;[1] Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה, Modern Moshe Tiberian Mōšéh ISO 259-3 Moše; Syriac: ܡܘܫܐ Moushe;Arabic: موسى Mūsā; Greek: Mωϋσῆς Mōÿsēs in both the Septuagint and the New Testament) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, a former Egyptian prince later turned prophet, religious leader and lawgiver, to whom theauthorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed. Also called Moshe Rabbenu in Hebrew (מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּנוּ, Lit. "Moses our Teacher/Rabbi"), he is the most important prophet in Judaism.[2][3] He is also an important prophet inChristianity and Islam, as well as a number of other faiths.
The existence of Moses as well as the veracity of the Exodus story are disputed among archaeologists andEgyptologists, with experts in the field of biblical criticism citing logical inconsistencies, new archaeological evidence, historical evidence, and related origin myths in Canaanite culture.[4][5][6] Other historians maintain that the biographical details and Egyptian background attributed to Moses imply the existence of a historical political and religious leader who was involved in the consolidation of the Hebrew tribes in Canaan towards the end of theBronze Age.
According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was born in a time when his people, the Israelites, were increasing in numbers and the Egyptian Pharaoh was worried that they might ally with Egypt's enemies.[7] Moses' Hebrew mother, Jochebed, secretly hid him when the Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed upon the circulating prophecy among Egyptian priests of a messianic deliverer among the Hebrew slaves. Through the Pharaoh's sister Queen Bithia, the child was adopted as a foundling from the Nile river and grew up with the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slavemaster, Moses fled across the Red Sea to Midian, where he encountered the God of Israel speaking to him from within a "burning bush".
God sent Moses back to Egypt to demand the release of the Israelites from slavery. Moses said that he could not speak with assurance or eloquence,[8] so God allowed Aaron, his brother, to become his spokesperson. After theTen Plagues, Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, after which they based themselves at Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. After 40 years of wandering in the desert, Moses died within sight of the Promised Land.
Rabbinical Judaism calculated a lifespan of Moses corresponding to 1391–1271 BCE;[9] Jerome gives 1592 BCE,[10] and Ussher 1571 BCE as his birth year.[11][note 1]
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[hide]Name
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. Most scholars agree that the name is Egyptian, and that the Hebrew etymology is a later interpretation, but 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.[14]
Biblical narrative
Prophet and deliverer of Israel
The Israelites had settled in the Land of Goshen in the time of Joseph and Jacob, but a new pharaoh arose who oppressed the children of Israel. At this time Moses was born to his father Amram, son of Kohath the Levite, who entered Egypt with Jacob's household; his mother was Jochebed (also Yocheved), who was kin to Kohath. Moses had one older (by seven years) sister, Miriam, and one older (by three years) brother, Aaron.
Pharaoh had commanded that all male Hebrew children born be drowned in the river Nile, but Moses' mother placed him in an ark and concealed the ark in the bulrushes by the riverbank, where the baby was discovered and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter. One day after Moses had reached adulthood he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew. Moses, afraid that Pharaoh would be angry with him for killing a slavemaster, fled to Midian (a desert country south of Judah). There, on Mount Horeb (variant name for Mount Sinai), God revealed to Moses his name YHWH (probably pronounced Yahweh) and commanded him to return to Egypt and bring his Chosen People (Israel) out of bondage and into the Promised Land (Canaan). Moses returned to carry out God's command, but God caused Pharaoh to refuse, and only after God had subjected Egypt to ten plagues did Pharaoh relent. Moses led the Israelites to the border of Egypt, but there God hardened Pharaoh's heart once more, so that he could destroy Pharaoh and his army at the Red Sea Crossing as a sign of his power to Israel and the nations.
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, 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.
From Sinai Moses led the Israelites to Paran on the border of Canaan. There he 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. 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.
When the forty years had passed Moses led the Israelites east around the Dead Sea to the territories of Edom and Moab. There they escaped the temptation of idolatry, received God's blessing through Balaam the prophet, and massacred the Midianites, who were God's enemies. On the banks of the Jordan, in sight of the land, Moses assembled the tribes. After recalling their wanderings he delivered God's laws by which they must live in the land, sang a song of praise and pronounced a blessing on the people, and passed his authority to Joshua, under whom they would possess the land. Moses then went up Mount Nebo to the top of Pisgah, looked over the promised land of Israel spread out before him, and died, at the age of one hundred and twenty. More humble than any other man (Num. 12:3), "there hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom YHWH knew face to face" (Deuteronomy. 34:10).
Lawgiver of Israel
Further information: Law of Moses, Mosaic authorship, Deuteronomist, Book of Deuteronomy § Deuteronomic code and 613 Mitzvot
Moses is honoured among Jews today as the "lawgiver of Israel", and he delivers several sets of laws in the course of the four books. The first is the Covenant code, Exodus 19-24, the terms of the covenant which God offers to Israel at the foot of Sinai. Embedded in the covenant are the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:1-17) and the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 20:22-23:19).[15] The entire book of Leviticus constitutes a second body of law, the book of Numbers begins with yet another set, and Deuteronomy another.
Moses has traditionally been regarded as the author of the four books plus Genesis, which together make up theTorah, the first and most revered section of the Jewish bible.The Biblical character Moses is discussed or alluded to in surviving works by a number of Judeo-Hellenic or Judeo-Roman authors, including Eupolemus,Artapanus, Josephus, and Philo, as well as the non-Jewish Hellenistic authors discussed in the main article Moses.
Owing to the contact of the Jews with the Greeks in Alexandria, Moses was made the subject of many legends, and in many respects lifted to supernatural heights.
This is in contrast to the Torah, which represents Moses as the greatest of all prophets, to whom the Lord made Himself known face to face (Deut. xxxiv. 10; comp. Num. xii. 7), and who, when descending Mount Sinai, had a halo about his head which so filled the people with awe that they could not look at him (Ex. xxxiv. 29); but makes no attempt to lift him above the ordinary man in his nature. He lived for forty days and forty nights on the mount without eating and drinking (Deut. ix. 9), but this was owing to the power God lent him while he received the Law; he died and was buried like any other mortal (ib. xxxiv. 5-6).
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[hide]Authors[edit]
Ben Sira[edit]
Ben Sira was probably the first to compare him with the angels—a suggestion from Ex. xxxiv. 29 (Ecclus. xlv. 2; the Hebrew text reads "ke-elohim," while the Greek reads ἅγιοι= "saints").
Eupolemus[edit]
Especially favorable to the accretion of legends or fictions around the life of Moses was the fact that he was born in Egypt and brought up by the daughter of the king. This suggested that "he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts vii. 22). But the Jewish men of letters who lived in Alexandria were by no means satisfied with the idea that Moses acquired the wisdom of the Egyptians; they claimed for him the merit of having given to Egypt, Phoenicia, and Hellas all their culture. He taught the Jews the letters, and they then became the teachers of the Phoenicians and, indirectly, of the Greeks, saysEupolemus.[1]
Artapanus of Alexandria[edit]
Artapanus of Alexandria, in his history of the Jews, went so far as to identify Moses with Tot-Hermes (the Egyptian messenger and scribe of the gods, who invented the letters, the various arts of peace and of war, as well as philosophy), and with the Greek Musaeus, "the teacher of Orpheus." He even ascribed to him the division of the land into its thirty-six districts, with their various forms of worship. As the foster-mother of Moses, Artapanus names Merris, the wife of Chenephres, King of Upper Egypt; being childless, she pretended to have given birth to him and brought him up as her own child.(Eusebius, l.c. ix. 27).
The record closes with a description of the personality of Moses: "He was eighty-nine years old when he delivered the Jews; tall and ruddy, with long white hair, and dignified."
Josephus[edit]
Fantastic as these stories are, they are scarcely inventions of Artapanus only. Long contact of the Jews of Alexandria with Egyptian men of letters in a time of syncretism, when all mythology was being submitted to a rationalizing process, naturally produced such fables (see Freudenthal, "Hellenistische Studien," 1875, pp. 153–174), and they have found a place in the Palestinian as well as in the Hellenistic haggadah, in Josephus, Philo ("De Vita Moysis"), and the Alexandrian dramatist Ezekiel (Eusebius, l.c. ix. 28), as well as in the Midrash (Ex. R. i.-ii.; Tan., Shemot), the Targum, and the "Sefer ha-Yashar," or the older "Chronicles of Jerahmeel" (xliv.-l.).
Most elaborate is the haggadah from which Josephus drew his story ("Ant." ii. 9, § 2-ii. 10, § 2):(comp. Sanh. 101b; Ex. R. i.; Targ. Yer. to Ex. i. 14; see Jannes and Jambres).
This is obviously a midrashic tale connected with Num. xii. 1, but disavowed at a later stage (see Sifre, Num. 99, and Targ. ad loc.).
Philo[edit]
Philo also shows familiarity with these legends; he refers to the beauty of the babe Moses (l.c. i. 3) and mentions the fact that the princess, being childless, contrived to make Moses appear as her own child (i. 4-5). Moses' education in science, art, and philosophy, however, is ascribed to Egyptian masters (i. 6); he was grieved by the sufferings of his Hebrew brethren, many of whom died an untimely death and did not have even seemly burial (i. 7); his prophetic powers were attested at the Red Sea when the Egyptian dead were cast up by the waves and were actually seen by the Israelites, as Moses had announced (iii. 34, with reference to Ex. xiv. 13, 30).
Moses' death, or elevation, or pre-existence[edit]
The end of the great lawgiver especially was surrounded with legends.
Philo says:
Later on, the belief became current that Moses did not die, but was taken up to heaven like Elijah. This seems to have been the chief content of the apocryphon entitled the Assumption of Moses, preserved only in fragmentary form.[2]
No sooner was the view maintained that Moses was translated to heaven than the idea was suggested that his soul was different from that of other men. Like the Messiah, he is said to have been preexistent; he is thus represented in the Assumption of Moses (i. 12-14),
While his death was an ordinary one (i. 15, x. 14), "no place received his body"; "his sepulcher is from the rising of the sun to the setting thereof, and from the south to the confines of the north; all the world is his sepulcher" (xi. 5-8).
Philo also calls Moses "the mediator and reconciler of the world" (ib. iii. 19). Especially in Essene circles was Moses apotheosized: "Next to God," says Josephus, "they honor the name of their legislator, and if any one blasphemes him he meets with capital punishment" ("B. J." ii. 8, § 9; comp. "Ant." iii. 15, § 3).