Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [48]
Some Jews and Christians alike may be surprised to learn that Moses also gets high marks in Islam, which knows him as Musa. According to Who’s Who of Religions, the Koran refers to him 502 times, more than any other prophet. In Islamic tradition, Moses urges Muhammad to negotiate with God (Allah) until the required number of daily prayers is reduced from fifty to five.
In spite of his exalted stature in three major religions, Moses is a mystery man. There is no evidence of his existence outside the Bible and the Koran. No existing copy of his writings. No references in Egyptian court records to a Moses raised in a Pharaoh’s house. Nor do Egyptian sources mention the “Children of Israel” working as slaves and then escaping en masse. Modern scholars have no problem with that. It would have amounted to an embarrassing incident that Egyptian court historians covered up. That’s right: governments past and present don’t like to admit their embarrassments, mistakes, and failures.
While some scholars—but few believers—doubt the fact that Moses lived, the case for a “historical Moses” is secondary to what Exodus and the three following books of the Torah (Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) are about. Exodus (from the Greek exodos, “departure”) recounts the events surrounding the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and the years of wandering that followed. Called Shemot (“Names”) in Hebrew, Exodus falls into two major sections. First, it describes the rise of Moses and Israel’s escape from Egyptian captivity. Then it relates Israel’s sojourn in the Sinai desert, where the laws governing life and worship—not just the Ten Commandments—were given to Moses by God, binding Israel to its God in a unique covenant.
BIBLICAL VOICES
Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.” (Ex. 1:22)
PLOT SUMMARY: MOSES
The opening chapter of Exodus seemingly skips over a few centuries of Israelite history—although even that idea is disputed—and finds the descendants of Abraham and Joseph in a changed set of circumstances. Favored by one anonymous Pharaoh in Joseph’s time, the growing multitude of Hebrews is viewed as a threat by another anonymous Pharaoh, who has put them to work building cities and fortifications. This Pharaoh is so worried about them that he orders the murder of Hebrew boys. Still the Hebrews keep working.
Faced with the Pharaoh’s genocidal death sentence, a Hebrew woman places her infant son in a basket woven of reeds and sets him down in the Nile—source of all life in Egypt. He is found by the Pharaoh’s daughter, who decides to keep the Hebrew infant—obviously knowing that this was contrary to her father’s decree. She names him Moses, an Egyptian name meaning “son of.” The name is related to the Hebrew word for “draw out”; he is “drawn out” of the Nile, and will also draw his people out of Egypt. The infant’s sister, sent to watch him float down the river, asks the Egyptian princess if she wants a Hebrew nurse to care for the child and brings the baby’s true mother to the palace. One problem here is that Moses’ brother, Aaron, is later said to be three years older than Moses. Why wasn’t Aaron, the firstborn, thrown into the Nile? Was the Pharaoh’s order retroactive or did it apply only to newborn children? Just another of those bothersome details the Bible doesn’t flesh out.
Raised as a prince of Egypt, Moses witnesses an Egyptian overseer beating a Hebrew worker. In an attempt to save the Hebrew man, Moses kills the Egyptian and secretly buries him in the sand. When he later sees two Hebrews arguing, Moses again intervenes, but one of the men says to him, “Are you going to kill me like that Egyptian you buried?”
Fearing that the Pharaoh will hear of his crime, Moses flees to the land of the Midian, a tribe with ancient blood ties to Abraham, who live in the Sinai desert. There