How Much Time Passed Between Israel Becoming Slaves and the Killing of Their Baby Boys

Introduction

Moses

I of Judaism'south great figures is the man called Moshe Rabbenu ('Moses our teacher') in Hebrew. The start v books of the Bible are traditionally ascribed to him. Moses is the aqueduct between God and the Hebrews, through whom the Hebrews received a bones charter for living as God'southward people.

1300 BCE - the beginning of a organized religion

Over a thousand years after Abraham, the Jews were living as slaves in Egypt. Their leader was a prophet called Moses.

Moses led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt and led them to the Holy Land that God had promised them.

The escape of the Jews from Egypt is remembered past Jews every year in the festival of Passover.

The Jews were helped on their journeying past God; the same God who'd promised Abraham that he would wait after the Jews. God parted the Red Sea to aid them escape and helped them in many other means.

When they reached a Mountain Sinai, in present mean solar day Egypt, God spoke to Moses high on the mountain slopes and fabricated a bargain (chosen a covenant) with the Jews that renewed the one he had made with Abraham.

At the same time, God gave the Jews a set of rules that they should live past.

On behalf of Israel, Moses received torah, traditionally translated 'law'. This is not police in the modern sense just rather authoritative pedagogy, instruction, or guidance. The well-nigh famous of these commandments are the Ten Commandments. But there are actually 613 commandments covering every aspect of life including law, family, and personal hygiene and diet.

About scholars date the beginning of Judaism every bit an organised and structured religion to this time.

In society to see this content you demand to take both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for total instructions

Other faith annotation

Moses is a significant character in other religions - non but Christianity merely Islam too. He is an important prophet for Muslims, who call him Musa.

The Ten Commandments

In the Ten Commandments, Moses outlined a basis for morality which has lasted over 3,000 years and been embraced by two-thirds of the world'south population. The most common course of the Ten Commandments is given in Exodus affiliate 20 and Deuteronomy affiliate 5.

1. Thou shalt have no other gods earlier me
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image
3. G shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain
4. Call up the sabbath day and go along information technology holy
5. Honour thy father and thy female parent
6. Grand shalt not kill
7. Thou shalt non commit adultery
8. Grand shalt not steal
9. Thou shalt not acquit false witness against thy neighbor
10. Thou shalt non covet whatsoever affair that is thy neighbor'due south

The story

The story of Moses

According to the Bible, the descendants of Jacob had lived in Egypt for more than 450 years, during which time they grew into a nation: the nation of Israel. The Egyptians began to see them as a threat and tightened their control on them, forcing them to work as slaves.

Eventually, in an attempt to reduce their numbers, newborn Israelite babies were drowned in the River Nile. The Bible says that the Israelites asked God for help and that he sent them a leader: Moses.

In lodge to escape death, Moses' mother placed him in a basket when he was still a babe and gear up him afloat on the River Nile. She left his fate upwards to God'due south volition. The infant Moses was rescued by the Pharaoh'due south daughter and brought up in the palace equally a regal prince.

Equally an adult, Moses reacted confronting the unfair treatment of his own people and killed an Egyptian baby-sit. Moses was then forced to flee from the wrath of the Pharaoh. He was driven into exile in the land of Midian. He married Zipporah, the daughter of the Priest of Midian, and worked as a shepherd for forty years. One day, when he was in the desert, Moses heard the voice of God speaking to him through a bush which flamed but did not burn down. God asked Moses to lead his people out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Country. Moses was at starting time reluctant, thinking that the Israelites would not believe he had heard the word of God. God then gave Moses special powers and inspired past this, Moses returned to Egypt and demanded liberty for his people.

At showtime, the Pharaoh refused to permit the Israelites leave, then God unleashed ten plagues on the Egyptians. It was the 10th plague - the plague of the firstborn - which eventually persuaded the Pharaoh to let them get. It was announced that the starting time-built-in sons in every household would die, but the sons of the Israelites would be saved if they marked their door posts with the blood of a lamb killed in sacrifice. They had to cook the lamb and consume information technology that dark with bitter herbs and unleavened staff of life. These are the origins of the Jewish Festival: Passover.

The Pharaoh then changed his heed, and sent his ground forces in pursuit of the Israelites. 600 chariots pursued them, but famously, the waters of the Red Sea parted; the Israelites walked through, and then the waters returned and destroyed the Pharaoh'south army.

Later on travelling through the desert for nearly 3 months, the Israelites camped earlier Mount Sinai. At that place, God appeared to Moses and made an agreement or covenant with him. God declared that the Israelites were his ain people and that they must listen to God and obey His laws. These laws were the Ten Commandments which were given to Moses on 2 stone tablets, and they set out the basic principles that would govern the Israelites lives.

The evidence

The book of Exodus says that later crossing the Reed Sea, Moses led the Hebrews into the Sinai, where they spent forty years wandering in the wildnerness. Three months into the desert, the Hebrews camped at the foot of the Mountain of God. On the mount, God appeared to Moses - and changed everyone's lives.

The precise location of the Mountain of God has always been a mystery. One suggestion is that it's Mount Sinai, the highest peak in the southern desert. Every night of the twelvemonth, pilgrims and tourists prepare off in the cool hours of the morning to make the backbreaking three hour climb to the top. No-ane really knows if this is the Mountain of God.

We know very piffling about the ten commandments. We don't know when or where they were written or who wrote them. I theory is that they could only have been written only when the Hebrews had settled in the Promised Land because simply then could the commandments have been enforced. But the starting time commandment seems more likely to have come out of one man's meeting with his God in the desert. Moses himself could have been the author of some of the commandments. He had been taught to read and write in the royal nursery.

The Israelites so spent 40 years in the desert. When they finally approached the state of Canaan, Moses died and Joshua became their new leader.

Evidence - Moses' beginnings

Were the Hebrews in Egypt?

The story goes that Moses led two million Hebrews out of Arab republic of egypt and they lived for 40 years in the Sinai desert - but a century of archaeology in the Sinai has turned up no evidence of it. If the Hebrews were never in Egypt then possibly the whole result was fiction, made up to give their people an exotic history and destiny.

Some archeologists decided to search instead in the Nile Delta: the part of Egypt where the Bible says the Hebrews settled.

They combed the surface area for testify of a remarkably precise merits - that the Hebrews were press-ganged into making mud-bricks to build 2 great cities - Pithom and Ramses. Ramses II was the greatest Pharaoh in all of ancient Egypt - his statues are everywhere. Surely his city could be traced? But no sign could exist establish. At that place were suggestions it all been made upwardly by a scribe.

Until a local farmer institute a clue: the remains of the feet of a giant statue. An inscription on a nearby pedestal confirmed that the statue belonged to Ramses 2. Eventually, archeologists unearthed traces of houses, temples, even palaces. Using new technology, the archaeologists were able to detect the foundations and they mapped out the whole metropolis in a few months. The metropolis they had discovered was one of the biggest cities in ancient Egypt, built around 1250BCE. 20,000 Egyptians had lived there.

But was this metropolis actually built by Hebrew slaves? There is a reference in ancient Egyptian documents to a Semitic tribe captured past Pharaoh and forced to work on the urban center of Ramses. A clay tablet lists groups of people who were captured by the Pharaoh and one of the groups was called Habiru. Could these be the Hebrews? No-i can be sure.

The tale of the handbasket

The story of the infant Moses being set up afloat in a handbasket bears remarkable similarities to an former Babylonian myth almost a smashing King called Sargon who was discovered every bit a baby in a basket in a river.

Between 600 and 300 BCE, Jewish scribes in Jerusalem set out to record all the old tales of their people, handed downwardly from generation to generation. What if the scribes had wanted to add a bit of spice to their tales to make them more interesting? Could they have used the myth of Sargon and fabricated upwardly the tale of Moses? Information technology's certainly possible every bit we know the Jews were captured by the Babylonians in 587 BCE and held in exile in Babylon (modern Iraq) for some time. They could have picked up the Sargon legend there.

Egyptologist Jim Hoffmeier studied the original Hebrew text. He institute that key words in the story - bulrushes, papyrus, Nile, riverbank - were all aboriginal Egyptian words, and not Babylonian.

But what about the proper name 'Moses'? It is an Egyptian name meaning 'One who is born'. It uses the same root as 'Ramses'. It's hard to believe that a Hebrew scribe, i yard years later, could have come upwardly with a story using authentic Egyptian words.

Well actually at that place are many stories of babies beingness put in baskets and exposed or put in water. This was an ancient way of putting a kid out to the fate of the gods. Today people put babies in baskets and put them on church doorsteps.

Jim Hoffmeier, Egyptologist

The tale of the burning bush

The Bible says that when Moses was eighty, he was living peacefully as a shepherd in the desert. One day, equally he was tending his flock, he heard the vocalisation of God coming from a burning bush. God ordered Moses to become and force the Pharaoh to let his Hebrew people go. At starting time Moses was agape, he didn't retrieve he could practice this. Then God gave him special powers.

Did Moses hear the voice of God? Clinton Bailey, an adept on Bedouin folklore, believes that such a desert experience is perfectly plausible:

If you accept to survive out here in this heat and in this pathos... Yous're closer to God... And I have seen Bedouin praying on their ain in the middle of the desert... and when they do pray you lot get a connection between themselves and Allah, God, which is very very strong and information technology's like saying 'Y'all up there, assistance me out, I've got nil else downward here to keep me going except your providence'.

Clinton Bailey, expert on Bedouin folklore

Any happened, this was a turning bespeak for Moses and the Hebrew people. Jews believe that at the moment the Hebrews forged a special and unique relationship with God. In return, God gave them the right to occupy a certain land.

Information technology was the Promised Land: the land we now know as Israel. From that moment on, Moses resolved to atomic number 82 his people out of Egypt to the land of milk and honey.

The tale of the Pharaoh'southward daughter

The Bible claims that Moses was rescued by the Pharaoh's daughter, who adopted him. He was and so educated and brought up in the palace as a prince. Tin can this possibly be true?

The moving picture we take here is very authentic considering the young boys in aboriginal Egypt were under a tough master. In fact we have the testimony of some of the scribes who talked about how their scribe master beat them when they were lazy and made sure they wrote their letters correct.

Jim Hoffmeier, Egyptologist

But where's the proof that Moses was taken in past the king and put into a class like this?

Of grade we have no proof but what's interesting is that during the general menstruation nosotros place Moses, during this time non-imperial children were too introduced. The royal children of strange kings, kings from Canaan, Syria, were entered into this institution to acquire how to read and write.

Jim Hoffmeier, Egyptologist

The Pharaohs did keep records, the records show that palaces had nurseries where imperial children were educated, and that they did bring foreign children into these nurseries. It may have been easy for the Pharaoh's daughter to introduce a baby she had found into ane of these nurseries.

Evidence - the Exodus

Show for the ten plagues and the Exodus

Epidemiologist Dr John Marr believes most of the ten plagues could have been acquired by polluted h2o in the Nile poisoning fish and setting off a tragic chain of events. Meanwhile, Professor Costas Synolakis, a leading tsunami expert, believes a massive volcanic eruption on the Greek island of Santorini in 1600BCE could have generated a giant tidal moving ridge that struck the Nile Delta. This incredibly powerful wave could be linked to the parting of a 'reed sea' in the delta that could explain how the story of the 'Ruby Sea' parting into ii walls of water was written centuries later.

The ten plagues

In the Bible, the ten plagues and the parting of the Red Sea are miracles – acts of God working through nature. Can any of them be explained scientifically? Scientific experts such as climatologists, oceanographers and vulcanologists suggest that at that place is prove that a string of natural events triggered phenomena that could explain the story of the plagues and the parting of the sea.

The ten plagues

1. The outset plague - river water turned to blood
2. The 2d plague - frogs
3. The third plague - gnats
4. The fourth plague - flies
5. The fifth plague - decease of livestock
6. The sixth plague - boils
7. The 7th plague - hail
8. The eighth plague - locusts
9. The ninth plague - darkness
10. The tenth plague - death of the firstborn

The pfisteria theory

The pfisteria theory provides one explanation of the kickoff vi plagues.

In 1999 an environmental catastrophe happened in the town of New Fire, Northward Carolina. The residents woke up to find the waters of their river - the Neuse - had turned ruby. More than a billion fish died. People working near the river found that they were covered in sores.

The cause of this was found to exist pollution. The pollution had come from a pig subcontract further up the river. Millions of gallons of pig-waste had constitute its way into the river, causing a genetic mutation in a marine micro-organism chosen pfisteria; turning it from harmless into lethal. The river had been poisoned.

John Marr, an epidemiologist specialising in ecology disasters, believes pollution in aboriginal Arab republic of egypt could have caused the starting time six plagues. Pfisteria, or something similar it, caused the fish to die, thus turning the river red; the pollution would have driven the frogs onto the state, on state the frogs would die, causing an explosion of flies and lice. The flies could then have transmitted viral diseases to livestock, killing them.

The volcano theory

Could a volcano accept triggered the ten plagues?

On 18th May 1980, in north-western USA, Mount St Helens volcano erupted, killing everything within 20 miles. Ash columns were ejected into the atmosphere, circling the world within two weeks and causing complete darkness over a radius of 100 miles.

Could a natural phenomenon on this scale have triggered the plagues?

John Marr, epidemiologist, thinks that fall-out of volcanic ash could have produced a toxic bloom of algae in the River Nile; thus setting off a concatenation of events similar to those produced past pfisteria.

Santorini

The volcanic theory seems dubious because there is no agile volcano in Egypt. But 500 miles to the north of the Nile delta is the Greek island of Santorini. In the 16th century BCE, Santorini was blown apart by a gigantic volcanic eruption that was thousands of times more powerful than a nuclear weapon. It was one of the biggest explosions of the last 10,000 years. The ash cloud from the Santorini blast would have been huge and far-reaching.

Could the effects of this eruption have reached as far equally Egypt?

When Santorini erupted, the wind was blowing in a southward-easterly direction, towards Arab republic of egypt. Samples of Santorini ash accept been collected from the sea bed, the heaviest concentrations being in the direction of the Nile Delta. Oceanographer Dr Daniel Stanley, went to the Delta to drill for samples of mud and silt to see if the ash could have reached Egypt. He found volcanic shards that can exist firmly related to the explosion. He says: 'I call up it would have been a frightening experience. It would have been heard, the event. The nail ash autumn would have been felt.'

Then how could this have been the trigger for the plagues?

Mike Rampino, a climate modeller from New York University, has run a computer simulation to look at the climatic effects of the Santorini boom.

The ash cloud passing overhead would take completely cut out the dominicus and plunged the Delta into darkness. This would have been accompanied past the kind of unusual weather seen afterwards volcanic eruptions – lightening and maybe hail. This would explain two of the 10 plagues – darkness and hail.

The ash cloud would have caused temperatures to driblet by up to 2ºC, which would have reduced rainfall in the Delta and could accept led to a drought. With river levels dropping, the water would take begun to stagnate. Combined with the poisonous minerals that were raining down from the ash cloud, the Nile would accept become a deadly cocktail and conditions would have been ripe for an outbreak of further plagues.

The Exodus: six hundred horses?

When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the mind of Pharaoh and his servants was inverse toward the people, and they said, "What is this we accept done, that we accept let State of israel go from serving u.s.?" So he made set up his chariot and took his regular army with him, and took half-dozen hundred chosen chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them.

Exodus 14:5-7

According to the Bible, as the Hebrews left Egypt, Pharaoh changed his mind and sent 600 chariots to chase the delinquent slaves. Could 600 be a biblical exaggeration?

In 1997, on the site of the city of Ramses II, German language archeologists unearthed the foundations of an ancient stable. By the end of the dig, they had constitute enough stables for at least 500 horses and chariots.

Pillars of cloud and burn down

And the LORD went earlier them by day in a pillar of deject to pb them forth the fashion, and by nighttime in a pillar of burn to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night.

Exodus xiii:21

Simply if the exodus took place in the 16th century BCE, could the pillars of burn down and deject by explained past a column of volcanic ash from Santorini?

Santorini is 500 miles away, but the column of fume would have towered some xl miles higher up bounding main level.

Climatologist Mike Rampino thinks that the ash could accept been seen from as far abroad equally Egypt. During the day, the ash would accept looked like a cavalcade of smoke and past night static electricity in the atmosphere would take acquired lightning in this cloud.

The parting of the 'Ruddy Bounding main'

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD drove the sea dorsum by a stiff east wind all night and fabricated the sea dry state, and the waters were divided.

Exodus 14:21

Could this most famous of all stories take any basis in fact?

If you lot read the bible in the original Hebrew, the word 'scarlet' is mistranslated. In the Hebrew bible Moses and his people cross the 'yam suph' - the Sea of Reeds.

Now this is a strange story. You can imagine trying to cross the Crimson Sea would be horrendously difficult simply a Reed Sea is something quite different. This is marshland areas and this is probably what they crossed. Ancient Egyptian texts mention an area chosen Patchoufy: The Reeds. This is probably what they crossed.

David Rohl, Egyptologist

So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into information technology, the LORD threw the Egyptians into the midst of the body of water.

Exodus 14:27

How and so do nosotros business relationship for the sea coming dorsum and inundating the soldiers?

If y'all're talking almost a shallow reed swamp of maybe two or 3 metres maximum of water, this sort of thing is physically possible. In fact it's been witnessed inside the concluding 100 years... The Egyptian army might not take been completely decimated. Many of the horses would have been killed, chariots would have been stuck in the mud.

David Rohl, Egyptologist

What about the famous epitome of a great canyon of h2o? Could this have any basis in reality?

Calculator simulations of the Santorini eruption show that the collapse of the island would have triggered a mega-tsunami - a 600 human foot moving ridge travelling at 400 miles an hour.

Floyd McCoy, a tsunami adept, says this was 1 of the largest waves in history and must take reached Egypt.

We detect evidence, believe it or not, on the deep ocean floor. The tsunamis actually scraped across the bottom of the ocean floor in the Mediterranean and disturbed the sediment. We can find that sediment. That gives us some indication of the directions they went ... The computer model showed us waves radiating out all over the Mediterranean, reaching the Nile Delta.

Floyd McCoy, seismic sea wave practiced

Could the tsunami take divided up the waters of the Reed Body of water? If you expect at ordinary waves you can run across that simply before they break, the water withdraws from the shore. A mega-tsunami would syphon billions of gallons of water - not just from the shore but from connecting rivers and lakes - creating dry land for as long as ii hours.

We should call back of a two-metre tsunami wave like a rapid change of the sea level by two metres along the coast, and that can tin travel several kilometres inland. The destructive force of the wave could easily destroy an army.

Costas Synolakis, tsunami good

Is there any other supporting evidence for this theory?

In 1994, the Philippine island of Mindoro was hit by a seismic sea wave and an earthquake. The earthquake caused a massive crevice in the bed of a lake about a mile inland. An middle-witness said he saw the water like a waterfall in the centre of the lake just go down. After a while, he could run into the bottom of the lake: "I thought I could even walk through."

So the tsunami arrived one mile further down the river and swept away a 6,000 ton clomp lying on the shore. The mega-seismic sea wave which hit the Nile delta was a thou times more devastating than this one.

Moses' significance

The significance of Moses

Dr R. West. Fifty. Moberly of the Academy of Durham explains the significance of Moses' story.

Moses - the man

Map of the locations in Moses' story

Moses' appearance marks a kind of new commencement in the biblical story. State of israel's ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are in the by. In time of famine their descendants went down to Egypt, the largest and wealthiest neighbouring country, and settled there. These Hebrews became numerous, but Arab republic of egypt'due south ruler, the Pharaoh, decided that they would be a good source of inexpensive labour, and began to exploit them in edifice projects; he also decided to make them less dangerous by keeping their numbers downwards through killing their male children at birth (Exodus 1). When Moses was born, his mother sought to protect him by putting him in a handbasket to float on the river Nile. Hither he was providentially found by the Pharaoh's daughter who took pity on him and brought him up every bit her own child (Exodus two).

One day Moses saw an Egyptian and a Hebrew fighting. He intervened and killed the Egyptian. Merely when this became known he fled for his life. In the land of Midian, probably somewhere in the Sinai peninsula, he married the girl of a priest, had two children, and settled down to life as a shepherd. That might have been the end of his story - except that his compatriots were notwithstanding enslaved in Egypt, and God resolved to do something about it.

Moses meets God

The Bible contains amazing accounts of God and Moses speaking face to face up begin when Moses is quietly minding his own business as a shepherd. God appears to Moses in a burning bush-league. Moses sees a bush which burns without being consumed - a symbol of the presence of God which defies usual human experience of things. And he hears a voice which calls him by his ain proper noun (Exodus three:4)

The point is that God has chosen to upshot his plan through a human agent, Moses. Information technology is for this reason that Moses is called the greatest prophet in Israel, for a prophet is someone who speaks and acts on God's behalf. God is calling Moses to embody the design of man response to God that becomes bones within the Bible.

The other great face to confront run across with God is when Moses has brought the Israelites out of Egypt and has returned with them to Sinai where he first met God. The run into is awesome. When God appears to the people of Israel, a whole mount burns; for when God comes, Sinai becomes similar a volcano (non an actual volcano, only God's coming is so awesome that the only way to draw information technology is in the language of the near overwhelming of known phenomena):

God then gives the 10 Commandments to Moses as a kind of basic constitution or charter for State of israel, together with some more detailed laws that employ the Commandments within everyday situations. State of israel responds by promising obedience (Exodus 24:iii-7).

Moses - and the aureate calf

Equally soon as Moses has rescued Israel from Egypt and brought them to Sinai where they become God'south people, things virtually unravel. For while Moses is on the mountain with God receiving the police force the people persuade his brother Aaron, who had clearly been left in accuse, to make a golden calf to symbolize God'due south presence. They want to worship the calf, instead of God. Consequently the new relationship betwixt God and Israel nigh comes to an finish. When Moses comes down from the mountain he symbolically smashes the rock tablets which comprise the X Commandments, Israel's charter. Yet nonetheless Moses does not requite up on State of israel, but prays for them and asks God to be merciful. He persists in this, and God responds favourably. (Exodus 33:nineteen)

But fifty-fifty Moses gets defenseless up in a failure to listen God. The story of his failure is told in Numbers 20:ii-13. The event is that Moses is prohibited from entering the Promised Land with State of israel. So he gives a long series of addresses in the book of Deuteronomy, explaining in depth the dynamics of God'south human relationship with Israel. And then, he ascends Mount Nebo, due east of the river Jordan, from where God gives him a panoramic vision of the whole of the Promised Land; and at that place he dies, equally he had lived, in God's presence (Deuteronomy 34).

What Moses learns nearly God

Moses has an understanding of God that mayhap his ancestors didn't have. On Mount Sinai he asks to see God, and God says "You can only see me from behind". And so he hides in a cleft in a rock, and God passes by. Equally He passes, he defines himself (in 13 means). Moses understanding of God is that nosotros tin merely see what God does after the event, we tin can await back and understand. Moses has a much closer relationship to God than anyone ever had, simply it's still an elusive one. Nosotros empathise through Moses that although we tin can become very, very shut, God remains always beyond us. Nosotros tin never define God.

Rabbi Sybil Sheridan, Rabbi of Wimbledon Reform Synagogue

Moses' grapheme

Reverend John Bong ©

Some of the things we discover out near Moses make him an interesting grapheme.

We observe that he owes a lot to women. He would not be alive had 5 women not defied male potency to allow him to exist. The women are 2 midwives, his mother, his sister and Pharaoh's daughter.

He is too a displaced person. He is the son of a Hebrew slave who grows up in an Egyptian palace so he never really fits in anywhere. Probably because of his accent and his bearing, he's not seen immediately every bit a natural Hebrew. He doesn't really fit well within the Egyptian camp, and he's also treated as a kind of royal prince. He too has a falter and is a murderer and he has gone on the run.

We tin come across that God chooses people not for their problematic nature, but because of the potential which He sees in them.

Reverend John Bong, a leader in the Iona Customs and minister of the Church of Scotland

A symbol for the downtrodden

Moses and Liberation Theology

Professor Christopher Rowland, fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, writes:

Professor Christopher Rowland, boyfriend of Queen's College, Oxford ©

Liberation Theology is from Latin America. Ordinary communities apply worship and reflection on scripture with the aim of improving wellness intendance, homo rights and provision for children, women workers.

Moses is seen as the leader of the Liberation motion. He is brought up in the court of Rex Pharaoh and changes from beingness on the side of the Egyptian rex to siding with the poor slaves. That'due south one of the virtually important paradigms for Liberation Theology: the idea of opting for the poor. The Church in Latin America changed sides, only as Moses inverse sides, moving from supporting the condition quo, supporting the country, to siding with the poor and the marginal. The story of Moses was a very powerful instance for them.

The Exodus is also important equally a model of liberation from slavery. One of the interesting aspects of the Exodus story notwithstanding is that entering the Promised Land meant kicking out the other nations. That's something that Liberation Theology tends not to make much of at all. It tends to concentrate much more than on coming out of slavery every bit a popular movement and having the opportunity to explore the possibilities of a different way of living. Liberation Theology concentrates at how biblical laws offer a vision of a more egalitarian order.

There'due south legacy within Christian theology of looking at the laws in the Bible and thinking that they are very oppressive, just if you talk to a Jew, they volition say that these laws enable them to have a sense of freedom. In Deuteronomy there is an endeavor there to regulate society to create equality amidst more than people. For instance, the release of debts and other mechanisms forbid the growth of an unequal lodge.

Moses and black theology

Dr Robert Beckford, lecturer in blackness theology at the University of Birmingham, writes:

Dr Robert Beckford, lecturer in black theology at the University of Birmingham ©

The Exodus story is of fundamental importance to blackness people, because within it we notice a group of people who are enslaved and suffering from both economic and political chains as well as, at times, genocide and infanticide. They phone call upon God to aid, and what God does is answer by liberating them, crushing their oppressors and leading them into freedom. So the Exodus story has functioned as a epitome for blackness people throughout slavery. Also in the gimmicky earth where the black people have found themselves in bondage, they've called upon God to free them every bit God freed the Israelites in the Exodus account.

The Exodus event, and the life of Moses within it, is a central paradigm for black Christian communities. The reason for this is simple. Within the exodus we have an example of socio-political and economic oppression. We have a people who are enslaved and they cry out to God for aid and God doesn't turn away he sends Moses. This story is the story of African people of the last 300 years: the story of slavery and the quest for redemption through belief and faith in God.

The vision of God that we have within the Bible is shaped by who nosotros are as people. Then if you're someone who is on the top, if you're part of the ruling aristocracy, then God is generally going to be read through elitist optics and you're going to see God as someone who supports the status quo rather than someone who wants to dismantle the elitism.

The converse is also true. If you lot're dispossessed or function of the underclass you lot're going to see things within it which back up your quest for justice and inclusion and that's truthful in terms of blackness communities when you lot read the Bible and the Old Testament. Looking at the Old Attestation in the light of the history of slavery, colonialism and its overcoming, then God is a liberator, i who takes enslaved people out of bondage and into land flowing with milk and beloved. We read the Bible in response to our own social location and that influences how nosotros empathize God.

I'grand a black political theologian so I'm concerned with the ways in which politics and culture gets played out inside the Biblical text. When I read the Bible I often try and read against the dominant narrative. If the dominant story is the story of conquest, I'g interested in the people who are being conquered and trying to work out how they understood the procedure of conquest. A good case of this is to look at the story of Joshua . When I read about Joshua going into the Promised Land I read it from the perspective of the Canaanite in order to get a fuller movie of what's going on. I often encourage my students to read against the Bible - to await for the stories and individuals who are fabricated near invisible past the ascendant narrative and the ascendant traditions that have glorified certain people inside the Bible and forgotten the significance of others.

Further reading

Farther reading

At the mountain of God: story and theology in Exodus: 32-34), R W L Moberly, Continuum International Publishing Group (1983)

The Bible, theology, and Organized religion: A study of Abraham and Jesus, R Due west Fifty Moberly, Cambridge University Press (2000)

The Old Testament of the One-time Testament (Overtures to Biblical Theology), R W 50 Moberly, Augsberg Fortress Publishers (1992)

The Moses Legacy: The evidence of history, Graham Phillips, Pan (2003)

Moses: a life, Jonathan Kirsch, Random Business firm (USA) (1999)

Miracles of Exodus, Colin Humphreys, Continuum International Publishing (2003)

The Bible Myth: The African Origins of the Jewish People, Gary Greenberg, Citadel Press (1998)

State of israel and the nations: The history of Israel from the Exodus to the fall of the 2nd Temple, F F Bruce, Intervarsity Press (1998)

Walking the Bible: a journey past land through the 5 books of Moses, Bruce Feiler, William Morrow and Company (2001)

Moses - a memoir, Joel Cohen, Paulist Press (2003)

The Bible, theology, and Faith: A study of Abraham and Jesus, Cambridge University Press (2000)

The One-time Testament of the Erstwhile Attestation (Overtures to Biblical Theology), Augsberg Fortress Publishers (1992)

vansinsily.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/history/moses_1.shtml

Share this post