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80-542: In addition to building his home here and planting hundreds of trees, Joaquin Miller placed monuments to his various heroes on the property, including Moses , John C. Frémont , and Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning . The monuments remain to this day. The park's 500 acres (2.0 km) are heavily wooded with coast redwoods , coast live oaks , and pines. Many of the trees were originally planted by Miller himself. The Oakland Hills location provides panoramic views of

160-476: A theophoric name with the god’s name omitted. The suffix mose appears in Egyptian pharaohs’ names like Thutmose ('born of Thoth ') and Ramose ('born of Ra '). One of the Egyptian names of Ramesses was Ra-mesesu mari-Amon , meaning “born of Ra, beloved of Amon” (he was also called Usermaatre Setepenre , meaning “Keeper of light and harmony, strong in light, elect of Re”). Linguist Abraham Yahuda , based on

240-508: A Greek historian, geographer and philosopher, in his Geographica (c. 24 CE), 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: 35. An Egyptian priest named Moses, who possessed

320-525: A clear image. His primary work, wherein he describes Jewish philosophy , is his Histories ( c.  100 ), where, according to 18th-century translator and Irish dramatist Arthur Murphy , as a result of the Jewish worship of one God, " pagan mythology fell into contempt". Tacitus states that, despite various opinions current in his day regarding the Jews' ethnicity, most of his sources are in agreement that there

400-413: A familiar motif in ancient Near Eastern mythological accounts of the ruler who rises from humble origins. For example, in the account of the origin of Sargon of Akkad (23rd century BCE): My mother, the high priestess, conceived; in secret she bore me She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid She cast me into the river which rose over me. Moses' story, like those of

480-669: A historical Moses-like figure include the princes Ahmose-ankh and Ramose , who were sons of pharaoh Ahmose I , or a figure associated with the family of pharaoh Thutmose III . Israel Knohl has proposed to identify Moses with Irsu , a Shasu who, according to Papyrus Harris I and the Elephantine Stele, took power in Egypt with the support of "Asiatics" (people from the Levant ) after the death of Queen Twosret ; after coming to power, Irsu and his supporters disrupted Egyptian rituals, "treating

560-399: 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

640-480: A number of US government buildings. In the medieval and Renaissance period, he is frequently shown as having small horns , as the result of a mistranslation in the Latin Vulgate bible, which nevertheless at times could reflect Christian ambivalence or have overtly antisemitic connotations. The Egyptian root msy ('child of') or mose has been considered as a possible etymology, arguably an abbreviation of

720-649: 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

800-435: A reference to Cicero , Moses is the only non-Greek writer quoted in the work; contextually he is put on a par with Homer and he is described "with far more admiration than even Greek writers who treated Moses with respect, such as Hecataeus and Strabo ". In Josephus ' (37 – c. 100 CE) Antiquities of the Jews , Moses is mentioned throughout. For example, Book VIII Ch. IV, describes Solomon's Temple , also known as

880-461: 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", with his addition of extra-biblical details, such as his references to Jethro: the non-Jewish Jethro expresses admiration for Moses' gallantry in helping his daughters, and chooses to adopt Moses as his son. Strabo ,

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960-445: Is a minority body of opinion that they may have been different locations. The Protestant reformer John Calvin took the view that Sinai and Horeb were the same mountain, with the eastern side of the mountain being called Sinai and the western side being called Horeb. Abraham Ibn Ezra suggested that there was one mountain, "only it had two tops, which bore these different names". Locally, around Saint Catherine's Monastery , which

1040-499: Is also alluded to in Hebrews 12:18–21 . The location of Horeb is disputed. Jewish and Christian scholars have advanced varying opinions as to its whereabouts since biblical times. Elijah is described in 1 Kings 19:1–21 as traveling to Horeb (taking 40 days to walk there from Beersheba ), in a way which implies that its position was familiar when that was written, but there are no biblical references set any later in time. Additionally

1120-463: Is associated with narratives of an exodus and a conquest, and several motifs in stories about him are shared with the Exodus tale and that regarding Israel's war with Moab ( 2 Kings 3 ). Moab rebels against oppression, like Moses, leads his people out of Israel, as Moses does from Egypt, and his first-born son is slaughtered at the wall of Kir-hareseth as the firstborn of Israel are condemned to slaughter in

1200-810: Is built adjacent to the Egyptian Mount Sinai and to Willow Peak , the latter is considered to be the Biblical Mount Horeb. "Horeb" is thought to mean dry place or glowing / heat , which seems to be a reference to the Sun , while Sinai may have derived from the name of Sin , the Ancient Mesopotamian religion deity of the Moon , and thus Sinai and Horeb would be the mountains of the Moon and Sun, respectively. The name Horeb first occurs at Exodus 3:1, with

1280-637: Is mentioned in ancient Egyptian literature . In the writing of Jewish historian Josephus , ancient Egyptian historian Manetho is quoted writing of a treasonous ancient Egyptian priest, Osarseph , who renamed himself Moses and led a successful coup against the presiding pharaoh , subsequently ruling Egypt for years until the pharaoh regained power and expelled Osarseph and his supporters. Moses has often been portrayed in Christian art and literature, for instance in Michelangelo's Moses and in works at

1360-508: Is mentioned several times in the account of the wanderings of the Israelites in the wilderness. Moses recalled in Deuteronomy 1:6 that God had said to the Israelites at Horeb, "You have dwelt long enough at this mountain: turn and take your journey", confirming that Horeb was the location from which they set off towards Canaan. Other mentions of Horeb in Deuteronomy are found in the account of

1440-535: Is no textual indication that this daughter of Pharaoh is the same one who named Moses. Ibn Ezra gave two possibilities for the name of Moses: he believed that it was either a translation of the Egyptian name instead of a transliteration or that the Pharaoh's daughter was able to speak Hebrew. Kenneth Kitchen argues that the Hebrew etymology is most likely correct, as the sounds in the Hebrew m-š-h do not correspond to

1520-615: Is the high honour in which it holds the peoples of the East in general and some specific groups among these peoples." 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

1600-478: Is unknown, but it is commonly assigned to the late 1st century C.E. The writer quotes Genesis in a "style which presents the nature of the deity in a manner suitable to his pure and great being", but he does not mention Moses by name, calling him 'no chance person' ( οὐχ ὁ τυχὼν ἀνήρ ) but "the Lawgiver" ( θεσμοθέτης , thesmothete ) of the Jews, a term that puts him on a par with Lycurgus and Minos . Aside from

1680-615: Is unknown. Moses also appears in other religious texts such as the Mishnah (c. 200 CE) and the Midrash (200–1200 CE). 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. The earliest existing reference to Moses in Greek literature occurs in

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1760-650: The Ark of the Covenant contained only the tablets delivered to Moses at Horeb. In 1 Kings 19 :8-18, Elijah visits "Horeb the mount of God", and encounters God there. According to the documentary hypothesis , the name Sinai is used in the Torah only by the Jahwist and Priestly Source from Judah, whereas Horeb is used only by the Elohist and Deuteronomist from Israel, which is part of

1840-881: The Baháʼí Faith , and other Abrahamic religions . According to both the Bible and the Quran , God dictated the Mosaic Law to Moses, which he wrote down in the five books of the Torah . According to the Book of Exodus , Moses was born in a time when his people, the Israelites, an enslaved minority, were increasing in population and, as a result, the Egyptian Pharaoh worried that they might ally themselves with Egypt 's enemies. Moses' Hebrew mother, Jochebed , secretly hid him when Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed in order to reduce

1920-547: The Book of Deuteronomy another. Moses has traditionally been regarded as the author of those four books and the Book of Genesis , which together comprise the Torah , the first section of the Hebrew Bible . Scholars hold different opinions on the historicity of Moses. For instance, according to William G. Dever , the modern scholarly consensus is that the biblical person of Moses is largely mythical while also holding that "a Moses-like figure may have existed somewhere in

2000-498: The Hebrew Bible . It is described in two places (the Book of Exodus and the Books of Kings ) as הַר הָאֱלֹהִים the "Mountain of Elohim". The mountain is also called the Mountain of YHWH . In other biblical passages, these events are described as having transpired at Mount Sinai . Although most scholars consider Sinai and Horeb to have been different names for the same place, there

2080-448: The Jewish religion or took a tip from Jochebed (Moses' mother). The Egyptian princess who named Moses is not named in the book of Exodus. However, she was known to Josephus as Thermutis (identified as Tharmuth), and some within Jewish tradition have tried to identify her with a "daughter of Pharaoh" in 1 Chronicles 4:17 named Bithiah , but others note that this is unlikely since there

2160-708: The Red Sea Crossing as a sign of his power to Israel and the nations. After defeating the Amalekites in Rephidim , Moses led the Israelites to Mount Sinai , where he was given the Ten Commandments from God, written on stone tablets . However, since Moses remained a long time on the mountain, some of the people feared that he might be dead, so they made a statue of a golden calf and worshipped it , thus disobeying and angering God and Moses. Moses, out of anger, broke

2240-647: The San Francisco Bay area. The park features include miles of hiking, biking, and horseback riding trails, an off-leash dog area, a children's playground, an amphitheater, and picnic tables. The stairs below the "cascades" that flow from the Woodminister Amphitheater are actively used by fitness enthusiasts and weddings. The park is cared for by the Friends of Joaquin Miller Park coalition of users. Flora in

2320-469: The 4th century BCE, long after he is believed to have lived. No contemporary Egyptian sources mention Moses, or the events of Exodus–Deuteronomy, nor has any archaeological evidence been discovered in Egypt or the Sinai wilderness to support the story in which he is the central figure. David Adams Leeming states that Moses is a mythic hero and the central figure in Hebrew mythology. The Oxford Companion to

2400-643: The Bible states that the historicity of Moses is the most reasonable (albeit not unbiased) assumption to be made about him as his absence would leave a vacuum that cannot be explained away. Oxford Biblical Studies states that although few modern scholars are willing to support the traditional view that Moses himself wrote the five books of the Torah , there are certainly those who regard the leadership of Moses as too firmly based in Israel's corporate memory to be dismissed as pious fiction . The story of Moses' discovery follows

2480-476: The Biblical story may reflect an attempt to cancel out traces of Moses' Egyptian origins . The Egyptian character of his name was recognized as such by ancient Jewish writers like Philo and Josephus . Philo linked Moses' name ( Ancient Greek : Μωϋσῆς , romanized :  Mōysēs , lit.   'Mōusês') to the Egyptian ( Coptic ) word for 'water' ( môu , μῶυ ), in reference to his finding in

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2560-702: The Cleveland Cascade at Lake Merritt (now dry). This Alameda County, California –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Moses In Abrahamic religions , Moses was a prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the Exodus . He is considered the most important prophet in Judaism and Samaritanism , and one of the most important prophets in Christianity , Islam ,

2640-432: The Egyptian history of Hecataeus of Abdera (4th century BCE). 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 ". Among the many accomplishments described by Hecataeus, Moses had founded cities, established a temple and religious cult, and issued laws: After

2720-450: The Exile (i.e., in the first half of the 6th century BCE), testifies to tension between the people of Judah and the returning post-Exilic Jews (the " gôlâ "), stating that God is the father of Israel and that Israel's history begins with the Exodus and not with Abraham . The conclusion to be inferred from this and similar evidence (e.g., the Book of Ezra and the Book of Nehemiah ) is that

2800-670: The Exodus story, in what Calvinist theologian Peter Leithart described as "an infernal Passover that delivers Mesha while wrath burns against his enemies". An Egyptian version of the tale that crosses over with the Moses story is found in Manetho who, according to the summary in Josephus , wrote that a certain Osarseph , a Heliopolitan priest, became overseer of a band of lepers , when Amenophis , following indications by Amenhotep, son of Hapu , had all

2880-570: The First Temple, at the time the Ark of the Covenant was first moved into the newly built temple: Mount Horeb Mount Horeb ( / ˈ h ɔːr ɛ b / ; Hebrew : הַר חֹרֵב Har Ḥōrēḇ ; Greek in the Septuagint : Χωρήβ , Chōrēb ; Latin in the Vulgate : Horeb ) is the mountain at which the Ten Commandments were given to Moses by God , according to the Book of Deuteronomy in

2960-503: The Nile and the biblical folk etymology . Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews , claims that the second element, -esês , meant 'those who are saved'. The problem of how an Egyptian princess (who, according to the Biblical account found in the book of Exodus , gave him the name "Moses") could have known Hebrew puzzled medieval Jewish commentators like Abraham ibn Ezra and Hezekiah ben Manoah . Hezekiah suggested she either converted to

3040-487: The Oakland Recreation Department put on popular productions of musical comedies there, three per summer, using mostly amateur performers. Starting in 1967, production of the summer musicals was taken over by the current management. The Cascade is the amphitheater's waterfall feature built in 1941 and dedicated to California writers, still with flowing water. It was designed by Howard Gilkey, who also designed

3120-507: The age of 120, within sight of the Promised Land . The majority of scholars see the biblical Moses as a legendary figure, while retaining the possibility that Moses or a Moses-like figure existed in the 13th century BCE. Rabbinical Judaism calculated a lifespan of Moses corresponding to 1391–1271 BCE; Jerome suggested 1592 BCE, and James Ussher suggested 1571 BCE as his birth year. The Egyptian name "Moses"

3200-450: The age of one hundred and twenty: So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab according to the word of the LORD. And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor; but no man knows his burial place to this day. (Deuteronomy 34:5–6, Amplified Bible ) Moses is honoured among Jews today as the "lawgiver of Israel", and he delivers several sets of laws in

3280-479: The banks of the Jordan River , 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 , looked over the Promised Land spread out before him, and died, at

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3360-508: The body of evidence for the hypothesis. There are no references to Horeb in the New Testament . In Galatians 4:24–25 , Mount Sinai is mentioned: "One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar . Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem , because she is in slavery with her children." Mount Sinai/Horeb

3440-426: The commandments, although "the individuals who [had been] present had all perished with the exception of Moses, Joshua, and Caleb. [The] nation survived, and as it was with the nation as an organic whole that the covenant had been made. It might be with propriety said that it was made with those whom Moses addressed at this time, inasmuch as they constituted the nation." 1 Kings 8:9 and 2 Chronicles 5 :10 state that

3520-557: The course of the four books. The first is the Covenant Code , the terms of the covenant which God offers to the Israelites at Mount 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). The entire Book of Leviticus constitutes a second body of law, the Book of Numbers begins with yet another set, and

3600-459: The decisive role he played in Israelite religion, and a third that argues there are elements of both history and legend from which "these issues are hotly debated unresolved matters among scholars". According to Brian Britt, there is divide amongst scholars when discussing matters on Moses that threatens gridlock. According to the official Torah commentary for Conservative Judaism, it is irrelevant if

3680-476: The delivery to Moses of the Ten Commandments , and in subsequent references back to the occasion: Deuteronomy 4:10 , 4:15 , 5:2 , 9:8 , 18:16 , and 28:69 . There are similar references at Psalm 106 and Malachi 4:4 . Deuteronomy 5:2 ("The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb") creates the sense that the current generation to whom Moses was speaking had been present at Mount Horeb when Moses descended with

3760-663: The end of the Exodus journey had become the enemies of the Israelites due to their notorious role in enticing the Israelites to sin against God . Moses was twice given notice that he would die before entry to the Promised Land: in Numbers 27:13, once he had seen the Promised Land from a viewpoint on Mount Abarim , and again in Numbers 31:1 once battle with the Midianites had been won. On

3840-402: 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, a man not only great of soul but also in his life the most public-spirited of all lawgivers whose names are recorded. Droge also points out that this statement by Hecataeus

3920-421: The figure of Moses and the story of the Exodus must have been preeminent among the people of Judah at the time of the Exile and after, serving to support their claims to the land in opposition to those of the returning exiles. A theory developed by Cornelis Tiele in 1872, which has proved influential, argued that Yahweh was a Midianite god, introduced to the Israelites by Moses, whose father-in-law Jethro

4000-529: 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." 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". Egyptologist Jan Assmann concludes that Strabo

4080-511: The five, originally independent, themes of that work. Manfred Görg  [ de ] and Rolf Krauss  [ de ] , the latter in a somewhat sensationalist manner, have suggested that the Moses story is a distortion or transmogrification of the historical pharaoh Amenmose ( c.  1200 BCE ), who was dismissed from office and whose name was later simplified to msy (Mose). Aidan Dodson regards this hypothesis as "intriguing, but beyond proof". Rudolf Smend argues that

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4160-481: The gods like the people" and halting offerings to the Egyptian deities. They were eventually defeated and expelled by the new Pharaoh Setnakhte and, while fleeing, they abandoned large quantities of gold and silver they had stolen from the temples. Non-biblical writings about Jews, with references to the role of Moses, first appear at the beginning of the Hellenistic period , from 323 BCE to about 146 BCE. Shmuel notes that "a characteristic of this literature

4240-594: The guidance of the first being, by whose aid they should get out of their present plight. In this version, Moses and the Jews wander through the desert for only six days, capturing the Holy Land on the seventh. The Septuagint , the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, impressed the pagan author of the famous classical book of literary criticism, On the Sublime , traditionally attributed to Longinus . The date of composition

4320-431: The historical Moses existed, calling him "the folkloristic, national hero". Jan Assmann argues that it cannot be known if Moses ever lived because there are no traces of him outside tradition. Though the names of Moses and others in the biblical narratives are Egyptian and contain genuine Egyptian elements, no extrabiblical sources point clearly to Moses. No references to Moses appear in any Egyptian sources prior to

4400-424: 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. In Strabo's writings of the history of Judaism as he understood it, he describes various stages in its development: from

4480-412: The journey, God tried to kill Moses for failing to circumcise his son, but Zipporah saved his life . Moses returned to carry out God's command, but God caused the 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 their God hardened the Pharaoh's heart once more, so that he could destroy Pharaoh and his army at

4560-558: The land. Later on, Korah was punished for leading a revolt against Moses. 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, conquered the lands of Og and Sihon in Transjordan , received God's blessing through Balaam the prophet, and massacred the Midianites , who by

4640-452: 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

4720-584: The lepers in Egypt quarantined in order to cleanse the land so that he might see the gods. The lepers are bundled into Avaris , the former capital of the Hyksos , where Osarseph prescribes for them everything forbidden in Egypt, while proscribing everything permitted in Egypt. They invite the Hyksos to reinvade Egypt, rule with them for 13 years – Osarseph then assumes the name Moses – and are then driven out. Other Egyptian figures which have been postulated as candidates for

4800-549: The name of the place Massah and Meribah , because of the contention of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, 'Is the Lord among us or not?'" The only other use of the name in Exodus is in chapter 33, where Horeb is the location where the Israelites stripped off their ornaments. This passage (i.e., Exodus 33:1–6) suggests that Horeb was the location from which the Israelites set off towards Canaan as they resumed their Exodus journey. In Deuteronomy , Horeb

4880-430: The other patriarchs , most likely had a substantial oral prehistory (he is mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Isaiah ). The earliest mention of him is vague, in the Book of Hosea and his name is apparently ancient, as the tradition found in Exodus gives it a folk etymology. Nevertheless, the Torah was completed by combining older traditional texts with newly-written ones. Isaiah , written during

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4960-463: The park include pinkflower currant , evergreen huckleberry , creambush , and gooseberry . There are several picnic areas as well as walking trails in the park, including Sinawik Trail, Sunset Loop, Palos Colorados Trail, Chaparral Trail, and Cinderella Trail. Joaquin Miller Park contains the 2,000-seat Woodminster Amphitheater and Cascade, an outdoor amphitheater regularly used to stage both amateur and professional musicals and plays. For many years

5040-437: The passage identifies a cave large enough to lodge in. Also in the beginning of Deuteronomy, where Mozes delivers his last speech on the plains of Moab, the location is given to be 11 days to Horeb, which is already an indication that it is not Mount Sinai (ca 500 km distance). If Horeb was the same mountain as Mount Sinai, then Beersheba should be closer to the mountain than the location of the plains of Moab. This strongly suggest

5120-424: The population of the Israelites. Through Pharaoh's daughter , the child was adopted as a foundling from the Nile and grew up with the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slave-master who was beating a Hebrew, Moses fled across the Red Sea to Midian , where he encountered the Angel of the Lord , speaking to him from within a burning bush on Mount Horeb . God sent Moses back to Egypt to demand

5200-403: 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 the Desert of Paran on the border of Canaan. From there he sent twelve spies into

5280-412: The pronunciation of Egyptian msy in the relevant time period. 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 (or descendant) of Kehath the Levite , who entered Egypt with Jacob's household; his mother was Jochebed (also Yocheved), who

5360-438: The release of the Israelites from slavery. Moses said that he could not speak eloquently, so God allowed Aaron , his elder brother, to become his spokesperson. After the Ten 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 on Mount Nebo at

5440-498: 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. 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 Isis thereafter contained

5520-402: The southern Transjordan in the mid-late 13th century B.C." and that "archeology can do nothing" to prove or confirm either way. Some scholars, such as Konrad Schmid and Jens Schröter, consider Moses a historical figure. According to Solomon Nigosian, there are actually three prevailing views among biblical scholars: one is that Moses is not a historical figure, another view strives to anchor

5600-485: The spelling given in the Tanakh , argues that it combines "water" or "seed" and "pond, expanse of water," thus yielding the sense of "child of the Nile " ( mw - š ). The biblical account of Moses' birth provides him with a folk etymology to explain the ostensible meaning of his name. He is said to have received it from the Pharaoh's daughter : "he became her son. She named him Moses [ מֹשֶׁה , Mōše ], saying, 'I drew him out [ מְשִׁיתִֽהוּ , mǝšīṯīhū ] of

5680-415: The story of Moses and the burning bush . According to Exodus 3:5, the ground of the mountain was considered holy , and Moses was commanded by God to remove his sandals. Exodus 17:6 describes the incident when the Israelites were in the wilderness without water. When Moses was "upon the rock at Horeb", he strikes the rock and obtains drinking water from the rock. Verse 7 goes on to say that Moses "called

5760-425: The tablets, and later ordered the elimination of those who had worshiped the golden statue, which was melted down and fed to the idolaters . God again wrote the ten commandments on a new set of tablets. Later at Mount Sinai , Moses 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. Moses delivered the laws of God to Israel, instituted

5840-459: The two details about Moses that were most likely to be historical are his name, of Egyptian origin, and his marriage to a Midianite woman, details which seem unlikely to have been invented by the Israelites; in Smend's view, all other details given in the biblical narrative are too mythically charged to be seen as accurate data. The name King Mesha of Moab has been linked to that of Moses. Mesha also

5920-510: The water'." This explanation links it to the Semitic root משׁה , m-š-h , meaning "to draw out". The eleventh-century Tosafist Isaac b. Asher haLevi noted that the princess names him the active participle 'drawer-out' ( מֹשֶׁה , mōše ), not the passive participle 'drawn-out' ( נִמְשֶׁה , nīmše ), in effect prophesying that Moses would draw others out (of Egypt); this has been accepted by some scholars. The Hebrew etymology in

6000-600: Was a Midianite priest. It was to such a Moses that Yahweh reveals his real name, hidden from the Patriarchs who knew him only as El Shaddai . Against this view is the modern consensus that most of the Israelites were native to Palestine . Martin Noth argued that the Pentateuch uses the figure of Moses, originally linked to legends of a Transjordan conquest, as a narrative bracket or late redactional device to weld together four of

6080-499: Was an Exodus from Egypt. By his account, the Pharaoh Bocchoris , suffering from a plague , banished the Jews in response to an oracle of the god Zeus - Amun . A motley crowd was thus collected and abandoned in the desert. While all the other outcasts lay idly lamenting, one of them, named Moses, advised them not to look for help to gods or men, since both had deserted them, but to trust rather in themselves, and accept as divine

6160-435: Was beating a Hebrew. Moses, in order to escape Pharaoh's death penalty , fled to Midian (a desert country south of Judah), where he married Zipporah . There, on Mount Horeb , God appeared to Moses as a burning bush , 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 ). During

6240-484: Was kin to Kehath. 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 would 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 , and raised as an Egyptian. One day, after Moses had reached adulthood, he killed an Egyptian who

6320-544: Was similar to statements made subsequently by Eupolemus. 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". Jealousy of Moses' excellent qualities induced Chenephres to send him with unskilled troops on

6400-414: Was the historian "who came closest to a construction of Moses' religion as monotheistic 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." The Roman historian Tacitus (c. 56–120 CE) refers to Moses by noting that the Jewish religion was monotheistic and without

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