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As we move into Exodus, time passes suddenly. We move away from the individual novella<\/em> of Joseph to several hundred years later, just as we often do in the Book of Mormon. Just how long, we don\u2019t actually know. Depending on how one calculates or what part \u00a0of the Bible one reads, it could be 430 years, 400 years, 4 \u201cgenerations\u201d (whatever that might mean) or much less time; Moses is the great-grandson of Levi, for example. The problem is that the Bible itself isn\u2019t entirely consistent on this point<\/a>.<\/p>\n The readings today presuppose that enough time has passed for Joseph\u2019s 70 relatives who came down to Egypt to grow large enough to be a threat, and this is the catalyst for these chapters. The anonymous Pharaoh who \u201cknew not Joseph\u201d enslaves his descendants and puts them to work. Only a charismatic and spiritually powerful prophet with ties to both Egypt and Israel is able to deliver them.<\/p>\n The new pharaoh who came into power (1:8) apparently did not \u201cknow\u201d Joseph, which may mean that he was either wholly ignorant of his own\u00a0<\/span>nation\u2019s history, or (more likely) that he simply chose to act in ignorance of Joseph\u2019s wise counsel and how the Egyptians had benefited from it (Gen. 41). Verse 8 is also a striking example of a characteristic not only of Exodus in general but of many portions of biblical narrative: The writer does not provide a full, detailed account of what he is reporting.- Enns, Exodus<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The way Israelites (and Jews today) have come to look at the Exodus story is analogous in some ways\u00a0to Mormons<\/a> and\u00a0Joseph Smith\u2019s First Vision. That is, we assume today\u2019s common understanding and usage of the story is identical to the way it was in the 1820s and 30s.\u00a0The first vision was told several times, with details that vary somewhat. This is somewhat problematic, but not terribly so, and has long been known and discussed in the Ensign (one example<\/a>) and lds.org (with links to original documents at the Joseph Smith Papers Project<\/a>) and elsewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cCritics of Mormonism have delighted in the discrepancies between the canonical [1838] account, and earlier renditions, especially one written in Smith\u2019s own hand in 1832\u2026 Such complaints, however, are much ado about relatively nothing. Any good lawyer or historian would expect to find contradictions in competing narratives written down years apart and decades after the event. And despite the contradictions, key elements abide.\u201d Stephen Prothero,\u00a0American Jesus<\/em><\/a>, 171.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The first vision accounts reflect human memory, audience, and oral retellings, just as the details in Exodus 15 (an older poetic retelling) differ from those in the prose around it. Today we look to the first vision as the fundamental beginning of the LDS Church<\/a> and Joseph Smith\u2019s calling as a prophet. Missionaries tell it early and frequently, and it often becomes a sticking point of black-and-white on which everything hinges. While Joseph Smith\u2019s understanding of the first vision shifted from being largely personal to having much broader scope, he nevertheless didn\u2019t conceive of it as the beginning of the Church or his own calling. The vision itself gave him \u201cno sense of mission, no emerging prophetic identity\u201d (Rough Stone Rolling<\/em><\/a>, 43). Early missionaries didn\u2019t refer to it. By contrast, \u201cIf Joseph initially understood the first vision as his conversion, similar to thousands of other evangelical conversions, this vision [of Moroni in 1823]\u00a0wrenched Joseph out of any ordinary track<\/em>.\u201d (Ibid. 44). Indeed, he looked back on Moroni\u2019s first visitation, description of the Book of Mormon and the work he was to do as the beginning of his calling and the restoration, not our now-capitalized First Vision.<\/p>\n There is less than two-hundred years time between the first vision and now, and we have very close primary sources, but the significance our tradition attaches to it today differs from its early day.<\/p>\n What, then, should we understand of the oral transmission over hundreds of years of a miraculous account that becomes foundational for Israelite theology and identity?\u00a0When read closely and carefully, much in these Exodus chapters is a\u00a0challenge. Numbers don\u2019t add up, the history doesn\u2019t quite match or is ambiguous, etc. What can we say, then, about history here?<\/p>\n First<\/strong>, Richard Clifford, a Catholic priest and Harvard PhD<\/a> in Old Testament, expresses the truism here<\/a> that \u00a0\u201cthere is no single principle of interpretation that covers all cases of disputed historicity. What one says about Adam and Eve or the flood does not necessarily apply to the Abraham stories, the exodus plagues, the miracles of Jesus or the resurrection. Consequently, one need not fear a domino effect.\u201d I make a similar argument about historicity, Jonah, and the\u00a0Book of Mormon here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Second<\/strong>, without going into deep and long arguments, the likely source of our Exodus text is oral tradition, which preserves the past while also shaping and expanding it. Like Genesis, Exodus is largely written in good Hebrew of the 9-6th centuries BC, centuries after the events it depicts. Exodus 15, a poem recounting the destruction of Pharaoh\u2019s army in the sea, is actually older and written in archaic Hebrew. It is likely that this poem predates the prose narrative, and may even serve as a source of the written prose. As I recall, Baruch\u00a0Halpern\u00a0argues that Exodus 15 shows evidence of eyewitness testimony, captured in poetry.<\/p>\n My take<\/strong> is that something like<\/em> the Exodus happened, but probably in much much smaller numbers than depicted, and not as dramatic. This is not because I reject miracles or lack faith, but because of my understanding of \u00a0the nature\u00a0of the text,\u00a0historical context, and close reading. In any\u00a0<\/span>case, if you\u2019d \u00a0like to get a good dsummary of the arguments, I recommend picking up Shanks, ed.\u00a0Ancient Israel<\/em>, which is a balanced introductory history among those I recommend<\/a>. (And we\u2019re getting into parts of the Bible that reading history can really help us understand.)<\/p>\n What of the general narrative? As will often be my lament, we\u2019re trying to cover so much ground, it\u2019s hard to know where to focus our time. There is Moses, the prophet who murders (though for a good cause); the revelation of the name Yahweh\/Jehovah (wait, except we\u2019ve been seeing it the whole time, since Genesis 2 in fact); the temple symbolism in Moses\u2019 vision on the mountain<\/a>; the various plagues; magic; God hardening hearts; prophets and honesty; prophets and failure; \u00a0the nature of revelation and the crisis at the Red Sea; the problem with the Red Sea (or should it be Reed<\/em> Sea, or Mythological<\/em> Sea?); Jethro, the high priest, being a descendant of Cain, and the Kenite hypothesis\u2026 There\u2019s just too much.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s focus on Moses, who, after being raised royally in some regard, eventually comes to identify with his own people and kills an overseer beating an Israelite.\u00a0Commentators are split on whether the episode casts Moses in a positive light (deliverer, wakening egalitarianism) or a negative light (impulsive, disregard for law, secrecy).<\/p>\n Others view the encounter with the Egyptian simply as a plot point, a device necessary for getting Moses out of Egypt and into the desert, where he meets Jethro\/Reuel\/Hobab his father-in-law.<\/p>\n I wrote a paper my first year of grad school that my advisor thought had potential. I never developed it further, but the main idea is that this episode constitutes literary foreshadow. Moses stands in for God, and the Egyptian stands in for Egypt and\/or Pharaoh.<\/p>\n That\u2019s my take on that short episode.<\/p>\n As for the name Moses, it is not a Hebrew name, though a folk etymology is put in the mouth of the Egyptian princess who names him. (Why Egyptian royalty would know the language of slaves is not explained.)<\/p>\n She named him Moses (Heb. mosheh<\/em>), \u201cbecause,\u201d she said, \u201cI drew him [Heb. mashati<\/em>] out of the water.\u201d (Exo 2:10)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Moses is a shortened Egyptian name that we\u2019ve seen elsewhere, in fact, as\u00a0Ahmose, Kamose,Tuthmose, and Ramses, all well-known Egyptian kings.The word\u00a0msh\u00a0<\/em> means \u201cson\u201d or \u201cbegotten by\u201d and was usually accompanied by the name of an Egyptian deity. Ramses means \u201cbegotten by Ra\u201d and Moses would have had a similar divine name attached.<\/p>\n Tidbits<\/strong><\/p>\n Sargon, strong king, king of Agade (Akkad), am I.<\/em> Like Moses\u2019 mother, Sargon\u2019s mother places her baby in a reed basket, seals it, and sets it adrift on a river. Like Moses, Sargon is then taken from the water by the one who eventually adopts him. Determining the relationship between such accounts is not an easy problem to solve. Could the authors of some of these stories have borrowed the idea from others? Possibly. There is evidence, however, to suggest that it was not uncommon for a child to be abandoned\u2026.\u00a0While the Moses narrative likely does not depend on the Sargon legend, it may well be that the biblical story attempts to describe the events in Moses\u2019 life in such a way that an astute reader in the ancient world would recognize the \u201cabandoned child\u201d theme and foresee that great achievements are in store for this lonely infant afloat on the river.- Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary<\/em><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n As always, you can help me pay my tuition here<\/a>, or\u00a0you can support my work through making your regular Amazon purchases through the Amazon links I post. You can also get updates by email whenever a post goes up (subscription box on the right). You can also follow Benjamin the Scribe on Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As we move into Exodus, time passes suddenly. We move away from the individual novella of Joseph to several hundred years later, just as we often do in the Book of Mormon. Just how long, we don\u2019t actually know. Depending on how one calculates or what part \u00a0of the Bible one reads, it could be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1720,"featured_media":3055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,31,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gospel-doctrine","category-history","category-old-testament"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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\nThe Legend of Sargon tells of his rise to power around 2300 B.C. The story may have been written well after Sargon\u2019s lifetime, though it is nearly impossible to arrive at a precise date for the composition of the text. It begins\n
\n My mother was a high priestess, my father I do not know.<\/em>
\n My paternal kin inhabit the mountain region.<\/em>
\n My city of birth is Azupiranu, which lies on the bank of the Euphrates.<\/em>
\n My mother, a high priestess, conceived me, in secret she bore me.<\/em>
\n She placed me in a reed basket, with bitumen she caulked my hatch.<\/em>
\n She abandoned me to the river from which I could not escape.<\/em>
\n The river carried me along; to Aqqi, the water drawer, it brought me.<\/em>
\n Aqqi, the water drawer, when immersing his bucket lifted me up.<\/em>
\n Aqqi, the water drawer, raised me as his adopted son.<\/em><\/p>\n