Moses

What really happened with Moses?

If you're a member of one of the Judaic religions, then you believe that Moses was born a Jewish slave to the Egyptions, was but in a basket and floated down the Nile, was picked up by the Egyption queen and raised as her son and a brother to Ramses II. You believe that he grew up thinking that he was Egyption, but then found out the truth that he was a Jew. He then killed an Egyption guard that was beating a Jewish slave, and then fled into the desert.

In the desert, he found a Jewish sheep herding tribe, and married one of its daughters. After a while, he climbed up Mount Arafat, and God spoke to him from a burning bush, telling him to go back to Egypt and free the Jews. Moses did this by going back to Egypt as a messenger from God, bringing the plagues, etc., until Ramses II agreed to let the Jews go.

As Moses led the Jews into the desert, Ramses II changed his mind and sent soldiers out to bring the Jews back. God, acting through Moses, split the Red Sea, letting the Jews go through, then let the Red Sea close again, drowning the Egyption soldiers.

Once free of the Egyptions, Moses led his peaple across the desert. Eventually, he passed Mount Arafat again, where he climbed up, again saw the burning bush, and this time returned with two tablets containing the 10 Commandments. Moses then presented these commandments to his people.

After this, Moses continued to lead his people through the desert for 40 years, eventually getting to Jericho. I forget exactly what happened next, something about Moses sending in two spys into Jericho, then having his people blow some trumpets to bring the walls of Jericho down so they could take over the city.

I've written all of this from memory, so I might be off in a couple of details, but I think that's the gist of it.

My version of the story is a little different. I'm not sure what this version is based on, other than my own feelings of how it may have happened.

First of all, if I had to guess, I'd say that the Egyptions didn't exclusively use Jews as slaves. They probably used a lot of other people as well. In fact, I would guess that probably made up a significant, but well under 50%, portion of the Egyption slave population. This is based on two things. The first is that, from an economic perspective, it really doesn't make sense for the Egyptions to restrict themselves from using other peoples for slaves. Second, the way this story was told to me when I was in Sunday school as a kid (this was in a Presbyterian church), the slaves were worshipping a lot of false idols until Moses brought down the 10 commandments. If the people were truly Jews, they would already believe in the one God, and they wouldn't have been doing this.

Second, I would guess that Moses was really an Egyption, probably either the second son of Ramses I, or, possibly, the child of another family that was closely associated with the Pharoah and who grew up playing with Ramses II. I think this for a couple of reasons. First, for whatever the reason that Moses wanted to lead the slaves out of Egypt, he needed for them to trust and follow him, and what better way to do that than to convince them that he was one of them. Second, the whole idea of the King (or Pharoah in this case) killing the first born of every household just happens too many times in the Bible, and in other mythology as well. It happened twice in the story of Moses, first when Ramses I ordered the death of the first born of all the Jews, second when God took the first born of the Egyptions as one of the plagues. It also happened with Herod when Jesus was born, and it happened in at least one Grecco/Roman myth, but I don't remember exactly which one. To me, it just has the sound of a story that may or may not have ever happened, but once the story was there, it had such a great impact on people that it got used over and over again.

I don't know why Moses fled Egypt. It's possible that he was competition for the thrown, so Ramses drove him out. The story about him killing an Egyption guard to protect a slave, though, sounds like something that could've just been made up to gain the support of the slaves. I do believe, however, that while he was in exile, he joined a Jewish tribe, married one of their daughters, and converted to Judaism.

While he was in exile, he hatched his plan to free the slaves of Egypt. Maybe he climbed Mount Arafat on some sort of Judaic equivalent of the Native American Spirit Journey and he hatched his plan up there. More than likely though, this was an idea that formed over a long period of time, and he only claimed that it came from God so that he could gain the support of the people around him.

What was his goal in taking the slaves out of Egypt? Maybe he had ambitions of amassing an army that could later invade Egypt, and then later changed his mind when he realized that the slaves just didn't make good soldiers. Maybe he just wanted a people to lead so that he could be more powerful. Maybe the Egyptions were still trying to hunt him down, and he felt that he needed a larger group of people to protect him.

Anyway, he went back to Egypt and talked the Pharoah into letting him lead the slaves to freedom. I don't believe in the whole plagues thing, although it's possible that Moses just took anything bad that happened and said that God made it happen to try to force Ramses II to let the slave go. My guess though is that Moses went to Ramses II and made a deal with him that if Ramses would give him some slaves to be his people, then he would leave and never bother Ramses again. Maybe he didn't ask for all of the slaves, but only a small portion of them. Maybe he even asked to just take the Jewish slaves. Maybe he tried to use the "It's God's will" argument to get Ramses to comply, or maybe Ramses just complied out of friendship. Maybe Ramses thought this was a better way to get rid of a potential rival than killing him, especially since the potential rival was a childhood friend of his.

According to the Bible, Ramses then changed his mind about letting Moses take the slaves, and sent his army out to recapture them. Did this happen? Who knows. Maybe this part of the story was added later to emphasize how the Jews owed their freedom to God. Maybe Ramses never agreed to let Moses take the slaves in the first place, and Moses just did it anyway.

Or maybe Moses took a larger portion of the slaves than Ramses originally agreed to. This would explain a lot of things. First, Moses could have just asked to take the Jewish slaves. This would have been consistent with Moses having converted to Judaism, and with the Bible version of the story. Then, when Moses went to gather the slaves, a lot of other slaves could have claimed they were Jewish just to gain their freedom. After all, Moses would have had to promise the Jews something better than what they had in order to get them to follow him. It would be reasonable that this would have appealed to other slaves as well. This also would explain why, as Moses was leading the Jews across the desert, a lot of them were worshipping false idols; they weren't really Jews.

Okay, now Moses has his people, and the first thing he's going to do is go back home to where his wife and family are. This family is going to include his father and law and the whole extended Jewish tribe that Moses joined. They're going to help him to rule over this group of slaves, many of which aren't Jewish. These people have now lost whatever authority they once had, and are probably behaving in a very lawless manner. There is probably a lot of bad stuff going on, including stealing, sleeping around, killing, etc.. The worshipping of false idols is probably just the part they taught us about in Sunday school. Moses needed to establish himself as the new authority to these people, and he did this by creating a set of laws to govern his people. Most of these laws probably embodied commonly held cultural values, but certainly they were made to correct the problems that Moses was seeing in his people. After all, why bother to outlaw something that no one is doing anyway? Maybe Moses claimed from the beginning that these laws were given to him from God, or maybe that part of the story was added later to give the laws a little more credibility.