{"id":30,"date":"2018-01-10T09:47:21","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T14:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/?post_type=chapter&p=30"},"modified":"2018-01-12T12:42:41","modified_gmt":"2018-01-12T17:42:41","slug":"history-and-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/chapter\/history-and-the-bible\/","title":{"raw":"Chapter 4: History and the Bible","rendered":"Chapter 4: History and the Bible"},"content":{"raw":"In Genesis 12 Yahweh1 appears to Abram and orders him to leave his\u00a0own country and people to go to a new country that he is to be shown. There\u00a0Abram will be blessed by Yahweh and given a great name. With this order in\u00a0mind Abram, without hesitation, organizes all of his affairs and leaves Harran\u00a0with Sarai, his sister-wife, and with Lot, his nephew, and all of their\u00a0dependants. Yahweh's appearance to Abram there in the desert is the initial\u00a0indication of a promise or covenant between Yahweh and Abram.\r\n\r\n \r\n
That very day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, and he said,\r\n\r\n`To your descendants I give this land from the River of Egypt to\r\n\r\nthe Great River, the river Euphrates...(Gen. 15.18)<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\nWhen Abram is ninety-nine years old Yahweh appears to him again to\u00a0say:\r\n\r\n \r\n
`I make this covenant, and I make it with you: you shall be the\r\n\r\nfather of a host of nations. Your name will no longer be Abram,\r\n\r\nyour name shall be Abraham, for I make you a father of a host of\r\n\r\nnations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; I will make nations\r\n\r\nout of you, and kings shall spring from you. I will fulfil my covenant\r\n\r\nbetween myself and you and your descendants after you,\r\n\r\ngeneration after generation, an everlasting covenant, to be your\r\n\r\nGod, yours and your descendants after you. As an everlasting\r\n\r\npossession I will give you and your desccendants after you the land\r\n\r\nin which you are now aliens...(Gen. 17.4-8)<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\nAbraham's special son, Isaac, given to Sarah so late in life, carries on\u00a0the seed and the covenant is passed on from father to son, although the\u00a0selection, or choice, of son to receive the blessing and the responsibility of the\u00a0covenant is not always according to the conventions of the time (that is,\u00a0sometimes the first born son does not receive the boon). Isaac and Rebecca\u00a0have the twins Jacob and Esau and the question arises: which of the two will be\u00a0chosen to carry on as covenant bearer? Jacob is a dreamer, a visionary of sorts,\u00a0who also is marked for heroism by images of stones and dreams of angels. He\u00a0will be chosen. Yahweh says to him:\r\n\r\n \r\n
`Jacob is your name,\r\n\r\nbut your name shall no longer be Jacob:\r\n\r\nIsrael shall be your name.' (Gen. 35.10)<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\nand then Yahweh renews the covenant promise:\r\n\r\n \r\n
`The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you; and to\r\n\r\nyour descendants after you I give this land.' (Gen. 35.11-12)<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\nBy the end of the book of Genesis the scene has shifted to Egypt and\u00a0the Hebrews are enslaved in an alien land. It seems that Yahweh has forgotten\u00a0about them and about the covenant until Yahweh chooses Moses as the new\u00a0Abraham and announces his intention:\r\n\r\n \r\n
`I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God\r\n\r\nAlmighty. But I did not let myself be known to them by my name\r\n\r\nJehovah. Moreover, I made a covenant with them to give them\r\n\r\nCanaan, the land where they settled for a time as foreigners. (Ex.\r\n\r\n6.2-5)<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\nThe history of the Old Testament is the history of the covenant promise\u00a0for land. Always at the narrative centre of the stories we find an unbroken cord\u00a0that is the covenant between Yahweh and his chosen people. Revelation of\u00a0divine intention, frustration on the part of the chosen people as the intention\u00a0seems thwarted by time and chance, violation of the covenant agreement by\u00a0the chosen ones - these are the narrative beads strung on the strong cord of\u00a0the covenant. The story holds our attention on one level to the extent that we\u00a0wonder how the covenant promise for land will be fulfilled, for, after all,\u00a0Canaan is already occupied by a thriving civilization. How will this collection of\u00a0Hebrews, beaten down by hundreds of years of slavery, ever be able to escape\u00a0from slavery in Egypt, come together as a people, wage battles of occupation,\u00a0and take and hold a country of their own? The stories of the Pentateuch\u00a0answer this question in dramatic fashion.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nCovenant provides the plot line for these stories and covenant provides\u00a0the clue to the structure of the basic elements of the story. Evidence of other\u00a0covenants, treaties, and agreements between a powerful king, a suzerain, and\u00a0his people, has been found which provide us with narratives of the type the\u00a0biblical writer repeats. Hittite documents show various kinds of agreeements\u00a0and reveal a pattern to the treaties. The primary purpose of the suzerainty\u00a0treaty was to establish a firm relationship of mutual support between the two\u00a0parties (especially military support), in which the interests of the Hittite\u00a0sovereign were of primary and ultimate concern. It established a relationship\u00a0between the two, but in its form it is unilateral. The stipulations of the treaty\u00a0are binding only upon the vassal, and only the vassal took an oath of\u00a0obedience. Though the treaties frequently contain promises of help and\u00a0support to the vassal, there is no legal formality by which the Hittite king binds\u00a0himself to any specific obligation. Rather, it would seem that the Hittite king\u00a0by his very position as sovereign is concerned to protect his subjects from\u00a0claims or attacks of other foreign states. Consequently for him to bind himself\u00a0to specific obligations with regard to his vassal would be an infringement upon\u00a0his sole right of self-determination and sovereignty. A most important\u00a0corollary of this fact is the emphasis upon the vassal's obligation to trust in\u00a0the benevolence of the sovereign.2\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSeveral main elements can be distinguished in the texts of most of these Hittite treaties:\r\n
A preamble, which identifies the author of the covenant, giving his\r\n\r\ntitles, attributes, and genealogy. For instance: \"Thus speaks X, the great king,\r\n\r\nking of Hittite land, son of Y, the valiant, the great king.\" Here emphasis is laid\r\n\r\non the majesty and power of the king who is conferring a special relationship\r\n\r\non the vassal. A historical prologue which describes in detail the previous relations\r\n\r\nbetween the two parties. It outlines the benevolent deeds which the king has\r\n\r\nalready performed for the vassal, not vaguely, but very specifically and\r\n\r\nfactually. The implication is that the vassal is already obligated to the great\r\n\r\nking because of the favor and protection experienced in the past. Thus there is\r\n\r\na real mutuality of contract; but the vassal is pledging future obedience and\r\n\r\nloyalty in return for past benefits which he received without having any claim\r\n\r\nto them. Strict obligation is on his side; on the great kings', there is no\r\n\r\nobligation other than the presumption and implied promise that he will\r\n\r\ncontinue his benevolence. Notable is the personal form of this prologue.<\/blockquote>\r\nThe great king addresses the vassal directly:\r\n
\"I have sought after you; although you were sick and ailing I\r\n\r\nput you in the place of your father and made your brothers and sisters and the\r\n\r\nwhole Amurru country subject to you.\"<\/blockquote>\r\nThe stipulations which spell out in detail the obligations accepted by the vassal. These usually include:\r\n
Prohibition of service to any other great king.\r\n\r\nPromise to be on friendly terms with the king's other vassals; if disputes arise they are to be submitted to the overlord's arbitration.\r\n\r\nPromise to send contingents to support the great king when he goes to war.\r\n\r\nPromise to trust the great king completely, and not to tolerate rebellious or critical language.\r\n\r\nPromise to bring yearly tribute in person, and on that occasion to renew fealty.\r\n\r\nA directive that the treaty be deposited in the temple of the vassal city, and periodically read in the hearing of the people.\r\n\r\nThe invocation of the gods both of the Hittites and of the vassal as witnesses to the treaty.\r\n\r\nFinally, the pronunciation of curses upon the vassal if he breaks the covenant, and the promise of blessings for its observance. These are the only sanctions expressly mentioned; that is, the Hittite king does not threaten military proceedings and destruction. The treaty is a sacred document, and it is the gods who will see to its enforcement and vindication.3<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\nPerhaps the most historic of books in the modern sense of \"historic\" are\u00a0the two Samuels and 1 and 2 Kings. The Septuagint4 called the books \"1 and 2\u00a0Kingdoms\" and \"3 and 4 Kingdoms\" respectively; names that emphasize the\u00a0continuity of story in the now four books called \"1 and 2 Samuel\" and \"1 and 2\u00a0Kings\". \u00a0 Changing the titles from the kings to the prophet in 1 and 2 Samuel is\u00a0understandable, as the canon would have been shaped under the immediate\u00a0influence of rabbis and not kings. Israel's shift from prophet-judges of\u00a0Samuel's type to kings is indeed the subject of the books of Samuel, and that\u00a0shift is an important political and historical development in Israel's early days.\u00a0The story also includes the personal life of Saul and David and the divine\u00a0intervention of Yahweh in the events of history. In some ways Samuel\u00a0resembles Genesis in its preoccupation with founding families who are placed\u00a0at the centre of historical change in the unfolding story of Israel.\r\n\r\nHistorical causation and divine justice are woven into this story of three\u00a0central characters: Samuel, Saul, and David. The books focus on three major\u00a0struggles or conflicts: Saul and Samuel, Saul and David, and David against the\u00a0combined forces of the two. The history of David's rise to kingship is personal\u00a0as well as historical and the kind of \"evidence\" we are given to consider is a mixture of prophecy, internal musings, messages from Yahweh, and claims about\u00a0the world, which can be verified in extra-biblical ways. Recent literary study of\u00a0the books has corrected a misconception inherited from historians to see the\u00a0story as straightforward reporting by an eyewitness to the events.5 Instead we\u00a0see the work now as a combination of chronicle, legend, projection, and above\u00a0all story in the fullest sense of that word.\r\n\r\nIn Second Samuel we read:\r\n
After this David inquired of the Lord, `Shall I go up into one of the\r\n\r\ncities of Judah?' The Lord answered, `Go.' David asked, `To which\r\n\r\ncity?', and the answer came, `To Hebron.' So David went to\r\n\r\nHebron with his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail widow\r\n\r\nof Nabal of Carmel...The men of Judah came, and there they\r\n\r\nanointed David king over the house of Judah. (2 Samuel 2.1-4)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMeanwhile Saul's commander in chief, Abner son of Ner, had\r\n\r\ntaken Saul's son Ishbosheth, brought him across the Jordan to\r\n\r\nMahanaim, and made him king over Gilead, the Asherites, Jezreel,\r\n\r\nEphraim, and Benjamin, and all Israel. (2 Samuel 2.8-11)<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n
Abner...marched out from Mahanaim to Gibeon, and\r\n\r\nJoab...marched out with David's troops from Hebron. They met at\r\n\r\nthe pool of Gibeon and took up their positions one on one side of\r\n\r\nthe pool and the other on the other side. Abner said to Joab, `Let\r\n\r\nthe young men come forward and join in single combat before us.'\r\n\r\n...There ensued a fierce battle that day, and Abner and the men of\r\n\r\nIsrael were defeated by David's troops. (2 Samuel 2.17-20)<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n
The war between the houses of Saul and David was long drawn out,\r\n\r\nDavid growing steadily stronger while the house of Saul became\r\n\r\nweaker and weaker. (2 Samuel 3.1)<\/blockquote>\r\nAt first reading, this passage, like most of the so-called \"historical\u00a0books\" from Genesis to Kings, appears historical. We are given a lot of \"facts\".\u00a0Some suggestion of the causal relationships between events is also given. Saul\u00a0and David are struggling for the throne; David will win because he is the\u00a0chosen one of Yahweh. The overriding impressions in the Old Testament are\u00a0that (1) Yahweh is directly involved in history; (2) what has happened had to\u00a0happen to allow Yahweh's plan to unfold properly; and (3) the literary\u00a0structure of the books follows the form of a treaty or covenant\u00a0document\u00a0between Yahweh and Israel. Time after time we are given scenes depicting\u00a0Yahweh's participation in the human drama, although these do tend to be-\u00a0come more subtle in the later books. For example, the direct contact of the\u00a0early parts of Genesis are replaced by the device of having \"an angel of the\u00a0Lord\" speak to characters and then by having the message imparted by means\u00a0of a dream. One of the basic reasons why the Old Testament can not be\u00a0considered history, in any modern sense of the word, is clear in the above: for\u00a0how could a writer be privy to the dreams of his characters? Or, in the passage\u00a0from Samuel, how could the writer know what Abner said to Joab by the side\u00a0of the pool? Too often we are presented with material from the omniscient\u00a0point of view, are told of intent, dreams, thoughts, conversations with others in\u00a0private, and find ourselves, through the narrative skill of the writer, inside the\u00a0character's head. Good literature; bad history.\r\n\r\nHistory attempts, at least, to be objective. That means, among other\u00a0things, that modern historians feel much better if they can verify events in the\u00a0past from multiple sources. They like to find extra-biblical sources to\u00a0corroborate biblically suggested events, characters, and causal relationships.\u00a0The historian is interested in human recorded past and deals principally with\u00a0written records. When the inquiry is based primarily on oral and\/or artifactual\u00a0evidence, we refer to the researcher as an anthropologist, archaeologist, or\u00a0something other than a historian. Modern historians, for the most part, tend to\u00a0dismiss elements of the supernatural as explanatory devices for the in-\u00a0terpretation of the events recorded in the documents of the past. Biblical\u00a0sources receive essentially the same treatment, although some historians are\u00a0more cautious than others in their sifting out of the supernatural and\u00a0miraculous elements. Regarding the account of the Hebrew escape at the Red\u00a0Sea, for example, even those historians who are inclined to accept the account\u00a0as essentially accurate in its present form will, in their own recounting of the\u00a0incident, tend to emphasize the natural rather than the supernatural aspects of\u00a0the story. That is, they usually speak in terms of low tide and high winds and\u00a0either suggest that Yahweh worked \"indirectly\" through these natural\u00a0phenomena or leave the question of his involvement open altogether. The\u00a0following quotation from John Bright's A History of Israel, is typical:6\r\n
Concerning these events, to be sure, we can add nothing to what\r\n\r\nthe Bible tells us. It appears that Hebrews, attempting to escape,\r\n\r\nwere pinned between the sea and the Egyptian army and were\r\n\r\nsaved when a wind drove the waters back, allowing them to pass\r\n\r\n(Ex. 14.21,27); the pursuing Egyptians, caught by the returning\r\n\r\nflood, were drowned. If Israel saw in this the hand of God, the\r\n\r\nhistorian certainly has no evidence to contradict it!<\/blockquote>\r\nBut such a comment merely begs the question of causality, since\u00a0nothing will count as evidence for or against such an interpretation. Did the\u00a0wind blow at the Red Sea while the Hebrews were making good their escape?\u00a0Who knows? Did God cause the wind to blow? Who knows? Within the\u00a0mythical architecture of Exodus the answer is simple. Yahweh parts the waters\u00a0and then collapses them on the Egyptians. `Did this really happen?' is the\u00a0question of the literalist, depending on a misunderstanding of the nature of the\u00a0text: remember, these are not factual claims about the world, but\u00a0performatives within a story true to the world. The defeat at the Red Sea is\u00a0the defeat of the Pharaoh-god by the Hebrew god, Yahweh. At the level of\u00a0story this defeat is \"evidence\" of the power of the Hebrew god. For centuries\u00a0after, the Jew can point to this story as \"evidence\" for chosen tribe status and as\u00a0a reminder of the covenant between Israel and Yahweh. The stories in the Old\u00a0Testament are forming and shaping a people just as the writers of the stories\u00a0are forming and shaping the people through the stories. Egyptian records do\u00a0not indicate anything about Moses and the escape at the Red Sea, but if we\u00a0found them and if such a person as Moses existed to take the Hebrews out of\u00a0Egypt, then we could expect the Egyptian story to be a much different story\u00a0with a different line about causality offered to explain the events. We have\u00a0difficulty sorting out the real causes of events in our own time, and we still\u00a0tell stories to reassure ourselves that there is indeed some understandable\u00a0cause for events that affect us. And some of us today continue to offer god as\u00a0the cause for things we do not understand or cannot see except in some\u00a0purposeful way.7\r\n\r\nMany recent discoveries in archaeology have sparked historical interest\u00a0in the Old Testament. Since about 1890 archaeologists have been constantly\u00a0active in \"the holy land\" and have provided us with a wealth of non-written\u00a0sources for information on such things as weapons, dress, foodstuffs, ceramic\u00a0wares, architectural styles and other silent artifacts that help us to put together\u00a0the past. They have also discovered a number of written documents from the\u00a0ancient Near East which have proved to be especially relevant for the study of\u00a0Israel's history during Old Testament times. These include:\r\n\r\n \r\n
    \r\n \t
  1. \u00a0 The Amarna tablets<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. \u00a0 Royal Egyptian Inscriptions<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. \u00a0 The Mesha Inscription<\/li>\r\n \t
  4. \u00a0 Royal Assyrian Inscriptions<\/li>\r\n \t
  5. \u00a0 The Babylonian Chronicles<\/li>\r\n \t
  6. \u00a0 Hebrew and Armaic Ostraca<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n \r\n\r\nThe Armana Tablets were discovered in 1887 in the El-Amarna district\u00a0of Egypt, about ninety miles south of Cairo. Written in Akkadian, most of\u00a0them are letters belonging to the correspondence between the Egyptian court\u00a0during the reigns of Amenophis IV, and the vassal rulers of city-states in Syria,\u00a0Phoenicia, and Palestine. They reflect the political and sociological cir-\u00a0cumstances in Palestine during the first half of the fourteenth century BCE\u00a0(before Common Era). References to the \"apiru\" in the Amarna Tablets have\u00a0generated much discussion among Old Testament scholars, since this\u00a0Akkadian term may be related etymologically to the designation \"Hebrew\"\u00a0used in the Old Testament.\r\n\r\nThe royal Egyptian Inscriptions comprise the official Egyptian reports\u00a0of Asiatic campaigns and lists of conquered cities. These documents are of\u00a0some importance to early Israeli history though the age of Egyptian empire\u00a0and conquests had already passed by the time of the settlement of the Hebrew\u00a0tribes in Palestine. The hymn of victory of Merneptah (c. 1236-1223 B.C.E.),\u00a0discovered in Thebes in 1896, is an especially interesting exception in that it\u00a0provides the earliest known non-biblical reference to Israel:8\r\n
    The princes are prostrate, saying: \"Mercy!\"\r\n\r\nNot one raises his head among the Nine bows.\r\n\r\nDesolation is for Tehenu; Hatti is pacified;\r\n\r\nPlundered is the Canaan with every evil;\r\n\r\nCarried off is Ashkelon; seized is Geyer;\r\n\r\nYanoam is made as that which does not exist;\r\n\r\nIsrael is laid to waste, his seed is not;\r\n\r\nHurru is become a widow for Egypt!\r\n\r\nAll lands together, they are pacified...<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\nThe Mesha Inscription is a stele erected by Mesha, King of Moab,\u00a0during the mid ninth century B.C.E., and discovered in Jordan in 1868. It\u00a0memorializes the King's reign and celebrates his recovery of Moabite\u00a0independence from Israel (cf. 2 Kings 3.4ff). Many other inscriptions from the\u00a0period of the Divided Kingdom have been discovered and each makes a\u00a0contribution to our understanding of the history of Syria-Palestine during\u00a0Israel's monarchial period.\r\n\r\nRecords have been discovered from Assyrian Kings and from\u00a0Babylonian and Persian Kings which also assist us in understanding the time of\u00a0the ancient Near East and provide us with valuable information, useful to\u00a0historians and biblical commentators alike, to assess certain \"historical\"\u00a0sections of the biblical stories. Finally, the ostraca (potsherds which bear\u00a0messages) provide lists, letters, etc. which give additional information about\u00a0Hebrew life. Some claim a special relationship between the Bible and\u00a0archaeology9, pointing out that \"the Bible describes public life and the `word of\u00a0the spirit;' archaeology fills in a knowledge of everyday life and culture, [and]\u00a0both are necessary if we are to comprehend ancient Israel in its full variety and\u00a0vitality.\" To the extent that the Bible is a text presenting radical theology it can\u00a0not be judged as a book of history or a record of everyday life. One obvious\u00a0limitation that flows from the theological intentions of the writers\/editors is\u00a0that they tell us next to nothing about the daily life of the average Hebrew.\u00a0Archaeology has dramatically changed our understanding of the everyday life\u00a0of those people who are in the background in the biblical stories.\r\n\r\nProfessor Dever says of the relationship between the Bible and archaeology, \"the legitimate archaeologist (in contrast to the \"raider of the lost ark\")\u00a0will...not attempt to date the creation, or set out to locate the Garden of Eden\u00a0and excavate the bones of Adam and Eve, or establish flood levels and dig up\u00a0the timbers of Noah's ark.\" Those who do from time to time announce that\u00a0they are setting out to find the ark, or to search for Joseph's bones, are making\u00a0the basic mistake of misunderstanding the nature of the text. Once again, these\u00a0stories are not literal social or economic history, but are fundamentally theolog-\u00a0ical stories which present a particular official line. In the first five\u00a0books of the Old Testament this official line has to do with the \"saving acts\" of\u00a0Yahweh on behalf of his chosen people Israel. These stories are not just de-\u00a0scriptions, but are always description plus theological explanation. In a recent\u00a0movie about a veteran of Vietnam (\"In Country\") a U.S. general \"blesses\" his\u00a0men who are on their way to the war. He says: \"You are chosen to fight godless\u00a0communism...you men have been chosen to be the leaders in a fight that will\u00a0never be forgotten...you are chosen...America is never going to forget you...you\u00a0are the best...good luck and go with God.\" It makes no sense to ask if what the\u00a0general says is true or false; these are not statements of fact. They are part of\u00a0the official line of the time. And as we have seen in relation to the war in\u00a0Vietnam the official line has changed. But the story line has not changed;\u00a0the horrors of that war, the people who fought in it, and the human costs,\u00a0these are as real as the stories in the Old Testament.\r\n\r\nThere are many non-biblical sources of written and \"silent\" artifacts\u00a0which can aid the student of the Bible in recreating the time of the biblical\u00a0patriarchs and of the monarchs of the Great Kingdom. To return to the\u00a0passage at the beginning of this chapter, we can say that even though the\u00a0narrative is embellished with legend and with omniscient point of view it does\u00a0nevertheless provide some firm historical facts: there really was a David who\u00a0fought a civil war against the house of Saul, achieved undisputed sovereignty\u00a0over the twelve tribes, conquered Jerusalem, founded a dynasty, created a\u00a0small empire, and was succeeded by his son Solomon. These facts are facts not\u00a0because the Bible says so, but because they are facts. These stories are not,\u00a0strictly speaking, historiography, but rather the imaginative reenactment of\u00a0history by a gifted writer who organizes his material along certain thematic\u00a0biases and according to his own remarkable intuition of the psychology of his\u00a0characters. He feels entirely free, as did Shakespeare, to invent interior\u00a0monologue for his characters; to ascribe feeling, intention, or motive to them\u00a0when he chooses; to supply verbatim dialogue for occasions when no one but\u00a0the actors themselves could have knowledge of exactly what was said. If history\u00a0at all, this is a special genre of history.\r\n\r\nOne other characteristic of the text that makes it difficult to consider as\u00a0history is that of selection. The main story is of Israel and of the House of\u00a0David. This concern means that at times when the events do not fit those\u00a0patterns they receive short shrift. For example, here is the story of Manasseh:\r\n
    Manasseh was twelve years old when he came to the throne, and he\r\n\r\nreigned in Jerusalem for fifty-five years...he did what was wrong in\r\n\r\nthe eyes of the Lord, in following the abominable practices of the\r\n\r\nnations which the Lord had dispossessed in favour of the\r\n\r\nIsraelites....the Lord spoke...:`Because Manasseh ...has done these\r\n\r\nabominable things, outdoing the Amorites before him in\r\n\r\nwickedness, and because he has led Judah into sin with his idols,\r\n\r\nthis is the word of the Lord the God of Israel: I will bring disaster\r\n\r\non Jerusalem and Judah...\" (2 Kings 21.1 ff)<\/blockquote>\r\nFrom twelve years old to sixty seven years old Manasseh reigned as\u00a0King, and yet we get his entire life's history in just a few hundred words. His\u00a0son, Amon, is dismissed by the writer in even fewer words so that we can get to\u00a0the events of real importance for the writer in Josiah's reign: \u00a0 the discovery of\u00a0the Deuteronomy (\"I have found the book of the law in the house of the\u00a0Lord.\").\r\n\r\nIt is as Professor Alter says10 \"what the bible offers us is an uneven\u00a0continuum and a constant interweaving of factual historical detail (especially,\u00a0but by no means exclusively, for the later periods) with purely legendary\u00a0\"history\"; occasional enigmatic stories; archetypal fictions of the founding\u00a0fathers of the Nation; folktales of heroes and wonder-working men of God;\u00a0verisimilar inventions of wholly fictional personages attached to the progress\u00a0of natural history; and fictionalized versions of known historical personages.\"\u00a0The history in the Bible should not be confused with history and the Bible.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTHE EXODUS<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWithout the Bible we would know nothing of Moses. He is not\u00a0mentioned anywhere else. From the time he first appears in Exodus until we\u00a0are told of his death in the last chapter of Deuteronomy we are dealing with a\u00a0fictional character stitched to some real historical events. The exodus from\u00a0Egypt was probably a real event. The entry into the \"Promised Land\" was likely\u00a0a real event although most scholars today would suggest that the Hebrew take-\u00a0over of Canaan was a slow process and not the dramatic and nearly instant\u00a0event recorded in the Bible. The religious experience that Moses underwent\u00a0alone with his flock of sheep in the wilderness of Midian is certainly a genuine\u00a0experience of turmoil, resolution, and commitment to a task. How can we\u00a0know this? From inference and conjecture arising from putting together in-\u00a0formation from archaeologists, historians, linguists, anthropologists, we are\u00a0able to have a fairly clear picture of the events telescoped into the Biblical\u00a0Moses story. We know a great deal about conditions in Egypt at the time when\u00a0the events recorded in Exodus took place; we know a great deal about the\u00a0conditions in Mesopotamia and Palestine at that time and about the relations -\u00a0cultural, social, political, economic - between Semitic peoples and Egyptians.\r\n\r\nThe account of Israel's slavery in Egypt, with which Exodus begins, is\u00a0presented as a part of a continuing story which goes back to the Patriarchs in\u00a0Genesis. The story really opens with God's call to Abram to leave Haran\u00a0(northwest Mesopotamia) and migrate to the country later known as Palestine.\r\n\r\n \r\n
    The Lord said to Abram, `Leave your own country, your kinsmen,\r\n\r\nand your father's house, and go to a country that I will show you. I\r\n\r\nwill make you into a great nation, I will bless you and make your\r\n\r\nname so great that it shall be used in blessings:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThose that bless you I will bless,\r\n\r\nthose that curse you, I will execrate.\r\n\r\nAll the families on earth\r\n\r\nwill pray to be blessed as you are blessed.<\/blockquote>\r\nAbram's (later Abraham) son Isaac was provided a wife (Rebecca) by\u00a0his father. The Lord appeared to Isaac also and renewed the promise he had\u00a0made to Abraham. Jacob, the chosen son of Isaac and Rebecca, carries on the\u00a0tradition and the special agreement; he is sent back to his grandfather's\u00a0original home of Haran to find a wife, and on the journey there he has his own\u00a0special encounter with God. In fact he gets two wives, his cousin Leah and her\u00a0younger sister Rachel, since his uncle would not let him have the younger\u00a0without first taking the older. But he loved Rachel, who finally bore him\u00a0Joseph and Benjamin. Joseph's brothers were jealous of his special status and\u00a0arranged to have him sold as a slave into Egypt.11 Once there Joseph rose\u00a0quickly to power as a result of his remarkable powers of interpreting dreams\u00a0and his abilities in administration. Joseph like his father Jacob is a dreamer,\u00a0one in tune with the intellectual side of life, one who is aware of life as process\u00a0through time. Soon he was the second in command to the Pharaoh. During a\u00a0famine in Canaan Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to buy corn and they meet the\u00a0now mighty and powerful Joseph, whom they do not recognize but who recog-\u00a0nizes them. Eventually Joseph forgave his brothers for what they had done to\u00a0him and persuades Pharaoh to invite them and his father to come live in that\u00a0part of Egypt called Goshen. There they prospered. Jacob died and eventually\u00a0Joseph died, saying to his brethren:\r\n\r\n \r\n
    `I am dying; but God will not fail to come to your aid and take you\r\n\r\nfrom here to the land which he promised on oath to Abraham,\r\n\r\nIsaac, and Jacob. He made the sons of Israel take an oath, saying,\r\n\r\n`When god thus comes to your aid, you must take my bones with\r\n\r\nyou from here.' So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. He\r\n\r\nwas embalmed and laid out in a coffin in Egypt. (Genesis 50.24-26)<\/blockquote>\r\nExodus opens with an account of Jacob's descendants, the children of\u00a0Israel, prospering and multiplying in Egypt. On this stage Moses, representing\u00a0that which is universally human in our stories, is implanted in a historical\u00a0setting. It is the tiny ark on the Nile that, through Pharaoh's daughter's pity,\u00a0penetrates the headquarters of the oppressors.\r\n\r\nWho were these Hebrew people? The word `Hebrew' does not appear\u00a0to be the name of a race or a nation, but of a class of people who worked the\u00a0caravan routes of the middle east - the word probably means something like\u00a0`donkey-men' or `caravan-men'. They travelled and traded with their families\u00a0and flocks and herds, never in one place for long. The Biblical picture of the\u00a0Patriarchs wandering in Palestine between the hill country and the desert,\u00a0maintaining contact with their ancestral Mesopotamia and moving south to\u00a0Egypt when food became scarce is supported by, among other extra-Biblical\u00a0evidence, the 450 clay tablets unearthed at the ancient city of Alakh, some\u00a0dating from the 18th century B.C.E., illustrating the social, economic, and\u00a0political life of the times. The so-called Execration Texts dating from about the\u00a0end of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (18th century B.C.E.) record the\u00a0enemies of the country as well as listing the lands and territories adjacent to\u00a0Egypt.\r\n\r\nThe patriarchal period, the age of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their\u00a0semi-nomadic wanderings, is thus roughly assigned to about 1950-1800 B.C.E.\u00a0in the Middle Bronze Age.12 The Middle Kingdom of Egypt collapsed about\u00a01786 B.C.E. in chaos and civil war. When the smoke clears the Hyksos are in\u00a0control of the country. They rule until about 1550 B.C.E. when in a war of\u00a0liberation the Egyptians pushed them out and replaced their rule with the\u00a0Eighteenth Dynasty. Now the Hyksos and the Hebrews were racially\u00a0connected. Many scholars now agree that there is some connection between\u00a0Hyksos rule of Egypt and the settling of the Hebrews there. It seems\u00a0reasonable to assume that the Hyksos, who themselves had travelled the\u00a0caravan routes to Egypt for centuries before they took power there, favoured\u00a0other `Apiru'13 groups and encouraged them to settle in Egypt. When the\u00a0Pharaoh Amosis (1552-1527 B.C.E.) expelled the Hyksos from Egypt, the\u00a0Hebrews in Egypt were left without protectors. Contemporary documents\u00a0show that the Hyksos who escaped slaughter were enslaved. It is reasonable to\u00a0assume that the Hebrews, now unprotected by the Establishment, were also\u00a0enslaved at this time. This would place Joseph's rise to power under Hyksos\u00a0rule and make Amosis the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph.\r\n\r\nThe Bible account is not always consistent and the chronology difficult\u00a0to pin down. We must remember that the Bible is not history in the modern\u00a0sense, but presents the traditions of a people, their national and religious\u00a0origins, and a fair amount of so-called sacral history (of or pertaining to sacral\u00a0rites and observances). The account is more an imagined sense of the past\u00a0which exhibits ideas to be valued, characteristics to be emulated, traits to be\u00a0developed. The Exodus probably took place in the reign of Rameses II\u00a0between 1280-1250 B.C.E. We are told the Israelites spent 430 years in Egypt\u00a0which means they came into Egypt in around 1700 B.C.E. which is when the\u00a0Hyksos established themselves. Recently discovered archaeological evidence\u00a0shows that the Palestine city of Hazov - destroyed by fire by the invading\u00a0Israelites under Joshua (Joshua 11.10-13)\u00a0\u00a0 - was destroyed in the latter part of\u00a0the 13th century B.C.E. We can be reasonably certain that by the end of the\u00a013th century B.C.E. the Israelites - now really the people of Israel - were\u00a0settled in parts at least of Palestine, and the Egyptian experience was behind\u00a0them, though never to be forgotten.14 In some ways it does not matter what\u00a0the dates are: the story has taken on a timelessness that makes it the myth to\u00a0inflame any suppressed peoples anywhere.\r\n\r\nWhat of this Moses? What kind of man is he? First of all the story gives\u00a0us Moses the Hebrew who also in some sense is an Egyptian - and in this\u00a0paradox lay his special powers.15 We are told of his genealogy in simple terms:\u00a0\"A descendant of Levi married a Levite woman who conceived and bore a son.\"\u00a0Levi was one of the sons of Jacob. Martin Buber in his book Moses has this to\u00a0say:\r\n
    \"...in order that the one appointed to liberate his nation should\r\n\r\ngrow up to be the liberator...he had to be introduced into the\r\n\r\nstronghold of the aliens, into that royal court by which Israel has\r\n\r\nbeen enslaved; and he must grow up there. This is a kind of\r\n\r\nliberation which cannot be brought by anyone who grew up as a\r\n\r\nslave, not yet by anyone who is not connected with the slaves; but\r\n\r\nonly by one of the latter who has been brought up in the midst of\r\n\r\nthe aliens and has received an education equipping him with all\r\n\r\ntheir wisdoms and powers, and thereafter `goes forth to his\r\n\r\nbrethren and observes their burdens.'. (page 27)<\/blockquote>\r\nThe marvellous story of Moses' deliverance from the Nile has caught\u00a0the imagination of many a child. It is told quickly: \"Pharaoh's daughter came\u00a0down to bathe in the river, while her ladies-in-waiting walked along the bank.\u00a0She noticed the basket among the reeds and sent her slave-girl for it. She took\u00a0it from her and when she opened it, she saw the child. It was crying, and she\u00a0was filled with pity for it. `Why,' she said, `it is a little \u00a0 Hebrew boy.'\" The\u00a0human cry of the child strikes a responsive chord in the woman and she saves\u00a0the child from the river. How she explains this child from the river we are not\u00a0told. And when he is grown, educated and raised in the Pharaoh's household,\u00a0he still has Hebrew blood coursing through his veins. All of this is compressed\u00a0and then we are told of the pivotal episode in his life when he slew the\u00a0Egyptian. In this act, in the words of Christopher Fry, \"he killed his Egyptian\u00a0self in the self of that Egyptian.\"16\r\n\r\nMoses, excited by a presumably newly realized sense of identity with his\u00a0fellow Hebrews, takes the side of an abused Hebrew slave and kills the\u00a0slave-driver who is abusing him. The next day he learns that there is no\u00a0necessary gratitude on the part of the oppressed. The Pharaoh discovers the\u00a0murder; Moses must flee to save his life. This gets him to Midian, home of his\u00a0mother's people, where he helps the daughters of a priest of Midian who are\u00a0being harassed by other male shepherds at a well. Moses, the future saviour of\u00a0the Hebrews, takes sides with the women in the dispute, foreshadowing the\u00a0part he will play in the larger drama in Egypt. The land of Midian to which\u00a0Moses fled was probably in the south-eastern part of the Sinai Peninsula.\u00a0Midian represents for Moses a simple way of life and a stern desert code in\u00a0contrast to the cosmopolitan polytheism of Egypt. The life there was much\u00a0more like that of his Hebrew ancestors before they settled in Egypt. Moses\u00a0needs time to recover his past and discover his roots. The story has to get\u00a0Moses to Midian, for it is there, alone in the wilderness, that his encounter\u00a0with God takes place.\r\n
    Moses was minding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, priest of\r\n\r\nMidian. He led the flock along the side of the wilderness and came\r\n\r\nto Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord\r\n\r\nappeared to him in the flame of a burning bush. Moses noticed\r\n\r\nthat, although the bush was on fire, it was not being burnt up; so he\r\n\r\nsaid to himself, `I must go across to see this wonderful\r\n\r\nsight.'(Exodus .1-5)<\/blockquote>\r\nAfter God has Moses' attention (here again in the image of the burning\u00a0bush one can sense the human author at work: in the right sunlight this\u00a0phenomenon happens often, it is the cause that is added here) he tells him of\u00a0the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob binding Moses to this past, this\u00a0promise. He then tells him of the future and the part that Moses is to play in it.\u00a0A reluctant hero, Moses responds with \"But who am I that I should go to\u00a0Pharaoh, and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?\" The answer does\u00a0not speak of Moses' special worth or of his special skills, but is about being\u00a0chosen: \"I am with you,\" says God. If \"I am with you\" is present then you are a\u00a0hero in the full sense of the word. What is `god'? `God' is the name for the\u00a0heroic virtues, the commitment to the future, the change to be brought about\u00a0as the hero brings a boon to his people, or in this story brings his people to a\u00a0boon. In answer to Moses' question about his name, God says, \"I AM; that is\u00a0who I am. Tell them that I AM has sent you to them.\" \"I am\" is being itself; \"I\u00a0am\" is the necessary frame within which any story can exist, it is the very\u00a0ground of being for a narrative of any kind. \"I am\" is the simplest declarative\u00a0statement possible, and every one of the infinite sentences that proceed\u00a0depends upon the truth of \"I am\".\r\n\r\nMoses is to lead the Hebrews out of slavery not because they are his\u00a0brethren but because they are unjustly oppressed. He becomes a national\u00a0leader because of a universal principle.\r\n\r\nFry represents the conflict between Moses and Pharaoh as a clash\u00a0between two ideals: Pharaoh stands for civilization, Moses for humanity and\u00a0the rights of the individual. What is more important, the pyramids or the men\u00a0who build them? Fry's Moses says:\r\n\r\n \r\n
    A man has more to be than a Pharaoh.\r\n\r\nHe must dare to outgrow the security\r\n\r\nOf partial blindness...(Fry, page 14)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n...What have we approached or conceived when we have conquered\r\n\r\nand built a world? Even though civilization became perfect? What\r\n\r\nthen? We have only put a crown on the skeleton. It is the individual\r\n\r\nman in his individual freedom who can mature with his warm spirit\r\n\r\nthe unripe world. (Fry, page 15.)<\/blockquote>\r\nThe conflict between Moses\/Aaron and Pharaoh (Moses, the reluctant\u00a0hero, has been given his brother Aaron to speak for him since Moses is a\u00a0\"halting speaker\") is at times a childish competition in conjuring tricks, but its\u00a0function in the story is clear: this Pharaoh has power and is thought to be a\u00a0god. Many commentators make a point of showing that the conflict between\u00a0God and Pharaoh is a one-sided conflict, unfair because God has all the\u00a0power. But Pharaoh was thought to be a god also, and so we have here the\u00a0conflict between two equal combatants. The story tells of the ascendancy of\u00a0one tribal god over another, tells of victory and special care by the Israelite god\u00a0for his people. After this the bull god of the Egyptian valley is no longer to be worshiped, for I AM has triumphed.\r\n\r\nI AM has triumphed by direct intervention into human affairs. The\u00a0account of the ten plagues is rich with conviction of \"divine\" power working for\u00a0the Hebrews and against Pharaoh. The object of the plagues is expressed with\u00a0forceful directness:\r\n
    Then the Lord said to Moses, `Go into Pharaoh's presence. I have\r\n\r\nmade him and his courtiers obdurate, so that I may show these my\r\n\r\nsigns among them, and so that you can tell your children and grand-\r\n\r\nchildren the story: how I made sport of the Egyptians, and what\r\n\r\nsigns I showed among them. Thus you will know that I am the\r\n\r\nLord. (Exodus 10.1-3)<\/blockquote>\r\nThe plagues are not magic, nor are they presented as merely natural events.\u00a0Based on natural events they represent a heightening and ordering and a\u00a0deliberate turning on and off of events that could occur, but are given a\u00a0meaning within the story by showing us god at work behind the scenes,\u00a0manipulating the events to the end of freedom for the Israelites and honour\u00a0for himself in the future story. They represent POWER - YAHWEH at work\u00a0on nature herself. These events give the exodus a sense of something very\u00a0special - divine intervention in the aid of a particular cause. Divine intervention\u00a0is always easier to write about after the fact, when one knows how\u00a0things come out. God's will or intention, like narrative intention, is revealed in\u00a0the story. God's intention is clear: tell my story to future generations of\u00a0Israelites. And, of course, it is in the story that this story is molded and formed.\r\n\r\nThe final plague is the most devastating- the killing of all Egyptian first\u00a0born:\r\n
    `At midnight I will go out among the Egyptians. Every first-born\r\n\r\ncreature in the land of Egypt shall die: the first born of Pharaoh\r\n\r\nwho sits on his throne, the first-born of the slave-girl at the\r\n\r\nhand-mill, and all the first-born of the cattle. All Egypt will send up\r\n\r\na great cry of anguish, a cry the like of which has never been heard\r\n\r\nbefore, nor ever will be again. But among all Israel not a dog's\r\n\r\ntongue shall be so much as scratched, no man or beast be hurt.'<\/blockquote>\r\nGod has given Moses and Aaron detailed instructions for the passover\u00a0sacrifice using for the first time the phrase \"all the congregations of Israel\" and\u00a0associating the ritual of the passover sacrifice with means of preventing the\u00a0slaughter of the Israelite firstborn. This is an echo of the original passover\u00a0ritual, a festival of nomadic shepherds at which a sheep or goat was sacrificed\u00a0and the blood sprinkled to ward off evil powers, which especially threatened\u00a0the firstborn. The narrative recipe: take an ancient ritual, wrap it in a new\u00a0story, and bring the new ritual into history as part of an ongoing story. Another\u00a0part of the ritual, that of unleavened bread, is brought into the story at this\u00a0point. A pastoral festival and an agricultural festival are historicized in\u00a0narrative and establish (constitute) the Passover Feast as a ritual of\u00a0remembrance of the deliverance from Egyptian slavery. Moses rediscovers\u00a0himself, his god, his relationship with the Israelites, and he will recast and\u00a0revitalize the law for the Israelites.\r\n\r\nA defeated Pharaoh finally lets the people go (with, one imagines, a\u00a0sigh of relief) and they become the charge and responsibility of Moses. He is to\u00a0provide; they will consume. Moses is not a new master, he is their leader: in\u00a0matters religious and spiritual it is Moses who imposes the way of life. An\u00a0unbroken chain from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Moses: this bond between\u00a0Yahweh and Israel is welded in images of contact between the worlds of\u00a0history and of the \"divine\" story to be unfolded in history. And what we know\u00a0of Moses we know through the story.\r\n\r\nAfter breaking free from the bondage of Egypt the \"children\" of Israel\u00a0now face the problems of sustaining life in the desert. They need food and\u00a0water. They will cry for a return to the known from this new position of hunger\u00a0and freedom and the unknown. They will exhibit all of the weaknesses and\u00a0fears of a people on a new trek toward identity. The miraculous feeding stories\u00a0fold together all the traditions of miraculous feeding in the wilderness\u00a0available to the narrator: manna from above, quail from above, and a constant\u00a0thirst. The symbolic meaning is clear: the God of Israel is providing for the\u00a0sustenance of the people of Israel by direct intervention in natural events.\u00a0Manna may be the secretion of insects and be an edible substance made up of\u00a0glucose, fructose, and pectin; but its function in the story is to proclaim that\u00a0Yahweh is manifest in its presence.\r\n\r\nA group of tribes, a collection of individuals, is formed into a people at\u00a0Mount Sinai where the covenant between Yahweh and the patriarchs is\u00a0extended to include all of the people who have struggled through the desert of\u00a0despair to a place which will become the sight for the giving of the constitution\u00a0that binds the people together as a congregation. Imaged in lightning and\u00a0thunder, shown to be special by purification rituals, offered to the people on\u00a0chunks of stone, these commandments are intended as absolute: everything in\u00a0the imagery surrounding the giving of the law is intended to emphasize the\u00a0importance of the law. \"And he wrote upon the tables the words of the\u00a0covenant, the ten commandments.\" The Decalogue is presented in a narrative\u00a0package that is distinguished by its images of power, mystery, and the absolute.\u00a0The WORDS are put in writing in tablets of stone and the writing is attributed\u00a0to God or at least to Moses acting on God's behalf and eventually these tablets\u00a0are placed inside the Ark of the Covenant to be stored in the holiest part of\u00a0the tabernacle. These words become the symbol of the meeting and contact\u00a0between God and his chosen people.\r\n\r\nSo goes the official line. And the power of the story of the giving of the\u00a0law can work to wipe out of our memory the larger story: on both sides of the\u00a0narrative devoted to the giving of the law we find stories of destruction and\u00a0death. This Yahweh who now gives the law is also capable of violating many of\u00a0his own laws. The wrathful god who previously has killed the firstborn of all the Egyptians orders, \u201cYou shall not commit murder\u201d. The official line\u00a0states the laws are absolute; the story line reveals that in fact the laws can be\u00a0broken. What is officially intended as a list of duties prescribed by God as\u00a0absolute, definitive of morality, and constitutive of the proper relationship\u00a0between human and god, turns out to be relative, dependent upon an\u00a0understanding of morality, and vague in its expression of proper action. Yes, it\u00a0is wrong to murder. But what does that tell us? When is killing to be classified\u00a0as murder? When you kill Egyptians? Obviously not. When you kill\u00a0Canaanites? Obviously not. Although the official line announces a \"truth\", the\u00a0story line reveals a need for interpretation.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIs this god of Exodus worthy of worship?<\/strong>\r\n
    \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n
      \r\n \t
    1. \u201cYahweh\u201d is the English version of the ancient Hebrew name \u201cYHWH\u201d for God.<\/li>\r\n \t
    2. See George E. Mendenhall, Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East<\/em>, Pittsburgh: The Biblical Colloquium, 1955, p.30, for a discussion of these early documents.<\/li>\r\n \t
    3. See, e.g., the discussion in R.A.F. MacKenzie, Faith and History in the Old Testament,<\/em>Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963, pps. 39,40.<\/li>\r\n \t
    4. The Septuagint is the main Greek translation (abbreciated as LXX) and was begun in the third century BCE.<\/li>\r\n \t
    5. Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel <\/em>1878; reprint Gloucester, Mass. 1973), page 262 speaks of events \u201cfaithfully reported;\u201d Ernst Sellin and George Fohrer, Introcuction to the Old Testeament<\/em>, translated David Green (Nashville, 1968) page 163 talk of a writer who was \u201cundoubtedly an eyewitness to the event and a member of the royal court.\u201d<\/li>\r\n \t
    6. John Bright, A History of Israel<\/em>, 3rd edition, page 122.<\/li>\r\n \t
    7. Some Christian fundamentalists have claimed that AIDS is God\u2019s punishment for evil behaviour. They are silent on the reasons for their God afflicting those who contracted the virus through blood transfusions of hospital accidents.<\/li>\r\n \t
    8. Qouted here from The Old Testament and the Historian<\/em>, J. Maxwell Miller, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1973, page 7.<\/li>\r\n \t
    9. See \u201cArchaelogy and The Bible,\u201d William G. Dever, Biblical Archaeology Review,<\/em> May\/June, 1990, page 52 ff.<\/li>\r\n \t
    10. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative<\/em>, Basic Books, New York, 1981, page 33.<\/li>\r\n \t
    11. See Chapter 5 for a closer examination of these heroes.<\/li>\r\n \t
    12. There is a great deal of dispute about dating these events. See the debate between Piotr Bienkowski and Bryant G. Woods in the September\/October 1990 issue of BAR (Volume XVI no.5).<\/li>\r\n \t
    13. \u201cApiru\u201d or \u201cHabiru\u201d seems to identify a class of people of the Near East who have been a part of the discussion about Hebrew origins.<\/li>\r\n \t
    14. Martin Noth, The History of Israel.<\/em><\/li>\r\n \t
    15. Sigmund Freud wrote of an Egyptian Moses in his book, Moses and Monotheism.<\/em><\/li>\r\n \t
    16. Christopher Fry, The Firstborn<\/em>, a play in three acts, Oxford University Press, London, 1952, page 34.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>","rendered":"

      In Genesis 12 Yahweh1 appears to Abram and orders him to leave his\u00a0own country and people to go to a new country that he is to be shown. There\u00a0Abram will be blessed by Yahweh and given a great name. With this order in\u00a0mind Abram, without hesitation, organizes all of his affairs and leaves Harran\u00a0with Sarai, his sister-wife, and with Lot, his nephew, and all of their\u00a0dependants. Yahweh’s appearance to Abram there in the desert is the initial\u00a0indication of a promise or covenant between Yahweh and Abram.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      That very day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, and he said,<\/p>\n

      `To your descendants I give this land from the River of Egypt to<\/p>\n

      the Great River, the river Euphrates…(Gen. 15.18)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

       <\/p>\n

      When Abram is ninety-nine years old Yahweh appears to him again to\u00a0say:<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      `I make this covenant, and I make it with you: you shall be the<\/p>\n

      father of a host of nations. Your name will no longer be Abram,<\/p>\n

      your name shall be Abraham, for I make you a father of a host of<\/p>\n

      nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; I will make nations<\/p>\n

      out of you, and kings shall spring from you. I will fulfil my covenant<\/p>\n

      between myself and you and your descendants after you,<\/p>\n

      generation after generation, an everlasting covenant, to be your<\/p>\n

      God, yours and your descendants after you. As an everlasting<\/p>\n

      possession I will give you and your desccendants after you the land<\/p>\n

      in which you are now aliens…(Gen. 17.4-8)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Abraham’s special son, Isaac, given to Sarah so late in life, carries on\u00a0the seed and the covenant is passed on from father to son, although the\u00a0selection, or choice, of son to receive the blessing and the responsibility of the\u00a0covenant is not always according to the conventions of the time (that is,\u00a0sometimes the first born son does not receive the boon). Isaac and Rebecca\u00a0have the twins Jacob and Esau and the question arises: which of the two will be\u00a0chosen to carry on as covenant bearer? Jacob is a dreamer, a visionary of sorts,\u00a0who also is marked for heroism by images of stones and dreams of angels. He\u00a0will be chosen. Yahweh says to him:<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      `Jacob is your name,<\/p>\n

      but your name shall no longer be Jacob:<\/p>\n

      Israel shall be your name.’ (Gen. 35.10)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

       <\/p>\n

      and then Yahweh renews the covenant promise:<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      `The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you; and to<\/p>\n

      your descendants after you I give this land.’ (Gen. 35.11-12)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

       <\/p>\n

      By the end of the book of Genesis the scene has shifted to Egypt and\u00a0the Hebrews are enslaved in an alien land. It seems that Yahweh has forgotten\u00a0about them and about the covenant until Yahweh chooses Moses as the new\u00a0Abraham and announces his intention:<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      `I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God<\/p>\n

      Almighty. But I did not let myself be known to them by my name<\/p>\n

      Jehovah. Moreover, I made a covenant with them to give them<\/p>\n

      Canaan, the land where they settled for a time as foreigners. (Ex.<\/p>\n

      6.2-5)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

       <\/p>\n

      The history of the Old Testament is the history of the covenant promise\u00a0for land. Always at the narrative centre of the stories we find an unbroken cord\u00a0that is the covenant between Yahweh and his chosen people. Revelation of\u00a0divine intention, frustration on the part of the chosen people as the intention\u00a0seems thwarted by time and chance, violation of the covenant agreement by\u00a0the chosen ones – these are the narrative beads strung on the strong cord of\u00a0the covenant. The story holds our attention on one level to the extent that we\u00a0wonder how the covenant promise for land will be fulfilled, for, after all,\u00a0Canaan is already occupied by a thriving civilization. How will this collection of\u00a0Hebrews, beaten down by hundreds of years of slavery, ever be able to escape\u00a0from slavery in Egypt, come together as a people, wage battles of occupation,\u00a0and take and hold a country of their own? The stories of the Pentateuch\u00a0answer this question in dramatic fashion.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Covenant provides the plot line for these stories and covenant provides\u00a0the clue to the structure of the basic elements of the story. Evidence of other\u00a0covenants, treaties, and agreements between a powerful king, a suzerain, and\u00a0his people, has been found which provide us with narratives of the type the\u00a0biblical writer repeats. Hittite documents show various kinds of agreeements\u00a0and reveal a pattern to the treaties. The primary purpose of the suzerainty\u00a0treaty was to establish a firm relationship of mutual support between the two\u00a0parties (especially military support), in which the interests of the Hittite\u00a0sovereign were of primary and ultimate concern. It established a relationship\u00a0between the two, but in its form it is unilateral. The stipulations of the treaty\u00a0are binding only upon the vassal, and only the vassal took an oath of\u00a0obedience. Though the treaties frequently contain promises of help and\u00a0support to the vassal, there is no legal formality by which the Hittite king binds\u00a0himself to any specific obligation. Rather, it would seem that the Hittite king\u00a0by his very position as sovereign is concerned to protect his subjects from\u00a0claims or attacks of other foreign states. Consequently for him to bind himself\u00a0to specific obligations with regard to his vassal would be an infringement upon\u00a0his sole right of self-determination and sovereignty. A most important\u00a0corollary of this fact is the emphasis upon the vassal’s obligation to trust in\u00a0the benevolence of the sovereign.2<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Several main elements can be distinguished in the texts of most of these Hittite treaties:<\/p>\n

      A preamble, which identifies the author of the covenant, giving his<\/p>\n

      titles, attributes, and genealogy. For instance: “Thus speaks X, the great king,<\/p>\n

      king of Hittite land, son of Y, the valiant, the great king.” Here emphasis is laid<\/p>\n

      on the majesty and power of the king who is conferring a special relationship<\/p>\n

      on the vassal. A historical prologue which describes in detail the previous relations<\/p>\n

      between the two parties. It outlines the benevolent deeds which the king has<\/p>\n

      already performed for the vassal, not vaguely, but very specifically and<\/p>\n

      factually. The implication is that the vassal is already obligated to the great<\/p>\n

      king because of the favor and protection experienced in the past. Thus there is<\/p>\n

      a real mutuality of contract; but the vassal is pledging future obedience and<\/p>\n

      loyalty in return for past benefits which he received without having any claim<\/p>\n

      to them. Strict obligation is on his side; on the great kings’, there is no<\/p>\n

      obligation other than the presumption and implied promise that he will<\/p>\n

      continue his benevolence. Notable is the personal form of this prologue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      The great king addresses the vassal directly:<\/p>\n

      “I have sought after you; although you were sick and ailing I<\/p>\n

      put you in the place of your father and made your brothers and sisters and the<\/p>\n

      whole Amurru country subject to you.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      The stipulations which spell out in detail the obligations accepted by the vassal. These usually include:<\/p>\n

      Prohibition of service to any other great king.<\/p>\n

      Promise to be on friendly terms with the king’s other vassals; if disputes arise they are to be submitted to the overlord’s arbitration.<\/p>\n

      Promise to send contingents to support the great king when he goes to war.<\/p>\n

      Promise to trust the great king completely, and not to tolerate rebellious or critical language.<\/p>\n

      Promise to bring yearly tribute in person, and on that occasion to renew fealty.<\/p>\n

      A directive that the treaty be deposited in the temple of the vassal city, and periodically read in the hearing of the people.<\/p>\n

      The invocation of the gods both of the Hittites and of the vassal as witnesses to the treaty.<\/p>\n

      Finally, the pronunciation of curses upon the vassal if he breaks the covenant, and the promise of blessings for its observance. These are the only sanctions expressly mentioned; that is, the Hittite king does not threaten military proceedings and destruction. The treaty is a sacred document, and it is the gods who will see to its enforcement and vindication.3<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Perhaps the most historic of books in the modern sense of “historic” are\u00a0the two Samuels and 1 and 2 Kings. The Septuagint4 called the books “1 and 2\u00a0Kingdoms” and “3 and 4 Kingdoms” respectively; names that emphasize the\u00a0continuity of story in the now four books called “1 and 2 Samuel” and “1 and 2\u00a0Kings”. \u00a0 Changing the titles from the kings to the prophet in 1 and 2 Samuel is\u00a0understandable, as the canon would have been shaped under the immediate\u00a0influence of rabbis and not kings. Israel’s shift from prophet-judges of\u00a0Samuel’s type to kings is indeed the subject of the books of Samuel, and that\u00a0shift is an important political and historical development in Israel’s early days.\u00a0The story also includes the personal life of Saul and David and the divine\u00a0intervention of Yahweh in the events of history. In some ways Samuel\u00a0resembles Genesis in its preoccupation with founding families who are placed\u00a0at the centre of historical change in the unfolding story of Israel.<\/p>\n

      Historical causation and divine justice are woven into this story of three\u00a0central characters: Samuel, Saul, and David. The books focus on three major\u00a0struggles or conflicts: Saul and Samuel, Saul and David, and David against the\u00a0combined forces of the two. The history of David’s rise to kingship is personal\u00a0as well as historical and the kind of “evidence” we are given to consider is a mixture of prophecy, internal musings, messages from Yahweh, and claims about\u00a0the world, which can be verified in extra-biblical ways. Recent literary study of\u00a0the books has corrected a misconception inherited from historians to see the\u00a0story as straightforward reporting by an eyewitness to the events.5 Instead we\u00a0see the work now as a combination of chronicle, legend, projection, and above\u00a0all story in the fullest sense of that word.<\/p>\n

      In Second Samuel we read:<\/p>\n

      After this David inquired of the Lord, `Shall I go up into one of the<\/p>\n

      cities of Judah?’ The Lord answered, `Go.’ David asked, `To which<\/p>\n

      city?’, and the answer came, `To Hebron.’ So David went to<\/p>\n

      Hebron with his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail widow<\/p>\n

      of Nabal of Carmel…The men of Judah came, and there they<\/p>\n

      anointed David king over the house of Judah. (2 Samuel 2.1-4)<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Meanwhile Saul’s commander in chief, Abner son of Ner, had<\/p>\n

      taken Saul’s son Ishbosheth, brought him across the Jordan to<\/p>\n

      Mahanaim, and made him king over Gilead, the Asherites, Jezreel,<\/p>\n

      Ephraim, and Benjamin, and all Israel. (2 Samuel 2.8-11)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Abner…marched out from Mahanaim to Gibeon, and<\/p>\n

      Joab…marched out with David’s troops from Hebron. They met at<\/p>\n

      the pool of Gibeon and took up their positions one on one side of<\/p>\n

      the pool and the other on the other side. Abner said to Joab, `Let<\/p>\n

      the young men come forward and join in single combat before us.’<\/p>\n

      …There ensued a fierce battle that day, and Abner and the men of<\/p>\n

      Israel were defeated by David’s troops. (2 Samuel 2.17-20)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

       <\/p>\n

      The war between the houses of Saul and David was long drawn out,<\/p>\n

      David growing steadily stronger while the house of Saul became<\/p>\n

      weaker and weaker. (2 Samuel 3.1)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      At first reading, this passage, like most of the so-called “historical\u00a0books” from Genesis to Kings, appears historical. We are given a lot of “facts”.\u00a0Some suggestion of the causal relationships between events is also given. Saul\u00a0and David are struggling for the throne; David will win because he is the\u00a0chosen one of Yahweh. The overriding impressions in the Old Testament are\u00a0that (1) Yahweh is directly involved in history; (2) what has happened had to\u00a0happen to allow Yahweh’s plan to unfold properly; and (3) the literary\u00a0structure of the books follows the form of a treaty or covenant\u00a0document\u00a0between Yahweh and Israel. Time after time we are given scenes depicting\u00a0Yahweh’s participation in the human drama, although these do tend to be-\u00a0come more subtle in the later books. For example, the direct contact of the\u00a0early parts of Genesis are replaced by the device of having “an angel of the\u00a0Lord” speak to characters and then by having the message imparted by means\u00a0of a dream. One of the basic reasons why the Old Testament can not be\u00a0considered history, in any modern sense of the word, is clear in the above: for\u00a0how could a writer be privy to the dreams of his characters? Or, in the passage\u00a0from Samuel, how could the writer know what Abner said to Joab by the side\u00a0of the pool? Too often we are presented with material from the omniscient\u00a0point of view, are told of intent, dreams, thoughts, conversations with others in\u00a0private, and find ourselves, through the narrative skill of the writer, inside the\u00a0character’s head. Good literature; bad history.<\/p>\n

      History attempts, at least, to be objective. That means, among other\u00a0things, that modern historians feel much better if they can verify events in the\u00a0past from multiple sources. They like to find extra-biblical sources to\u00a0corroborate biblically suggested events, characters, and causal relationships.\u00a0The historian is interested in human recorded past and deals principally with\u00a0written records. When the inquiry is based primarily on oral and\/or artifactual\u00a0evidence, we refer to the researcher as an anthropologist, archaeologist, or\u00a0something other than a historian. Modern historians, for the most part, tend to\u00a0dismiss elements of the supernatural as explanatory devices for the in-\u00a0terpretation of the events recorded in the documents of the past. Biblical\u00a0sources receive essentially the same treatment, although some historians are\u00a0more cautious than others in their sifting out of the supernatural and\u00a0miraculous elements. Regarding the account of the Hebrew escape at the Red\u00a0Sea, for example, even those historians who are inclined to accept the account\u00a0as essentially accurate in its present form will, in their own recounting of the\u00a0incident, tend to emphasize the natural rather than the supernatural aspects of\u00a0the story. That is, they usually speak in terms of low tide and high winds and\u00a0either suggest that Yahweh worked “indirectly” through these natural\u00a0phenomena or leave the question of his involvement open altogether. The\u00a0following quotation from John Bright’s A History of Israel, is typical:6<\/p>\n

      Concerning these events, to be sure, we can add nothing to what<\/p>\n

      the Bible tells us. It appears that Hebrews, attempting to escape,<\/p>\n

      were pinned between the sea and the Egyptian army and were<\/p>\n

      saved when a wind drove the waters back, allowing them to pass<\/p>\n

      (Ex. 14.21,27); the pursuing Egyptians, caught by the returning<\/p>\n

      flood, were drowned. If Israel saw in this the hand of God, the<\/p>\n

      historian certainly has no evidence to contradict it!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      But such a comment merely begs the question of causality, since\u00a0nothing will count as evidence for or against such an interpretation. Did the\u00a0wind blow at the Red Sea while the Hebrews were making good their escape?\u00a0Who knows? Did God cause the wind to blow? Who knows? Within the\u00a0mythical architecture of Exodus the answer is simple. Yahweh parts the waters\u00a0and then collapses them on the Egyptians. `Did this really happen?’ is the\u00a0question of the literalist, depending on a misunderstanding of the nature of the\u00a0text: remember, these are not factual claims about the world, but\u00a0performatives within a story true to the world. The defeat at the Red Sea is\u00a0the defeat of the Pharaoh-god by the Hebrew god, Yahweh. At the level of\u00a0story this defeat is “evidence” of the power of the Hebrew god. For centuries\u00a0after, the Jew can point to this story as “evidence” for chosen tribe status and as\u00a0a reminder of the covenant between Israel and Yahweh. The stories in the Old\u00a0Testament are forming and shaping a people just as the writers of the stories\u00a0are forming and shaping the people through the stories. Egyptian records do\u00a0not indicate anything about Moses and the escape at the Red Sea, but if we\u00a0found them and if such a person as Moses existed to take the Hebrews out of\u00a0Egypt, then we could expect the Egyptian story to be a much different story\u00a0with a different line about causality offered to explain the events. We have\u00a0difficulty sorting out the real causes of events in our own time, and we still\u00a0tell stories to reassure ourselves that there is indeed some understandable\u00a0cause for events that affect us. And some of us today continue to offer god as\u00a0the cause for things we do not understand or cannot see except in some\u00a0purposeful way.7<\/p>\n

      Many recent discoveries in archaeology have sparked historical interest\u00a0in the Old Testament. Since about 1890 archaeologists have been constantly\u00a0active in “the holy land” and have provided us with a wealth of non-written\u00a0sources for information on such things as weapons, dress, foodstuffs, ceramic\u00a0wares, architectural styles and other silent artifacts that help us to put together\u00a0the past. They have also discovered a number of written documents from the\u00a0ancient Near East which have proved to be especially relevant for the study of\u00a0Israel’s history during Old Testament times. These include:<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

        \n
      1. \u00a0 The Amarna tablets<\/li>\n
      2. \u00a0 Royal Egyptian Inscriptions<\/li>\n
      3. \u00a0 The Mesha Inscription<\/li>\n
      4. \u00a0 Royal Assyrian Inscriptions<\/li>\n
      5. \u00a0 The Babylonian Chronicles<\/li>\n
      6. \u00a0 Hebrew and Armaic Ostraca<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

         <\/p>\n

        The Armana Tablets were discovered in 1887 in the El-Amarna district\u00a0of Egypt, about ninety miles south of Cairo. Written in Akkadian, most of\u00a0them are letters belonging to the correspondence between the Egyptian court\u00a0during the reigns of Amenophis IV, and the vassal rulers of city-states in Syria,\u00a0Phoenicia, and Palestine. They reflect the political and sociological cir-\u00a0cumstances in Palestine during the first half of the fourteenth century BCE\u00a0(before Common Era). References to the “apiru” in the Amarna Tablets have\u00a0generated much discussion among Old Testament scholars, since this\u00a0Akkadian term may be related etymologically to the designation “Hebrew”\u00a0used in the Old Testament.<\/p>\n

        The royal Egyptian Inscriptions comprise the official Egyptian reports\u00a0of Asiatic campaigns and lists of conquered cities. These documents are of\u00a0some importance to early Israeli history though the age of Egyptian empire\u00a0and conquests had already passed by the time of the settlement of the Hebrew\u00a0tribes in Palestine. The hymn of victory of Merneptah (c. 1236-1223 B.C.E.),\u00a0discovered in Thebes in 1896, is an especially interesting exception in that it\u00a0provides the earliest known non-biblical reference to Israel:8<\/p>\n

        The princes are prostrate, saying: “Mercy!”<\/p>\n

        Not one raises his head among the Nine bows.<\/p>\n

        Desolation is for Tehenu; Hatti is pacified;<\/p>\n

        Plundered is the Canaan with every evil;<\/p>\n

        Carried off is Ashkelon; seized is Geyer;<\/p>\n

        Yanoam is made as that which does not exist;<\/p>\n

        Israel is laid to waste, his seed is not;<\/p>\n

        Hurru is become a widow for Egypt!<\/p>\n

        All lands together, they are pacified…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

         <\/p>\n

        The Mesha Inscription is a stele erected by Mesha, King of Moab,\u00a0during the mid ninth century B.C.E., and discovered in Jordan in 1868. It\u00a0memorializes the King’s reign and celebrates his recovery of Moabite\u00a0independence from Israel (cf. 2 Kings 3.4ff). Many other inscriptions from the\u00a0period of the Divided Kingdom have been discovered and each makes a\u00a0contribution to our understanding of the history of Syria-Palestine during\u00a0Israel’s monarchial period.<\/p>\n

        Records have been discovered from Assyrian Kings and from\u00a0Babylonian and Persian Kings which also assist us in understanding the time of\u00a0the ancient Near East and provide us with valuable information, useful to\u00a0historians and biblical commentators alike, to assess certain “historical”\u00a0sections of the biblical stories. Finally, the ostraca (potsherds which bear\u00a0messages) provide lists, letters, etc. which give additional information about\u00a0Hebrew life. Some claim a special relationship between the Bible and\u00a0archaeology9, pointing out that “the Bible describes public life and the `word of\u00a0the spirit;’ archaeology fills in a knowledge of everyday life and culture, [and]\u00a0both are necessary if we are to comprehend ancient Israel in its full variety and\u00a0vitality.” To the extent that the Bible is a text presenting radical theology it can\u00a0not be judged as a book of history or a record of everyday life. One obvious\u00a0limitation that flows from the theological intentions of the writers\/editors is\u00a0that they tell us next to nothing about the daily life of the average Hebrew.\u00a0Archaeology has dramatically changed our understanding of the everyday life\u00a0of those people who are in the background in the biblical stories.<\/p>\n

        Professor Dever says of the relationship between the Bible and archaeology, “the legitimate archaeologist (in contrast to the “raider of the lost ark”)\u00a0will…not attempt to date the creation, or set out to locate the Garden of Eden\u00a0and excavate the bones of Adam and Eve, or establish flood levels and dig up\u00a0the timbers of Noah’s ark.” Those who do from time to time announce that\u00a0they are setting out to find the ark, or to search for Joseph’s bones, are making\u00a0the basic mistake of misunderstanding the nature of the text. Once again, these\u00a0stories are not literal social or economic history, but are fundamentally theolog-\u00a0ical stories which present a particular official line. In the first five\u00a0books of the Old Testament this official line has to do with the “saving acts” of\u00a0Yahweh on behalf of his chosen people Israel. These stories are not just de-\u00a0scriptions, but are always description plus theological explanation. In a recent\u00a0movie about a veteran of Vietnam (“In Country”) a U.S. general “blesses” his\u00a0men who are on their way to the war. He says: “You are chosen to fight godless\u00a0communism…you men have been chosen to be the leaders in a fight that will\u00a0never be forgotten…you are chosen…America is never going to forget you…you\u00a0are the best…good luck and go with God.” It makes no sense to ask if what the\u00a0general says is true or false; these are not statements of fact. They are part of\u00a0the official line of the time. And as we have seen in relation to the war in\u00a0Vietnam the official line has changed. But the story line has not changed;\u00a0the horrors of that war, the people who fought in it, and the human costs,\u00a0these are as real as the stories in the Old Testament.<\/p>\n

        There are many non-biblical sources of written and “silent” artifacts\u00a0which can aid the student of the Bible in recreating the time of the biblical\u00a0patriarchs and of the monarchs of the Great Kingdom. To return to the\u00a0passage at the beginning of this chapter, we can say that even though the\u00a0narrative is embellished with legend and with omniscient point of view it does\u00a0nevertheless provide some firm historical facts: there really was a David who\u00a0fought a civil war against the house of Saul, achieved undisputed sovereignty\u00a0over the twelve tribes, conquered Jerusalem, founded a dynasty, created a\u00a0small empire, and was succeeded by his son Solomon. These facts are facts not\u00a0because the Bible says so, but because they are facts. These stories are not,\u00a0strictly speaking, historiography, but rather the imaginative reenactment of\u00a0history by a gifted writer who organizes his material along certain thematic\u00a0biases and according to his own remarkable intuition of the psychology of his\u00a0characters. He feels entirely free, as did Shakespeare, to invent interior\u00a0monologue for his characters; to ascribe feeling, intention, or motive to them\u00a0when he chooses; to supply verbatim dialogue for occasions when no one but\u00a0the actors themselves could have knowledge of exactly what was said. If history\u00a0at all, this is a special genre of history.<\/p>\n

        One other characteristic of the text that makes it difficult to consider as\u00a0history is that of selection. The main story is of Israel and of the House of\u00a0David. This concern means that at times when the events do not fit those\u00a0patterns they receive short shrift. For example, here is the story of Manasseh:<\/p>\n

        Manasseh was twelve years old when he came to the throne, and he<\/p>\n

        reigned in Jerusalem for fifty-five years…he did what was wrong in<\/p>\n

        the eyes of the Lord, in following the abominable practices of the<\/p>\n

        nations which the Lord had dispossessed in favour of the<\/p>\n

        Israelites….the Lord spoke…:`Because Manasseh …has done these<\/p>\n

        abominable things, outdoing the Amorites before him in<\/p>\n

        wickedness, and because he has led Judah into sin with his idols,<\/p>\n

        this is the word of the Lord the God of Israel: I will bring disaster<\/p>\n

        on Jerusalem and Judah…” (2 Kings 21.1 ff)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

        From twelve years old to sixty seven years old Manasseh reigned as\u00a0King, and yet we get his entire life’s history in just a few hundred words. His\u00a0son, Amon, is dismissed by the writer in even fewer words so that we can get to\u00a0the events of real importance for the writer in Josiah’s reign: \u00a0 the discovery of\u00a0the Deuteronomy (“I have found the book of the law in the house of the\u00a0Lord.”).<\/p>\n

        It is as Professor Alter says10 “what the bible offers us is an uneven\u00a0continuum and a constant interweaving of factual historical detail (especially,\u00a0but by no means exclusively, for the later periods) with purely legendary\u00a0“history”; occasional enigmatic stories; archetypal fictions of the founding\u00a0fathers of the Nation; folktales of heroes and wonder-working men of God;\u00a0verisimilar inventions of wholly fictional personages attached to the progress\u00a0of natural history; and fictionalized versions of known historical personages.”\u00a0The history in the Bible should not be confused with history and the Bible.<\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

        THE EXODUS<\/strong><\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

        Without the Bible we would know nothing of Moses. He is not\u00a0mentioned anywhere else. From the time he first appears in Exodus until we\u00a0are told of his death in the last chapter of Deuteronomy we are dealing with a\u00a0fictional character stitched to some real historical events. The exodus from\u00a0Egypt was probably a real event. The entry into the “Promised Land” was likely\u00a0a real event although most scholars today would suggest that the Hebrew take-\u00a0over of Canaan was a slow process and not the dramatic and nearly instant\u00a0event recorded in the Bible. The religious experience that Moses underwent\u00a0alone with his flock of sheep in the wilderness of Midian is certainly a genuine\u00a0experience of turmoil, resolution, and commitment to a task. How can we\u00a0know this? From inference and conjecture arising from putting together in-\u00a0formation from archaeologists, historians, linguists, anthropologists, we are\u00a0able to have a fairly clear picture of the events telescoped into the Biblical\u00a0Moses story. We know a great deal about conditions in Egypt at the time when\u00a0the events recorded in Exodus took place; we know a great deal about the\u00a0conditions in Mesopotamia and Palestine at that time and about the relations –\u00a0cultural, social, political, economic – between Semitic peoples and Egyptians.<\/p>\n

        The account of Israel’s slavery in Egypt, with which Exodus begins, is\u00a0presented as a part of a continuing story which goes back to the Patriarchs in\u00a0Genesis. The story really opens with God’s call to Abram to leave Haran\u00a0(northwest Mesopotamia) and migrate to the country later known as Palestine.<\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

        The Lord said to Abram, `Leave your own country, your kinsmen,<\/p>\n

        and your father’s house, and go to a country that I will show you. I<\/p>\n

        will make you into a great nation, I will bless you and make your<\/p>\n

        name so great that it shall be used in blessings:<\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

        Those that bless you I will bless,<\/p>\n

        those that curse you, I will execrate.<\/p>\n

        All the families on earth<\/p>\n

        will pray to be blessed as you are blessed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

        Abram’s (later Abraham) son Isaac was provided a wife (Rebecca) by\u00a0his father. The Lord appeared to Isaac also and renewed the promise he had\u00a0made to Abraham. Jacob, the chosen son of Isaac and Rebecca, carries on the\u00a0tradition and the special agreement; he is sent back to his grandfather’s\u00a0original home of Haran to find a wife, and on the journey there he has his own\u00a0special encounter with God. In fact he gets two wives, his cousin Leah and her\u00a0younger sister Rachel, since his uncle would not let him have the younger\u00a0without first taking the older. But he loved Rachel, who finally bore him\u00a0Joseph and Benjamin. Joseph’s brothers were jealous of his special status and\u00a0arranged to have him sold as a slave into Egypt.11 Once there Joseph rose\u00a0quickly to power as a result of his remarkable powers of interpreting dreams\u00a0and his abilities in administration. Joseph like his father Jacob is a dreamer,\u00a0one in tune with the intellectual side of life, one who is aware of life as process\u00a0through time. Soon he was the second in command to the Pharaoh. During a\u00a0famine in Canaan Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to buy corn and they meet the\u00a0now mighty and powerful Joseph, whom they do not recognize but who recog-\u00a0nizes them. Eventually Joseph forgave his brothers for what they had done to\u00a0him and persuades Pharaoh to invite them and his father to come live in that\u00a0part of Egypt called Goshen. There they prospered. Jacob died and eventually\u00a0Joseph died, saying to his brethren:<\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

        `I am dying; but God will not fail to come to your aid and take you<\/p>\n

        from here to the land which he promised on oath to Abraham,<\/p>\n

        Isaac, and Jacob. He made the sons of Israel take an oath, saying,<\/p>\n

        `When god thus comes to your aid, you must take my bones with<\/p>\n

        you from here.’ So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. He<\/p>\n

        was embalmed and laid out in a coffin in Egypt. (Genesis 50.24-26)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

        Exodus opens with an account of Jacob’s descendants, the children of\u00a0Israel, prospering and multiplying in Egypt. On this stage Moses, representing\u00a0that which is universally human in our stories, is implanted in a historical\u00a0setting. It is the tiny ark on the Nile that, through Pharaoh’s daughter’s pity,\u00a0penetrates the headquarters of the oppressors.<\/p>\n

        Who were these Hebrew people? The word `Hebrew’ does not appear\u00a0to be the name of a race or a nation, but of a class of people who worked the\u00a0caravan routes of the middle east – the word probably means something like\u00a0`donkey-men’ or `caravan-men’. They travelled and traded with their families\u00a0and flocks and herds, never in one place for long. The Biblical picture of the\u00a0Patriarchs wandering in Palestine between the hill country and the desert,\u00a0maintaining contact with their ancestral Mesopotamia and moving south to\u00a0Egypt when food became scarce is supported by, among other extra-Biblical\u00a0evidence, the 450 clay tablets unearthed at the ancient city of Alakh, some\u00a0dating from the 18th century B.C.E., illustrating the social, economic, and\u00a0political life of the times. The so-called Execration Texts dating from about the\u00a0end of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (18th century B.C.E.) record the\u00a0enemies of the country as well as listing the lands and territories adjacent to\u00a0Egypt.<\/p>\n

        The patriarchal period, the age of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their\u00a0semi-nomadic wanderings, is thus roughly assigned to about 1950-1800 B.C.E.\u00a0in the Middle Bronze Age.12 The Middle Kingdom of Egypt collapsed about\u00a01786 B.C.E. in chaos and civil war. When the smoke clears the Hyksos are in\u00a0control of the country. They rule until about 1550 B.C.E. when in a war of\u00a0liberation the Egyptians pushed them out and replaced their rule with the\u00a0Eighteenth Dynasty. Now the Hyksos and the Hebrews were racially\u00a0connected. Many scholars now agree that there is some connection between\u00a0Hyksos rule of Egypt and the settling of the Hebrews there. It seems\u00a0reasonable to assume that the Hyksos, who themselves had travelled the\u00a0caravan routes to Egypt for centuries before they took power there, favoured\u00a0other `Apiru’13 groups and encouraged them to settle in Egypt. When the\u00a0Pharaoh Amosis (1552-1527 B.C.E.) expelled the Hyksos from Egypt, the\u00a0Hebrews in Egypt were left without protectors. Contemporary documents\u00a0show that the Hyksos who escaped slaughter were enslaved. It is reasonable to\u00a0assume that the Hebrews, now unprotected by the Establishment, were also\u00a0enslaved at this time. This would place Joseph’s rise to power under Hyksos\u00a0rule and make Amosis the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph.<\/p>\n

        The Bible account is not always consistent and the chronology difficult\u00a0to pin down. We must remember that the Bible is not history in the modern\u00a0sense, but presents the traditions of a people, their national and religious\u00a0origins, and a fair amount of so-called sacral history (of or pertaining to sacral\u00a0rites and observances). The account is more an imagined sense of the past\u00a0which exhibits ideas to be valued, characteristics to be emulated, traits to be\u00a0developed. The Exodus probably took place in the reign of Rameses II\u00a0between 1280-1250 B.C.E. We are told the Israelites spent 430 years in Egypt\u00a0which means they came into Egypt in around 1700 B.C.E. which is when the\u00a0Hyksos established themselves. Recently discovered archaeological evidence\u00a0shows that the Palestine city of Hazov – destroyed by fire by the invading\u00a0Israelites under Joshua (Joshua 11.10-13)\u00a0\u00a0 – was destroyed in the latter part of\u00a0the 13th century B.C.E. We can be reasonably certain that by the end of the\u00a013th century B.C.E. the Israelites – now really the people of Israel – were\u00a0settled in parts at least of Palestine, and the Egyptian experience was behind\u00a0them, though never to be forgotten.14 In some ways it does not matter what\u00a0the dates are: the story has taken on a timelessness that makes it the myth to\u00a0inflame any suppressed peoples anywhere.<\/p>\n

        What of this Moses? What kind of man is he? First of all the story gives\u00a0us Moses the Hebrew who also in some sense is an Egyptian – and in this\u00a0paradox lay his special powers.15 We are told of his genealogy in simple terms:\u00a0“A descendant of Levi married a Levite woman who conceived and bore a son.”\u00a0Levi was one of the sons of Jacob. Martin Buber in his book Moses has this to\u00a0say:<\/p>\n

        “…in order that the one appointed to liberate his nation should<\/p>\n

        grow up to be the liberator…he had to be introduced into the<\/p>\n

        stronghold of the aliens, into that royal court by which Israel has<\/p>\n

        been enslaved; and he must grow up there. This is a kind of<\/p>\n

        liberation which cannot be brought by anyone who grew up as a<\/p>\n

        slave, not yet by anyone who is not connected with the slaves; but<\/p>\n

        only by one of the latter who has been brought up in the midst of<\/p>\n

        the aliens and has received an education equipping him with all<\/p>\n

        their wisdoms and powers, and thereafter `goes forth to his<\/p>\n

        brethren and observes their burdens.’. (page 27)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

        The marvellous story of Moses’ deliverance from the Nile has caught\u00a0the imagination of many a child. It is told quickly: “Pharaoh’s daughter came\u00a0down to bathe in the river, while her ladies-in-waiting walked along the bank.\u00a0She noticed the basket among the reeds and sent her slave-girl for it. She took\u00a0it from her and when she opened it, she saw the child. It was crying, and she\u00a0was filled with pity for it. `Why,’ she said, `it is a little \u00a0 Hebrew boy.'” The\u00a0human cry of the child strikes a responsive chord in the woman and she saves\u00a0the child from the river. How she explains this child from the river we are not\u00a0told. And when he is grown, educated and raised in the Pharaoh’s household,\u00a0he still has Hebrew blood coursing through his veins. All of this is compressed\u00a0and then we are told of the pivotal episode in his life when he slew the\u00a0Egyptian. In this act, in the words of Christopher Fry, “he killed his Egyptian\u00a0self in the self of that Egyptian.”16<\/p>\n

        Moses, excited by a presumably newly realized sense of identity with his\u00a0fellow Hebrews, takes the side of an abused Hebrew slave and kills the\u00a0slave-driver who is abusing him. The next day he learns that there is no\u00a0necessary gratitude on the part of the oppressed. The Pharaoh discovers the\u00a0murder; Moses must flee to save his life. This gets him to Midian, home of his\u00a0mother’s people, where he helps the daughters of a priest of Midian who are\u00a0being harassed by other male shepherds at a well. Moses, the future saviour of\u00a0the Hebrews, takes sides with the women in the dispute, foreshadowing the\u00a0part he will play in the larger drama in Egypt. The land of Midian to which\u00a0Moses fled was probably in the south-eastern part of the Sinai Peninsula.\u00a0Midian represents for Moses a simple way of life and a stern desert code in\u00a0contrast to the cosmopolitan polytheism of Egypt. The life there was much\u00a0more like that of his Hebrew ancestors before they settled in Egypt. Moses\u00a0needs time to recover his past and discover his roots. The story has to get\u00a0Moses to Midian, for it is there, alone in the wilderness, that his encounter\u00a0with God takes place.<\/p>\n

        Moses was minding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, priest of<\/p>\n

        Midian. He led the flock along the side of the wilderness and came<\/p>\n

        to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord<\/p>\n

        appeared to him in the flame of a burning bush. Moses noticed<\/p>\n

        that, although the bush was on fire, it was not being burnt up; so he<\/p>\n

        said to himself, `I must go across to see this wonderful<\/p>\n

        sight.'(Exodus .1-5)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

        After God has Moses’ attention (here again in the image of the burning\u00a0bush one can sense the human author at work: in the right sunlight this\u00a0phenomenon happens often, it is the cause that is added here) he tells him of\u00a0the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob binding Moses to this past, this\u00a0promise. He then tells him of the future and the part that Moses is to play in it.\u00a0A reluctant hero, Moses responds with “But who am I that I should go to\u00a0Pharaoh, and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” The answer does\u00a0not speak of Moses’ special worth or of his special skills, but is about being\u00a0chosen: “I am with you,” says God. If “I am with you” is present then you are a\u00a0hero in the full sense of the word. What is `god’? `God’ is the name for the\u00a0heroic virtues, the commitment to the future, the change to be brought about\u00a0as the hero brings a boon to his people, or in this story brings his people to a\u00a0boon. In answer to Moses’ question about his name, God says, “I AM; that is\u00a0who I am. Tell them that I AM has sent you to them.” “I am” is being itself; “I\u00a0am” is the necessary frame within which any story can exist, it is the very\u00a0ground of being for a narrative of any kind. “I am” is the simplest declarative\u00a0statement possible, and every one of the infinite sentences that proceed\u00a0depends upon the truth of “I am”.<\/p>\n

        Moses is to lead the Hebrews out of slavery not because they are his\u00a0brethren but because they are unjustly oppressed. He becomes a national\u00a0leader because of a universal principle.<\/p>\n

        Fry represents the conflict between Moses and Pharaoh as a clash\u00a0between two ideals: Pharaoh stands for civilization, Moses for humanity and\u00a0the rights of the individual. What is more important, the pyramids or the men\u00a0who build them? Fry’s Moses says:<\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

        A man has more to be than a Pharaoh.<\/p>\n

        He must dare to outgrow the security<\/p>\n

        Of partial blindness…(Fry, page 14)<\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

        …What have we approached or conceived when we have conquered<\/p>\n

        and built a world? Even though civilization became perfect? What<\/p>\n

        then? We have only put a crown on the skeleton. It is the individual<\/p>\n

        man in his individual freedom who can mature with his warm spirit<\/p>\n

        the unripe world. (Fry, page 15.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

        The conflict between Moses\/Aaron and Pharaoh (Moses, the reluctant\u00a0hero, has been given his brother Aaron to speak for him since Moses is a\u00a0“halting speaker”) is at times a childish competition in conjuring tricks, but its\u00a0function in the story is clear: this Pharaoh has power and is thought to be a\u00a0god. Many commentators make a point of showing that the conflict between\u00a0God and Pharaoh is a one-sided conflict, unfair because God has all the\u00a0power. But Pharaoh was thought to be a god also, and so we have here the\u00a0conflict between two equal combatants. The story tells of the ascendancy of\u00a0one tribal god over another, tells of victory and special care by the Israelite god\u00a0for his people. After this the bull god of the Egyptian valley is no longer to be worshiped, for I AM has triumphed.<\/p>\n

        I AM has triumphed by direct intervention into human affairs. The\u00a0account of the ten plagues is rich with conviction of “divine” power working for\u00a0the Hebrews and against Pharaoh. The object of the plagues is expressed with\u00a0forceful directness:<\/p>\n

        Then the Lord said to Moses, `Go into Pharaoh’s presence. I have<\/p>\n

        made him and his courtiers obdurate, so that I may show these my<\/p>\n

        signs among them, and so that you can tell your children and grand-<\/p>\n

        children the story: how I made sport of the Egyptians, and what<\/p>\n

        signs I showed among them. Thus you will know that I am the<\/p>\n

        Lord. (Exodus 10.1-3)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

        The plagues are not magic, nor are they presented as merely natural events.\u00a0Based on natural events they represent a heightening and ordering and a\u00a0deliberate turning on and off of events that could occur, but are given a\u00a0meaning within the story by showing us god at work behind the scenes,\u00a0manipulating the events to the end of freedom for the Israelites and honour\u00a0for himself in the future story. They represent POWER – YAHWEH at work\u00a0on nature herself. These events give the exodus a sense of something very\u00a0special – divine intervention in the aid of a particular cause. Divine intervention\u00a0is always easier to write about after the fact, when one knows how\u00a0things come out. God’s will or intention, like narrative intention, is revealed in\u00a0the story. God’s intention is clear: tell my story to future generations of\u00a0Israelites. And, of course, it is in the story that this story is molded and formed.<\/p>\n

        The final plague is the most devastating- the killing of all Egyptian first\u00a0born:<\/p>\n

        `At midnight I will go out among the Egyptians. Every first-born<\/p>\n

        creature in the land of Egypt shall die: the first born of Pharaoh<\/p>\n

        who sits on his throne, the first-born of the slave-girl at the<\/p>\n

        hand-mill, and all the first-born of the cattle. All Egypt will send up<\/p>\n

        a great cry of anguish, a cry the like of which has never been heard<\/p>\n

        before, nor ever will be again. But among all Israel not a dog’s<\/p>\n

        tongue shall be so much as scratched, no man or beast be hurt.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

        God has given Moses and Aaron detailed instructions for the passover\u00a0sacrifice using for the first time the phrase “all the congregations of Israel” and\u00a0associating the ritual of the passover sacrifice with means of preventing the\u00a0slaughter of the Israelite firstborn. This is an echo of the original passover\u00a0ritual, a festival of nomadic shepherds at which a sheep or goat was sacrificed\u00a0and the blood sprinkled to ward off evil powers, which especially threatened\u00a0the firstborn. The narrative recipe: take an ancient ritual, wrap it in a new\u00a0story, and bring the new ritual into history as part of an ongoing story. Another\u00a0part of the ritual, that of unleavened bread, is brought into the story at this\u00a0point. A pastoral festival and an agricultural festival are historicized in\u00a0narrative and establish (constitute) the Passover Feast as a ritual of\u00a0remembrance of the deliverance from Egyptian slavery. Moses rediscovers\u00a0himself, his god, his relationship with the Israelites, and he will recast and\u00a0revitalize the law for the Israelites.<\/p>\n

        A defeated Pharaoh finally lets the people go (with, one imagines, a\u00a0sigh of relief) and they become the charge and responsibility of Moses. He is to\u00a0provide; they will consume. Moses is not a new master, he is their leader: in\u00a0matters religious and spiritual it is Moses who imposes the way of life. An\u00a0unbroken chain from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Moses: this bond between\u00a0Yahweh and Israel is welded in images of contact between the worlds of\u00a0history and of the “divine” story to be unfolded in history. And what we know\u00a0of Moses we know through the story.<\/p>\n

        After breaking free from the bondage of Egypt the “children” of Israel\u00a0now face the problems of sustaining life in the desert. They need food and\u00a0water. They will cry for a return to the known from this new position of hunger\u00a0and freedom and the unknown. They will exhibit all of the weaknesses and\u00a0fears of a people on a new trek toward identity. The miraculous feeding stories\u00a0fold together all the traditions of miraculous feeding in the wilderness\u00a0available to the narrator: manna from above, quail from above, and a constant\u00a0thirst. The symbolic meaning is clear: the God of Israel is providing for the\u00a0sustenance of the people of Israel by direct intervention in natural events.\u00a0Manna may be the secretion of insects and be an edible substance made up of\u00a0glucose, fructose, and pectin; but its function in the story is to proclaim that\u00a0Yahweh is manifest in its presence.<\/p>\n

        A group of tribes, a collection of individuals, is formed into a people at\u00a0Mount Sinai where the covenant between Yahweh and the patriarchs is\u00a0extended to include all of the people who have struggled through the desert of\u00a0despair to a place which will become the sight for the giving of the constitution\u00a0that binds the people together as a congregation. Imaged in lightning and\u00a0thunder, shown to be special by purification rituals, offered to the people on\u00a0chunks of stone, these commandments are intended as absolute: everything in\u00a0the imagery surrounding the giving of the law is intended to emphasize the\u00a0importance of the law. “And he wrote upon the tables the words of the\u00a0covenant, the ten commandments.” The Decalogue is presented in a narrative\u00a0package that is distinguished by its images of power, mystery, and the absolute.\u00a0The WORDS are put in writing in tablets of stone and the writing is attributed\u00a0to God or at least to Moses acting on God’s behalf and eventually these tablets\u00a0are placed inside the Ark of the Covenant to be stored in the holiest part of\u00a0the tabernacle. These words become the symbol of the meeting and contact\u00a0between God and his chosen people.<\/p>\n

        So goes the official line. And the power of the story of the giving of the\u00a0law can work to wipe out of our memory the larger story: on both sides of the\u00a0narrative devoted to the giving of the law we find stories of destruction and\u00a0death. This Yahweh who now gives the law is also capable of violating many of\u00a0his own laws. The wrathful god who previously has killed the firstborn of all the Egyptians orders, \u201cYou shall not commit murder\u201d. The official line\u00a0states the laws are absolute; the story line reveals that in fact the laws can be\u00a0broken. What is officially intended as a list of duties prescribed by God as\u00a0absolute, definitive of morality, and constitutive of the proper relationship\u00a0between human and god, turns out to be relative, dependent upon an\u00a0understanding of morality, and vague in its expression of proper action. Yes, it\u00a0is wrong to murder. But what does that tell us? When is killing to be classified\u00a0as murder? When you kill Egyptians? Obviously not. When you kill\u00a0Canaanites? Obviously not. Although the official line announces a “truth”, the\u00a0story line reveals a need for interpretation.<\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

        Is this god of Exodus worthy of worship?<\/strong><\/p>\n

        \n

         <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

         <\/p>\n

          \n
        1. \u201cYahweh\u201d is the English version of the ancient Hebrew name \u201cYHWH\u201d for God.<\/li>\n
        2. See George E. Mendenhall, Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East<\/em>, Pittsburgh: The Biblical Colloquium, 1955, p.30, for a discussion of these early documents.<\/li>\n
        3. See, e.g., the discussion in R.A.F. MacKenzie, Faith and History in the Old Testament,<\/em>Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963, pps. 39,40.<\/li>\n
        4. The Septuagint is the main Greek translation (abbreciated as LXX) and was begun in the third century BCE.<\/li>\n
        5. Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel <\/em>1878; reprint Gloucester, Mass. 1973), page 262 speaks of events \u201cfaithfully reported;\u201d Ernst Sellin and George Fohrer, Introcuction to the Old Testeament<\/em>, translated David Green (Nashville, 1968) page 163 talk of a writer who was \u201cundoubtedly an eyewitness to the event and a member of the royal court.\u201d<\/li>\n
        6. John Bright, A History of Israel<\/em>, 3rd edition, page 122.<\/li>\n
        7. Some Christian fundamentalists have claimed that AIDS is God\u2019s punishment for evil behaviour. They are silent on the reasons for their God afflicting those who contracted the virus through blood transfusions of hospital accidents.<\/li>\n
        8. Qouted here from The Old Testament and the Historian<\/em>, J. Maxwell Miller, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1973, page 7.<\/li>\n
        9. See \u201cArchaelogy and The Bible,\u201d William G. Dever, Biblical Archaeology Review,<\/em> May\/June, 1990, page 52 ff.<\/li>\n
        10. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative<\/em>, Basic Books, New York, 1981, page 33.<\/li>\n
        11. See Chapter 5 for a closer examination of these heroes.<\/li>\n
        12. There is a great deal of dispute about dating these events. See the debate between Piotr Bienkowski and Bryant G. Woods in the September\/October 1990 issue of BAR (Volume XVI no.5).<\/li>\n
        13. \u201cApiru\u201d or \u201cHabiru\u201d seems to identify a class of people of the Near East who have been a part of the discussion about Hebrew origins.<\/li>\n
        14. Martin Noth, The History of Israel.<\/em><\/li>\n
        15. Sigmund Freud wrote of an Egyptian Moses in his book, Moses and Monotheism.<\/em><\/li>\n
        16. Christopher Fry, The Firstborn<\/em>, a play in three acts, Oxford University Press, London, 1952, page 34.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"author":276,"menu_order":4,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-30","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/276"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/30\/revisions\/75"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/30\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}