Re-thinking Moses

By Tom Brennan

Exodus: Gods and Kings by Ridley Scott

Moses looked lot like Charlton Heston, or was it the other way around. The 1956 Cecil B DeMille visual extravaganza is still an eye opener and stands on its own despite remakes and other Moses wannabees. DeMille had produced a black & white silent version in the 1920’s and stills from this film are still used to illustrate events from the Exodus by Biblical publishers. Ridley Scott has taken a new track: Moses the warrior prince. The trailers show an armored fighting man and a Pharaoh in conflict. The question arises: how Egyptian was Moses and when did the Prophet emerge?

Ridley Scott has made some impressive films, no dispute here. But much of the criticism against some of them include a tendency towards anachronism in the mindset of the characters. But here the question is legitimate, Moses was a prince of Egypt because Joseph had been the Grand Vizier, the second to the Pharaoh in the land of Egypt. Joseph was married to the daughter of a priest of On and had hidden a pagan divining cup in the baggage of his brothers when they journeyed to Egypt for grain. Joseph was unrecognizable to the wayward brothers because he had become an Egyptian. Wall paintings from this period in Egypt show “Asiatics”, Canaanites with beards, long hair and colorful tunics leading herds of goats and cows. The Egyptians were a very homogeneous group with acceptable standards of grooming and dress, clean shaven and often shorn heads, white clothes and an abhorrence of herdsmen. Joseph came into Egypt as a Canaanite slave and was transformed into a member of the Egyptian hierarchy. Prince Moses was an Egyptian through and through.

The time for the Hebrews to be in Egypt is generally agreed upon as about 400 years. Much of this is accounted for in the statement that Solomon’s building of the Temple is placed at 480 years after the entry into The Land. But the time from Joseph’s clan coming to Egypt and living in Goshen at Pharaohs’ invitation to the time when they become a second class citizenry under the Pharaoh who “knew not Joseph” is less accurate. From a welcome group of people who put their herdsmen skills to work for Egypt to a people with enforced limits on their previous status under a form of apartheid seems to be about 230 years. How intact did the Patriarchal system remain. How many Egyptian idols were welcomed into the worship and sacrifice of the clans and tribes as in the time of Jacob. How Egyptian did the Hebrews become?

Scott’s Moses seems to be a warrior prince in the trailer. Movie trailers are a work of the editors’ art. They do not follow the order of the film’s narrative, they are out of context and intended to excite the potential audience into paying for tickets and expensive popcorn. The most spectacular scenes are arranged into a 2 minute visual experience that has its own fans and domain. This film is no exception.

There are several bones to pick here though. Moses is seen as a warrior with armor that is very un-Egyptian for that period. At least no artifacts seem to support it. There has been a trend in the latest movies to impose a sort of martial arts swordsmanship on some films. In the successful series “The Bible”, Gabriel is a martial arts warrior with dual swords in crossover scabbards, this has been seen in such varied films as King Arthur and the Spartacus TV series (anachronism at its best). Moses’ armor is imaginative since most of the wall reliefs and testimonies of successful Pharaohs show a lighter type of armor, and only Pharaoh wears a war crown-helmet. Egyptian foot soldiers and even charioteers wore light armor if any at all. Kung-fu seems to be intruding into many films.

The Bible says that sister Maryam saw to the infant Moses’ safety as he was committed to the Nile and found by Pharaoh’s daughter (at least one of the many, since the Pharaohs were prolific fathers; Ramses had 57 sons).
She managed to invite Pharaoh’s daughter to employ Moses’ own mother to nurse the foundling. Here we can see where the hand of G-d is involved. Although Moses will be raised in the palace and educated as an Egyptian, he will receive the traditional oral knowledge of the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob from one who lived within it. It is interesting to think about how the concepts of Egyptian polytheism and the covenants of one G-d were understood by the young Moses. The realization that he was a Hebrew definitely overwhelmed any cultural sense of being a privileged Egyptian prince since Moses attacked and killed an Egyptian overseer and was threatened with exposure for the deed by two Hebrews. Moses flees to avoid being judged. He goes into an area distant from Egyptian control and undergoes another experience of faith. Moses was apparently not married in Egypt, the Bible is silent about most of this period prior to Sinai. If you calculate that Moses was 120 when he died on Mt. Nebo, 80 when he led the Israelites out of Egypt, and around 40 when he fled, it seems unusual that he left behind no family.

Moses rescues the shepherdess daughters of Jethro, a priest of Midian who is not a Hebrew. Moses encounters another challenge and event of realization which lead up to the encounter with YHWH. Perhaps this is the event that has been the focus of the previous 80 years. Moses is no longer an Egyptian and is now the Prophet who speaks for and meets with G-d. After the encounter with the burning bush, Moses no longer retains any connection with the gods of Egypt with whom he interacted as a prince, he also no longer acknowledges Jethro as priest. Jethro has no sons, the birthright would go to his son in law, Moses. Now that son in law would not act as priest but would retain the other duties of a first born. Here the Bible is obviously silent except that Jethro appears to have accepted a place within the multitude that accompanies the liberated Hebrews.

The Ridley Scott film portrays Moses in a different light, focusing on an Egyptian warrior prince. Unlike the recent film Noah, this film deals with a silent period in Moses formative years and can be used to examine the uniqueness of the people of the Mosaic Covenant and how drastic the differences are between that and the Egyptians. The Noah film was criticized heavily because of the liberties it took with the Biblical narrative. Here Ridley Scott has much wider open space in which to work since the years of Moses life from a foundling on the Nile until he flees to his encounter with the Almighty are sparse. Hopefully some valuable insight will result from this Hollywood presentation. There is perhaps more than meets the eye in this movie. A lively discussion of G-d’s sense of timing, that His plans often take decades to fulfill and how we must learn to trust fully and completely in Him is a starting point. More than likely Moses thought after that climb up the mountain to encounter the Almighty, “I’m getting too old for this”. But G-d had different ideas as we know and believe and fully trust in that, don’t we?