The Story of Moses Repeats Ancient Story-Telling Themes



When the Bible is treated as merely another example of ancient literature, its role as a religious document evaporates. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people now make their living studying and writing about the Bible as merely an ancient tale. This reenforces the view of people like me that Christianity ultimately will be buried in the sands of time.

A good example of a critical review is this one about the tale of Moses. The story of Moses fits well among the other ancient stories of heroes. The ancient hero returns home. He is met with opposition and danger. After experiencing this and that danger he prevails. Happy ending. 

While these stories are similar, they are not all identical. It's like authors wanted to apply the same hero story to their hero but it needed a little revision to fit the audience of message the writer was trying to reach. Mose's hero story had such a adjustment.

The creators of the Moses tale wanted the ultimate hero to be the "people of Israel" instead of simply Moses. So, they altered somewhat the often-repeated pattern of hero stories.

Among the many stories of fugitives who returned home to fight against the enemies and win, all back in BCE times, were Sinuhe the Egyptian, Idrimi the Syrian, Hattushili III the Hittite, Esarhaddon, King of Assyria and Nabonidas, King of Babylon. It's often said on business sites the Disney cartoon movie plots are all the same and the company needs to come up with something new and refreshing. From Disney's view if the same story plot continues to sell movie tickets why change it? The story of Moses was a plot that sold. Smart men were those ancient writers.

Someone on Face Book recently said the desert where Moses and the Israelites "wondered for 40 years" doesn't have a source of food. No worry, God dropped bread every day for 40 years. 

The other strange part of the tale is that the Sinia where Moses and the Israelites "wondered for 40 years" is not a huge place. One can walk across it in eleven days. Maybe it was so cloudy all those 40 years and Moses did not know which direction the sun came up or set. 

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