The Historians' History of the World 02

The composition of these works ranges over a long period, extending at any rate from the eighth to the third century B.C.; the upper limit is not certain. It is the task of the critic to extract the passages belonging to the first four of these narrators (or rather sometimes schools of narrators) from the composite works in which they are found, and also to investigate the sources from which they may have been drawn. On the first part of this task much skill has been lavished by a long succession of critics, but the second part is still very far behindhand. And it must regretfully be said that owing to the backward condition of the criticism of the text of the Old Testament, there is some uncertainty in the basis of all constructive treatment of the political and religious history. The scantiness of outside material, which is peculiarly needed as a check on the subjective Hebrew writers, is also no slight hindrance to the formation of thoroughly trustworthy conclusions.

Tradition tells that the founder of the Israelitish nation first saw the light in Egypt, where a number of Hebrew tribes were sojourning. A change in the sentiments of the court towards the Hebrews had brought about a cruel oppression. According to the Elohist (one of the narrators mentioned above, fragments of whose work are preserved in the Pentateuch), Moses, the child of a Hebrew man and woman of a tribe called Levi, was hidden in an “ark of bulrushes” by the Nile, on account of a royal edict that all male children of the Hebrews should be put to death. Pharaoh’s daughter saw the child, had compassion on him, and finally adopted him as her son. This, however, is by no means a contemporary account, and the details would never have been thought of, but for the existence in popular Hebrew tradition of a mythic tale of the setting adrift of a divine or at least heroic infant on water.

The earliest traditions respecting Moses knew nothing of this. They place the cradle of the national existence of the Israelites, and must consequently have placed the cradle of the deliverer Moses, not in Mizraim or Egypt, but in a region of northern Arabia called Mizrim, the border of which on one side adjoined Egypt.

THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT

The whole story of the Exodus from Egypt appears to be due to a confusion between Mizraim and Mizrim—a confusion which is presupposed by what remains of the Yahvist’s and the Elohist’s narratives in their present form, but which was probably not made by these narratives in their original form, and cannot be shown indisputably to have been made by the earliest prophets (Amos ii. 10; iii. 1; v. 25; ix. 7; Hosea ii. 15; viii. 13; ix. 3; xi. 1, 5; xii. 9, 13; xiii. 4).

The residence of Moses in Egypt constitutes, in fact, a considerable difficulty. Had Moses been reared as an Egyptian prince, he would have received an Egyptian name, an Egyptian office and an Egyptian wife. We are told, however, that he married one of the seven daughters of Hobab, the priest of a tribe of Midianites (or Kenites) which dwelt not far from Yahveh’s sacred mountain, Horeb. Her name is Zipporah, and, in accordance with the undoubtedly true theory that the relations of tribes were expressed by the Hebrews under the form of genealogies, we may assume that the seven daughters of Hobab were the tribes occupying seven districts in Arabia, in the neighbourhood of Horeb. Where Horeb or Sinai was, is disputed; it is even doubted whether the Old Testament is entirely consistent with itself on this point. The traditional view, however, which comes down to us from Christian antiquity, that the mountain of the giving of the Law was on the western side of the Sinaitic peninsula, is sufficiently refuted by this one historical fact, that in the days when the Exodus from Egypt (if Egypt was really the temporary abode of the primitive Israelites) may be conceived to have taken place, a portion of the peninsula was occupied by Egyptian officials and miners, and garrisoned by Egyptian troops. The student may well be perplexed by the divergent views as to the situation of Horeb (which in the original tradition was probably a synonym for Sinai), nor can we digress to relieve his perplexity. All that we can say is that, if he accepts our guidance, he will have provisionally to adopt the view (strongly opposed to the later tradition) that Horeb or Sinai was near the sacred town of Kadesh, better known as Kadesh-Barnea, on the northern Arabian border, and also to assume that Zipporah (the name of the traditional wife of Moses) is connected with Zarephath (the vowels of this name are uncertain), a place which Moses (i.e., the Moses-clan) may be supposed to have acquired, either by cession or by conquest.

MOSES PROBABLY A CLAN NAME