The Autobiographical Notes of Moses

It all started when the Rabbi taught a class on Biblical History …

He retold the coolest stories of Genesis and Exodus, compared them with Near Eastern and Greek mythical traditions where good points could be made. The students were hanging on his lips, more interested in his gripping narratives than in his scholarly digressions. And so the course moved swiftly from the creation stories over the Noachian Flood and the Patriarchs to the captivity of the Israelites in Egypt, God’s calling on Moses, the crossing through the Red Sea, and the reception of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.

“So far for today,” the Rabbi paused. “Next week, we’ll continue with Moses and also cover Joshua and the Judges.” Simon, the laziest student, had already run out of the classroom. Joshua, the brightest student, unleashed a big sigh when getting up, murmuring “finally we will transition from the mythical episodes to the early history of Israel with the Prophet Samuel.” Eli , standing besides him, stared at him with an expression of surprise. “Did you not like the class so far. I never heard such an intriguing presentation on Exodus.” “This may well be,” Joshua responded, “but I am more interested in real history rather than folktales.”

Eli responded: “So, you don’t think that the first two books of Moses have something foundational to say about Israel? I mean, I get it that we need not take the seven plagues or the mysterious divide of the Red Sea literally. And there is obviously some lore about the birth of Moses. But look at the figure himself: does he not appear as a man of flesh and blood? So unlike Hercules or Superman. He’s a man who loves and fears and doubts - just like you and me - and then eventually rises to the occasion. And the whole narrative of the people of Israel, is it not really dependent on Moses’ agency? Why should we not rather believe that he was indeed the first historically tangible leader?” “Nonsense,” Joshua retorted: “fact is fact and fiction is fiction. That’s it!”

Ben, who was overhearing the conversation, smiled. “Is it,” he gently intervened. “Ultimately, we cannot know whether there was indeed a man called Moses who opposed the Pharaoh, led the Israelites out of Egypt, gave them divine law, and headed their march through the desert for decades. Many alternative are possible - but it is probably the more difficult assumption that all this old tradition came out of nowhere.” Eli nodded and added, now more directed to Ben than to Joshua: “You know what strikes me most? The loneliness which Moses experienced, at the court, on his flight, but even later when presumably leading his people: there is a sad loneliness hovering over him, albeit one that really explains how he was the one in his time to be open for God’s message.” “Interesting, Eli, very interesting,” Ben responded. “I’ll think about it.” And so he did.

Later in the evening, he turned to preparing his next archaeological campaign in the Negev, browsing through pictures of wide landscapes, archaeological sites, and satellite images to get a clue of where to start his next dig. He did not find the clue that night, and went to bed. Fallen asleep, he woke up in his dirty clothes, sweaty and covered in dust, while picking and digging and shoveling … until his spade hit something hard. He quickly uncovered a bronze chest, whose content would turn out to be the most precious thing he could have ever imagined: not gold or jewelry, but clay tablets with an archaic Canaanite script. He withdrew to the next shady spot and started deciphering, and was delighted when he realized that this was the oldest Hebrew he had ever seen. Letter by letter, word by word, he recovered the most amazing text that proved Eli’s intuition right. No one other than the real Moses was talking here ...