Can we trust Moses?

Few people will deny that the foundations of the Judeo/Christian/Muslim religions are based on the works of Moses, specifically the first five books of the bible, known as the Torah or Pentateuch. In it Moses relates the creation of all things, the fall of man and original sin, the great flood, the Israeli exdous and several laws and commandments. The contents of these books are the cornerstone of the bible. Take away these books and the bible has no meaning for there is no need for redemption. It is apparent that the validity of this work must be without question if one is to believe the rest of the bible.Moses didn’t witness the creation of the universe, original sin, the flood or Abraham’s covenant. In fact Moses didn’t witness approx. 90% of the chronology he writes about (including his own death). Moses states that the Lord spoke to him and that he wrote it all down. He also writes that he communicated with God directly on mount Sinai and via burning bushes. This would make him the only author in the Bible to have done so. So how do we know that God talked to Moses and how do we know that Moses was telling the truth?I’m sure some will say that we just need to have faith in Moses. Well, taking Moses at his word is like taking Darwin at his word. No one took Darwin at his word. It was his words backed by evidence that convinced people. No other authors witnessed God talking to Moses. No other authors claimed to have talked to God. Yet if we want to believe the rest of the bible we have to rely that Moses was telling the truth when he says that God told him all of this. This is a lot of trust to place in one man, one man upon whom the whole bible hinges.It is possible that Moses wasn’t lying but still didn’t tell the truth. Some have gone so far as to point out that Moses may have been mentally ill. This is certainly possible as ancient people suffered from mental illnesses just as we suffer from them today. In which case Moses could have been suffering from delusions. He was the only author to talk to God directly after all.And yes there are several schools of thought that attribute the works of Moses to several authors but it is the fundamentalists who claim single authorship. It is to them that I ask: How can you place such trust in one man?

Hi,I think it gets more difficult to trust in Moses when so many of his words have been disproven as well. I could see the point if everything this man recorded was reliable but in the torah I'd guess that more than half of its contents have been disproven.I am going on the premise that Moses did write the torah of course, personally I think Moses didn't exist.Brian

Brian,I can understand not believing that Moses was a prophet, but why wouldn't you think there wasn't a Jewish political leader named Moses around the time of the Jewish slavery in Egypt?I don't mean that as a question of faith or anything, I'm just honestly wondering if there's historical evidence against it.[This message has been edited by Dan Carroll, 09-05-2003]

Hi Dan,Well a few things cast doubt on this for me.Firstly there is no evidence that the Jews were ever enslaved in Egypt.Second, the accounts we have that claim this are contradictory.Thirdly, the supernatural explanations for certain events casts even more doubts on these stories.Fourthly, Moses isnt even a real name, it is only part of a name, like the 'mac' part in scottish names, a 'son of', it needs a prefixed 'surname'.This is very superficial summary of course, but there is overwhelming 'negative' evidence against almost everything 'historical' that is associated with Egypt in the Torah. Some place names are accurate, some names, Phineas for example are Egyptian, but thats about it.The archaeologist James Weinstein sums it up perfectly when he says 'were it not for the Bible, anyone looking at the Palestinian archaeological data today would conclude that whatever the origin of the Israelites, it was not Egypt.' Archaeological Reality p.98, in Exodus the Egyptian Evidence. Eisenbrauns, Indiana 1997.Brian.

Interesting. I'll have to read up on that. Thanks for the info.

Well, while talking about Moses, Exodus etc. - can I invite everybody to my post here:http://EvC Forum: Is Akhenaton the founder of monotheism? -->EvC Forum: Is Akhenaton the founder of monotheism?I hate advertising for my own post, but I really need some feedback from everybody who will be so kind and tell me his opinion about my story. I know it is poorly written because my English is not good enough for writing stories, but I would like to know what you think about it as a "hypothesis". This story (in Czech, so it will be - I hope - written more skillfully) is supposed to be a part of larger work of mine. It will be fiction, so I need not to care about bulletproof facts too much, but I do not want to write complete bullshit either. So your help will be highly appreciated.------------------
Life has no meaning but itself.

Hi Dan,I posted a fairly detailed outline Here I have a fairly extensive collection of books, archaeological and theological, on this subject. If I can assist in any way just let me know.Brian

Hi Raha,Just to let you know that I am still assessing your text. So far i can see where it is coming from and where it is going. I think on a level of a sort of 'period drame' it makes sensible reading. However, I think some pretty big problems would arise if you decided that you wanted to give it an historical authenticity.Brian.

I agree with you that there probably wasn't a Moses. The evidence for multiple authorship and borrowed mythology is pretty good. The sheer absurdity of some of the events aside, I was working on the premise that if the author was one man then there is a lot of faith place on his honesty by certain religions. If I was going to devote my life to a particular religion I would want to make damn sure that it was the real thing. If you can’t be absolutely certain that God really did dictate everything to Moses then what the hell is Christianity/Judaism/Muslimism based on? Good wishes? Some of us need more than that.

1. Moses does have an explanation for the origin of all the languages. It would seem that evolution would begin with one person emerging, somehow an opposite sex emerging in exactly such a fashion as to effect reproduction and after that, logically one language of communication.2. There is, in the area of the sojourn of Moses and his people, a mountain which has it's stone top totally burn charred, but no sign of volcanic activity. In the same area is evidence of a stream of water below a crack in the stone. This all would seem to be supportive of the Biblical record of the burnt mountain and the striking of the stone by the rod by Moses to bring forth water for the nation in the wilderness.3. Cultures and nations which revere and follow the Ten Commandments have been the nations which seem to enjoy the blessings effected by their teaching.

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1. Moses does have an explanation for the origin of all the languages. It would seem that evolution would begin with one person emerging, somehow an opposite sex emerging in exactly such a fashion as to effect reproduction and after that, logically one language of communication.

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Your suppositions about evolution of language are extraneous ideas. Moses' explanation for the origin of languages is interesting but you do nothing to support it here.

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2. There is, in the area of the sojourn of Moses and his people, a mountain which has it's stone top totally burn charred, but no sign of volcanic activity. In the same area is evidence of a stream of water below a crack in the stone. This all would seem to be supportive of the Biblical record of the burnt mountain and the striking of the stone by the rod by Moses to bring forth water for the nation in the wilderness.

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Whoa. WHOA!!!Try offering some documentation. These would seem to be very dramatic claims, but you state them so matter-of-factly and so free of actual supportive evidence that it's hard to take them seriously. Where did you get this information and where is the original documentation of the research that discovered it?

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3. Cultures and nations which revere and follow the Ten Commandments have been the nations which seem to enjoy the blessings effected by their teaching.

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We devoted an entire thread to beating that horse to death. Now you reintroduce your assertion without qualification once more. Are you sure that's a good idea? If it's not ignored, it will send the thread violently off topic.

Buzz you really need to give Ron Wyatt's site a wide berth, the man was mentally ill.Read some real archaeology, something by William Albright, William Dever, Thomas Thompson, Nelson Glueck, James Weinstein, anyone really except Wyatt, he wasnt an archaeologist and had no idea how archaeology works.Brian.[This message has been edited by Brian, 09-06-2003]

Shouldn't you change your alias to Old Saw? Or Hack Saw?------------------
"I was very unwilling to give up my belief." Charles Darwin