10 - Could the Hebrews have been Acquainted...

Could the Hebrews have been Acquainted with a Culture as Technical and Intellectual as is Presented in the Book of Genesis and the Rest of the Books of the Pentateuch?

Even if animal husbandry was the ancient basis of the way of life of the forefathers of the Jews, this does not provide sufficient grounds for calling the Jews a herding, wandering tribe, or nomads who were unacquainted with the interests of a more settled people. The emigration of Jacob and his sons to Egypt in and of itself already acquainted them and their descen­dants with Egyptian culture, especially while they enjoyed freedom and even concessions. The elevation of Joseph to his influential position in Egypt put him personally, and perhaps the Jewish people closest to him, on the same level as educated Egyptians. The interest of the Egyptians in their past, which we know of, even then served as an example to the emi­grants to Egypt, and provided them with the possibility of returning to memories of both their near and distant past, of life in Palestine, and of trying to preserve those memories for their descendants. Such memories could have been put into writing in part even before Moses’ time. One cannot presume that Moses, the leader of Israel, limited himself to leading his people out of Egypt, and then left them to the mercy of fate thereafter. Can one permit the presupposition that he did not elaborate some sort of political plan for his people; that he did not give any thought to what might await them in the future; that he did not outline those means that would be necessary to unify his people, nationally and reli­giously? This would not have been difficult for him to accomplish, because a) he had a complete understanding of Egyptian culture; otherwise he would not have won the trust of the people; b) in compiling special laws for Israel, he had before him a parallel in the laws, customs, and methods of influence of the Egyptian state upon his people which he discarded in some instances, and in others used as ready examples. He could not have done otherwise. Living in the desert with his father-in-law Jethro, Moses was wholly immersed, mind and heart, in the plan with which God inspired him, and which, according to human reasoning, was extremely uncertain. When it was necessary to overcome by the strength of his spir­it and the strength of his faith both the stubbornness of Pharaoh and of his own people, he had to consider everything which would be necessary in the future for his people’s homeless wandering, and then for the Hebrew nation, the territory of which would have to be paid for with their own blood. Yet, it was difficult for him to foresee how the life of the nation would be established on that territory. The Hebrew people, while despis­ing the Egyptians as their oppressors, nevertheless observed and assimilat­ed their customs; they saw the Egyptian religious cult, the multiplicity of their priests, temples, and sacrifices, and because of this, in their exodus from Egypt, they zealously applied themselves to the formation of their own national-religious cult. “Criticism” considers the Pentateuch a late work, and thus, Moses, “magnified” and “glorified” with the passage of time; i.e., invested it with an exaggerated greatness and glory. But the writings of Moses do not pre­sent such an image; they do not hide his failings, his moments of near despair, the fact that he did not expect the wandering to be so very long; neither do they hide his physical defects, his being a man “slow of speech and a stammerer,” as the church hymn puts it. Was it necessary to wait 800 or 1000 years after Moses to compile all the particulars of the precepts and directions and the minutest details of the journey, going so far as not to forget the decree that each participant in the exodus was to take his own little shovel along for his personal hygienic needs? Arising out of the customs of antiquity, when education and, specifi­cally, the keeping of chronicles were to be found in the hands of those serving religion, it is natural to think that it was established as the duty of Aaron, the brother of Moses, as the high priest, and his sons as the first priests, both to keep the chronicles of events, and also to make a record of laws and orders promulgated by Moses during the forty years of wander­ing. One need not understand the authorship of the Mosaic books as a record from his own hand. Side by side with his personal manuscript his dictation to scribes had its place. As for current events, they were more likely to have been recorded in response to directions or assignments given to trusted persons to carry out. The birth of Moses and his upbring­ing at Pharaoh’s court were most likely to have been described to his brother. The record of Moses’ deathbed instructions and the description of his repose must have become the moral obligation of Joshua, whom Moses had chosen as the leader of the people after him. Thus do the exegetes also depict this labor. For a leader of the people, such as Moses remained to the last days of his life, the most difficult task was that of com­piling the first book, Genesis, and it could have been carried out only sporadically, just as a feast day falls among regular days. Thereafter, repetition could have appeared, and at times, certain discrepancies could have begun to creep into the records.