How were the birth and childhood of Moses unique and how did they prepare him for the special task God had in mind?

Answer 1

A:The story of Moses is absolutely central to Judaism. Moses spoke to God and followed his commands. He led the people out of Egypt and witnessed many miracles in the wilderness. Exodus 2:3-10 says that because the Pharaoh had ordered all the Hebrew infant boys to be killed, Moses' mother hid him until he was three months old, then placed him in an ark of bulrushes and laid it at the river's edge.The daughter of the Pharaoh came by and saw Moses and realised that he was a Hebrew baby, but had compassion on him. She asked Moses' sister, who stood nearby, to find a nurse to look after the baby, and she would pay wages for doing so. Moses' sister got their own mother to look after the baby Moses and be paid for doing so. Afterwards, Moses was returned to the king's daughter and was brought up in the royal family. Thus, Moses grew up in the royal court as part of a deception.

However, the birth and childhood of Moses were far from unique, as he was not the only mythical child to be placed in a reed boat and set adrift in a river to be discovered by another woman. A Neo-Assyrian text from the 7th century BCE describes the birth and early childhood of King Sargon of Assyria, who reigned over one thousand years earlier:

"My mother was a changeling, my father I knew not. The brothers of my father loved the hills. My city is Azupiranu, which is situated on the banks of the Euphrates. My changeling mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast me into the river which rose over me. The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me. Akki, the drawer of water, appointed me as his gardener. While I was a gardener, Ishtar granted me her love, and for four and […] years I exercised kingship."

The Hindu birth legend of Karna is remarkably similar to those of Sargon the Great and Moses. The baby Karna was set adrift in a reed boat and floated down the river, until he reaches the Camparur by way of the River Ganges. Here Adhiratha or Surasena and his wife Radha found him along the river bank and adopted him as their son. There are similar Greek legends, showing the universality of the myth among the ancients. As for the order to kill all the baby Hebrew boys, we find later that Moses had a brother Aaron, who was just three years older than he. Since the Exodus story reports the marriage of Moses' parents after the report of the order to kill the infants, a straight-forward reading says that Aaron was born after the order was in place. Clearly the references to Aaron are late additions to the Moses story.

Biblical scholars no longer seem to believe that God had any plan in mind for Moses, since over 90 per cent of scholars are reported to believe that there was never an Exodus from Egypt as described in The Bible. Without a biblical Exodus, there was no Moses.