Moses

Beginning with Mark, the authors of the New Testament gospels sought to draw parallels between Moses and Jesus. Matthew is the best example of this literary technique, especially in its nativity story:

• Matthew's genealogy says that Jacob was the father of Joseph, just as in the Old Testament - compare Luke, which says that Heli was the father of Joseph.
• Joseph took his family to Egypt, just as the Old Testament Joseph took his family to Egypt.
• Joseph is associated with dreams.
• The evil king slaughtered all the baby boys under two years old, just as the Old Testament pharaoh slaughtered all the baby boys under two years old. Moses and Jesus both escaped the slaughter.
• Jesus left Egypt to return to Israel and save his people, just as Moses had left Egypt to return to Israel and save his people.

Unsurprisingly, Matthew's nativity story has been called "Christian midrash ."

The Torah.

Our tradition is that the Torah was given by God (Exodus 24:12), to provide knowledge, guidance, inspiration, awe and reverence, advice, law, comfort, history and more. It is the basis of Judaism. The Torah is a source of national pride for us (see Deuteronomy 4:6-8). It increases our reverence towards God; crystallizes, strengthens and codifies our beliefs; ensures our awareness and knowledge of our history; and provides powerful impetus to be ethical.
It makes us stand in awe of God, while also providing optimism and comfort through the prophecies of redemption. It inspires us to strive for holiness and informs us how to pray and to approach God's presence. To the wider world, the Torah provided the traditions of Monotheism and the Ten Commandments.
The Torah is egalitarian and values all individuals, both men and women. The wealthy have no privileges; and the poor are valued, treated well and their opinions listened to. (Compare this to those societies in which only mature, land-owning males had any legal status.)
Judaism applied laws, and rules of moral behavior, to all its members equally. The laws of Moses form much of Western legal background.
Quote:
"I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation ... fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations" (John Adams, 2nd President of the United States).
"Certainly, the world without the Jews would have been a radically different place. Humanity might have eventually stumbled upon all the Jewish insights, but we cannot be sure. All the great conceptual discoveries of the human intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they had been revealed, but it requires a special genius to formulate them for the first time. The Jews had this gift. To them we owe the idea of equality before the law, both Divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of human person; of the individual conscience and of collective conscience, and social responsibility" (Paul Johnson, Christian historian, author of A History of the Jews and A History of Christianity).

Moses was a great leader of the Israelites. The Torah tells how Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and gave them God's laws and teachings to live by.

The Exodus from Egypt By the time of Moses, in the 1300s B.C.E., a large group of Abraham's descendants were living in Egypt. There, the Torah says, the Israelites "increased in number and became very powerful." Fearful of their growing strength, the pharaoh forced them into slavery. According to the Torah, God told Moses, "I will send you to the pharaoh, and you shall free my people."

Moses went before the pharaoh, the Torah continues, and told him to let the Israelites go free. When the pharaoh refused, God punished Egypt with ten terrible plagues. Finally, the pharaoh gave in. Moses began to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

According to the Torah, the pharaoh soon changed his mind. The Egyptian army chased after the Israelites and nearly caught up with them at the edge of the Sea of Reeds. But Moses raised his staff (walking stick), says the Torah, and the waters of the sea parted.The Israelites crossed safely to the other side. When the Egyptians tried to follow, the waters flooded over the army, drowning the soldiers. The Israelites escaped.

The Torah calls the flight from Egypt to freedom the Exodus, which means "departure."The Exodus became a central event in the history of the Jewish people.This map shows Moses' possible route in the Exodus from Egypt. Find where the Torah says he received the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments As it is told in the Torah, after the Israelites left Egypt, they traveled through a wilderness for 40 years. During this time, God gave Moses the laws and teachings that became the foundation of Judaism. Some of these laws are called the Ten Commandments.

The Torah says that Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, the "Mountain of God." Alone, Moses had gone up the mountain to pray. He returned carrying two tablets of stone. Engraved on the tablets were the Ten Commandments.

Some of the commandments listed the Israelites' duties to God. For example, one commandment was, "You shall have no other gods besides me." This commandment reminded the Israelites of their promise to worship only one God. Another commandment told the Israelites to set aside one day a week, the Sabbath, for rest and worship.

Other commandments laid down basic moral teachings (ideas about the right way to live). For example, one said, "You shall honor your father and mother." Other commandments forbade stealing, lying, and murdering.

The Ten Commandments stated some of Judaism's basic teachings. The Torah says that by obeying God's commandments, the Jewish people would fulfill their part of the covenant with him. Their responsibility was to make God's moral teachings known to the world. In turn, God would protect them.

Moses made several key contributions to the development of Judaism. First, he led the Exodus out of Egypt. Jews have celebrated this event ever since to remember the journey from slavery to freedom and as proof that God watched over them. Second, Moses gave Judaism some of its most fundamental laws and teachings, which Jews and Christians call the Ten Commandments. Third, Moses forged the Israelites into a united Jewish people devoted to a single God.

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The answer that you may be looking for is "the Torah," but that is the legacy of God (Exodus 24:12), not just Moses. Moses wrote the Torah (Deuteronomy 31:24), but it was dictated to him by God.

Rather, the chief legacy of Moses himself is: his vast humility (Numbers ch.12), his unsurpassed dedication in leadership (Exodus ch.32) as well as obedience to God, and his deep love for his people. We think of him as a strict, uncompromising leader, but his love for the people was even greater.

Another answer:

Moses gave the world "THE TRUTH OF GOD'S WORD, FINALLY WRITTEN DOWN"... because there was no compilation of God's Word before Moses. Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms, according to Christ, is God's witness, warningand testimony to the end time generations of man, regarding His Good News of man's pending Salvation... and the restoration of God's Government in the world:

"...I told you that EVERYTHING WRITTEN ABOUT ME by Moses and the Prophets and in the Psalms MUST ALL COME TRUE." (Luke 24:44 NLT New Living Translation)

Moses was with the assembly of God people in the wilderness. HE WAS THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL AND THE ANGEL who gave him Life-Giving Words on Mount Sinai to PASS ON TO US." (Acts 7:38 NLT)

The WORLD, however, remains ignorant... unaware... of Moses' legacy to it, to his "words passed on to us." Indeed, very little of the world, population-wise, reads his writings. And, Truth be known, few people who do read it are able to grasp its legacy. For the present time, it's only those with Faith who can SEE CHRIST in Moses', the Prophets' and the Psalms' writings, who can bear witness to its legacy.

"...'If they won't listen to Moses and the Prophets, they won't listen even if someone [like Jesus Christ] rises from the dead.'" (Luke 16:31 NLT)

The WORLD won't truly appreciate the legacy of Moses' writings... until God opens them up in the Judgment and judges the works of all mankind against the "measuring stick" of Moses' legacy:

"...And the books [of the Bible] were opened... And the dead were Judged accorcing to the things written in the books, according to what they had done." (Rev.20:12 NLT)

The WORLD has to wait for Judgment Day to really appreciate Moses' legacy to it.

Answers from site contributors:

• Moses was born in 1593 B.C.E.
• Actually Moses was born in 1393 B.C.E
• Just before the Exodus at the time of the start of the plagues Moses was 80:- Exo 7:7 And Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron was eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh. The Exodus was dated by Bishop Ussher as 1446 BC, which would make it 1566 BC when Moses was born.
• According to Jewish tradition, Moses was born in 1392 BCE.

the red Sea named because it is surrounded by red mountains

Moses is considered the greatest of leaders in Jewish history. Various traditions hold that he also either wrote the Torah or received it from God at Mt. Sinai.

Answer:

Moses was born 245 years after the death of Abraham. Pharaoh had decreed that Israelite boys be killed (Exodus ch.1), but the daughter of Pharaoh took pity on the infant Moses (Exodus ch.2) and raised him as her own son. He was forced to flee after killing a cruel Egyptian taskmaster, and went to Midian, where he wedded the daughter of Jethro. He eventually achieved the highest level of prophecy (Deuteronomy ch.34) and was called upon by God (Exodus ch.3).

The importance of Moses cannot be overstated. He brought the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery (Exodus ch.12). He received the Torah from God (Exodus 24:12) and later recorded it in writing (Deuteronomy 31:24). He went up on Mount Sinai for 40 days and nights (Deuteronomy ch.9-10) and brought down the Two Stone Tablets with the Ten Commandments (Exodus 31:18). He brought the Israelites into the covenant with God (Exodus ch.19 and ch.24), and he oversaw the building of the Tabernacle (Exodus ch.35-40). He was the humblest of men and the greatest of prophets (Numbers ch.12).

Another problem is that the respected Israeli archaeologist, Israel Finkelstein, says that over 90 per cent of scholars believe there never was an Exodus from Egypt as described in the Bible. Without an Exodus, we may have to accept that the Red Sea was never really parted like this. The best explanation is to say that the parting of the Red Sea is a matter of faith and therefore outside the realm of science or history.