Talk:Moses

Possible addition to the 'Film' subject + addition of a Theatre subject

I was wondering, would it be possible to add that the film 'The Prince of Egypt' depicts Moses and the Egyptian Pharaoh as Rameses? It's just so as to make clear that the film is merely an adaptation with artistic license. Also, a musical theatre adaptation of 'The Prince of Egypt' was released in London in 2020, on the West End. Could someone add in that subject, to contribute to the depictions of Moses in popular culture? Thanks! Two Red Engines

The Etymology

While the Wikipedia page gives the Egyptian version of Yehuda's etymology as "mw-zꜣ", this is actually a neat piece of original scholarship. Yehuda and Ulmer (the source) actually propose "mw-š". This section should be revised beyond this issue, but nevertheless it is inappropriate to allow such a misattribution to stand.

Logic behind the alleged debate after the Exile

'Isaiah, written during the Exile (i.e., in the first half of the sixth century BCE), testifies to tension between the people of Judah and the returning post-Exilic Jews (the "gôlâ"), stating that God is the father of Israel and that Israel's history begins with the Exodus and not with Abraham. The conclusion to be inferred from this and similar evidence (e.g., the Book of Ezra and the Book of Nehemiah) is that the figure of Moses and the story of the Exodus must have been preeminent among the people of Judah at the time of the Exile and after, serving to support their claims to the land in opposition to those of the returning exiles.'

The logic needs to be explained more clearly, using the cited source. Why would the statements that 'God is the father of Israel and that Israel's history begins with the Exodus and not with Abraham' be evidence of tension between the people of Judah and the returning exiles? The first claim seems, if interpreted metaphorically, uncontroversial; the second one may be controversial, but what indicates that it was a subject of disagreement precisely between the people of Judah and the returning exiles? Why would the people of Judah identify with Moses more than the returning exiles? The returning exiles must have derived their lineage from the people who followed Moses just as much as the people of Judah. If anything, the recent history of the exiles would seem to have more parallels with the story of Moses and thus to receive more legitimacy from that story. 62.73.72.3 (talk) 21:54, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

We do not make the call, mainstream Bible scholars make the call. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:18, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

That doesn't mean we can't state the scholars' reasoning more clearly than we currently do. That source (Ska 2009, starting on p. 43 and continuing to the cited p. 44) says "Ezek. 33:23–29 clearly contrasts two antithetic ideas on the 'right to the land': the fact of being a descendant of Abraham and observance of the Torah. For our purposes it is important to see that the figure of Abraham is appealed to by those who stayed in the country after the deportation to Babylonia, while the exiles refer to the Torah and consequently to a conditional promise.'" A. Parrot (talk) 07:08, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I've tried to rewrite the text in a clearer way. And 62.73.72.3 has a point. Ska says the exiles emphasized Moses, the Exodus and the Torah over Abraham, whereas the people who had stayed in Judea focused on Abraham. But whoever wrote the original article text misunderstood Ska and got it exactly backwards. A. Parrot (talk) 17:23, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Religious propaganda

@VenusFeuerFalle and Mikewem: I don't understand the difference between the two versions. VVF's reason would be right, but I don't understand why it would apply. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:43, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Its basically an attempt to give Moses more historicity as he can account for. Moses is not a historical figure and writing the encyclopedic text as if "Moses as historical person" and "Moses as mythological figure" are equally weighting opinions is just religious bias. Especially given, as I have explicated in my edit summary, the authors do not even support the claim they way it was writte on the article. The editor basically cherry picked whatever quote was suitable to push a "dispute about Moses' historicity" which simply does not exist. And if I come off as soemone who just wants this discussion to be over, it is because it is very time-consuming to check citation by citation just to find out that they do not even support the claim. This is a general issue with religion-related articles, not limited to this one. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 19:48, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Really all I would say is that I find VVF’s reasonings to be hard to decipher and sometimes contradictory, and that I may be struggling with the quality of this user’s English. But that’s a me problem.

I definitely don’t understand the reinsertion of the word “actually”. VVF was the one who removed it, their given reason was it gave an unencyclopedic tone. I agree that the way the word “actually” is used here is too informal, I support its removal, and I hope it’s just some miscommunication that led to its reinsertion. Mikewem (talk) 20:57, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

I guess I also have to say that this response from VVF doesn’t appear to address in any way the content or the edit that tgeorgescu brought up with this thread, at least by my understanding.

This appears to me to be a question of whether or not reliable sources report that Moses and the law that Moses received are mentioned in both the Bible and the Quran. My understanding is that reliable sources do report that Moses and Mosaic law are mentioned in both the Bible and the Quran

Mikewem (talk) 21:05, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Maybe the problem is we’re all talking about different things but think we’re talking about the same thing. I’m talking about the most recent edit to the article [1] whose edit summary accuses me of restoring a “serious violation of Wikipedia guidelines”.

VFF’s most recent edit summary and their response in this thread appear to solely be addressing this edit [2] and my reversion of it here. But they did not re-remove this line and source about historicity. Maybe that’s what they intended to do? Mikewem (talk) 21:30, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

thats because the Mosaic Law is a technical term referring to Rabbinic Jewish beliefs. We need to discern facts from fiction, and there is no "Mosaic Law" outside of religious beliefs. There is no "Mosaic Law" in the Quran, and no "Mosaic Law" in the Christian Bible. The "Mosaic Law" is an afterthought in Rabbinic Judaism and post-hoc construction of Jewish pseudo-history. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 22:08, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

P.S: which I all explaiend in the edit summary btw. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 22:08, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Here once more, so discussion remains ordered. This is where we discussed the edit about Mosaic Law, the other one is about your claim that the author proposed a historical truth about the Biblical Moses. This one is abuot the definition of the Mosaic Law.

Here everyone can read the definition according to a Dr. in ancient history: The Mosaic Law, foundational to the Jewish religion, is a comprehensive body of laws, commandments, and instructions that, according to Jewish belief, were given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai.

This extensive legal and ethical code is primarily documented in the Torah or Pentateuch. The law serves not only as a spiritual cornerstone but also as a guide for the moral, social, and religious life of the Jewish people.

It delineates the covenant between God and the Israelites thus setting forth the terms of their relationship and the behaviors expected of God's chosen people.

To grasp the historical context and significance of the Mosaic Law, one must consider a pivotal belief in Judaism: the covenant between God and the Jewish people, established through Moses at Mount Sinai.

Sure, Muslims and Christians also believe that there was a guy named Moses/Musa/Moshe (or whatever) who received an instruction, but this is not the Mosaic Law. For example, Muslims (Tafsir Baydawi is my reference here) states taht the convenant was Tawhid i.e. to lose perception of everything but God inclusing the self. This is typically Islamic, and definately not something any Jew would consider Mosaic Law. If you think the Mosaic Law is the Ten Commandments or something, you are using a Christian point of view, which also violates the neutral viewpoint policy of Wikipedia. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 22:48, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

I'm also somewhat confused. I think VFF probably reverted the wrong edit. I can't see how the issue of whether Moses and his law is mentioned in the Quran has any bearing on his historicity.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:36, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Yikes. The more I look into this, the worse it gets. Assuming that we are talking about this edit with its edit summary:

This quote was absolutely taken out of context. The author makes clear that nothing of teh Torah is attributable to the historical Moses (if he exists). To say that the guy this article is about is the same as the potentially real historical person, is twisting the meaning and misleading the readers.

then I’m really starting to struggle with maintaining the warm and fuzzies here.

Pg 44 of the source in question is available on the Google preview. The authors say a lot of things on pg 44, including that Moses was “in all likelihood a historical figure”, but they do not say that Moses wrote none of the Torah. This kind of rises to a big deal to me now that I know what words are present in the source and have compared that to VFF’s analysis of what words they claim are present in the source. Mikewem (talk) 21:55, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes, they say there is a historical truth to it, but nowhere nearby the (Biblica) Moses we talk about in this article. This is also exactly what I said in my edit summary, so do not twist anything I said and read carefully the context rather than playing the "shocked" person. Putting the statements out of the context and twisting the author's words is exactly the issue here. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 22:06, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

This is another false account of what the authors say on page 44. I’m troubled by your responses here, it seems like you may possibly hold a fringe view on what the definition of “Mosaic law” is. I’ll leave it to others to chew over and check back tomorrow. Mikewem (talk) 22:20, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Instead of attacking me, you could also just provide evidence for your own position as per change? Honestly, the way you talk down here and misconstruct my arguments gives me trouble adhering to the good faith policy here. I will also probably be offline in about an hour. I want to be transparent about it, cause I expect all users to have the decency to not settle a dispute in the absense of another user and want to give a fair chance to everyone. I may not be present for a while after I go offline. So please make sure you deliver good points and not beat around the bush. sincerly yours VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 22:41, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

So we are all in the same boat. Here the very first Google result: "The Mosaic Law, foundational to the Jewish religion, is a comprehensive body of laws, commandments, and instructions that, according to Jewish belief, were given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai" There is nothing about Christian law (who believe that the Mosaic Law was abolished anyways) and nothing about Islam at all. The author is Marko Marina - a historian with a Ph.D. in ancient history. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 22:43, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Schmid and Schröter say "It is also impossible to historically attribute certain parts of the Torah to Moses. Moses was in all likelihood a historical figure, but during his supposed lifetime there was no such language as Hebrew, whose alphabetic script first developed from Phoenician. In addition, literary and historical analysis of the Torah has demonstrated beyond doubt that its texts come from the first millennium BCE, not the second. That means that the production of biblical literature could not have begun during the pre-state era of Israel and Judah. Nonetheless, it is highly likely that extensive oral transmission of proverbs, stories, and songs took place during this period, and that these may well have found their way into the Bible in one form or another." So the idea that the Torah, or even large portions of it, go back to Moses is not historically supported, and VFF is correct on that point.

What I have a harder time with is VFF's objection to the term "Mosaic Law". The text was not historically written by Moses, but the idea that it was written by him is a foundational belief in both Judaism and Christianity and became so centuries before the rise of Rabbinic Judaism. Christians considered the law to have been superseded by Jesus, but one of the beliefs at the core of Christian orthodoxy was that the Mosaic Law was once legitimate and a forerunner to the superior revelation that Jesus represented. That's why Christian Bibles include the Old Testament at all. I know nothing about the position of the term in Islam, and we shouldn't say Islam believes in the Mosaic Law if it doesn't, but to say that it's an exclusively rabbinic belief is a mischaracterization. A. Parrot (talk) 00:08, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

In this very article, we have Moses#Islam. The first paragraph says Like Muhammad, Moses is defined in the Quran as both prophet (nabi) and messenger (rasul), the latter term indicating that he was one of those prophets who brought a book and law to his people.

I have no reason to doubt the two refs for that sentence. I assume this sentence is the body support for the lead sentence that VFF has questioned. My understanding is that VFF does not consider ‘a prophet named Moses bringing a book and law to his people’ to be synonymous with ‘Mosaic law’, which I am prepared to characterize as being a fringe consideration. Mikewem (talk) 00:34, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

The Moses of the Quran, like most Biblical figures, derive from Midrashim such as Genesis Rabba or the Babylonian Talmud. They are unrelated to the Bible itself. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 15:24, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

And, does the Schmid source support the claim that Moses wrote every word of the Torah. Well no, it doesn’t. But our article never claims that any scholar believes that a historical Moses personally wrote every word of the Torah, so we don’t need to support that claim, and I would characterize that whole line of discussion as unhelpful and off-topic. Mikewem (talk) 00:40, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes, the article suggests that Moses is a historical figure.

And here, the article says it (that Moses is a historical figure) explicitly: "Some scholars, such as Konrad Schmid and Jens Schröter, consider Moses a historical figure." What is your response to this?

"does the Schmid source support the claim that Moses wrote every word of the Torah." this is nothing we discuss here. Please stay on the rails, so we can get this over quickly. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 17:43, 4 October 2025 (UTC) edit: the issue is still that passages of the article are written from the perspective of within the religious text. To say that Moses might be a historical figure is bringing undue weight to the overall consensus that Moses is not. Here is also a scholar on the Bible about the historicity of Biblical figures in case an audio-format helps more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMa9k40bFVo. And citing a source which clarifies that the Biblical figure of Moses is historical, while Moses might go back to a historical figure, in order to present a dispute between scholars, is misleading. These are the issues at hand, plese respond to them accordingly.--VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 18:04, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

"Christian orthodoxy was that the Mosaic Law was once legitimate and a forerunner to the superior revelation that Jesus represented. That's why Christian Bibles include the Old Testament at all. I know nothing about the position of the term in Islam, and we shouldn't say Islam believes in the Mosaic Law if it doesn't, but to say that it's an exclusively rabbinic belief is a mischaracterization."

Okay I did not know that. From what I know is that it is a specific set of law within Jewish tradition. I know, from the article I posted, that Christianity mostly refers to the Mosaic Law as something it abolishes. However, if it is still a prevailing concept, Christianity should also be included. I want to fix that in a few minutes. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 15:26, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Frankly, the two versions ostensibly say the same thing. So, I don't understand what is being disputed. tgeorgescu (talk) 11:09, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

The dispute is whether we can say the Quran talks about Moses bringing the law, I think. I’m generally in agreement with Mikewem that it does, but perhaps we can change the term “Mosaic law” to something else?—-Ermenrich (talk) 12:58, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Per our article on it, we could call it the Law of Moses, but that form would be cumbersome in our sentence, and there’s no difference between the two forms. I do see that VFF has also recently made big changes to that article, including this edit where they fully deleted the Christianity and Islam sections. Mikewem (talk) 14:33, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Which "law" exactly? Because it is hardly mentioned that of the Bible. Early Muslims did not even knew about the Bible, they mistook the Talmud and Midrashim for the Torah. There is no continuity between the Bible and the Quran. One of the reasons why I think presenting the elad section as such is misleading. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 17:32, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

It might be possible that the dispute is over the meaning of the word “in” in which he wrote down in the five books of the Torah. The Torah contains laws and stories. There is Mosaic Law in the Torah, but the Torah is not 100% composed of Mosaic Law. For example, there is 0 Mosaic law in the first book, Genesis, it’s just stories. I think there’s also a dispute over the definition of the word “Bible”. I have no problem with the previous, stable version of the sentence, but maybe it would be less contentious (and more inclusive of Druze, Bahai, etc) to change it to According to all Abrahamic scriptures, God dictated the Mosaic Law to Moses, which he wrote down as part of the Torah. Mikewem (talk) 15:18, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

This is impossible since the "Torah" was not even known by early Muslims. They errorneously believed the Talmud was the Torah as seen in the Quran mistaking that "whoever kills an unnocent person is as if he had killed entire humanity" is considered to be aprt of Jewish revelation, while it is a Talmudic phrase. Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers is also unknown. Muslims only include parts of Genesis and Exodus, which, as you said correctly, are barely about law. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 15:28, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: I want to clarify that I changed because I assumed it is clear that the source does not say what it cites. As such an imemdiate edit is recommanded. However, given that there is some dispute about it, I want to wait until there is a consensus reached. Given that @Mikewem: reponses, because for now, it seems that they just stays silence on that matter. Over a week past (as mentioned I lacked the time to login) and there is still no response calrifying why Moses is a historical figure.--VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 17:35, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

What exactly are you referring to with that last remark? The issue of the Tawrat or the Torah? How does it relate to whether Moses is a historical figure?—-Ermenrich (talk) 00:16, 5 October 2025 (UTC)