The story of the Biblical Moses

Hatshepsut and Moses

A brief background story

Queen Hatshepsut Moses’ adoptive Egyptians Mother

 We all know Moses’ Hebrew mother Jochebed and his famous brother Aaron and Sister Miriam.

Moses’s- Egyptian Adoptive Mother Queen Hatshepsut

Below are the only two Bible passages mentioning Moses’ adoptive Mother.

Exodus 2:2-8 –read the passages of the Bible

Acts 7:20-22 read the passages of the Bible

The adoptive Mother who looked after Moses in Biblical history is not named? According to the Bible her most significant accomplishment was raising a young Hebrew boy that had been ordered by her father to be murdered and providing him with excellent education.

She is mentioned only 5 times in the Bible, interestingly God does not give her a name nor does the writer of the Book of Exodus her adoptive Son Moses.

The infant Moses born approximately 1526 B.C against the backdrop of a horrific historical event in which a powerful Egyptian Pharaoh King attempted to exterminate the Jewish nation which was increasing and would threaten his dynasty simply by their sheer numbers.

Does this sound familiar to another man born nearly 1500 years later when murderous rampage is ordered by King Herod for all male children under 2 years?

According to historical documents who was the Pharaoh daughter when Moses was born.

The ruling 18^th Dynasty of the time she is widely believed by many scholars to be Hatshepsut, the only surviving child of Thutmose 1 (her other two brothers had died) whose reign began approximately in 1526 BC– the year Moses was born.

Hatshepsut began her 22-year reign as Pharoah 14 years after her father coronation around 1512 BC.

She is the reigning Egyptian Pharaoh’s only daughter during the time of Moses. She wanted to be a legitimate heir to her father diminishing power as she witnessed her father ruthlessness as his answer to governing a growing minority and was wiping out vulnerable defenceless innocent children.

For her to be considered heir she either had to have a husband or son unfortunately she had neither.

Political motive to take Moses as her son

She whisks him away to be an orphaned infant boy when she sees him alone on the river.

Moses as she calls him ,for the Ancient Kemet called Water by the name Mo and Uses because he was saved out of it.

She found an adopted heir that can protect her father dynasty and give her legitimate right to rule.

But this was a Hebrew Child sworn enemy of his Father who could be killed if caught rising him- the one who could overthrow her dynasty as scribes foretold.

Pharoah’s daughter took a tremendous risk and brought him back to the palace, the rest is history as she handed the baby Moses to his father arm and the Pharaoh naturally was affected since he had lost his other Sons.

He allowed her to keep and raise Moses as her own baby despite refusal by his advisors.

Hatshepsut and Moses

1. Omar Zuhdi Egyptologist author of Egyptscape, suggested that Hatshepsut daughter of Pharaoh who drew Moses from the water had a temple at Deir el-Bahari in Thebes which contained a sculptured wall-relief (wall relief -is a wall mounted sculpture in which the three dimensional are raised from flat base).
2. The Wall relief depicts Khnum the of fashioning her and her ka out of clay on his potter’s turntable.
3.  Khnum’s consort, Heket, kneels by the potter’s wheel and offers the clay effigy the breath of life, symbolized by the ankh.
4. If Hatshepsut adopted Moses as her son, he would have known about the Khnum since his stepmother’s right to rule depended upon Khnum’s creation of her.

Does the Moses familiarity with Khnum explain the Egyptian imagery found in the Second Genesis 2:4-25 Creation Account??

1. Here, Yahweh-Elohim forms man out of the ground and breathes the breath of life into his nostrils causing the man to become a living being.

It is left for the reader to synthesis and make they own conclusion the discussion is not meant to influence anyone but to act as a hub for learning and understanding.

Whether or not one chooses to accept or ignore facts this is intended for the readers to understand the accounts of history and its relation to the Bible story of creation.

Is the two Creation Stories in Genesis was by design to refute the two Egyptian Creation Traditions

1. Is the presence of two creation stories in Genesis may result from the need of the Hebrews to refute the two Egyptian creation traditions, namely, the tradition of how the cosmos came into being, and the tradition of how humans and animals came into being.
2. One creation story would not suffice to argue against the views in Egypt since the Egyptians saw the creation of the universe and the creation of humans in two distinct ways, namely, creation by divine word, and creation by forming.
3.  To sufficiently argue against both, two creation accounts were needed.

Genesis 1:1-2:3

1.  Portrays Yahweh God as creating the cosmos by his spoken word. Although the creation of man and woman becomes God’s crowning achievement in his creation week, the specifics of how he made them receives little mention other than their creation as the image of God.
2. For a more detailed account of man and woman’s creation, the reader must consult the second Genesis creation account.

Genesis 2:4-25

1. Shows Yahweh-God creating man and animals from the earth.
2.  Yahweh-God forms man out of the earth and breathes into him the “breath of life.”

Through the two creation accounts, Yahweh-God is shown to be superior to the gods of Egypt.

He creates by divine word yet remains transcendent.

Unlike Ptah, he does not have to embody the creation to command it, neither does he require assistance from another god or demiurge.

He simply speaks and/or acts, and the creation is completed. He also creates by forming man out of the earth.

Unlike Khnum, he does not require the aid of a consort. He creates the man and breathes life into him.

Thus, through the two creation accounts, Yahweh-God demonstrates his ability to perform all the creative acts of the Egyptian gods.

Was the Genesis creation account a direct borrowing of Egyptian beliefs and deliberately written to refute the Egyptian creation mythology?

1.  Evidence suggest or shows the Author of Genesis Old Testament Moses possessed a tremendous knowledge of Ancient Egyptian belief system the parallels are too close to call.
2. The author the Genesis creation share certain concepts of creation worldwide with other ancient cultures like the Babylonian cosmology.
3.  However, it is with Egypt’s creation view that the author is more familiar with.
4. Rather than being a direct borrowing, the author ( although it says that the Moses had the five books of the Torah dictated to him by God )  reinterpreted or demythologise  the Egyptian concepts eliminate all mythical elements so as to arrive at an essential meaning and in the process form a strong written argument against the Egyptian gods and belief systems and concepts .
5. This elevate Yahweh God as the only one true God who is all powerful and speaks his command and does not require assistance of other gods to perform the acts.
6. He alone possesses the power to effect creation of the whole World.

The following reference can be used to learn more about the Egyptian background of Genesis

1. Cyrus H. Gordon, “Khnum and El,” in Scripta Hierosolymitana: Egyptological Studies, ed. Sarah Israelit-Groll, vol. 28 (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1982).
2. Abraham Shalom Yahuda, The Accuracy of the Bible (London: W. Heinemann, 1934.
3. S. Yahuda, The Language of the Pentateuch in Its Relation to Egyptian (London: Oxford University Press, 1933).
4. A. H. Sayce, “The Egyptian Background of Genesis I,” in Studies Presented to F. Ll. Griffith (London: 1932) 421
5. 4 James K. Hoffmeier, “Some Thoughts on Genesis 1 & 2 and Egyptian Cosmology,” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 15 (1983): 39-49

Yahuda proposes that the author of Genesis adopted the Egyptians idea of creating man out of clay and of animating him by blowing the breath of life into man.

The creation of man in the “image of God” come from a typical Egyptian concept derived from the belief that the first primeval god begat children “out of his body” thus bearing his likeness.

Hoffmeier also compared Hebrew creation story man created in the “image of God” as a parallel to the Egyptian wisdom treatise from the 10th Dynasty, Merikare, which stated that man is the “snnw of the creator-god. Snnw is derived from the word meaning ‘second’, hence ‘likeness’, ‘image’