Moses’ Perey cannot be exactly defined, for similar reasons. In the oldest tradition he stands in such isolated grandeur,* is so constantly thought of as the ideal ruler and prephet, that the traits of human, individual life and character are lost. Even points that seem characteristic are soon seen to belong to the Israelite ideal of the saint and prophet. His shrinking from his mission he shared with men like Jeremiah and Ezekiel. When Nu 12% (ΕΞ or perhaps R) states that Moses was meek (‘a@d@w) above all other men, it means that he was unique in his piety, for to be ‘andw came to be the characteristic grace of
* For Aaron see ii.-iv. (a).
MOSES
MOSES 447
the godly man. On the other hand, his wife and sons vanish silently from the story, which cares nothing about his personal relations, and is in- terested only in the official successor to his leader- ship. The pone drawn of him in the Pentateuch is adequately sketched by saying, with Philo, that Moses is portrayed as supremely endowed with the human gifts and divine inspiration of king and lawgiver, priest and prophet.
C. MosEs IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.—The NT makes frequent reference to the history of Moses. For the most part, however, it adds nothing to the OT narrative. In some instances it follows a text differing from MT, or a tradition varying from the Pentateuch,* but these differences do not affect the general history of Moses. In other cases, the NT follows tradition in obtaining new features from the interpretation of the OT narra- tive. The simple 2» (EV ‘goodly’ of Ex 25) becomes, by a development from the LXX ἀστεῖος, the emphatic phrase ἀστεῖος τῷ θεῴ (EV ‘exceeding fair’), Ac 7”; cf. He 11%. So, again, He 11% ‘Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be ealled the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to be evil entreated with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season ; accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he looked unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he for- sook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he ἘΠΕῚ as seeing him who is invisible.’ Similarly, St. Stephen (Ac 7”), in stating that Moses ‘was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,’ that he was about forty when he fled from Egypt, that he spent forty years in Midian, etc., fol ows traditions which are an obvious de- duction from the OT statement that Moses was Been "p as the ‘son of Pharaoh’s daughter,’ and from the chronology of the Pentateuch.
There are, however, a few statements. about Moses in the NT which can scarcely be conjectural expansions of suggestions found in the Pentateuch. They are, for the most part, derived from apo- eryphal works: 2 Ti 85: 9 ‘Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses,’ and ‘their folly . . . came to be evident unto all men,’ is said by Origen (on Mt 275) to be taken from an apocryphal Book of Jannes and Jambres; see JANNES AND JAMBRES (Book OF). Jude °, the contention of Michael and Satan over the body of Moses, is from another apocryphal work, the Assumption of Moses; see following article.
The NT constantly refers to the law of Moses, and to Moses as the founder of OT religion, and refers to the Pentateuch as ‘Moses’ (Lk 16”). His prophetical status is recognized by the quota- tion in Ac 3%, At the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah appear as the representatives of the OT dispensation, and Christ and they speak of His i Grr death as an ‘Exodus’ (Lk 9%, οἵ. 2 Pe 1). ile the NT contrasts the law with the gospel, and Moses with Christ (Jn 1” etc.), yet it appeals to the Pentateuch as bearing witness to Christ (Dt 18! in Ac 7%), in a way which implies that what Moses was to the old, Christ is to the new dispensation. Similarly, the com- parison between Moses and Christ in He 85: δ im-
lies that, though Christ was greater than Moses, ie was, in a sense, a greater Moses, and that Moses was a forerunner and prototype of Christ.
D. Moses IN TRADITION.—An immense mass of traditions gathered round Moses. Many of these are collected in Josephus, Ant. U.-IV., c. Apion. ; Philo, Vita Moysis; Eusebius, Prep. Lv. 9; in the Targums and rabbinical commentaries; and ir the pseudepigraphal works ascribed to Moses.t+ * 2 Co 313, He 94 (cf. Nu 1719),
ἡ See Moses, Assumrrion or.
Traditions are also found in the Koran, and in other Arabian works. It is possible that there may be in this wilderness of chaff some grain of fact not otherwise known ; but, speaking generally, the student of OT history may set the whole on one side.
So Canon Rawlinson, Moses, His Life and Times, Pref. iii: ‘Many legends have clustered round the name of Moses, some Jewish, others Mahometan, but these are almost always worth- less, and throughout the following pages, excepting in a single instance, no notice has been taken of them. The writer's strong conviction has been that it is from the Scriptures almost entirely, if not entirely, that we must learn the facts of Moses’ life and deduce our estimate of his character.’
Hence, with the partial exception of the Manetho traditions preserved by Josephus, to be noticed hereafter, these legends are mostly ignored by historians. The chief exception is Stanley, who, in his Jewish Church and the article ‘ Moses’ in Smith’s DB, interweaves legends with biblical data in his usual picturesque fashion.