#3 Ancient Egypt - Moses the first Revolutionary

He was a prince, an outlaw, a prophet. Or was he? He stood before the most powerful ruler on Earth and delivered a single, thunderous demand: "Let my people go!" 

Long before Spartacus, Moses led a slave revolt that children still learn about today, and it is a foundational story for the Jewish faith and the State of Israel.

Was Moses more than a biblical hero? Was he, in fact, one of the world's first revolutionaries? A master of political subversion who reshaped the ancient world?

We’re going to look past the Charlton Heston epic, past the parting of the Red Sea, and into the heart of a burning question: How much of this story is a divine miracle, and how much is a revolutionary's blueprint that has inspired others to this day?

Joining us in the Putschcast interrogation room is Garry Stevens, a Bible buff and host of the podcast "History in the Bible", who has dedicated more than a decade of his life to trying to discern what is truth and what is fiction.

Check out Putschcast as video on our new Youtube channel. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and share with your friends and foes. 

Send us an email to putschcast@gmail.com and visit our website.

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SPEAKER_05 0:04

He was a prince, an outlaw, a prophet. Was he? He stood before the most powerful ruler on earth and delivered a single, thunderous demand. Let my people go. Talking, of course, about Moses. Was Moses more than a biblical hero? Was he in fact one of the world's first revolutionaries? A mass of political subversion who led a slave revolt that reshaped the ancient world? We go on to look past the Charlton Heston epic, past the patting of the Red Sea, and into the humm of a burning question. How much of this story is divine miracle? And how much is a revolutionary blueprint that inspired others until this day? Perhaps the most controversial question of all. How much of it is actually true? This isn't just about faith, it's about forensics and the fact finding. Join me, Oliver Hobbiton, on Podcast, our journey back to the banks of the Nile, to the foot of the mountain shrouded in fire, to uncover the story of Moses and to find out. Was he a revolutionary?

SPEAKER_03 1:16

Who are you to make their lives bitter in hard bondage? Men shall be ruled by law, not by the will of other men.

SPEAKER_05 1:24

Charlton Heston was a man, but there was someone who was more of a man. That's the one he played. His name is Moses. And I think Moses might be one of the most well recognized characters in history around the world. Definitely in um Christian, Jewish, and Muslim countries, but I think even beyond. And I'm very excited to go that far back on such an early putchcast episode, but just showcasing that we pick out any topic that's relevant to challenge of someone who's in power, which is exactly what happened here. And I just want to say hello and welcome to our expert today, our guest, Gary Stevens. Hi, Gary.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Hi there, Oliver. Thank you for having me on an early episode of your podcast. Let me say, I am not an academic in Bible studies. I am a Bible buff and popularizer.

SPEAKER_05 2:17

Gary, first of all, thank you so much for making time. And uh we will talk about um your connection to this topic later on, I think, and we will also find out um where people can hear more about you and from you. But also, Gary wanted to introduce our my co-host here today, James Bennett. Hi, James. Hello, Oliver. Hi, Gary. Again. I think we all come clean at the start of the episode. So Gary already told us he's not an academic, but he's very passionate about the topic. I've grown up in a non-religious household, so I really haven't had much exposure to uh the Bible, let alone the the Old Testament and uh Moses I know mainly from films and a bit of school. And James, what about you? What's your connection to the Bible overall and in particular Moses?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Well, I was interested because Gary, I listened to some of your podcasts earlier and like they were just outstanding, particularly like with the translations you went through. But to give you to give you a little bit of background with me, I was, I mean, you know, not going back to my origin story or anything, but um, I was raised in like the evangelical tradition. I guess my my my parents were very involved with the church, and um I suppose like it was the the Bible was treated as like a um not a historical document, but more as like a living document where the literal um we we were I was basically brought up almost with the the the literal sort of translations of it. So when I was reading it earlier about uh Moses going through the Red Sea, that was like taken as gospel truth and um the sort of the literal thing of it. And you know, we had the whole shebang of uh I don't know, I'm sure you're uh familiar with like the New Testament, but you know, like Revelations and the end of the world and stuff like that. So yeah, it was it was quite scary sometimes.

SPEAKER_05 4:13

Gary, do you remember when you first heard about Moses?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Oh, it must have been in Sunday school, I suppose. Yeah, like a lot of kids. I mean, I was brought up as an Anglican, which is the mildest of the various Christian factions, in my opinion. So I suppose we learnt about Moses in Sunday school. I must have been like eight or nine, ten.

SPEAKER_05 4:34

Is there anyone out there whose image of Moses wasn't shaped by the 1956 Charlton Heston film? Because that's certainly as soon as you ask me Moses, that's what I picture is this this this old man with a grey beard who has a big stick in his hand and parts to see. Charlton Heston was like 30. Was he though? Yeah, he was really young. Of course he would have been.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Yeah, he was like very young.

SPEAKER_05 4:56

I never even thought of that. Yeah, because he also plays the young Moses, and that's why we're here today. We want to talk about Moses because when we put the uh first season together, we we try to have a big variety for putcasts of people who have shaken up uh history. And Gary, you have more knowledge than the two of us together. Can you set the scene for us? So can you anchor Moses for us in history? So, what time are we talking about here?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Well, we really don't know. There are two traditional dates, one by the rabbis and one by conservative Christian archaeologists who decided to date in the 1940s. The rabbis say Moses lived around about 1450 BC, BCE, whatever you want to call it. If that is true, then this is the late Bronze Age. Egypt and the Hedite kingdoms are the main states, really, and Egypt is by far the most advanced. And importantly, Egypt controls all of Canaan. The Hedite Empire lives in Turkey. Egypt is remarkably static for a nation so incredibly ancient. It hasn't moved. Go up the Mediterranean coast through modern Israel, yeah, Lebanon, you'll eventually hit Turkey. The Egyptians uh had dotted the area of little forts and had a very strong interest in Canaan, Israel slash Lebanon, because of course that was their trade route to the wealth of Mesopotamia. The other date is about 200 years later, in the time of Ramses II the Great, by far the most bombastic pharaoh of Egypt ever. It makes Donald Trump look modest.

SPEAKER_05 6:41

And everyone knows his name still, right? Like, I mean, how many hundreds of pharaohs have there been, but everyone knows Ramses?

SPEAKER_01 6:46

And you'll find every film about Moses is set in the time of Ramses the Great. Now, at that point in time, uh, Egypt still controls the Levant, which is Israel, Lebanon, etc. And the Hittites are still around. The Egyptians are in their prime, I guess, Ramses the Great. They are. Yeah, yeah. In at both periods, the Egyptians are moderately expansionistic because throughout most of Egypt's really long history, it stayed by itself near the Nile, and unlike other uh Middle East or Mesopotamian powers, it it was never really expansionist. It went as far as uh the Levant, Israel-Lebanon, but even then, only reluctantly, and only as a buffer.

SPEAKER_05 7:37

And and for everyone else, so this is over a a thousand years before Athens was in bloom, right? And that's considered very old. So just to give us an idea, the man of today's story is Moses, but there were also two men. So we've got a time frame now. The the most powerful man, you've already mentioned him, Ramses the Great. What was the the court like? So can we imagine it as it was in the films, or was it a bit more primitive? Like for me, it always seems a bit lavish.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Have you seen the more recent Moses movie with Christian Bale as Moses? Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:15

I haven't. Thank you for raising that a quite bit of it.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Okay. Well, that is even more lavish than the Charlton Heston film.

SPEAKER_06 8:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

And I must admit, I saw that film, and at a guess, I would say, probably in both films, the size of the Egyptian monuments and the grandeur of the court, I would say is roughly 10 times bigger than it actually was. In the movie. Yeah, in the movies. Okay. Right. The sets that the sets are bigger than the actual monuments.

SPEAKER_06 8:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

The wealth is bigger. Egypt was a very rich country because it had lots and lots of agriculture. And it later on it would go to feed uh half the Roman Empire. So it was a very wealthy place. But as to the actual monuments, I mean we can still see them, and some of them are really impressive, but they're not as as impressive as done in um the movies.

SPEAKER_05 9:07

So let's be careful with um mixing Hollywood and actual history.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

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SPEAKER_05 10:02

Moses, we'll hear about him in a second, but let's let's quickly talk about um his opponent. Was he his opponent? Ramses the Great.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

So what do we know? I don't think his opponent was Ramses the Great.

SPEAKER_05 10:15

Let's investigate.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

That idea only arose in the 1940s. The Bible specifically does not name him. He's called Pharaoh. No name of a real Pharaoh appears in the Bible until the first book of Kings. They're all just called Pharaoh. And that's a little bit weird because in the Exodus story about Moses' birth, the book goes out of its way to name two Egyptian midwives unknown to history. But it does not know the name of the Pharaoh. And I'd also say there are three people involved here Moses, Pharaoh, and Moses' brother Aaron. Aaron plays a huge part in this. Now I can't stand Aaron for reasons which may become obvious later. I think he's a feckless idiot. But he is Moses' brother. Now Moses is the greatest hero in the history of the Israelites. I think it'd be fair to say the Jews regard him as the greatest man who ever lived. He saved them from oppression in Egypt. He founded their religion. He was the first man to communicate with God and be given God's name in the famous story of the burning bush. The Bible is a bit confused about actually when the Israelites did know God's name. But at least in Exodus, that's the first time that God calls himself I am who I am.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Is that the first time he uses that he calls himself Jehovah? Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Yes, it's the first time he uses the word Yahweh. Ah weirdly, Orthodox Jews do not use the word Yahweh, and well they're forbidden to. He's always called Hashem, the name. But if they do use it, they do pronounce it Jehovah. Academics call him Yahweh.

SPEAKER_05 12:05

I've just learned so much uh in the last minute. So the Israelites were in Egypt. I'm still not quite there who they actually were and why they were there. So maybe we talk about that. Um and uh let's also talk about language here. So the word Israelite and the Hebrews can that be used interchangeably or are they different people?

SPEAKER_01 12:30

They can be used interchangeably. In Genesis, the Israelites are called the Ibri Hebrews, but that word is dropped after Genesis, and then they become the Israelites. You can get confused because many centuries later there would be a kingdom called Israel and a kingdom called Judah. The inhabitants of the kingdom of Israel are called Israelites. So one has to distinguish the entire body of the people versus the members of the civil kingdom. But calling them Israelites for this period, that's fine.

SPEAKER_05 13:02

And then the next question was Moses is one of them. So they weren't actually Jews until then, because you just said Moses gave them their religion. So so in in the Jewish understanding of the world and the history, did they really only become Jews through Moses, as in with Christians and Jesus Christ, or were there Jews before and he just refined the religion because he got more intel from God?

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Option B. Okay. The Jews actually chase themselves back to Abraham. He is held to be the first Jew. He is specifically picked out by God. It's unclear why. Maybe because he was just an average sort of guy. Abraham migrates to Canaan. God appears personally to Abraham and says, I give you this land to you and your family and your people for eternity. But if you look at the way God is depicted in Genesis, he's a family guy. He drops in to have a barbecue with you. Okay. He does all that sort of stuff. God is depicted in Genesis to the patriarchs pretty much as a family God. You make a little shrine, you sacrifice a little shrine. It's only with Moses that the religion becomes institutionalized. Because Moses not only sets up, not only gets the word, the law, on Mount Sinai, he also sets up the entire social structure of the Israelites with their priests, the tabernacle, and all that sort of stuff. But that happens much later in the story. So Moses is much more important for the creation of the Jewish um foundation myth and religion.

SPEAKER_05 14:58

Gary, James, I've learned we are about 14 to 1200 years before Christ. Moses was the refiner. I used the word of the Jewish faith. Let's stick with that terminology. We can use the word Hebrew Israelites interchangeably. Following with your family theme, let's just explore the story of Moses for the ones who aren't as familiar like me with these stories. So he was a Jew, but also an Egyptian prince. I think that's the that's the essence of the story. And how did that come about?

SPEAKER_01 15:37

He wasn't an Egyptian prince. Put him on spot again.

SPEAKER_05 15:42

Clear it up for us, Gary. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Let's go back. Why are the Israelites or Hebrews in Egypt in the first place? Thank you. Because they came there with the patriarch Jacob. Story goes big famine in Canaan. What are we gonna do? Let's go to where all the water is. Egypt. They are taken there by Jacob's son Joseph. Unpleasant series of family misfortunes. They end up in Israel. Joseph becomes a grand vizier, super popular with Pharaoh. Jacob's family multiplies for 400 years, pop, pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa. And so 400 years after they come to Egypt, uh, the Pharaoh decides that they are a problem. Now, this actual background is probably very likely. There is a very strong connection between Egypt and the Canaanites. The Canaanites, even in Abraham's time, they did often go down south to Egypt when uh famine or drought was afflicting Canaan. And we have archaeological evidence of Canaanites' uh cities on the very outskirts of Egypt where they had settled. So the Bible is reflecting a historical reality there. There was a very close connection between Egypt and Canaan.

SPEAKER_05 17:00

And we have to do away with the modern way of thinking of state borders and border guards, you know, um, and passports and all that. Like these were people on the move, and I think, like you said, climate, weather, harvests, etc., really made a difference, I would say. So they ended up in Egypt because that's where the fertile land was, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:20

That's right. And they stayed there for 400 years. Now, Joseph is said to have been a favorite of Pharaoh, very popular, and in a story which is not actually talked about much in the very last paragraphs of Genesis, Joseph enslaves the Egyptians. You heard it right.

SPEAKER_05 17:38

No, uh what Joseph enslaved so so uh Hebrew enslaved the Egyptians?

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yes. Okay, you don't hear that story very often, though. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_05 17:49

I uh I all I know is the uh the other way around, but tell us more about that one.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Exactly. Well, basically, Joseph is so popular with Pharaoh, and Joseph decides for the good of the administration, for the good of Pharaoh, we'll basically turn everything into a part of the Egyptian government. So instead of the the Egyptians, before the Jews arrived, they're being, you know, peasants wandering around planting their crops. He decides, no, from now on, you work for Pharaoh. So he turns them all basically into indentured serfs, I suppose.

SPEAKER_05 18:23

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

That that is the plain reading of the text in Genesis. Anyway, 400 years later, the tables seem to have turned. Pharaoh's getting worried that the Israelites are reproducing too much. So he decides to have a mass genocide of uh young Hebrews. Now, this is a story which obviously led to the story of King Herod in the New Testament. The connections are pretty obvious.

SPEAKER_05 18:48

I know. I was just gonna say that that's a story everyone knows from Christmas time, right? Um exactly, and and that so that is the Old Testament, but a very similar story.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Yeah. Uh would you say, um, Gary, like when I was reading Exodus, and you know, I'm not that familiar with Genesis, but with what Pharaoh was doing, it was almost sort of like the first pogroms like recorded against the Jews? Yeah, you could say that.

SPEAKER_05 19:13

And I think probably in world history, right? I mean, how much more literature is there predating that documenting a genocide before that? In 400 years, why didn't they mingle and mix and become one? Is it because of the religion? Did the religion divide them, or was there any other levers in place that kept those two people, Egyptians and Hebrews, apart for all this time? Four centuries?

SPEAKER_01 19:37

The Bible is silent. The Bible is also silent as to why God waited four centuries. Anyway, the pogrom doesn't actually happen because, as Exodus says, the Hebrew women are so fertile and so strong they pop out their babies before anyone has a chance to do anything. So there is no actual pogrom, it's just sort of threatened and it doesn't work out. However, one of the Hebrew women takes her child and hides him, puts him on a little reed basket-y thing and sends him down the Nile. This is strikingly similar to the birth story of Sargon the Great of Akkad several thousand years before. In fact, it's identical to that story. Sargon is put in a little boat and sent down a river where he's found by someone else. Could this be an echo of that story? Maybe. Moses in his little boat is found by an Egyptian princess. The Bible actually does say that Egyptian princess. Then the Bible goes to blank. We know nothing about Moses' childhood, we know nothing about his education, he's never called a prince of Egypt, he's never said to have been raised in Pharaoh's household. There are some interesting things about Moses. First, Moses' name is not a Hebrew name, it's an Egyptian name. It's the same root of the word as in Tutmos or Ramses. It means son of. So Moses has a good Egyptian name.

SPEAKER_05 21:03

Okay, which makes sense. I mean, he's been adopted by an Egyptian princess, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Well, he's been found by an Egyptian princess. We don't know if he was actually adopted. He was just found.

SPEAKER_05 21:11

Thank you for bringing me back to the facts. I'm just getting carried away with the leg of my mother.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

All my years of doing this have made me fairly pedantic.

SPEAKER_05 21:18

Very good. That's the way you're here today. Just like Jesus as well, where there's entire decades missing, and all of a sudden, when does uh Moses pop up again?

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Moses is a genealogical cipher. His father is called Amram, his mother is called Yachoved. Yachoved is Yamram's aunt. So Moses is the child of his father Amran, and the child of his aunt Yachovid. So Moses is his own cousin, and both of these two people are from the tribe of Levi. Now, rabbinic tradition celebrates this as being a double descent from the tribe of Levi. I look on it as a little bit weird.

SPEAKER_05 21:56

Well, well, times have changed. Um he has the name Moses or Moshe, I think it's called in modern Hebrew. Um and then how do we end up with a man that challenges the pharaoh?

SPEAKER_01 22:09

After the being saved from the river incident, Moses pops back into the story when he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. Moses objects. He kills the Egyptian and hides the body. But it later turns out that someone has seen him. So Moses goes, uh-uh, I've been caught. And he flees Egypt for the land of Midian. Uh while Moses is in Midian, he gets married to the daughter of the high priest Ruel. And while there, he's tending the flocks by night or whatever. Burning Bush story. God appears and tells him, Moses, have I got a job for you?

SPEAKER_05 22:49

And is that the is that the first document of time that God spoke to Moses? Yes. He wasn't on a mission in Egypt. He he was basically a good civilian trying to prevent a crime, or probably wasn't a crime at the time, to to beat a slave, but he he did the from our point of view right moral thing. He got caught, caught banned far away, mingled with the local people who I assume were Israelites as well, or were they from a different background that people they're specifically called Midianites?

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Okay. So they're definitely not Israelites, but there are so many different sea mites around Israel. I mean, one theory is that actually Moses got his got the religion of Yahweh from the priest of Midian. That's where he got it from.

SPEAKER_05 23:37

Makes sense, yeah. And then the the bush catches on fire. Sorry, God appears to him. And what what does God tell him then? And then this is not Child in Hessen, this is you, Gary.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Okay. God tells Moses, I want you to bring my people out of their oppression in Egypt. And Moses goes, You've got to be kidding. He is incredibly reluctant to take it on. God has to persuade him. And it's only until Moses said, Look, I am not a public speaker, I am not charismatic. You need someone else for this. And God says, How about your brother Aaron? He can talk the tail off a donkey. Moses goes, Okay.

SPEAKER_05 24:21

How did his brother get into the story? Considering I assume he was back in Egypt.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

I'm not sure where he was. Yeah, okay. Um he could well have been, because there is there is a passage in there somewhere which says that Moses uh arranged to meet Aaron somewhere in the wilderness. And at that point, Moses tells Aaron, Yeah, hey, God has appointed you to be the talker in this relationship, and we are going to free our people. And Aaron just says, Yeah, okay. Fine, let's do that. And this is where God introduces his name to Moses. I mean, Moses actually asks God, how can I free my people? I don't even know the name of the God of my people. And God then tells him, Yeah, I am who I am, or Yahweh.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

So when the um negotiations were going ahead, like the back and forth with Pharaoh and all the rest of it. I was trying to work out when I was reading it, is it more Aaron that's doing the negotiating on behalf of Moses? Or because it seems like that at the beginning, but then Moses sort of grows into his role.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Yes, it's you it's always um Aaron doing the talking, pretty much. But Moses does grow into his role. He starts off completely unwilling to do it, but as the story develops, he does turn into the great leader, but still Aaron is the man who does the talking, and Aaron will later become the founding father of uh the Hebrew priesthood, which became a massive social structure, very important to the Israel people, Israelite people in later time. And some have have asked, well, why didn't Moses become the first priest, the first high priest? Answer because Moses was the humblest man on earth. And he could not have borne the responsibility of both being the secular leader of his people and the religious leader.

SPEAKER_05 26:16

When Googling Moses, the the first word that usually pops up as a job title is um prophet. And is is that the moment when he becomes a prophet? And did he then introduce himself as a prophet? Or was he just saying I'm the voice of God or I'm the messenger? Or how did he sell himself alongside his brother to his people back in Egypt?

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Moses never calls himself a prophet, and I don't think he's called that one in Exodus, but he later became regarded as the first of the prophets.

SPEAKER_05 26:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

And Moses is important in that sense because after Moses, God only talks to the prophets. In Genesis, God's talking to everybody. But from Moses onwards, and it explicitly says in Exodus, now God will only talk to his chosen holy people, whole holy individuals, not to the people as a whole. So yeah, Moses is regarded as the first of the prophets in that sense. Because that's his job. The prophets' job is to talk to God.

SPEAKER_05 27:17

Yeah. So a VIP club was created, and um he was the founding member, uh founding president of that club. Goes back to Egypt. I imagine this impoverished man with a cane walking back. How do you start? Because this this podcast is called Putschcast. How do you start an uprising rebellion as as he did? Can you can you talk us through what his actual putsch actions were?

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Well, it's really handy if your whole putsch is actually orchestrated by God.

SPEAKER_05 27:50

That's how that's very helpful.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

That that's enormously helpful, you would agree. If the creator of the universe is actually manipulating everything to make you successful, and that's pretty much how it is. Uh Moses and Aaron go back to Egypt. Moses talks to his people, and pretty much immediately they say, Wow, this sounds like a great idea. Yeah, let's leave Egypt, and you guys, Moses and Aaron, can be our leaders. Moses does a few party tricks, really, a few miracles, and there's no discussion, there's no dissension amongst the Israelites. They just say, Yep, you guys are the men. We're with you. Moses shots off to Pharaoh. First thing he says is, We'd like to go out into the wilderness for three days to worship our God. That's all. He's not asking for liberation, nothing like that. Just, you know, we'll just, you know, decamp for a while. We'll be back, really, we'll be back. But we'll just go off in Sinai. We'll be back, really.

SPEAKER_05 28:46

Which also says that there were no such things as like synagogues or religious places. They they were following their traditions, um, their rituals in the wild, in nature. That was like sacred sites almost.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Yeah. I mean, Mount Sinai, where God appears and gives the law to Moses, that will become it's a bit weird, actually. Sinai never actually becomes very much of a sacred site. We where the most important thing in the entire history of the Jewish religion takes place, but it's never it's never the place for shrine, for example. There'll be many shrines created in Israel and Judah, but not in Sinai.

SPEAKER_05 29:22

Interesting topic for another podcast, Doc, Gary.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Indeed. I I think just because it's interesting you say that because you know, like it's it's presented as say the Israelites leaving Israel, but when I think Moses comes down from the mount, there is references to like idolatry, and I think it's the golden calf. Their understanding of Judaism was obviously a lot different back then than what it is now.

SPEAKER_05 29:48

Moses and his brother go back. Um, he does some party tricks. Uh his people are excited to pack up their stuff, leave slavery, and move to Canaan. Um along of following their new leaders or putchers, as we call them here, for today's sake.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Exodus doesn't really say that much about the Israelites' attitude, at least in this early stages. I suppose they're keen to go. Whether they were slaves or not, it's probably unlikely.

SPEAKER_05 30:18

But that is so essential to the story. I can't believe you're just claiming that it's not uh documented that they're slaves. Isn't that at the heart of the whole story to lead the slaves out of slavery, take his brethren away from the violence and to better life?

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Yes, it is the heart of the whole story. But there is no evidence that the Egyptians ever had mass slavery. They did have forced labor, building pyramids and that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_05 30:44

Who didn't at that time, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Who didn't?

SPEAKER_00 30:46

Yeah. But there was also a um, I'm not sure if it was an Exodus, if it's Leviticus, like a fair amount of dissension amongst the people that had followed them into the desert because they were like, hey, you're in, you're supposed to be landing uh leading us to the land of milk and honey, but we're stuck in the desert.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

That's much later in the story. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 31:07

So we're talking about just trying to get people out for three days. Yeah, trying to get them out. It's a little pretext. We we want to um celebrate our religion, give us three days off, and then what happens next?

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Well, Pharaoh says, No, I don't think so. Then come the ten plagues. After Pharaoh says, No, God, through Moses, afflicts the Egyptians with ten plagues.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

In the three days of darkness, you have whined like frightened children in the night. Moses said the sun would shine in three days, and it is true. Oh, great one, let his people go. For all of Egypt will be barren from the cataract to the sea. Will my father free the slaves?

SPEAKER_03 31:49

Can taxes be collected from dead cattle and blighted harvests? Let's fear rule Egypt. Or dwelling.

SPEAKER_05 31:57

In the movie, sorry, Maoni education piece, it comes across like there's a plague every day. Do you think is that described like this in the in the Bible? That you know, almost every morning the Egyptians wake up to a new plague? Or are we talking years here? Do we have a time frame of how long this this struggle took on behalf of the Israelites? I think the implied time frame is sort of weeks.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Weeks. Because after every plague, Pharaoh's given the chance to let them go, says no, then another plague. One thing which is often not noted about the plagues, Pharaoh actually does want to let them go. At every single stage, he wants to let them go. Exodus explicitly says, God hardens Pharaoh's heart to keep the Hebrews there. It's God forcing the Egyptians to endure the plagues.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

And I saw that in the negotiations, and I did think like it did seem a little unfair on Pharaoh because his natural inclination would be to let them go. But then, like you say, every time it's like God hardens his heart, and then he's changed his mind, and then another plague is visited on the Egyptian people. It's totally unfair on Pharaoh.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

I mean, here's here's a quote: God explicitly says, and he's talking to the Egyptians, for this time I'll send I will send all my plagues upon your person and your courtiers and your people, in order that you may know there is none like me in all the world. I could have stretched forth my hand and stricken you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been effaced from the earth. No. I have spared you for this purpose, in order to show you my power, and in order that my fame may resound throughout the world. It's absolutely explicit. God is doing this as an ego thing. And this is said several times in Exodus. It's funny how that's hardly ever mentioned.

SPEAKER_05 33:55

Well, that's what you tune into Putschcast for to find out what really happened. So we then have the ten plagues. Um and then someone must have had enough because they are allowed to leave.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

They are allowed to leave.

SPEAKER_05 34:12

Can you give us you gave us a time frame before? It's probably weeks, but what what what's the it's all guesses, I guess, but what's the people we're talking about? Is this hundreds? Is this thousands? Is it a few million people? Like, do we have an idea?

SPEAKER_01 34:23

Exodus says there were six hundred thousand men. It's that's because of course, yeah. Because of course, women don't count.

SPEAKER_05 34:30

No, no, no, of course not. But six hundred thousand would have been a gigantic number in those days. Yeah, plus kids, families, and then again they had lots of children, according to what you said before. So we're talking a few million people, maybe two million or so. We're talking about two million, what you on the move, no cars, no trains, no trucks.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

On the move through particularly arid and horrible land, the Sinai.

SPEAKER_05 34:56

Is there any dissent? Are there any people who say you're cool here? I'm not up for this. My life's actually not that bad. I want to stay here.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

They say that later. Okay. Where when they are stuck in Sinai.

SPEAKER_05 35:09

Oh, yes, remorse. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Man, do they kove? In fact, later, when they are in Sinai, there are six times the Israelites want to go back so they can get a decent cup of coffee and dates. Yeah. Six times. And each time Moses mediates between them and God, because while they're in the Sinai and they're Kavezching, God says, I should not have done this. Moses, I'm gonna kill them all. Got that? Kill them all. No, God, don't do that. And this is where Moses shows his leadership. He manages to mediate between the querulous people and an equally querulous God to make sure they stand in good standing with their God and they get through this whole thing. Immediately it takes them 40 years to get through Sinai. But this is where really Moses and Aaron show they can be leaders.

SPEAKER_05 36:01

Have we have we just skipped the most important part of the whole story? Except for one of them being taking slaves away from slavery, which we've just learned never really happened. But then also the famous parting of the sea, because Sinai is on the other side of the Red Sea, right? And I think Red Sea comes from the name from like Reeds, the parting of the sea, and apparently the entire army, most modern army in the world back then by the Egyptians, was destroyed by the wrath of God. How important is that? I mean, if I followed a leader in my life, and he does a few party tricks, like you said before, Gary, but then he gets me somewhere where he does a trick that no one could have even dreamt of. Who wouldn't then forever follow this person? I mean, this this man managed to split the seas. How important is that moment in that story?

SPEAKER_01 36:49

You know, I don't think it's that important. It's the big technicolor moment in the movies. It's mentioned once again, and if you take a look at the whole rest of the Bible, it's hardly ever mentioned. There is the famous song of Deborah, which commemorates it, but that's about it, really. In Jewish tradition, the big thing is certainly not the crossing of the Red Sea. Okay, it's a miracle. The big thing is Moses keeping his people under control and fed for 40 years in Sinai. That's the big thing.

SPEAKER_04 37:23

Putschcast. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram to find out about the latest coup coming your way.

SPEAKER_05 37:32

Our podcast here is called Putchcast. We're at a stage here now. Is that done? Has he succeeded? I mean, he he got in trouble, was banished. Again, there's many parallels there to the Russian Revolution, by the way. People got sent to exile for many years, and then uh they came back and um started a revolution. Again, there's a parallel to many other um people in history, and uh his people followed him. Um they got a bit upset later, you've explained, you know, when it didn't fully go their way and he didn't keep all his promises and uh times got a bit tough. Um but from a military point of view, without raising a sword, he managed to destroy the entire army of the Egyptians. They had a tough time for 40 years, but basically he delivered on his promise, didn't he? So he was successful. Were the Egyptians ever heard of after? Were there was there another attempt to chase them or a future war or revenge acts?

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Not only were they heard of after, they were heard of before and during. This is the whole point about the timing. Egypt maintained firm control of Canaan throughout the entire time that Moses was in Sinai, and throughout the entire time that his successor, Joshua, was supposedly conquering Canaan. It is impossible to fit Moses into any time frame that we can reliably do.

SPEAKER_05 38:57

So they were fleeing from Egypt to Egypt. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00 39:00

Pretty much. James? Like when I was reading through Exodus and I was I was listening to your your podcast, it was it's very obvious that it's not in the way that it was presented by Charlton Heston, and also just like some of the things in in terms of like the story, um, the omissions and you know the things that are left out, and the things that we've made into a big deal but really aren't a big deal in their tradition either. Um, like the parting of the Red Sea.

SPEAKER_05 39:30

So that's the Western eye that we're trying to separate here from the story. And it's really good that you brought that up, James, because for Jewish people they have very different priorities, and um history, like you just said, Gary, um speaks a different language too, because this was actually Egypt that they were migrating in, really, and they basically were under Egyptian control. But um, he is seen as the great liberator, isn't he? Regardless.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Yes, he he is he is seen as the great liberator, uh, the one who saved the people, and the one who is the exemplar of God's commitment to the Jewish people to forever protect them.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Sorry, can I just ask you a question? Um, I'm just interested in your opinion. Like, how much of this, like if you had to sort of make a bet, is based on sort of actual sort of history, and how how much of it is conjecture and how much of it is sort of foundation myth? I think it's all foundation myth.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Uh some scholars maintain that absolutely nothing like the Exodus happened, and that in fact the story uh is a retelling of the Jews' return from their exile in Babylon, and the thing is a complete invention. I I think most scholars today would say it is a complete invention. Now, there is one theory which does rescue a little bit of history, and that is to explain the origin of the Israelites, because the archaeology quite convincingly has that the Israelites related in the hill country of Canaan. For geography, this hill country stretches alongside the Jordan River, going north to south. That's a hill country. As you move towards the Mediterranean, you move into plains and more fertile areas. The archaeology is unequivocal. The Israelites seem to have come from the hill country. So that they are highland Canaanites. But if that's so, how come they developed a distinct identity? So the academic theory goes there was a big guy called Moses or a a hero or something like that, and he led out a group of people who were later to become the Levites, the tribe of Levi. We don't know who this population actually was, but they came from Egypt, moved into the highlands, and the presence of this uh new genetic faction, I suppose, transformed at least some Canaanites into Israelites. And the story of that transformation has been preserved as the story of Moses. Why the Levites? Because in history we know that the Levites were a very unique tribe. They were the tribe from whom the priests came, they were a holy tribe. And the Levites were never ever assigned any territory, they were everywhere. I I like that theory because it rescues Moses from historical oblivion.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Yeah. So they're sort of almost nomadic in some respects.

SPEAKER_05 42:26

Yeah. And again, the I think the history of the Middle East is um is until this day is shaped by nomadic people, and uh often it's hard to pinpoint exactly when and where, but there's always a bit of truth to the story. Now, Moses, this giant of as we've now learned, religion, this giant of I don't want to use the word history because we've just um put a big massive question mark behind that. But this giant of our modern world still, um, he's inspired many, hasn't he? Like the story, and I just said before how we thought the heart of the story is to lead people out of slavery, but then we learned it wasn't really in the parting of the sea isn't the hero of the story either. There were other events that are actually much more important. How important is Moses in the 21st century?

SPEAKER_01 43:19

Well, to the Jews, of course, he's supremely important. Supremely indirectly through them, he is I wouldn't say he's important in Christianity, but he is notable.

SPEAKER_05 43:30

Do you agree with that, James? Like um is he more like a side character?

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Well, coming from an evangelical tradition, I think like Moses and Israel hold a particularly sort of important place within that denomination because you know it sort of ties in with the New Testament and going into Revelations and politically in America, particularly, and maybe back in you know, say Churchill's day and Balfour and all the rest of it, it was about the biblical injunction to um those that would bless Israel will also be blessed as well. Um and I can often remember my father talking about that. Um, because although he was an evangelical Christian, probably the most important country to him outside of England would have been Israel, and it it holds a very important place within denomination of branch of Christianity.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

Yeah. Would would you say that that it is pretty much limited to the evangelical tradition? Because I can't think that Israel or Judaism hold much of a place in, say, either Catholicism or the Orthodox.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

I uh certainly not in Catholicism. You're you're definitely right there. I mean, you mentioned about Anglicanism before, and you know, sort of, you know, Anglicanism is sort of Christianity without the religion or whatever they say about it. You know, I don't know how familiar you are with revelations, but certainly within that, Israel takes a pivotal role within that. And you can also often see that on, like, say, the Christian what's known as like the Christian right these days, you know, and America's support for this the modern state of Israel. I think a lot of it is informed by that, and that was certainly um the impression I got with, say, the Balfour Declaration, uh, Churchill, and also uh millenarial Christianity.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

Yeah, I mean the place of Israel seems to be seems to be quite tied up, particularly with the evangelicals, because of its role in the coming end of times. Yes. And the Catholics and the Orthodox do not do not talk about the end of the end of times at all, really. Whereas the evangelicals uh are waiting for it to happen next Tuesday.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

Yeah, well, we're constantly waiting for the trumpet to uh blow. That's what that's what I was raised to listen out for.

SPEAKER_05 45:53

We've learned that Moses is very important uh to evangelical Christians still, but also to Jews, of course, as the founding father or the refiner, as I call them, of their religion. Did the state of Israel, do they these days connect themselves back to this uh founding story? Is do you know if if there's any, I mean the airport is obviously not named after him, or but is there any any modern state Israel connection to the figure of Moses?

SPEAKER_01 46:17

I'd have to ask my um Israeli friend Gil about this, but the impression I get is that if you go to Israel, you'll find streets and plazas named after King David. Yes, all over the place. I don't know how many things are named after Moses, and Abraham, of course, is the would be the rival to both Moses and David as to being the founder. I really don't know how the three of them would jockey.

SPEAKER_05 46:43

Yeah, maybe it's a cultural uh sensitivity, but always happy to get some feedback from our listeners out there. Send us an email to putchcast at gmail.com. I've got one myth, the word was used before, uh, that I would like to clear up before we finish off today, Gary. How old was Moses?

SPEAKER_01 47:01

How old was Moses?

SPEAKER_05 47:03

There is this theory that every period of his life took 40 years. So he spent 40 years in in uh in Egypt, 40 years in exile, and then 40 years leading them out. So that would have made him like 120 plus.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

I I was just reading yesterday, his father, Jochavit, was said to have lived to be 137.

SPEAKER_05 47:21

That is so precise again. I find the Bible fascinating. Like they tell us it's 600,000 men, they tell us exactly how old his father was almost to the day.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

We don't know what pharaoh was in quite specific in some parts, but then when you like want to know what happened to Moses when he was a teenager, they don't tell you.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

So they they don't tell you.

SPEAKER_05 47:40

He lived a peaceful life ever after. Um, is it known how he died, and is it known where he's buried?

SPEAKER_01 47:47

Yeah. Um, yes to the first, no to the second. No, he didn't live a peaceful life. God tells Moses, You will never enter Canaan for the most petty of reasons. And the story goes Moses is talking to God and he's saying, The people, we have no water. We have no water, God. God says, Don't you worry, I will strike this rock, and there'll be water aplenty. So then Moses takes his staff and strikes the rock, and there is water aplenty. God is furious, absolutely live it. He says, Whoa, whoa, whoa, you hit the rock of your damn stick. That was my job, mate. I was gonna make the water. Now you've lied to the people. They think you did it. I did it. Okay, Moses. That means you are never gonna see the promised land. Okay?

SPEAKER_00 48:38

Uh, Gary, I was just wondering if if Moses was alive today as a political figure, in my mind, he seems like he might be like a I don't know, would he be more like a Nelson Mandela figure or would he be more of a populist politician?

SPEAKER_05 48:53

Definitely a patriarch, I think.

SPEAKER_01 48:55

Moses is patient, skillful, he's a good administrator, he cares deeply for his people. So that immediately excludes what, 90% of all politicians, including including some very famous ones, which could mention. Absolutely. I think yeah, he'd be much more closer to Nelson Mandela than to uh a lot of other people.

SPEAKER_05 49:20

He's given his life to politics, I think, uh, because ever since he had that meeting with God, the initial one, he he stuck by his course and and followed his action.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

And and in the later years of his leadership in Sinai, he knows that although his people will see Canaan, he won't, but he keeps going.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

That was one of the references that I think um is that Martin Luther King talked about I may not see the promised land with you, is that right? Because there was using a that that could well be.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

But let me tell you one curious All these six hundred thousand people, sorry, men in Sinai, of that six hundred thousand and they're forty years in the wilderness, only three people actually make it to Canaan. All the other six hundred thousand die in the wilderness. The three people who make it to see are Moses, Joshua, and Caleb. All the people who actually left Israel die in the wilderness. Only their children make it. This is part of the theology. The Sinai is held to be a cleansing event. It eliminated the Hebrews of all the you know the foulness and the contamination of being slaves and being associated with paganism. And again, this is rarely mentioned that none of the people who left Egypt actually made it there.

SPEAKER_05 50:39

Oh, you I was just in a better mood before. Shocking, shocking. Um, Gary, we we have to come to a close uh on today's episode uh about Moses. Yes, we've gone very far back in history, or as we've just learned in mythology and religion. And um he is a towering figure, whether he lived or not, but he certainly has shaped the way we see the world today, I think. And it has shaped three major religions that are still practiced and followed three and a half thousand or however long it's been years later. Gary, your expertise has been second to none on this podcast. We need to find out. Why do you know so much about it? How do you have all this knowledge?

SPEAKER_01 51:22

I spent 10 years doing my own podcast called The History in the Bible. That's the simple solution. I wound up the podcast uh about 18 months ago, and now I do what I call afterlife episodes, which are just little indulgences. I started the history in the Bible because I've always been interested in it. And I thought, let me do something systematic about it. So that's the way it goes. And thank you for having me on your show. It's been good fun.

SPEAKER_05 51:46

It's been really good fun. And uh, Gary, uh, you you have so much expertise. I hope to hear you again one day. There's a few people in the biblical history that I could think of for another episode. Um, John the Baptist being one of them.

SPEAKER_01 52:00

Was he a butchist? John the Baptist, Jesus. Jesus would definitely come into that side, I think.

SPEAKER_05 52:06

Yeah, and um I'll hope to hear you again on our podcast. But thank you so much for sharing all the insights on Moses. I have a very different view of him, very different understanding. James, have has your point of view changed in the last hour?

SPEAKER_00 52:20

Yes and no. I mean, Gary, you're an absolute font of information, and I I've listened to some of your podcasts, and it's great. Just one question. Are you uh are you a believer?

SPEAKER_01 52:31

I spent the entire 10 years of my podcast going out of my way, not to discuss my personal beliefs, and I'm not gonna start now.

SPEAKER_00 52:39

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_05 52:40

Good try, James. Good try, Gary. Have a good day. Thank you for joining us, and we hear you again on the next one. There is a few revolutionaries in the Bible yet to come.