The Free Thinkers guide to the Bible

Part 2 Summary

Welcome back!

Hopefully you have read all six of the Part two studies in order. I hope they were eye opening and answered some of your questions, and better yet, brought more questions to mind.

In part two; I provided you with six examples of diminishment and or elevation of Moses and Aaron. Moses is always portrayed as being the spokesman of the Creator and the leader of the children of Israel during the time of the Exodus. His authority was challenged on many occasions by the people as they grumbled or complained about the hardships they endured on the journey, as well as times when his leadership was brought into question.

The six examples:

The Burning Bush – (Moses and Zipporah diminished) Moses is portrayed in this account as being slow of speech and tongue as well as not being a man of words. Aaron is then assigned the role of mouthpiece for the Creator in his stead. In a few later accounts we read of Aaron being the spokesman to the people.

We also read in the overwhelming majority of later accounts that Moses has no problem speaking the will of the Creator to the people.

Later in the study we read about how Moses’ wife Zipporah was involved in a ritual circumcision account that not only put Zipporah in a degraded position, but by association Moses was also degraded.

The veil of Moses – (Moses diminished) In this account Moses is said to have a glowing face that made the people afraid of him and forced him to wear a veil to cover his face when speaking to the people. The account seems to allude to this as an ongoing situation. Moses would go in to the Tabernacle of the congregation unveil his face, speak with the Creator and when he left the tabernacle he place the veil over his face.

We read of no accounts other than this one, where Moses face glowed. We also have no confirmation of this interesting/peculiar event in the Deuteronomy 10 account chronicling the same time frame.

The heresy of Peor/Ba’al Peor – (Moses diminished) We read in the heresy of Peor account of an inference that Moses stood by and watched as the Tabernacle was being defiled. This assertion will be resolved by the end of the series.

The Waters of Meribah – (Moses diminished) in the Numbers 20 account of the Waters of Meribah, Moses is accused of trespass and not sanctifying the Creator. Thus he and Aaron would not enter the land with the people of Israel. Speculations abound regarding Moses not sanctifying the Creator during this event. Was it because Moses was told to speak to the rock, and he spoke to the people and struck the rock twice instead?

Why does the Exodus 17 account of this same event mention nothing of the offense against the Creator? Which account do we believe? We need to ask ourselves the question: why the accounts vary so greatly?

The Golden/Molten Calf - (Aaron diminished) in the Golden/Molten Calf account we read that Moses goes up to the Mount and places Aaron and Hur of the elders of the people to lead the people in his absence.

The people feared that Moses “The man that brought them up out of Egypt” might not return to them and asked the leader Aaron to make them a mighty one to lead them. Note that the people did not say to Aaron “your brother that brought us up out of Egypt”. Aaron took their golden earrings and engraved it (chereṭ - graving tool), he then made an altar and the people held a feast to the new mighty one that Aaron created.

Moses came down from the Mount and confronted Aaron. He asked Moses not to be mad and told him that the people desired a mighty one, so he just threw the gold into the fire, and out came the calf (leaving out the engraving reference from earlier).

In the Exodus account, Moses calls for people to slay those who participated in the event. The Levites answered the call and three-thousand people were slain.

In the Deuteronomy account of the event, Moses petitions the Creator for leniency for the people and Aaron by fasting for forty days.

The Rebellion of Miriam and Aaron – (Aaron, Miriam and Zipporah diminished) In this account we read of Aaron and Miriam’s rebellion against his authority and his marriage to Zipporah an Ethiopian woman. The Creator chastises them and confirms that Moses is his mouthpiece and prophet. Miriam is plagued with Leprosy and put out of the camp for seven days.

Please make note of the absence of any brotherly/sisterly connection between Moses, Aaron and Miriam in the account.

As in the Burning Bush study; Zipporah is once again a target.

After completing Part two of the series you should be detecting patterns and be able to distinguish between the two authors by their writing styles, stories context, key words and key people.

Please join us for the third portion of the series: Moses Vs Aaron and Moses

Part 3 #1 – Flesh/Bread from the heavens