The Life of One Chosen by God: A Study of the Stories of Moses in Jewish, Christian and Muslim Sources

428 Pages·2022·3.443 MB·English

by  Elena Narinskaya

The Life of One Chosen by God
Gorgias Studies in Classical and Late Antiquity
29
Series Editorial Board
Johannes Niehoff-Panagiotidis Irene Schneider
Rebekka Nieten Manolis Ulbricht
Adrian Pirtea
Advisory Editorial Board
Stefan Esders Nicola Denzey Lewis
Thomas Figueira AnneMarie Luijendijk
Christian Freigang Roberta Mazza
David Hernandez de la Fuente Arietta Papaconstantinou
Markham J. Geller Meron-Martin Piotrkowski
Susan Ashbrook Harvey Shabo Talay
This series contains monographs and edited volumes on the
Greco-Roman world and its transition into Late Antiquity,
encompassing political and social structures, knowledge and
educational ideals, art, architecture and literature.
The Life of One Chosen by God
A Study of the Stories of Moses in Jewish,
Christian and Muslim Sources
Elena Narinskaya
gp
2022
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2022 ܒ 1
ISBN 978-1-4632-3913-8 ISSN 2690-2222
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents ......................................................................... v
Introduction ................................................................................. 1
Chapter 1. Moses’ Childhood: The formative years of God’s
chosen one in the Biblical narrative, the Jewish
Exegesis, the writings of St Ephrem the Syrian and in
the Qur’an........................................................................... 39
Chapter 2. From the Burning Bush onwards: The beginning of
signs in Moses’ story ........................................................... 81
Chapter 3. Preparation to the Crossing of the Red Sea ............ 115
Chapter 4. The LAW for the Chosen People ............................. 193
Chapter 5. Theology of Signs in relation to the story
of Moses ............................................................................ 275
Conclusion ................................................................................ 367
Bibliography ............................................................................. 391
v

INTRODUCTION
Judaism, Christianity and Islam are three world religions, which
are united by their profession of faith in One God, the Creator of
Heaven and earth. These three religions also share a common
legacy of the history of human encounters with God, which are
narrated in the biblical accounts of the Old Testament. Taking a
next step in exploring the common heritage of the three mono-
theistic religions, the biblical figures of the OT Prophets and
Patriarchs provide a unifying ground. Biblical prophets and pa-
triarchs are revered and appreciated in the writings of Jewish,
Christian and Muslim origin. The figure of one of those prophets
and patriarchs, Moses, provides a unifying theme for the study
in this book. This study aims to present a comparative analysis
of Moses’ stories in the biblical narrative, in the Jewish Rabbini-
cal Exegesis of Midrash Rabbah, in the biblical commentaries of
Christian Syriac origin written by Ephrem the Syrian, and in the
writings of the Qur’an.
FOUR PRIMARY SOURCES FOR THE STUDY: OT NARRATIVE,
MIDRASH RABBAH, EPHREM THE SYRIAN, QUR’AN
The four original sources were chosen according to their signifi-
cance within the religious traditions of the Abrahamic faiths.
Among the four sources the OT narrative has a common place,
as it provides the ‘original’ narrative of the life of Moses from
which the exegeses of the Midrash, Ephrem and the Qur’an de-
velop. The Midrash, Ephrem and the Qur’an are selected by two
criteria. Firstly, each source represents one of the three mono-
theistic traditions, i.e. Judaism, Christianity or Islam. And sec-
ondly, each source has an important place within their respec-
1
2 THE LIFE OF ONE CHOSEN BY GOD
tive religious traditions. Below is a small introduction to each of
the primary sources.
From the outset of this research a few clarifications have to
be made. The main sources of the study are the Torah / Hebrew
Bible / Old Testament / primarily Exodus; alongside these are,
essentially commentaries on the biblical narratives: Midrash
Rabbah and Ephrem the Syrian. There is a clear attempt in this
study to fit the biblically related passages of the Qur’anic narra-
tive within this context, as a part of the common tradition of
biblical exegesis. In doing so this study offers insights into the
possibility of historical development of the common, initially
Judaeo-Christian, tradition of biblical exegesis, into the biblical-
ly related passages of the Qur’an. One has to emphasize here
that it is not the whole Qur’an which is looked at in this study
and analysed in the context of possibly being identified as one of
the biblical exegetical sources of late antiquity, but only specifi-
cally and clearly biblically related passages from it. Therefore,
without diminishing the value and appreciation of the Qur’an as
a whole, as a sacred source of the Muslim religious tradition, the
selected passages in this study are not considered on their own,
and not as part of the Muslim tradition with its own develop-
ment of Qur’anic exegesis, but as a reflection and continuation
of Judaeo-Christian tradition of biblical exegesis. In doing so
there are advantages and disadvantages to the methodological
approach of this study, and it will be further discussed. At this
point, however, it is important to give a brief introduction to the
four primary sources of this study.
THE BIBLICAL NARRATIVE
As mentioned before the biblical narrative of the OT1 is chrono-
logically the earliest source in this study. The compilation of the
five books of the Torah is dated from the Babylonian Exilic peri-

1 For this study the first two books of the Torah will be used, first and foremost
Exodus, and on occasions Genesis.
INTRODUCTION 3
od of 600 BCE2. The earliest written manuscripts of the OT
books, which have been found so far are the manuscripts of the
Dead Sea Scrolls in the Qumran caves and their earliest suggest-
ed date was the middle of the third century BCE3. Beside He-
brew manuscripts, the earliest translated version of the OT, the
Septuagint, also found in Qumran, is of the first century BCE.
There are other earlier Greek translations, which date to the
second century BCE. Both Hebrew and Greek manuscripts sug-
gest that the dating of the earliest manuscripts of the OT Bible is
prior to the second century BCE. This is the chronological foun-
dation, on which the study in this book builds its argument in
considering the OT narrative as the ‘original’ version of the sto-
ries of Moses.4
THE MIDRASH RABBAH
Dating of the Jewish rabbinical material of the Midrash Rabbah
is difficult. It is an exegetical compilation, which embraces the
interpretations, illustrations, often expansions, in a moralizing
or edifying manner, of the non-legal portions of the Bible. One
has to bear in mind that the oral tradition of rabbinical exegesis
precedes its compiled and written form. However, for the pur-
pose of ascribing the time frame to the collected manuscripts of
Midrash Rabbah, it is possible to affiliate the compilation of
Midrash Rabbah to the time period of Palestinian Amoraim of
the third to sixth century CE. Rabbi Hoshaiah, who lived in Pal-

2 See in Blenkinsopp, Joseph, The Pentateuch: An introduction to the first five books
of the Bible. Anchor Bible Reference Library. (New York: Doubleday, 1992), p. 1.
3 As, for example, 4QExod-Lev. See in Frank Moore Cross (ed.) in Eugene Ulrich
et al. Qumran Cave 4–VII: Genesis to Numbers, Discoveries in the Judean Desert 12
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), p. 133ff.
4 The subject of critical research in the field of biblical scholarship is complicat-
ed. It is constantly evolving through the process of new findings in the field. The
contemporary selection of the articles in the field can be found in the Alexander
T. D. and Baker, D.W. (eds.) Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch: A com-
pendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press,
2003).
4 THE LIFE OF ONE CHOSEN BY GOD
estine in the third century, could be named as the author of the
earliest collection of rabbinic material of the Midrash Rabbah on
the book of Genesis. He was followed by further compilations of
exegetical material of the following books of the OT over subse-
quent centuries.5
EPHREM THE SYRIAN
Ephrem the Syrian (306–373CE) is the fourth century poet, the-
ologian and church leader. Not much is known about his per-
sonal life apart from the fact that most of his life he lived in the
town of Nisibis6, while the last ten years of his life he had to
spend in Edessa7 where he produced most of his work. His writ-
ings testify that he was a talented author, who among other
things produced biblical commentaries which have survived un-
til today in their original language, Syriac, and in many transla-
tions into Greek, Armenian, Russian and other languages. The
fact that Ephrem’s work is appreciated until now testifies to the
importance of the figure of Ephrem in the Christian tradition.
The writings of St Ephrem the Syrian are deeply incorporated
into liturgical practices of the Orthodox Christian traditions in
this day and age. His hymns and prayers are often being read in
the Syrian, Russian and Greek Orthodox churches during the
course of the liturgical year and also over the special period of
Great Lent. In recent years there has been a growing interest in
the writings of Ephrem the Syrian in academic scholarship,
largely due to the works of Sebastian Brock, as well as Alison
Salvesen, Robert Murray, Cathleen McVey and others.

5 The material used in this book will be taken from the edited collection of the
Midrash Rabbah in English from Freedman, H., Maurice Simon (eds.), etc. Mid-
rash Rabbah, Exodus, transl. S.M. Lehrman, (London: Soncino Press, 1983) or in
Hebrew from Epstein, E. (ed.), Midrash Rabbah (Tel-Aviv, 1956–63). On the
history of the text see Neusner, J, Christian Text and the Bible of Judaism: The
Judaic Encounters with Scripture (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990).
6 Currently located in South East Turkey, on the border with Syria.
7 Modern name for it is Urfa, and it is also in South East Turkey.