Exodus 1-14. This Will Include Essay

A strong leader in the mold of Sadaam Hussein, he fought a life and death struggle with the Hittite leader Muwatalli II at Kadesh in Syria in 1274 B.C.E.. While the battle resulted in a draw, it was just barely so and resulted in a peace treaty between the two empires. Egyptian inscriptions portray it as a great victory ("Ramses ii: the," 2007).

This author identifies most with Moses. He is great but is also the typical "everyman" in that he is an ordinary man caught up in extraordinary circumstances who aspires and achieves his greatness through humble service to his nation.

The narrative does not seem to be interested in Egypt or the Pharaoh per se. For instance, we do not even know who the Pharaoh is. For the author of Exodus, this is not important. Even the relation of the Exodus narrative itself is only told because it offers an example of faith to inspire the Jewish people and humanity as a whole in the future. Thematically, this narrative relates the choice of the Jewish people as the vessel for God's interaction with humanity since a general approach via Adam and his descendants failed. Now, God focuses on the people of Israel and builds a nation to be the divine embassy to planet Earth.

This narrative has had a great impact upon the author. While God now focuses upon the national religion of the new nation of Israel, he has not lost interest in humanity.Even Egyptians can be considered among the righteous of the nations as we see in the case of Pharaoh's daughter. Even though Pharaoh and much of Egyptian society was evil, he did not destroy the country right away but gave opportunities for repentance. This gives a view of Judaism in context and counters the anti-Semitic view of Judaism as a narrow and prejudicial religion concerned only with the nation of Israel. God cares about all people and only concentrated upon a remnant of faithful when humanity in general lost interest in morality. As with Pharaoh's daughter, gentiles too can approach the God of Israel just as the Jewish people do. For instance, the "Feast of Tabernacles" (Sukkot) is not just for Israel. It is for all the nations and thousands of Christians celebrate it every year in Jerusalem (Richman, 1999) . For this reason, the righteous of all nations can aspire to the divine service, not just the priesthood represented by the Jewish people.

Works Cited

Hertz, J.H. (1966). The Pentateuch and Haftorahs. London, U.K.: Soncino Press.

Ramses ii: the battle of kadesh. (2007, September). Retrieved from http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/ramseskadeshcampaign.htm.

Richman, C. (1999, September 22). Sukkot: a unique connection to the gentiles.

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