January 25

OT Today we finish Genesis and begin Exodus. I have posted a separate post with a quiz for the whole book. It would be great if you would either post your answers or email them to me. I would like to know how we are doing.
I once had a class for lay teachers with Walter Brueggeman of Columbia Seminary. He is a remarkable scholar and an incredible teacher. I left that class thinking I was ready to leave my job and go back to school. Fortunately for my family, when I got home, there was a stack of bills to be paid and dinner to cook for two wild boys. Maybe when I am sixty… At any rate, the lecture was on Moses and the strangeness of the birth of Moses story. I had an answer for it but Walter didn’t buy my argument. Here is what he said.
Pharaoh and his court did not go to the Nile for bathing. They were rich beyond belief and had their water carried to them in their palaces. Which was a good thing as there is a parasite that lives in the Nile river that enters the body through cuts and scrapes. This parasite causes the disease Schistosomiasis or Bilharzia. When infected, the parasite lodges in the liver and bladder and causes all sorts of problems and eventual death. Now, we have drugs to treat the parasite. Then, patients developed running sores, fever, swelling, and eventual death. There are some mummies that show evidence of the parasite. There are a lot of hieroglyphs that describe the disease, the awful treatment (bathing in the Nile with your running sores, just infecting yourself more….), and the horrible death.
Pharaoh and his court would make some religious pilgrimages to the Nile but for the most part, people who were bathing in the River were the poor. Why was Pharaoh’s daughter down there in the first place?
Another mystery is that she knew immediately that the baby was Hebrew. How? The Bible does not state that Moses was circumcised. There are veiled references both ways. Both in his son’s lack of circumcision and in the use of uncircumcised ‘lips’ for his speech. So, maybe, maybe not. But Pharaoh’s daughter knew right away that this was an ‘abandoned’ baby, she took him up and asked for a wet nurse who happened to be standing right there. But if she knew, why didn’t her father who commanded that they be killed know? Either right away or later on?
And she was able to speak to Miriam, the sister? And call him Moses? (By the way, in my research, I discovered that another version of Moses is Moshe. Gives a whole new look to Moshe Dayan, the Israeli general of our age, doesn’t it??) Does that mean that the sister spoke Egyptian or that Pharaoh’s daughter spoke Hebrew?
Walter Brueggeman did not have answers for any of this and to be sure, this is the mark of a great teacher. He drops the mystery in your lap and lets you puzzle it out for yourself. For me, here is what I think:
I think that Pharaoh’s daughter could not have children of her own. Having known many women who could not conceive or carry a baby to term, I know how desperate they can be and the things they will do to get one. I think she was desperate for a baby and someone told her that there were babies in the Nile. Hebrew babies that her father had ordered killed. I think Moses’ mother was not the only one who had hidden her baby and then floated him while she worked. I think Pharaoh’s daughter went down there IN SPECIFIC to get a baby.
When I told Walter this, he laughed and said there was no basis AT ALL for my theory. Later on, I told this to a rabbi at a wedding Don and I went to and he also laughed. But then he told me that I should read the Midrash surrounding the birth narrative of Moses and I would be right at home.
Please click here for some wonderful examples of the Midrash. Midrash is the stories and the myths that the rabbis use to illustrate the Bible stories to their congregants. Sort of like sermons although these have been preserved for, in some cases, 2000 years. Midrash is still occurring.
What about you? Does the story of Moses puzzle you as much as it does Walter and me? What does it say to you?

Proverbs: When I popped into one of my favorite farming blogs this morning, she had a picture of children’s hightop sneakers on her page. They were hand-me-downs from her children and will eventually make their way to her granddaughter. My comment to her post was that so many, many of the proverbs have straight paths and walking imagery. This is a family that walks with the Lord. What a great example they will be for the little girl. And that is what the Proverbs are. A pathway to the Lord. Our job is to put on our hand-me-down hightops and stay in the straight and narrow. That is the hard part. But the reward is so great. Here is her original post.

Friends, I am proud of you for sticking with it and getting Genesis behind us. We have made a great start. Now is not the time to falter. Peace to you and blessings on your readings.