bacht

Heh, like I should care

But it's true, they take a colouful story and reduce it to black and white. Ancient poetic material shouldn't be read like modern prose, it's a disservice to the authors and a loss of nuance. Some of the stories may be political allegories, but this sort of thing gets lost in literalist filtering.

Chili

I agree with that and the poetic verse is there so it will speak to our lyrical vision which makes it a 'painting with words' and thus an allegory with a deep structure meaning that here is the same for Moses as it was in Matthews nativity scene. Both of course were forced or rationally induced premature rebirth descriptions ("from his mother's womb untimely ripped") and thus bad news in the end. Hence, they were lost in the desert for 40 years and Matthews Jesus goes back to Galilee for another 40 years and both will just die in the end.

seyorni

What if Moses' mum weren't the only one to sent her baby down the river in a basket, on hearing the proclamation?

I see a Life of Brian sequel here.....

Julio

Well, good point.
Indeed, how would we know this Moses that came out of the dramatic event was the real one?
It appears that many baby boys were drowned in the Nile.
It was to be a nice story, if the child would not grow up to become the first Hitler in the Hebrew family!
[Oooooppppsss! O think I said something horrible, forgive me....]

Chili

Hitler was not a religious leader but Billy Graham was.

Julio

Billy Graham?!!
Oooppsss again!

Chili

. . . and a good friend of Bush, also known to pray together before declaring war and Kuweit is an example of this when the famous 'incubator story' became the tranquilizer for the general public.

Doug Shaver

As rhetorical weapons go, so far I have found "Why should I believe that?" to be unfailingly lethal.

Julio

Excellent!
I like that.
I will remember to use it the next time.

seyorni

National Socialism wasn't a religion?