p. 234 | Education of Moses

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Nov 7, 1878

Education of Moses.

The history of Moses is divided into three periods, each of forty years. The first extends from infancy, hid among the Nile rushes, found and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter, to his flight to Midian. During this time he was in the king's palace as the adopted son of the princess, where he enjoyed not only princely rank, but also a princely education. The second period was from his flight till his return to Egypt; and the third extends from the exodus out of Egypt to his death on Mount Nebo.

In Acts 7:22 it is stated that "Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds." Says the Bible Dictionary: "This is no unmeaning praise. The wisdom of the Egyptians, and especially of their priests, was then the profoundest in the world."

Existing monuments place beyond all reasonable doubt that Egypt was in Moses' time, and had been for centuries, the source and center of the world's civilization. She was mistress of the nations in letters, science, and art. Giving the date of the exodus at about 1300 B. C. places it about midway between the original founding of the empire by Menes, and the Christian era. Of this period, and the intellectual culture and supremacy of the nation, Rev. J. Havens, LL. D., writes:—

"The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries B. C. were the golden period of Egyptian greatness, and Elizabethan age of her culture. The education of Moses would naturally, under such circumstances, be that of the highest nobles and princes in the realm, the best the nation could afford; and that this was of a high order, there is the clearest monumental evidence.

"From the first, the Egyptians possessed the arts of civilized life. From the earliest centuries of their national existence they had been workers in wood, and stone, and brass; gold, silver and bronze were in common use among them; so was iron, that latest product and surest test of high civilization. The gold neck-lace and ear-rings of Menes, the first king of Egypt, and the signet-ring of Shufu, the builder of the great pyramid, are as elaborate and elegant in their workmanship and finish as anything in that line which modern art can produce. In the chamber at Karnak, which commemorates the wars and triumphs of Thotmes III., of the 18th dynasty—some two hundred years before the time of Moses—there is a record to the offerings made to the temple to complete it, in which list mention is made of the metals, silver, copper, iron, tin and lead, good bronze of the land of Babel, and tusks of ivory richly carved and polished, and solid rings of gold. The value of the treasure contributed to the temple by Thotmes as the result of these military expeditions is set down in the record at 2,374 solid rings of gold. It was in the ships of Tyre that these treasures were brought by the king to Thebes, his capital. The art of working iron must have been possessed by the Egyptians from the very first, for a piece of wrought iron has been found by Col. Howard Vyse imbedded among the solid masonry of the great pyramid, near the summit, where it must have been left by the original builders.

"In other arts, the great proficiency of the Egyptians is attested by the paintings in the tombs at Thebes and Beni-Hassan. The process of glass-blowing, usually regarded as a modern invention, is there plainly depicted; while the articles of luxury, the vases, couches, ottomans, chairs, and other furniture of a richly furnished house, can hardly be surpassed for elegance, richness, and variety. And, what is singular in regard to the matter, the older monuments and works of art, as compared with those of later date, are not the less but the more perfect of the two. The sculptures and inscriptions of the age of Thotmes III., and of Sesostris, prior to Moses and the exodus, are far superior to those executed by the Ptolemies in the later period of the empire.

"Of the science of the ancient Egyptians not much is known to us, but it is certain that they understood the science of agriculture, and carried it to perfection. They understood and successfully executed works of civil engineering, before which modern science stands aghast. They turned the course of the Nile into new channels, so as to redeem wide regions of desert from barrenness to highest fertility. In mathematical and astronomical science, the Egyptians seem to have been proficient. The great pyramid is itself, according to the astronomer royal of Scotland, Piazzi Smith, one of the most remarkable scientific and astronomical buildings ever erected. On the ceiling of the temple at Denderah, one sees the characters and signs of the Zodiac as complete as in our modern astronomy.

"Nor was Egypt without a literature. On the walls and columns of her sacred edifices, graven in the rock forever, under the care and keeping of the gods, her history, so regards at least its leading events, stands written. Not merely the wars, the battles, and sieges, and conquests, are there recorded, but accompanying the pictorial representations of these are historic inscriptions, and invocations addressed to the conqueror, often in the highest style of oriental poetry. I had intended to give a few specimens of these, as illustrating the character of Egyptian poetical art, especially its marked resemblance to the spirit and style of the Hebrew prophets; but space will not permit.

"But such historic inscriptions were not the only literature of this remarkable people, at the time of which I speak. They had also books, libraries, and schools of instruction. An inscription on one of the tombs of the period of Sephres, the builder of the second pyramid, some 2,000 years B. C., speaks of lands devoted to the library of that monarch. This was several centuries prior to the time of Moses. One of the beautiful tombs at Beni-Hassan is that of one of the nobles of the twelfth dynasty—Nahrai, who, as the inscription informs us, was steward of the land tax for the support of the schools of the sons of the kings of lower Egypt. This was a thousand years or more before the exodus; and shows the care of the nation, at that early period, for the education of its future rulers. The famous Memnonium at Thebes, palace of Remeses II., the Pharaoh by whose daughter Moses was adopted and educated, contained a library of sacred books, over the entrance to which may still be seen this most appropriate inscription,—The Remedy for the Soul. When after the death of this monarch, and of his son who survived him but a few years, his infant grandson, Sethos II., came to the throne. Thouoris, the daughter already mentioned, who was guardian and co-regent of the young king, appointed scribes to write books of instruction for him, that he might be incited to noble deeds by the histories of his ancestors. The tomb of one of these scribes has been discovered at Thebes, and in it the books he had written for the young king—the Pharaoh, it is supposed, of the exodus.

"From these various facts respecting the general culture and attainments of the Egyptians in art, science, and literature, in the time of Moses and earlier, it may be inferred with almost absolute certainty that the education he received at the court of Thouoris, and perhaps also of her father, the great Sesostris, was of the very highest order, and such as could probably have been obtained in scarcely any other nation at that time."

The mention of Moses occurs repeatedly in Greek and Latin writings, and still more frequent in those of the Arabs, and the rabbinical Jews. Maimonides, an illustrious rabbi, drew up for the Jews, in the eleventh century, a confession of faith in which is expressed belief and perfect faith in Moses as the father and chief of all wise men that lived before him, or ever should live after him.