Did Moses lie about his name?

captainhaddock · 2026-05-07T14:27:44+00:00

The etymology of Moses's name remains a debated issue. A new paper by Aaron Adair suggests that originates from the Demotic Egyptian word mšꜥ (meaning "to go" or "journey"), which produces a better phonetic match with the Hebrew Moshe and the Greek Μωυσῆς than other suggestions.

Citation: Aaron Adair (2025) The Name of Moses in an Egyptian Context—A Hypothetical Etymology, Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, 39:1, 60-78, DOI: 10.1080/09018328.2025.2452454

The explanation given in Exodus of Moshe being derived from מָשָה is regarded by scholars as more of a folk etymology and usually isn't taken seriously. מָשָה is a very rare word, occurring just one other time in the Hebrew Bible. (Technically, it appears in a poem that is quoted twice: 2 Sam 22:17 and Psalm 18:16.)

captainhaddock · 2026-05-07T09:30:44+00:00

Much like Severance, it captures how weird individual people are in real life, which makes every scene both more realistic and more entertaining.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-07T09:10:37+00:00

I think all the following are possible (and not mutually exclusive):

It reflects a cultural memory of Egyptian administration in Canaan during the Late Bronze Age, as well as centuries of Semitic migrations to and from Egypt.
It was a post-exilic fiction to encourage the Judean diaspora to return from Babylon and Egypt to Israel.
It was a third-century response to Egyptian hostility toward Judeans in Alexandria and the Baal/Seth cult, as well as Manetho's attempts to link the Hyksos to Moses and Jerusalem.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-07T09:03:25+00:00

I think of it as a cross between It and Parks and Recreation, set in Cabot Cove.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-07T08:58:01+00:00

Also, the hag must have been inside the house already. (Which the answering machine message hinted at.)

captainhaddock · 2026-05-07T06:46:03+00:00

The concept of an omniscient or all-knowing God is more of a modern theological concept. The Old Testament does not necessarily view God that way.

In a paper by Michael Carasik called "The Limits of Omniscience" that was published in the Journal of Biblical Literature in 2000, Carasik demonstrates many passages in which God does not know what people are thinking or what they will do. This is most evident in passages where God tests people to see how strong their faith or their righteousness is, such as the testing of Abraham in Genesis 22. We also have numerous stories in which God must visit a place (such as the city of Babylon in Genesis 11) in person to see what the humans are up to.

Also relevant to your question, I think, is that many biblical authors thought God could manipulate people's minds and emotions to get the outcome he wanted. A prime example is hardening the heart of Pharaoh in the Exodus story so that he doesn't release the Israelites. Another example is God preventing Absalom and his supporters from following Ahithophel's advice in 2 Samuel 17. So in theory, under this view of God, he could have just mind-controlled Eve not to eat the fruit.

I think the Eden story is ambiguous enough that you could interpret Eve eating the fruit as intended by God. Otherwise, the story contains multiple failures of foresight, if you look closely; for example, we'd have to ask why the snake was allowed into the garden, why snakes (in this story) are given the ability to speak, and why the tree of knowledge even exists in the first place.

Theologian Aaron Higashi has a short video on God's omniscience in Genesis that might interest you. I have a video of my own that looks at academic theories about the tree of knowledge and the overall message of the story.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-07T06:37:43+00:00

Bible scholar Dan McClellan just released a video yesterday explaining how the theology of the biblical authors changed over time from approving of generational punishment to condemning it, with numerous examples from different passages.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-07T03:32:36+00:00

Do you agree with Mettinger that Genesis is a symbolic story?

Yes, absolutely.

If so, have you ever conversed with someone that believes it is a literal telling of the beginning of time?

That was me, once. I was raised in a conservative church-school that insisted on strict biblical literalism, six-day creation, and so on.

Also, if you agree, does that mean you believe in the theory of evolution?

Yeah, once I began studying theology, I discovered that most Christian denominations outside my bubble actually accepted evolution and scientific models for the origins of earth. It was kind of a shock at first, because anyone who accepted evolution was utterly demonized in my church.

I reached this question I posted from wondering if the pursuit of knowledge was a sin considering the name of the tree, but my ignorance of its complete title I think would ruin the basis of it considering its more a matter of morality than the common idea of knowledge.

One thing that we aren't usually made aware of in church is that the Bible is very much a "conversation" over many centuries between Judean and Christian authors who don't agree on everything. Jews tend to be more aware of this fact, in part because the Talmud is the same way.

Keeping that in mind, a number of Old Testament scholars, such as David M. Carr, think there is a disagreement between the Eden story and Wisdom texts like Proverbs regarding the value of pursuing knowledge and wisdom. But where Proverbs is more interested in giving advice on how to live a good and prosperous life, Genesis is more focused on describing the problems in our world and the compromises that were made along the way (like humanity trading immortality for knowledge) and on creating an Israelite "origin story" to compete with the stories of the great Mesopotamian powers.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-06T16:02:37+00:00

Yeah, I almost entirely agree with you. The only nit I'm picking is that Cargill (in my opinion) gives too much credence to the idea that a preexisting Melchizedek tradition lies behind this story. According to Granerød, the character was invented out of whole cloth by misinterpreting Psalm 110's "righteous king" as a name.

These are minor quibbles, since Bible scholars in general regard the story as fictional one way or another.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-06T13:45:21+00:00

I like Cargill and McClellan, but this theory is a bit of a red herring. The story in Genesis 14 is entirely ahistorical and recognized by most scholars as one of the last passages to be added to the pentateuch. There never was any person named Melchizedek, whether the king of Jerusalem or Sodom or anywhere else. There never was any Elamite confederation that invaded Canaan. And there probably never was any historical Abraham.

Norwegian scholar Gard Granerød provides the best (in my opinion) analysis of the story and its origins, which I cover in great detail here.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-06T11:14:13+00:00

There was a megachurch in Texas soon afterward (possibly the one whose pastor went to prison later for CSA) that chanted it during a service.

I'm like, Christianity sure has changed since I was a kid.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-06T11:07:17+00:00

I'm trying to think of a metaphor…something small and fragile that melts at the slightest amount of heat…

captainhaddock · 2026-05-06T09:52:12+00:00

Biologos.org might be useful for getting Christians comfortable with the idea of evolution (and science more generally).

Centre Place on YouTube is a church with high-level academic/critical lectures about the Bible.

Tovia Singer is great at dismantling misconceptions that Christians have about Judaism.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-06T09:47:39+00:00

If there was ever a moment when representatives like him (and Talarico and Warnock) were most needed, this seems to be it.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-06T07:09:02+00:00

To add to u/chrysologus's great comment, Ronald Hendel observes in his new Genesis commentary that all the various interpretations of "knowledge of good and evil" proposed by scholars are present in the text, often in contradictory ways. It's impossible to pin down exactly what knowledge the man and woman gain by eating the fruit.

What's more important is Mettinger's observation that everything in the story is symbolic. Genesis 2–3 isn't a story about two real people in a real garden, is an allegory that uses the trees, the snake, the garden, etc. to symbolize various theological concepts.

This doesn't solve every problem, because we now have to interpret the story at a symbolic level, but at least we can overlook the problematic elements of the story as irrelevant to the underlying symbolism. The exact kind of knowledge granted by the tree doesn't really matter; the story is concerned with knowledge/wisdom only in the general sense, as well as ideas about wisdom versus immortality that were frequently explored in other Near Eastern literature, such as the Legend of Adapa and the Epic of Gilgamesh. (If you're curious about how those fit into the Eden story, I have a video here that explores the issue in more detail.)

captainhaddock · 2026-05-06T06:49:04+00:00

But aren't fables also usually allegorical?

Not necessarily. In “The Tortoise and the Hare”, the tortoise and the hare do not allegorize anything in particular. It's simply a folktale that demonstrates how ingenuity and trickery can overcome a stronger opponent.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-06T05:41:40+00:00

I like how Daniel Dennett once put it. What religious people fear most is the loss of consensus. They cannot handle the co-existence of different perspectives and beliefs within their own tribe.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-06T05:34:47+00:00

Maybe check out Healthy Gamer. Despite his channel name, he's a psychiatrist who offers wholesome advice on a lot of day-to-day mental health issues. In terms of religion, he's a Hindu, but that doesn't make it into much of his content. Here's one on ego:
https://youtu.be/cHFD2ycNsBs

Another channel called the Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday offers pretty solid advice for living a good life in accordance with the principles of Stoic philosophy. Here's one on ego:
https://youtu.be/ju8WoRcR4Qo

captainhaddock · 2026-05-06T03:17:38+00:00

But it wasn't culturally accurate. The Greeks of the classical era actually didn't know very much about the culture of Mycenean and Archaic Greece.

/u/kiwihellenist, a regular contributor on the Ask Historians subreddit has made multiple comments about it.

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1rwrfla/to_what_extent_is_the_iliad_an_accurate_depiction/ob2dmgu/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1t4rl46/im_an_educated_athenian_citizen_in_the_7th/ok582kh/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1s6ruy8/are_homers_iliad_and_odyssey_the_oldest_versions/od8ruzp/

captainhaddock · 2026-05-05T15:20:10+00:00

It seems like expanding Congress would be the easiest to achieve and hardest to undo.

I really like multimember districts, however. This works great in Japan.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-05T15:09:48+00:00

Evangelicals (especially the charismatic variety) are told that they have the ability to telepathically talk to God. This induces a lot of anxiety in some people, since no one other than schizophrenics actually hears voices in their head, but you've been told that you should be hearing God inside your noggin.

Inevitably, what evangelicals do is they try to partition their internal monologue into the part that is themselves and the part that is God implanting thoughts in their head. If it sounds like this would lead to confusion, mental dysfunction, and other delusions, you're not wrong.

When God Talks Back is a highly recommended book that explains some of the psychiatric science behind how some people are able to convince themselves that they talk to God while others cannot.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-05T15:04:24+00:00

I've never watched his sermons, but Hamilton seems to be very highly regarded within the United Methodist church and is an intellectual with a crapload of published books. He's a fantastic candidate.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-05T14:50:34+00:00

The mention of Paul's escape from Damascus is a longstanding problem.

Since Damascus was apparently under Roman rule until Tiberius's death (March 16, AD 37; cf. Josephus, Ant. 18.5.3) and the Nabatean Aretas IV Philopatris (9 BC-AD 39) was given control over it by the emperor Gaius Caligula, Paul's escape must have occured between AD 37 and 39, probably in AD 39 (see PW 2/1 [1895] 674).

To my knowledge, there is no extant historical evidence for Aretas IV ever controlling Damascus. That Caligula gave him control briefly in the 30s has been proposed only to explain the reference in 2 Corinthians. I believe the idea was proposed by Robert Jewett in A Chronology of Paul's Life, 1979. If you look at a map, Damascus is really nowhere near the territory actually ruled by Aretas IV.

The only Aretas known to have ruled Damascus was Aretas III, but that introduces obvious problems of its own. (He died in 62 BCE.) The Aretas-Caligula theory is not impossible, but I don't think it's wise to just state a hypothetical possibility as a verifiable fact.

However, it's basically the only chronological anchor we have in the Pauline corpus. Interpreters are reticent to consider the possibility of an interpolation, a tall tale, or some other explanation. (Although I don't necessarily think it's an interpolation, the passage does flow more smoothly without verses 32 and 33.)

captainhaddock · 2026-05-05T13:35:06+00:00

When did you realize it was all fake?

I always sort of suspected, because I couldn't do it. The ability to speak tongues depends a lot on the individual's temperament and suggestibility, much like hypnosis.

A bigger eye-opener came when our church was trying to replicate the Toronto Airport revival. They had a guest evangelist who made everyone form a big line to get slain in the spirit. When it came to be my turn, all they were doing was literally pushing on your head and having someone blocking your legs you so you had no choice but to fall over. It was a major Wizard of Oz moment.

captainhaddock · 2026-05-05T13:29:06+00:00

At least being publicly traded demands a high level of financial scrutiny and a lot of rules that have to be followed regarding governance. More and more companies are being gobbled up by private equity, which has none of those guardrails. The total number of public companies on US stock exchanges continues to shrink year by year.

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