At this time of year, many of us consider the Exodus, as well as the death and resurrection of Christ. Looking back to the start of the Israelites, as well as to what our Saviour did.
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Like many people, my husband and I watched Cecil B de Mille’s ‘Ten Commandments’ movie over and over. (I think he was word-perfect LOL). I was considering that movie the other day as I thought on Moses being sent back to Egypt as the ‘deliverer’.
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Call me a ‘slow-learner’ – in some things I am. But realisation dawned. Moses was forty when he left Egypt, another forty years tending sheep for his father-in-law. A whole generation could have died out. The men who saw Moses murder a man probably were dead.
So when Moses went back to Egypt, many of the Israelites who could have identified him as the former prince of Egypt, were dead, and Moses is portrayed as grey-bearded, grey-haired… and old. (He was eighty years old.)
In the Ten Commandments movie, when he returned to Egypt, the (same) Pharaoh, played by Yul Brynner, looked around the age he was when Moses left… and so was the woman who had been in love with Moses, according to the plot line.
Ooops. Did time stand still in Egypt?
Still, it was a powerful movie… and like most things entertainment, not to be completely relied upon as fact.
I did some research.
According to Biblical Archaeology
http://www.truthnet.org/Biblicalarcheology/5/Exodusarcheology.htm
Josephus also writes:
”The Pharaoh, from whom Moses had fled, died, and a new Pharaoh had become ruler. Moses traveled to his palace and told him of the victories he gained for Egypt in the war against Ethiopia . . . He also spoke to Pharaoh about what had taken place on Mount Sinai, and when Pharaoh laughed, Moses showed him the signs.”
It is amazing what ‘clutter’ can be found in the mind. I enjoyed the movie, but much of it was not true.
How much clutter do we keep in our mind because it is ‘interesting’? How much do we believe just because we have grown up with it?
What do bunny rabbits and easter eggs have to do with Christ being crucified? I remember, as a child, thinking that the eggs had something to do with ‘new life’… but a bit of research shows that it is to do with ancient pagan traditions, not Christianity.
“There’s no story in the Bible about a long-eared, cotton-tailed creature known as the Easter Bunny. Neither is there a passage about young children painting eggs or hunting for baskets overflowing with scrumptious Easter goodies.
And real rabbits certainly don’t lay eggs.”
http://news.discovery.com/history/what-does-easter-bunny-come-have-to-do-easter-120406.htm
It is an interesting practice to sift through the clutter in the mind. What we do with it is a choice. Keep it because we always believed it, or always liked it… or put it out.
As with everything, we have a choice.
Susan
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