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The Feasibility of the Life of Moses

Jennifer R. Povey
3 min readJul 22, 2021
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

As a note, I’m neither a practicing Christian nor a practicing Jew, but I have put this together from Bible scholarship (my mother was a theologian) and my knowledge of Egyptian history.

The story of Moses is key to Judaism and also important to Christianity and Islam. And it seems on the face of it to be fantastical.

What Happened to Moses

The short version of the story is this:

Moses’ mother, who could not afford to feed him, made a basket and abandoned him in the Nile.

The baby was picked up by a “princess,” who then conveniently hired the mother to wet nurse the babe, who became her slave.

He was then sent to the “Royal Nursery” and became a high ranked civil servant…

It all seems, to our modern eyes, like a fairy tale. Here’s the thing?

It could literally have happened.

Photo by Garrett Jackson on Unsplash

Child Abandonment and Slavery

We don’t know as much about Egypt, but in ancient Rome somebody who did not want (or couldn’t afford) to rear an infant would expose the child in…

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Jennifer R. Povey
Jennifer R. Povey

Written by Jennifer R. Povey

I write about fantasy, science fiction and horror, LGBT issues, travel, and social issues.

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