The Moses Legacy

Frustrated that I was unable to get hold of a copy of 'Sisters of Sinai' and feeling the need for a little biblical mystery, I borrowed a copy of 'The Moses Legacy' by Graham Philips. Although I haven't finished it yet, the thrust of this book is that the 'Moses' who is mentioned in the Old Testament is, in fact, a composite character and that the events over which he presides occur at intervals so separated in time that he could not possibly be just one man. It's all very interesting, but rather bitty - I am finding it very difficult to keep the events discussed in order in my head, despite the fact that the author provides a handy summary at the end of every chapter. No foot or end-notes either, so no checking up on sources. I'm uneasy about his expertise too: his previous works are so diverse that I would call his 'scholarship' (such as it is) 'scattershot'. Once I started noticing that various statements were (from my semi-knowledgable point of view), somewhat dubious (esp. the section the pharoah Akhnaten's adoption of the Aten and the provenance of the OT), alarm bells started to ring and I decided to read a few reviews. I found this one on Amazon UK:

'When I was given this book as a present I could not wait to read it. Attractively presented, it promised to provide authoritative answers - or at least up-to-date research results - for questions which are bound to be of interest to anyone wishing to learn about the history of the Judaeo-Christian religions. Readers without much previous knowledge of this subject, and especially readers without any knowledge of Hebrew, will greatly enjoy the book and will think they have learned much from it, even if they may be somewhat surprised by such statements as 'The present Old Testament comes from a Greek translation known as the Septuagint' (p.23). Any readers with even an elementary knowledge of Hebrew, however, will find themselves in a very different position. To them it will soon become clear that the author does not have any knowledge of that language, though he does not hesitate to base much of his argument on detailed interpretation of Hebrew words he does not understand or misunderstands One single paragraph on p.115, for instance, contains at least four separate such misinterpretations.In itself this flaw obviously undermines some of the book's argument, but a moment's reflection will show that its effect goes much further. Even fewer readers than those who have some Hebrew will be familiar with any of the other ancient oriental languages used in the argument of the book, and once the author's Hebrew knowledge is shown to be non-existent it is no longer possible to place any confidence in his knowledge of these other languages - and thus in the conclusions of his whole argument. A health warning is most needed where that which is to be avoided is most attractive and at the same time most dangerous. By these criteria this book needs to be accompanied by a very large health warning.'

Alfred Moritz Former Professor of Classics, University of Cardiff.

You can't beat peer-review to sift out the chaff.

Hokum, then: but enjoyable hokum none the less. Not Dan Brown though, and still possibly good for provoking some after-dinner chit-chat.