Today’s readings:
Exodus 1-2; Mark 8:1-26
There isn’t a moment in the Bible when Moses finds out that he is a Jew. It says he is raised in Pharaoh’s household and then suddenly he is looking over his people:
[11] One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. [12] He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
All of a sudden, he just knows. I guess the only reason I find this interesting is because I tainted by the modern depiction of Exodus in the animated movie The Prince of Egypt (which I loved). Someone once told me that the only thing biblical scholars disapproved of in that movie was the theme song. “There will be miracles when believe…” It’s kind of a human hope fallacy that if you simply believe, God will provided you with a miracle. It’s be nice if he did, but it ain’t always gonna happen just because you believe that it will.
Does this go under the same category as Jesus finding out that he’s the Son of God? That can take us to another modern movie reference. In Dogma (which I also loved), they actually tackle this issue. There is no mention of Jesus’ life between the age of 12 and 30. The movie speculates that at this time, he was coming to terms with the fact that he was both divine and human (which would be enough to put anyone into a state of psychosis). File it all under “Things the Bible leaves unclear”.
