Free Moses: A Life Ebooks Online
Lawgiver and liberator. Seer and prophet. The only human permitted to converse with God "face-to-face." Moses is the most commanding presence in the Old Testament. Yet as Jonathan Kirsch shows in this brilliant, stunningly original volume, Moses was also an enigmatic and mysterious figure--at once a good shepherd and a ruthless warrior, a spiritual leader and a magician, a lawgiver who broke his own laws, God's chosen friend and hounded victim. Now, in Moses: A Life, Kirsch accomplishes the wondrous feat of revealing the real Moses, a strikingly modern figure who steps out from behind the facade of Sunday school lessons and movie matinees.Drawing on the biblical text and a treasury of both scholarship and storytelling, Kirsch examines all that is known and all that has been imagined of Moses. In these vivid pages, we see the marvels and mysteries of Moses's life in a new light--his rescue in infancy and adoption by an Egyptian princess; his reluctant assumption of the role of liberator; his struggles to wrest his people from the pharaoh's dominion; his desperate vigil on Mount Sinai. Here too is the darker, more ominous Moses--the sorcerer, the husband of a pagan woman, the military commander who cold-bloodedly ordered the slaying of innocent people; the beloved of God whom God sought twice to murder.Jonathan Kirsch brings both prodigious knowledge and a keen imagination to one of the most compelling stories of the Bible, and the results are fascinating. A figure of mystery, passion, and contradiction, Moses emerges from this book very much a hero for our time.From the Hardcover edition.
File Size: 4379 KB
Print Length: 450 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (October 5, 2009)
Publication Date: October 7, 2009
Sold by: Digital Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B002RLBK5O
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
X-Ray: Enabled
Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Best Sellers Rank: #442,261 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store) #27 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > Leaders & Notable People > Religious > Judaism #59 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Religion & Spirituality > Christian Books & Bibles > Bible Study & Reference > Biographies > Old Testament #59 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Religion & Spirituality > Judaism > Sacred Writings > Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) > Biography
Kirsch's book is basically a line-by-line reading of Exodus. He operates from the presumption that the books of the Torah were written by several different people over a period of centuries, and, in looking at the text line-by-line, attempts to resolve certain contradictions that he sees in that book's portrayal of Moses. Kirsch also supplements his reading of the Torah with reference to the Midrash and other rabbinical lore from hundreds or thousands of years ago. In so doing, he finds that there are several different distinct and contradictory versions of Moses to be found throughout what we now think of as the Bible, with even the facts of his life story (his siblings, his wife's country of origin, his number of children, and his father-in-law's name) varying from chapter to chapter, if not verse to verse. Think of his book as secular Bible study."Moses" is, in that sense, an exhilirating read, an effort to figure out just who Moses might really have been. The book is basically a mystery without a solution: the author notes that there is no archaeological proof of Moses' existence, or of the Exodus from Egypt (note that I chose to read this book during Passover). By looking at the life of Moses, and the story of the Exodus and the wandering of the Israelites through the Sinai Peninsula over a 40-year-period, through the prism of the different strands of Bible authorship, and of the different rabbinic traditions that have sprung up around the life of Moses, Kirsch tells a story that does not move in a straight line, that does not arrive at a single conclusion.
Where the Two Seas Meet: Al-Khidr and Moses—The Qur’anic Story of al-Khidr and Moses in Sufi Commentaries as a Model for Spiritual Guidance The Sixth and seventh books of Moses: or, Moses' magical spirit art, known as the wonderful arts of the old wise Hebrews, taken from the Mosaic books ... and the Talmud, for the good of mankind Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Moses (Classics of Western Spirituality) Moses: A Life Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York Grandma Moses (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists) The Year with Grandma Moses Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom (Caldecott Honor Book) The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (The Schocken Bible, Volume 1) The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary Great Lives: Moses: A Man of Selfless Dedication Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York Great Lives: Moses: A Man of Selfless Dedication (Great Lives Series) Moses: The Lost Book of the Bible Mediators Between Human and Divine: From Moses to Muhammad Go Down, Moses: Celebrating the African-American Spiritual MOSES VOLUME 2 (SING the Bible!) Zipporah, Wife of Moses: A Novel Moses: The Epic Story of His Rebellion in the Court of Egypt
