Moses: A Life [Paperback]

Jonathan Kirsch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2, 1999

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Moses: A Life is Jonathan Kirsch's attempt to depict the historical Moses. There is not one whit of archeological evidence that the great lawgiver ever lived, but Kirsch, a California lawyer, combs through the Scripture and its cultural remains with forensic zeal in his efforts to uncover the man he calls "the most haunted and haunting figure in the Bible." Although his thirst for empirical evidence remains, at the end, unsated, Kirsch's imagination is given new life by his quest. Moses emerges, in this fascinating, wide-ranging, and somewhat frustratingly logical book, as a person both necessary and nebulous. Kirsch concludes that Moses' existence cannot be proven, even though his influence is as great as that of any man who ever lived. --Michael Joseph Gross --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Kirsch's treatment is less a biography of Moses than a meticulous distillation of the considerable secondary literature that has grown up around the sparse biblical material. Kirsch (The Harlot By the Side of the Road) draws extensively on the various theories elaborated by biblical scholars over the past centuries to explain multiple accounts of Moses' life. He also draws extensively on myths, legends and midrashim that have been woven around the figure of Moses, who figures, in various interpretations, as warrior, magician, shepherd, God's favorite, sorcerer's apprentice and reluctant prophet. Kirsch offers interesting speculation on Moses's identity, including the depth of his connection to Egypt, and on the power struggles that he believes underlie the patchwork narrative of Hebrew scripture. He also notes the succession of strong women who intervene on Moses's behalf, and he pays careful attention to the struggle between Miriam (who was a priestess in her own right) and Moses. Ultimately, Kirsch's Moses emerges less as a presence than an absenceAbut an absence that determines the structure of the whole narrative around him.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (November 2, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345412702
• ISBN-13: 978-0345412706
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #225,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Real Moses? Who Knows!, March 5, 2002

By 

dougrhon "dougrhon" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moses: A Life (Paperback)

Since there is no archeological evidence that Moses ever existed, author Jonathan Kirsch uses the words of the bible,together with modern biblical scholarship to re-create the great prophet who exists between the lines of scripture. Kirsch goes through each chapter of the bible beginning with the book of Exodus and ending with the book of Deuteronomy and shows where various traditions and counter-traditions might have intersected. He shows the Moses who is portrayed as a great hero by the "Deuteronomist" and the Moses whose role is diminished by the "Priestly source." He discusses virtually every theory including the theory that their were two Moses and the first was murdered! This is surely not the book to read if you are a bible literalist (or an Orthodox Jew) and I certainly don't agree with all his points, being partial to the biblical story myself. But Kirsch is a lively writer and it is an interesting read nonetheless, as is Kirsch's "King David".

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Did Moses have horns?, December 19, 2000

By 

Richard La Fianza (San Bernardino) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moses: A Life (Paperback)

This book focuses in on more then Moses' life. If it just did that, you wouldn't need to buy it, you could just read a Bible. Instead, in "Moses, A Life", the author discusses Moses' life, from the perspective of many different people. Some of these stories are funny, others shocking, but they were all educational and insightful

My favorite passage in this book was the fact that, apparently, in some Bibles it says that Moses has horns. The author relates an experience where someone was starring at him, looking for horns, because the author is Jewish. It strikes me as a very funny scene. Yet, at the same time, it is sad. Here was someone, who read the Bible and took it very seriously, apparently mislead by a bad translation. How many people may have been mislead about more serious parts of the Bible?

In truth, according to this author, the Bible says that Moses was marked by his talks with God. After Moses meet with God, Moses covered his face. People who saw his face were shocked. It was this experience that was translated as Moses having horns. I never knew that Moses had to keep his face covered and also never knew that others thought Moses had horns. As such, items like this made this book very interesting to me.

There are many other examples. Did you know that God tried to kill Moses after he picked him to be his spokeperson to the Pharoah? Did you know that some believe Moses was a prince of Ethiopia? Did you know that the Jewish leaders may have had a secret code, which was given to Moses by God? Otherwise, how did he prove, to them, that he was God's messenger?

If you like interesting facts like this, you will enjoy this book. If you, however, are looking for a religious book, this book may not be you. This is not a book on theology. It is a book about history or religious history. If that is the type of book you like, you will love Mose's, A Life. For these types of people, I recommend it.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Journey to the Top of the Mountain, March 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Moses : A Life (Hardcover)

At this time of year, many of us will dust off our video copy of DeMille's THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, prop our children in front of the tube, and bask in the glorious figure of Moses a la Hollywood.

But perhaps our time would be better spent getting to know the enigmatic figure presented in the Bible.

Jonathan Kirsch's book MOSES: A LIFE helps us to do just that. In clear prose, Kirsch attempts to knit together a portrait of one of the most influential figures in Western Culture...a figure who may not have even existed.

In so doing, Kirsch draws not only upon the Bible but also on other records related to the man credited with delivering God's Law. These sources include rabbinical literature as well as the writings of philosophers (Philo, Freud). While the result is not without its puzzles, the overall effect is that of understanding. It is perhaps fitting that Yahweh, the enigmatic God of the Hebrews, should pick as his messenger a man as complex and contradictory as himself.

Kirsch does not flinch from recounting these contradictions (nor does he allow sympathy for his subject to cloud the fact that no contemporary record of Moses--outside of the Bible--exists). Further, he is not above explaining some of the darker passages of Holy Writ--including God's attempted murder of the messenger he had just chosen to deliver his people (a truly bizarre and difficult passage). As a result, the popular myths about Moses fall. But what remains is a figure far more interesting.

Kirsch does assume that the reader is somewhat familiar with the J, E, P, D composition of the Pentatuch (a theory now widely accepted and explained very well in Friedman's WHO WROTE THE BIBLE?), and, at times, his examinations of rabbinical special pleading are tedious. But, overall, MOSES: A LIFE is a highly readable and interesting work, with much to offer for non-fundamentalist believers and non-believers alike.