I gave this book 2 stars not because I disagree with the authors ultimate conclusions but because her proofs and evidences were poorly formulated. I'm a skeptic when it comes to the historicity of Moses as portrayed in the Pentateuch. D.M. Murdock often falls short in giving clear and concise examples of her many undocumented claims. Don't get me wrong, she includes a plethora of footnotes, but upon further examination of those footnotes I concluded that many of them were vaguely related to the topic at hand. Likewise, she often quotes herself and her other books as evidences for her claims, which results in a circular pattern of evidence in which she is the ultimate source. She often will claim something about other ancient Mediterranean deities with no mention about where she gleaned that information. As someone who has a degree in Religion and Ancient History, I am always looking to read up on the claims mentioned by other scholars. Unfortunately, many of her claims are insufficiently documented leaving the reader to just "trust" her. Many of her arguments are visceral rather than evidence based.
The other extremely noticeable element in this book is her degradation of religious people. It's no secret that the author believes religion is non-sense and religious people are ignorant, indoctrinated, mindless fools. She goes way overboard when it comes to this. In my opinion her bashing of religious folks makes this book painful to read and because of that it makes the book seem unprofessional and highly biased (almost like an opinion columnist for a local newspaper)
Conclusion: If you want a book about D.M. Murdock's opinion on the historicity of Moses, this is the book for you....but if you want a more scholarly approach to this topic you'd best look elsewhere. Hope this was helpful.
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