The Force in Scripture?

Loudzoo wrote: I couldn’t quite make out the question for this section so instead I’ll pick-up on something Alethea emphasised: Pharoah’s heart.

To this end, the Force can help us make good choices or bad - depending on our state of mind. If we are selfish and power hungry then it will help us make poor choices. When we feel like we have “no choice” but to act a certain way - The Force has largely taken over, for good or ill. When we don’t even notice that there is a choice, when we are acting automatically, The Force has completely taken over.

In this theologically dualistic paradigm the advice of this story is to choose good over bad, the light over the dark. Our choices and decisions can train our intuition and lead to the habituation of certain mindsets and certain behaviours. When we have completely let ourselves go, the Force is able to work through us. This story is of how the dark side (sin) will ruin us and the light side (God) will lead to union.

Moses is also being controlled by God here- he isn’t choosing to act the way he is either. I’ll leave you to decide whether he is acting well or poorly but, to me, it looks more like two Sith fighting than two Jedi . . .

First off, very impressive break down of the progressive state of pharaoh's heart throughout the text. Secondly, I like the observation at the end. If anything, I concur.

I'm going to push back on one point just from my own opinion.

When it comes to choice and free will I think there are different schools of thought that include whether the Force has a mind/will of its own that is setapart ("holy") from all creation. I apologize to Alethea because I know this is way off topic, but I believe choice always exists as human will creates pathways like veins and arteries through which the Force flows. The Force is what animates us in the first place. The Force doesn't write books about itself. We do. Even when we think it is speaking through us it is our voice and our minds as the pathways through which it flows. When we don't even notice there is a choice in when we are blinding ourselves to the totality of the Force and how else it can manifest. Instead of opening ourselves to more possibilities we simply retreat into our shells, our bubbles, our tents, etc. and we demand that The Force moves in the direction that we ourselves desire to go.

And that includes whoever is writing this. They are telling their own story using their own cast of characters. Each character is shaped and molded into the story according to the direction the writers wants us, the readers, the observers, to go and to believe. If the writer was Egypt I have no doubt the same story would be perhaps unrecognizable because Moshe would be a terrorist. Think about it. Moses comes back after having left after murdering an Egyptian. He comes back, making a demand and Pharaoh's all like "I don't negotiate with terrorists" and then there are all these events that build up to their own 9-11. And Pharaoh, as the hero in this alternate reality story that I'm imagining, is the last line of defense to protect his people from this foreign god.

And it's not just about whether or not this foreign god can do harm to them but whether or not that god is true or false. If true, it could upset their whole religion. After all, in Christianity there are technically allowed to be more than one person as God and in Judaism only one God but in both there are no true or real gods outside of their religion. The closest Christians get is Satan.

This construct was most often the very premise for king's authority so who was Moshe to come in, claiming that his god was going to cause plagues to come against their nation? So therefore it was a much more revolutionary act than it is portrayed in the bible. I'm sure Muslim extremists are like: "if the president of the US would just listen we wouldn't have to commit these destructive acts of violence. It's clearly his fault." And because the "other side" can always use this justification is it every righteous or okay to use it in favor of whoever your god/God happens to be? Is it simply wrong on its face? I'm not trying to make a final judgment here. I just want to recognize that there are 2 sides to every story. Did they really have to kill people in order to leave? And did they really have to "borrow" gold and other valuables on their way out?

Exodus 8:18-19
Now the magicians so worked with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not. So there were lice on man and beast. Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, just as the Lord had said.

1) It may be more appropriate to say they stated it was the figure of A god, rather than God Himself. However, over at Force Academy, my friend Luciana (who majored in Anthropology with an Abrahamic focus) notes that it is quite possible the selection of the word "elohim" was meant to relay that the magicians acknowledged what was happening as the "Finger of Creation". With that in mind- If you were one of these magicians, what would you think of this situation?

2) If you were Pharaoh, what would you think of your magicians? If you have grown up with them this entire time, and then saw how a man unaligned with your gods had greater command over nature, how might your understanding change?

I wanted to include an observation of my own given the circumstances in the Biblical Story:

I've seen a LOT of speculation that the magicians were simply performing parlor tricks. A number of scholars believe that what the magicians were doing involved theatrics.

To me, this doesn't really jive well. Because we are not explained the scale, it would not be difficult for skilled magicians to craft a well-done ritual to bring up the lice. With an abundance of lice they could capture in secret, they could have easily figured out a way to have them release upon their command as they did all the previous plagues. In fact, if what some people assert (that they ran out of materials to perform the ritual), the magicians ability shouldn't have run out until the boils later down the line- when they would need some sort of chemical that could reproduce the same effect.

It just seems to me that if you can replicate what happened to the Nile, which appears to be the most difficult of the three tricks they did replicate, why was this the one that stopped them? Furthermore, I bring up again, that we are not told the scale by which the magicians were able to replicate two of the three either. The only thing we know for certain is that every last one of them produced a snake, and Aaron’s snake swallowed them all up.

We also know that the text of 18 and 19 explicitly states the magicians thought they could do it- otherwise they wouldn’t have tried or admitted something much higher was behind the plagues.

Whether the story is true or just a myth, this is one point I (personally) feel mainstream Christianity has gotten wrong. In terms of what the story is saying, it would very much appear to mean that the magicians were absolutely not working stuff you'd get at a magic show shop, and were working with something supernatural.

Many biblical scholars see an evolution of Yahweh through the early chapters of the Old Testament. Early Israelites were polytheistic and Yahweh was their god of metallurgy, and war – one god among many. Over time Yahweh becomes more powerful and is eventually revered as the Creator God and the one true God, as the Israelites adopt a monotheistic world view. The stories in Exodus are an important part of this elevation: Yahweh demonstrates his superiority over (the divine) Pharoah and this served two important narrative purposes. First it liberates the Israelites to allow them to return to their homelands and second, it augments Yahweh’s claim to head the Israelite pantheon.

Again, Moses was not an alien in Pharoah’s court – quite the opposite. He was part of Pharoah’s family and was using the same magical/supernatural knowledge and expertise as Pharoah’s magicians. The stories show that he (and Aaron) were more adept and the source of this power is attributed to their alignment with Yahweh.

If you were one of these magicians, what would you think of this situation?

I’d realise that that Moses / Aaron’s magic was stronger than mine and, to coin a biblical term, I would “be afraid”. Second, I would face a decision. Should I stick with Pharoah as my divine leader or should I join the Israelites? In any case I would have to deal with the reality that the apprentices (Moses and Aaron) had superseded the abilities of the masters who had taught them. This is an age-old story and one that we will all hopefully have to deal with at some point in our lives. It is an important lesson!

I agree with Alethea (if I understood her post correctly!) that if we take the use of magic at face value, the magicians’ magic and Moses / Aaron’s magic are not materially different in type, merely different in power. If we are to grant Moses / Aaron’s magic as real – we have to grant that of Pharoah’s magicians as real too.

If you were Pharaoh, what would you think of your magicians? If you have grown up with them this entire time, and then saw how a man unaligned with your gods had greater command over nature, how might your understanding change?

I’m not sure we can say that Moses / Aaron were unaligned with the Gods of Egypt. Pharoah could have explained their power away with any number of excuses. He evidently did this quite successfully as the Pharoaic lineage was not broken by these incidents – he retained power in Egypt despite these events. If I were Pharoah I would expel the lot of them – or ‘allow’ them to escape from bondage. A small price to pay given the threat of their power to Pharoah. The narrative in Exodus is consistent with this pragmatic, logical response from Pharoah. Pharoah’s private understanding may well have been altered by these events but he certainly wasn’t about to let that affect his public position.

What is interesting is that the Egyptians do not record these events themselves, as far as I’m aware. The Bible is the only source we have for these stories which at least suggests that these events were a big deal for the Israelites, but not for the Egyptians. The Egyptians were pretty good record-keepers and storytellers and although its possible that these events were expunged from their record it seems just as likely that the Israelites created these myths to meet their own backstory requirements!

I should add that the observation of God hardening Pharoah’s heart in different ways (from my last post) was taken from The Abingdon Introduction to The Bible (Kaminsky, Lohr & Reasoner). I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it but found it eventually! However, the interpretation was my own.

There isn't a well-defined writer of Genesis and Exodus (although Moses is ascribed them traditionally). If your claim is true that YHWH was one among a pantheon after Abrahamic times, what sort of evidence would be proving that?

The call of Abram narrative states that up until that point, his tribe was polytheistic. The Semitic peoples were nomadic until they settled in Egypt. It seems like it would be incredibly hard to find descriptions of the Semitic people in that period which you say was still fundamentally polytheistic.

The Genesis account has been read in opposition to many polytheistic myths (the enuma elish off the top of my head), but would be hard to read doubtfully given how frankly and poorly the author treats Abram (the pivotal figure) pre and post-covenant.

Rex - I don’t have any evidence of when precisely the Semitic tribes became monotheistic and I wasn’t saying they were still polytheistic in Egypt. The Bible infers it wasn’t a clean transition e.g.

“the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger” (Judges 2:11-12).

Several times over. They even chased after a goddess for some time- and God got angry. They set up an idol (golden calf) to be a god right after they were liberated.

What they proved is that faith is fickle. And even in their monotheistic times they couldn’t adhere to the law.

We’ll get to it later- but it’s of note that there is good reason Christ said that those which ask for a sign are evil and adulterous. It wasn’t that God wanted to send prophets, it’s that Israel needed them, lest they disbelieve their ancestors and chase after gods that didn’t have their best interests at heart.

No one seems to have pointed out that as far as Pharaoh is concerned (a) he is the hero of this story - the protector of order and the status quo - and (b) Moses and Aaron are clearly servants of some evil desert god.

No, really.

He has no evidence for this god having powers other than the destructive. It could be a relief that his magicians can't replicate these signs, because what sort of god do you have to worship in order to be summoning lice and darkness? It's not a sign of Moses' god having more power: From Pharaoh's point of view, it's a sign of that god being malevolent.

And that may be why Pharaoh continues to harden his heart against the request to go into the desert to pray. If this is what two of these people do when they happen to not get their way, what is the lot of them going to do out there in the desert with no supervision?

Exodus 8:22-23

I will set apart the land of Goshen, in which My people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, in order that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the land. I will make a difference between My people and your people.

Exodus 9:4-7

And the Lord will make a difference between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt. So nothing shall die of all that belongs to the children of Israel.” ’ ” Then the Lord appointed a set time, saying, “Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land.”

So the Lord did this thing on the next day, and all the livestock of Egypt died; but of the livestock of the children of Israel, not one died. Then Pharaoh sent, and indeed, not even one of the livestock of the Israelites was dead.

Exodus 9:25-26
And the hail struck throughout the whole land of Egypt, all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail struck every herb of the field and broke every tree of the field. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no hail.

We do not actually know if the locusts were held from Goshen, it’s just something we think is mostly implied. However, we do know that during the ninth plague, Israel had lights in their home which kept them from dealing with the darkness.

Put yourself in the position of the Israelites. From what we can tell, until Moses entered the scene, they were not quite exposed to God the same way as their ancestors. Assuming you were privy to everything that was going on, from Moses to the Magicians, what would you think of the situation?

Alethea Thompson wrote:
Exodus 8:18-19
Now the magicians so worked with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not. So there were lice on man and beast. Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, just as the Lord had said.

1) It may be more appropriate to say they stated it was the figure of A god, rather than God Himself. However, over at Force Academy, my friend Luciana (who majored in Anthropology with an Abrahamic focus) notes that it is quite possible the selection of the word "elohim" was meant to relay that the magicians acknowledged what was happening as the "Finger of Creation". With that in mind- If you were one of these magicians, what would you think of this situation?

First, imho, I think we would get a lot more out of this story by assuming a negative sort of stance against Moshe (only) because of the default positive stance in which history has always painted this picture. Moshe is a terrorist, making the same sort of claims as modern day extremists, practicing deception. We are, in effect, (and I'm using this word carefully and intentionally) "SEDUCED" to the dark side by taking the side of Moshe and his tactics in order to achieve his aims. For the Sith, this makes perfect sense. If you are Sith and you feel chained then you seek power in order to break those chains. el=God literally translates from Hebrew to "power".

I'm not one who believes that all of the ancient believers and priests all believed their gods were literal entities. So question one is a very good question in light of this. We're making the assumption that it is a "battle of gods" when in reality it may have been a "battle of power"; Moses vs the Priests. Moshe has knowledge of the Israelite's theology because he was raised in part by his own mother as part of a deceptive plot.

Exodus 2
6 And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children.

Notice, how Pharaoh's daughter was not in the least deceived. She knew Moshe was Hebrew, but being a baby, this allowed her to use the situation (and Kemitic theology) to justify saving him (somewhat like the Presidential pardon on the Thanksgiving turkey). But regardless of the result... this whole thing was a deception because Moshe's mother wanted to make him look like he was a gift from their gods. The fact that Pharaoh's daughter doesn't fall for this could mean that they were not superstitious like more common folk tend to be. They were more educated so they didn't seek as many supernatural explanations as those who were uneducated; many of which were likely illiterate.

I carry the daughter's wisdom over to her father because if she wasn't deceived it is unlikely that he was either and that he allowed her to have Moshe as a personal gift/favor. But... you would not forget the ploy and the deception. Now this isn't the same Pharaoh which is also, imho, important to the story. This new pharaoh would have had his own feelings about Moshe. Disney may have gotten it right with the Prince of Egypt movie. OR... Pharaoh could have been raised with resentment, anger, and jealously that Moshe, a son of deception, was allowed to be in an elevated station that rightly belonged to him because of his blood.

When people of different ethnicities collide in such a negative way, even if one side is abusing the other via low wages or, in this case, the Israelites may have been working off years of debt as they were only able to survive because of the wealth of Egypt through the long famine. Recall from Mosaic law that it was only the time of Jubilees that freed slaves bonded to Israelite families from a lifetime of work to pay off a debt. And it should be said that it looks like Israel would have been just as harsh on slaves as Egypt if it wasn't for their experience, being slaves. But we should question the type of slaves that they were.

The theme of deception runs all through this story but it's not always easy to pick out because it's beneath the surface. Moshe practices deception in asking for the Israelites to go because his pitch is a temporarily release so that they could merely worship this god. Pharaoh may have hardened his heart because he already knew (or at least strongly suspected) that this was a lie and that they were trying to use their "god" as a tactic to escape servitude. And if THAT was a lie then why wouldn't Moshe also be lying about this deity? After all, these are miracles of the same "type" that the Egyptians could also do.

If we follow the theory that this whole story is premised on deception then what loyalty do we have to believing the narrative given to us? What I mean by that is...

How do we know this was Moses vs the Priests? Moses was #1 gone a long time, and #2 interacted with both his Hebrew family and his new wife's family. Not only this but the bible says it was a mixed multitude that left Egypt so what if he stirred up political dissent and achieved a sort of political power that even some Egyptians followed? What if Moses conned his way into the Galactic Senate and lead a no confidence vote on the Pharaoh. Catch my drift? We're simply reading the propaganda of Moses. So what if Moses taught others how to achieve these plagues and, on his command, multiple people were doing things to cause the effects of his plagues to be greater. The priests would not have used people who weren't supposed to have that knowledge. Their knowledge was "classified" and for the elite. If the masses had this knowledge there would be no need for priests who acted as middlemen between the masses and the gods. Moses wasn't under this restriction at all being that he was Hebrew. He didn't have any loyalty to their system. He wanted a new system. And he got a new system in which there was no king but he, acting as the ultimate priest, held all the power.

So, lol, all that being said...

If I were one of those Kemetic priests I would have a few suspicions as to how Moshe was pulling this off but ultimately Moshe was playing my game, only better. I wouldn't be able to say "this guy is lying because this is the secret behind this miracle." No. These secrets are the very foundation of my identity as a priest. No one can know that our science exists independently of any supernatural forces because the people believe in those supernatural forces more than they believe in us. So even if Moshe uses this to his political advantage... we have no choice but to go along with his deception because it exposes our own deception. If anyone can do our tricks/miracles then our nakedness appears. Also, being that I am Egyptian I really don't have a desire to cause plagues on my own people that can affect my own friends and family and the family of the noble houses. It would be politically dangerous for me, even if I did know how, and even if I could be more destructive with my scientific knowledge, to use my knowledge to its fullest extent because I would make as many enemies as Moses. And ultimately, he would win anyway. And I know... just like he probably knows... that affecting a large area would make it so that taking the plague away would require a REAL miracle. And this is why Pharaoh asks Moshe to take the frogs away which he could not do.