Like unto Moses

Like unto Moses is a study of the meaning of Moses in the Bible. The story of Moses and the exodus contains the Bible's view of its own genesis, of which Moses is the guarantor. James Nohrnberg examines the story and the texts of Moses for their representation of the tradition's own imperilment and self-doubt, and its regularly revisionary, "deuteronomic" content. He offers this way of reading the legendary author of the Israelite constitution, and analogous ways of reading the Israelite people's national fable of identity. The book is divided into four parts. The first two parts treat Moses and his life as an ideological composite. Part I, "The Canonization of Moses," concerns this construct as Moses personally seems to constitute it. Part II, "The Text of the Law," presents a two-part study of Moses' legislating and "booking" activity, followed by an account of the decalogue in relation to narratives about sins and crimes within the covenanted society. Part III, "Moralia in Exodum," contains nine chapters of homiletic commentary on the major narrative. Here the stories of Moses and the exodus are treated in relation to each other, in relation to proto-Mosaic society, and in relation to the theme of the creation of Israel. The remainder of the book, "Allegories of Scripture," treats the story of Moses and the exodus in relation to the latter-day history of the Israelite state. This part of the book proposes relations between the exodus narrative and the histories of sovereign and priestly Israel.