Moses is the central prophetic and lawgiving figure of the Hebrew Bible’s Exodus tradition. In the biblical narrative he leads the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, receives the law at Mount Sinai and guides the community toward the promised land. He is also a major figure in later Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition, while the historical basis of the Exodus narratives remains a subject of scholarly debate.
The biblical tradition also presents Moses as mediator of the covenant and transmitter of law, especially through the Sinai narratives and the legal material associated with the Torah. He leads the Israelites through the wilderness but is denied entry into the promised land and dies before the conquest of Canaan. Moses became foundational to Jewish religious identity and was subsequently interpreted extensively in Christian and Islamic tradition.
In Gilbert Morris’ By Way of the Wilderness, Moses is raised between Hebrew origins and Egyptian privilege before exile forces him to confront both identities. Georg Ebers’ Joshua retells the biblical departure from Egypt as a historical romance, expanding the familiar narrative with desert travel, political calculation and the practical problems of moving a threatened people through hostile country. Moses and Miriam stand beside invented characters in a story of migration, belief and survival. Moses is treated fictionally in H. Rider Haggard’s Moon of Israel, Angela Hunt’s The Shadow Women, and H. Rider Haggard’s The World’s Desire.
