Harry3142
Regular Member
Spectrox War-
If you judge Moses, then you need to judge not only the Jews who followed his lead, but also the egyptians who trained him in warfare. But it doesn't stop there. The way egyptians fought their wars was the same way all the other countries of that region fought their wars. It was 'total war' in its most brutal fashion.
Josephus described Moses as a general in pharaoh's army, who led that army in a successful battle against the ethiopians, who had entered Egypt in a campaign of conquest. The army, under Moses' command, drove the ethiopians out of Egypt, and then conquered them.
So what does this tell us about Moses? It tells us that as a boy reared in the royal palace, he was trained in the weaponry, tactics, and mindset of waging war as the egyptian army waged it at that time. From his earliest youth he would have drilled and studied war, so that as an adult he could help defend Egypt against its enemies, as well as make examples of those enemies so that no one else would entertain the thought if doing as they had done.
Now 'fast forward' 40 years. Moses is now in charge of a ragtag mob who couldn't fight their way out of a ladies' club. He knows that all around them are enemies who would like nothing better than to slaughter them and then take their possessions (the 'cradle of civilization' was more civilized than the region where my ancestors lived at that time, but it was far from civilized as we use the term today). So what is Moses to do about that? How is he to turn this rabble into an army that is worthy of being feared by all around them?
The answer is that he trains them as he himself was trained. They learn how to handle egyptian weaponry, they learn egyptian battle tactice, and they adopt the mindset toward their enemies of the most powerful nation that existed at that time, namely, Egypt. That's how he himself had learned warfare, so that's how he would train his people to wage war. He had been an egyptian general, so he knew how to wage war in the egyptian manner. It was his knowledge of warfare that he taught to the Israelites, and they learned their lessons well.
Looking back on it from 3,500 years away, we see it as barbaric. But when we compare it to how the other nations in that same region fought their wars, it fits perfectly. Battles were fought at that time not only to conquer the enemy, but also to make his defeat so horrific that no other nation (which amounted to a city-state rather than a landform as we know it today) would want to face those who had conquered him.
Only a few years ago archeologists found a city that had been buried in the sand of the Sahara. As they dug out its streets, they came upon the remains of people who were lying in those streets when the sand covered them. After digging out enough of the city so that they could make a decision as to what had happened, they came to the conclusion that what they had found was a city that had been conquered by an enemy. After slaughtering the entire population, they left their bodies lying in the streets of that city. The desert covered them, preserving for us an actual battle that had taken place, as well as its aftermath.
As for Gandhi and Dr. King, their tactics worked because they were allowed to live long anough for them to take effect. 3,500 years ago they would have merely been the first to die.
But can we say that we are really more civilized? We don't believe in going through a city while stabbing all of its inhabitants, but we have no problem in dropping bombs on that same city which cause firestorns, burning over 100,000 people alive (Tokyo, 1945). War is a bloody business, iregardless of how sophisticated the weaponry is, or how complex the battle tactics are. Those who go into a war with the attitude that it's 'white hats' versus 'black hats' soon come to the realization that the only true goal of warfare is to survive it.
If you judge Moses, then you need to judge not only the Jews who followed his lead, but also the egyptians who trained him in warfare. But it doesn't stop there. The way egyptians fought their wars was the same way all the other countries of that region fought their wars. It was 'total war' in its most brutal fashion.
Josephus described Moses as a general in pharaoh's army, who led that army in a successful battle against the ethiopians, who had entered Egypt in a campaign of conquest. The army, under Moses' command, drove the ethiopians out of Egypt, and then conquered them.
So what does this tell us about Moses? It tells us that as a boy reared in the royal palace, he was trained in the weaponry, tactics, and mindset of waging war as the egyptian army waged it at that time. From his earliest youth he would have drilled and studied war, so that as an adult he could help defend Egypt against its enemies, as well as make examples of those enemies so that no one else would entertain the thought if doing as they had done.
Now 'fast forward' 40 years. Moses is now in charge of a ragtag mob who couldn't fight their way out of a ladies' club. He knows that all around them are enemies who would like nothing better than to slaughter them and then take their possessions (the 'cradle of civilization' was more civilized than the region where my ancestors lived at that time, but it was far from civilized as we use the term today). So what is Moses to do about that? How is he to turn this rabble into an army that is worthy of being feared by all around them?
The answer is that he trains them as he himself was trained. They learn how to handle egyptian weaponry, they learn egyptian battle tactice, and they adopt the mindset toward their enemies of the most powerful nation that existed at that time, namely, Egypt. That's how he himself had learned warfare, so that's how he would train his people to wage war. He had been an egyptian general, so he knew how to wage war in the egyptian manner. It was his knowledge of warfare that he taught to the Israelites, and they learned their lessons well.
Looking back on it from 3,500 years away, we see it as barbaric. But when we compare it to how the other nations in that same region fought their wars, it fits perfectly. Battles were fought at that time not only to conquer the enemy, but also to make his defeat so horrific that no other nation (which amounted to a city-state rather than a landform as we know it today) would want to face those who had conquered him.
Only a few years ago archeologists found a city that had been buried in the sand of the Sahara. As they dug out its streets, they came upon the remains of people who were lying in those streets when the sand covered them. After digging out enough of the city so that they could make a decision as to what had happened, they came to the conclusion that what they had found was a city that had been conquered by an enemy. After slaughtering the entire population, they left their bodies lying in the streets of that city. The desert covered them, preserving for us an actual battle that had taken place, as well as its aftermath.
As for Gandhi and Dr. King, their tactics worked because they were allowed to live long anough for them to take effect. 3,500 years ago they would have merely been the first to die.
But can we say that we are really more civilized? We don't believe in going through a city while stabbing all of its inhabitants, but we have no problem in dropping bombs on that same city which cause firestorns, burning over 100,000 people alive (Tokyo, 1945). War is a bloody business, iregardless of how sophisticated the weaponry is, or how complex the battle tactics are. Those who go into a war with the attitude that it's 'white hats' versus 'black hats' soon come to the realization that the only true goal of warfare is to survive it.
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