Lesson #53

Smoky Mountain Bible Institute

Lesson #53

            Break out your maps and histories as we travel again in our time machine to examine history & geography through a biblical world view. Sorry I got a little busy and missed a month last time we discussed the sojourn in Egypt of the nation or tribe of Israel. Now let's fast forward about 430 years to around 1526 BC with the birth of a man named Moses. This marks the beginning of the end for Israel's time in Egypt.

            As we come to the account of Moses we find that at the age of 40 around 1486 BC he flees to Midian after having killed an Egyptian and fearing for His life. Since this takes us into the period from 1500 to 1000 BC lets first briefly look at some of the other significant events taking place around the world at the time. Around 1100 BC Tiglath-pileser I Founds the Assyrian empire which will later play a significant role in the nation of Israel. A primitive Greek alphabet starts to appear at this time, The first Chinese dictionary containing 40,000 characters was written, and around 1200 BC the Standard Akkadian version of the Gilgamesh epic was written.  The events described in Homers Iliad and Odyssey are to have taken place around the 12th century BC. The Evidence of some Mesoamerican pyramid building starts as early as 1100 BC and the Olmec culture come has it beginnings in around 1500 BC. Some new technologies of this time are sundials, water clocks, and the Iron Age takes hold in Syria and Palestine.

            Let's get back to Moses shall we? After spending his youth being educated and trained to become part of the Egyptian royal household, probably right alongside the next pharaoh, Moses finds himself tending the flocks of his father in law Jethro of Midian at the base of the holy mountain. Sometime in late 1447 BC Moses sees the famous burning bush that is not consumed which leads to His first encounter with God. He is told very clearly (even though he protest that he is not up to the task), that he is to deliver the nation of Israel from bondage in Egypt. By the way if you notice the dates and do the math Moses is 80 years old by the time he begins his encounter with the Pharaoh of Egypt in 1446 BC.

            This a shorter lesson than usual but we did cover 80 years so we will pick up next month with the plagues.