The Roman Version of Exodus

Do you remember the story of Exodus?  Of the flight of the Hebrews from Egypt?  It’s a classic kid’s story now.  For 400 years the Hebrews were in bondage in Egypt.  They groaned and begged Jehovah for relief and rescue.  Jehovah heard their prayers and sent Moses, with his brother Aaron, to the Pharaoh with the message that Jehovah told Pharaoh to let “my people go.”

The Romans knew the story of Exodus too.  It’s in Tacitus’s Histories written between 100-110 AD.  Tacitus was a Roman Senator who wrote histories of the empire.  But Tacitus’ version is different from the Jewish version written in the Book of Exodus.

From Histories 5:3-5  Many sources agree that a plague which disfigured the body broke out in Egypt.  King Bocchoris consulted the oracle of Ammon to find a remedy and was ordered to cleanse his kingdom by carrying this race, so hated by the gods into another land.  The people, hunted out and herded together, were dumped in a desert.  As the others sat, stunned and weeping, one of the exiles, Moyses, advised them not to look for help from the gods or from men, for they had been abandoned by both.  They should take as their divine leader the one who would first help them overcome their present misery ... After a journey of six consecutive days, on the seventh day they took over a country, driving out the inhabitants and founded a city and a temple.

In order to strengthen his control over this nation for posterity, Moyses established new rituals contrary to those of all other peoples.  They consider profane those things which we hold sacred, yet they allow things which are forbidden among us ...

This form of worship, however it originated, is supported by its antiquity.  Their other traditions, which are perverse and debased, gain their strength from their very badness.

After reading Tacitus’ version what do you notice?  The first thing I notice is that in the Roman version, there is no Jehovah forcing the Pharaoh’s hand and acting as a champion for the Hebrews.  The Roman tale is about an accursed people who were dumped in the middle of nowhere and luckily found a new home.

There are some basic facts that are found in both stories.

• 1.       The location is Egypt and the story is about the Hebrews
• 2.       There was a plague in Egypt.
• 3.       The Pharaoh wanted the Hebrews to leave.
• 4.       The Hebrews left.
• 5.       The Hebrews had Moses as their leader
• 6.       The Hebrews found a new place to live
• 7.       The Hebrews practiced religious rituals that are different than the Romans.

Those are the basic facts of the stories.  It is in looking at the WHY that significant differences arise.  An examination of those differences tells us more about the Roman viewpoint than it tells us about the Jews.

                What caused the plague? – Leaving aside the fact that the Hebrew version has ten plagues while the Roman version has only one, in the Hebrew version Jehovah causes the plagues to demonstrate his power to the Pharaoh. Jehovah may be unseen but he is mighty. In the Roman version it’s just a plague with an unknown cause. Tacitus tells us how Romans would react to a plague – they would consult an oracle to find out who was causing the plague and then to get rid of the cause.  Romans frequently consulted oracles before they undertook any important decision.  For example in the Book of Jonah, the desperate sailors cast lots to see whose god was responsible for creating the storm and then threw Jonah overboard when the lot indicated him.  In this case, the Oracle of Ammon indicated that it was the Hebrews who were the source of the plague.  In the Roman mind, once the source was located the next logical step was to get rid of it in order to appease the gods.

                Did the Hebrews want to leave?  In the Roman version:  no, they did not.  The Romans conquered many different people and these people lived in Roman lands as lesser beings with fewer rights. These conquered people in order to be allowed to live gave their labor. It was the way of the world. In the Roman mind, not a bad deal. The Romans knew these lesser people stayed in Roman territories only at the pleasure of the emperor and that favor could change at any minute. In the Roman version of the tale, the Hebrews were found to be the source of the curse, they lost the protection of the Pharaoh and they were no longer entitled to live in Egyptian lands and enjoy Egyptian prosperity.  They were exiled, frightened and despondent over this sudden involuntary change in status.  The Roman version did not recognize the possibility that the Hebrew people would want to leave, to follow their god and were expecting that their god would lead them to prosperity that didn’t involve Egypt.

                Were the Hebrews abandoned and on their own without hope?  In the Roman version:  yes.  The Roman version has these cursed people as existing without a future.  This is how the Romans would have seen the subjugated peoples they conquered – apart from a life in the Roman empire they had no future nor hope.

                Did Moses make himself divine to strengthen his position as a leader? In the Roman version:  yes.  Again, this fits with the Roman experience.  Roman emperors frequently cloaked themselves in divinity to force their subjects to worship them and to fear rebelling against them.  Roman gods were common and many.  From their ancient religious past, Romans believed that everything had a divine spirit and that a good life meant learning which of those spirits must be appeased through homage and which could be safely ignored because the consequences of ignoring them were not great.  It would make sense to them that Moses would this technique to consolidate his power.  In the Roman view – Jehovah was not a force to be reckoned with nor was he a credible source of power.

                Were the Hebrews divinely promised land?  In the Roman version:  no.  The Roman tale makes it sound as if they settled in the first land they were powerful enough to run off the existing peoples in.  There is nothing in the Roman version of the tale which involves the Hebrews wandering in the desert for 40 years out of penance for a lack of belief in Jehovah.  The Romans would have considered that ridiculous.  If the Romans had known about the 40 years of wandering, their explanation for it would be something along the lines of the fact the Hebrews were too weak to conquer any lands to settle on.  The Romans respected strength and all their resources went into their military in order to expand the lands that Rome needed to feed itself and build itself up as a powerhouse on earth. 

                By examining the differences between the two versions we can see that the Romans did not believe the Jews were under the protection of a single, powerful, divine being.  Rather, the Romans seemed to believe that the Jews were cursed, their leaders used trickery to deceive and isolate them, and their god was weak.

                But this analysis also can say something to us when we read the Bible and seek to understand it.   It is very easy to substitute our point of view when figuring out what the story is about. Two cultures can tell the same story with the same facts but have the listener draw very different conclusions.  

Tacitus’ tale reminds us that educated Romans did attempt to understand something about the peoples that they had subjugated and now ruled.  Their conclusions had real world consequences.  When General Pompey in 63 BC conquered Jerusalem, he entered the Holy of Holies in the Temple looking to see what was there.  As an educated Roman, he knew something about the Jews because Rome had been in contact with them before through diplomatic channels.  Rome had been an ally of the Maccabee kings in their power struggles against the Seleucid Empire when the Jews had been a vassal state of that empire.

General Pompey knew the Holy of Holies was sacred to the Jews and that was precisely why he entered it:  he believed that he would find the head of a donkey that Romans believed the Jews worshipped as a relic of their leaving Egypt.  He was surprised to find that it was empty.

                What was consequence of this interpretation that the Jewish god was weak and his sacred space did not need to be respected?  The poisoning of Jewish-Roman relations and the beginning of a long history of brutal conflict between the Jews and their Roman overlords.  Palestine became one of the most difficult territories for Rome to control because they were almost always in a state of rebellion, usually because of religious differences.  For the Jews, only the High Priest, on the holiest day of the year, could enter that space in order to communicate with Jehovah.  ONLY THE HIGH PRIEST.  Not some Roman general – no matter how big his army. 

                The Romans had learned about the Jews in the same vein that pet owners study cats – they are mildly interesting but it’s not that important that we understand how they think.  We are only interested in keeping them from pooping on the rug and clawing the furniture.  Likewise for the Romans, the value of the Jews was the tribute they paid and the strategic value of their lands. They were not interested in understanding their religion.  As students of the Bible – we must not make the same mistake.