• The evil Egyptians made slaves out of the Jews and forced them to build pyramids with no straw.
• God tells Moses to go talk to Pharoah and demand that he release the Israelites so that they can go sacrifice to their God.
• Pharoah hardens his heart and will not let the Israelites leave.
• Moses calls down ten plagues upon the Egyptians, but Pharoah will not relent
• God kills all the Egyptian baby boys but passes over the houses of the Israelites, which have been marked with lambs blood on the lentils.
• Pharoah lets the Israelites leave, but then changes his mind and comes after them with the army.
• Moses parts the Red Sea with his staff, allowing the Israelites to pass through. The Egyptians are drowned and the chosen people begin the journey to the Promised Land.

COMMENTARY
In academic and Christian circles, there is heated debate as to how much of the Exodus legend is historically accurate. Opinions range from "every word is true" to "none of it is true." The controversy is all the more fascinating when so many experts with PhD's followig their names interpret data so differently. This and other "scholarly" and other issues are treated in a separate section.

While fascinating, the "accuracy" controversy is not critical to an analysis of the other challenges inherent in the Passover/Exodus sequence as written. The following commentary is based on the implications of the story itself, and not on whether or not it actually happened.

(Fun Bible Stories recommends you either read the narrative that begins on the right hand column of this page, or better, read the Exodus story in any version of the Bible.)

MURDERING EGYPTIAN BABIES: One of the key terms in the Exodus Story is Passover. In this context, "passover" literally means God goes out and kills every first born Egyptian male child, while "passing over" the houses of the Isrealites. Morally speaking, we would ask what the crime of these innocents was. Early in the Exodus story, we are appalled by the Pharoah's order to kill male Israelite babies.

But as told in Sunday School and in joyful Passover seders all around the world, the murder of Egyptian kids act is submerged in a moral context that has already established Egyptians asenemies of the Chosen People, and therefore, enemies of God. What would otherwise disgust us is muted by the fact that these stories are told so early in our lives that we fail to examine them. If, in fact, the Bible is meant to a moral compass, one asks what is the message here, and what kind of diety we are dealing with?

JAHWEH'S INSECURITIES: As the narrative text points out several times, most of the calamatous events that befell the Egyptians would have been avoidable if Pharoah had given in to Moses' request immediately. But in fact, as written in the sacred text, Jahweh tell Moses that he himself has hardened Pharoah's heart, in order to set up a series of events that will allow Jahweh to show Pharoah who has the biggest dick. This circular reasoning is worrisome from a guy who created and maintains the universe.

SLAVERY: In children's bible studies, we are outraged at the news that the Egyptians (who were evil, although we're not sure why) made slaves out of the Israelites (who are good, or at the very least "chosen" - again, based on their deeds thus far, we're not sure why). In a 21st Century American context, slavery is understood to be a bad thing, and in fact the Exodus story was in fact a major metaphorical inspiration for the American civil rights movement.

Interestingly, there are no general admonitions against slavery in the Bible. Indeed, it is treated matter of factly, as a common condition of the era. Nevertheless, enslaving Hebrews is a different story because these are the chosen of Jahweh. Conversely, Israelites are permitted to have slaves and detailed laws are given in Leviticus regarding their treatment.

SCOPE: In Exodus, the number of Israelites leaving Egypt is difficult to contemplate, beginning with the 600,000 men explicitly stated. We can then make some guesses as to the size of the horde, which begins to equal or surpass the population of Egypt itself.

MOSES LOVE LIFE: And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman. There is some speculation that the trouble began when his Cushite wife pronouced the name of the Lord (as given by the Burning Bush) "I Be" instead of "I Am." Just kidding.

When last we saw the Israelites at the end of Genesis, they were fat dumb and happy down in Egypt, basking in the shadow of Joseph's exalted position in court. At some indeterminate point after that (this should be around 1200 BC by Biblical reckoning) the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites and made them build supply cities.

Here are the highlights of the extended Exodus/Passover story as described in any mainstream Bible. You are likely to find some surprises.

FUN FACTS

• Exodus 1: The text tells us that God "remembers" the oppression of his people after they have been enslaved for four centuries.
• Exodus 4: God tells Moses in advance that he will harden Pharoah's heart, so that he can show Pharoah some wonders and teach him a lesson. A twisted enabling process ensues in which Pharoah and the entire nation of Egypt are punished because of the actions that God caused Pharoah to take.
• Exodus 4: God ambushes Moses and tries to kill him, but Moses' Arab wife Zipporah cuts off her infant son's foreskin and touches Moses feet with it, thus saving Moses from God and thereby saving the Israelites from bondage/Pharoah, as God has instructed. Did you forget that passage?
• Exodus 12: The Bible describes the number of Israelite men who pass out of Egypt at over 600,000. Including women and children, the total could equal more than the population of Egypt at the time (see commentary, left column).
• There is no mention whatsoever of any of these events in any Egyptian writings, a very large number of which have been preserved intact. As an advanced civilization that chronicled economic and court related events obsessively, this is surprising. Maybe they were embarrassed.
  
• While hiding from a murder warrant, Moses marries an Arab woman named Zipporah, daughter of a Midian priest. Later (in the book of Numbers), there are some issues regarding his Ethopian (Cushite) wife. There is an alternative account given of Moses married life in the Book of Jasher, which may or may not be geniune. But what happened to Zipporah? Whatever happened with these gentile chicks, there is no mention of Moses marrying a nice Jewish girl.

The Passover story as it appears in the Bible:

EXODUS AND THE PASSOVER
EXODUS 1: After Joseph dies, the new Pharoah begins to oppress the Israelites. He enslaves them because they are too successful. The Israelites continue to breed, however, and Pharoah orders all male babies killed.

EXODUS 2: Moses is such a good looking little guy that his sister places him in a basket and floats him in the Nile. Pharoah's daughter finds him and takes him home. Moses is raised in Pharoah's court, and indeed, Moses is an identifiable and typical Egyptian name. Moses kills a man and exiles himself to Midian, an Arab land to the east. He marries Zipporah, the daughter of a Midian priest. Interesting.

Toward the end of the chapter, God hears the Israelites groaning under their burden, and, approximately 430 years later, God remembers the convenant with Abraham. He decides to do something about the problems that have cropped up down in Egypt.

EXODUS 3: One of Jahweh's angels find Moses tending his father in law's herds, and appears to him as a Burning Bush. God advises Moses that the area around the bush is holy, due to God's temporary residence in the bush. God has an assignment for Moses, although there is no particular indication as to how the man was selected for this rather large job.

And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

As we see later in the Bible, these peoples just couldn't wait for the twelve tribes to get there. But we digress.
Moses exhibits some doubts, whereupon God reveals his nickname: I Am, a theme echoed many thousands of years later by Dr.Seuss.