Moses—A Well-Educated Man: A Look at the Educational Idea in Early Judaism

Abstract

Early Judaism often freely retold the life of the Old Testament heroes. This article analyzes the kind of education provided to Moses as reported in early Jewish texts before the Mishnah. Because Exodus says nothing about the theme, everything is either taken from the tradition or created by the writers. Ezekiel the Tragedian, Artapanus and Philo suppose that Moses had a profound Gentile education. Jubilees only briefly refers to the education given by the father and Liber antiquitatum biblicarum and Josephus say nothing about the studies in Gentile schools. From what we may surmise from the evidence (and lack thereof) it appears that each of these writers emphasizes his own educational ideal.