Moses: Creating a Founding Figure

Abstract

Abstract:Creating religions by historiography covers also creating narratives on founding figures of religion. One striking example is the figure of Moses in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish and Christian traditions. The creation of the narrative of Moses as the founding figure of Judaism took place on two different levels: in the biblical (and parabiblical) tradition and in the scholarly discussion. This paper is describing and analyzing both narratives and, finally, is presenting an historical explanation how the narrative on Moses as founding figure in the biblical tradition, followed by the scholarly discussion, most probably came into being.