Two Questions on Book of Exodus

[sal2]

Any help on these would be highly appreciated:

1. It says in chapter 2 that the name “Moses” was given to Moses by Pharao’s daughter. Apparently “Moses” is an Egyptian word that means something like “drawn from the water”. One would think that Moses’ parents would have given him a Hebrew name when he was circumcised. Would anyone know what that name might have been?
2. This one I think is easier. Was it the Red Sea or the Sea of Reeds that God parted to allow the Israelites to escape from the Egyptians?

 

[Lazerlike42]

sal2:

Any help on these would be highly appreciated:

1. It says in chapter 2 that the name “Moses” was given to Moses by Pharao’s daughter. Apparently “Moses” is an Egyptian word that means something like “drawn from the water”. One would think that Moses’ parents would have given him a Hebrew name when he was circumcised. Would anyone know what that name might have been?
2. This one I think is easier. Was it the Red Sea or the Sea of Reeds that God parted to allow the Israelites to escape from the Egyptians?

The first one… I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone does. There may be some Pharisaical tradition that says he was named something, but I don’t know of one. Heck, maybe it’s in the Bible and I just forgot.

The second one… I think the predominant view today is that it was not the Red Sea, but another one. That may be the Sea of Reeds, but I do not know for sure. I do know that the Bible does not say which sea it is.

 

[Jim_Baur]

I do not have any answers, sorry.

I have often wondered if the Ten Commandments were given in the Egyptian of the time of Moses. Louis Ginsberg mentioned in his book “Legends of the Jews” that one of God’s names is still in Egyptian, but I forget the name and can’t find it now.

Furthermore, I have often wondered if Torah was first written in Egyptian. How would that affect all the different criticisms?

 

[Fidelis]

As regards the first question:

Elsewhere in the Bible, Amram and Jochebed, the parents of Moses, are said to have called his name Manasseh (Numbers 26:58b–59):

58b …Among the descendants of Kohath was Amram,
59
whose wife was named Jochebed. She also was of the tribe of Levi, born to the tribe in Egypt. To Amram she bore Aaron and Moses and their sister Miriam.

The second question (Red Sea or Sea of Reeds) is open to debate, since the biblical account is fairly vague. Suffice to say, wherever it was, it was at a place where the water was deep enough to miraculously part, then come back to drown the Egyptians, so the water had to be fairly deep. None of this modernist “the tide ((or wind) rushed back in over a shallow marsh so their chariot wheels got stuck” baloney.