Exodus 1-15 in the Old Testament is the story of Moses’ journey with his people, the Israelites, as they use God’s power to leave the land of Egypt and return to Israel. The story is also significant because of the argument it presents for people experiencing oppression and how to liberate themselves from their vicious subjugators. What Exodus 1-15 argues is that violent means are necessary in order for one to become emancipated. Furthermore, the story also argues that fear accompanied by vengeful violence will lead the Israelites and other oppressed groups to freedom.
With this in mind, let their be an examination of just how often violence is used consistently throughout the story of the Israelites escape from Egypt. The account of Exodus 1-15 begins with violence being committed by Egyptians against the Israelites by order of the king of Egypt. This helps to establish how common the concept of violence will be seen throughout the narrative. It is written that, “[…] Pharaoh commanded all his people, ‘Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live’” (New Revised Standard Version, Exodus 1:22). This decree by the king accomplishes two things for the story. First, it establishes the use of violence as a way to instill fear in the people. If every newborn son is forcibly killed by an oppressor then the individuals in slavery will be terrified of other violent acts the king might commit. Second, this proclamation also works as an illustration for how remarkable Moses’ survival was. Unlike the other newborn Israelite men, Moses is spared not only through the protection of his mother and sister (Exodus 2:1-4), but also by the benevolence of Pharaoh’s daughter. The bible states t...
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...now end their lives. In this powerful scene the camera pans away from the burning wreckage towards the chaos below as everyone in attendance scrambles for their lives. The image of all the nameless Nazi officers as they crawl over one another hoping to escape is quickly followed by an image of Shoshanna’s face superimposed on to smoke laughing at her victims. The irony in this image is intense. Some naysayers may argue that Shoshanna is no better than the Nazi’s themselves, using violence to accomplish her goals. But that is not the argument Quentin Tarantino is putting forth. By glorifying acts that would normally be considered atrocious in another context speaks to Tarantino’s position. He is not taking a Ghandi like approach of peace but rather one in which the individuals who seek out atonement through violence are the ones who prosper within Inglorious Basterds.
Most of the novel revolves around World War II and the aftermath of the war. Most of the Jew population was murdered by the Nazis, this event is known as the Holocaust. There were many attempts to get Jews out of camps and to Palestine because they are safe in Palestine, but many were unsuccessful. Most of the world in 1946 despised the Jews. Most of the Jews did not know why such things would happen to them and thought that God was punishing them. World War II is very significant in the book Exodus because many of the children have not had a life outside of concentration camps and refugee camps. The war changed every Jew’s life because many of them lost family members and friends. This novel tells a story of what life would be like after the war for the
Exodus 21-24 was definitely quite an instructive piece of literature. It was almost raw in its nature as a text or “book” but more of reading an excerpt from a piece of non-fiction most similar to an instruction manual of some sort that you get when you buy a dissembled bike or desk. Something like being enrolled in a police academy there was definite sense of a master-slave relationship in the air. It is like something never before seen in the Torah, these chapters showed a whole new YHWH. The YHWH who is feared like the school principal in an elementary school, not even mom and dad has come on so strong as to the dos and donts of living life. It seems as if YHWH was pushed to such a point where YHWH has no choice but intervene into the lives of his children, and set the rules for the pl...
Even though, considered as an African-American, I begin to read the book of Exodus from an African’s perspective. I mention this because even though somewhat Americanized, I still consider myself purely African at heart and soul. A business and minors in both French and Psychology at a predominantly white college also play a role in my understanding of the book of Exodus. Living in a white suburban neighborhood plays a major role on how I perceive a potentially liberating biblical text. Making the life changing move from Togo to the United States has also shapes my understanding of Exodus as whole.
This is a direct attempt to make the viewer understand the personal nature of the violent manner through which Shoshanna lost her parents early in the film. This is an attempt to get viewers to see through the Jewish lens of violence in World War II instead of the glorified violence of major battles that composes the American lens. Works Cited Inglourious Bastards. Dir. Quentin Tarantino.
Zakovitch, Yair. Why Were the Israelites Enslaved in Egypt. "And You Shall Tell Your Sons..." Jerusalem: Magnes P, 1992.
The laws in Exodus were given to the Israelites in order for them to function as a society. Slavery along with the Lex Talionis protected the person’s right and provided some form of human dignity and justice. As society changed, the initial purpose for slavery and the Lex Talionis changed and became distorted. Although slavery and justice have differed from the meaning of ancient times, one can still observed some relationship between these customs and issues.
In fairy tales, children are pushed into ovens, have their hands chopped off, are forced to sleep in coal bins, and must contend with wolves who've eaten their grandmother. In myths, rape, incest, all manner of gruesome bloodshed, child abandonment, and total debauchery are standard fare. We see more of the same in Bible stories, accentuated with dire predictions of terrors and abominations in an end of the world apocalypse that is more horrifying than the human imagination can even grasp.
Violence Is The Province Of Evil People Natural violence is a form of hurtful action or reaction, which can assume an infinite number of forms, and it is not unusual for people to fashion arguments of one kind or another to justify its existence. Not many typical arguments can be fashioned so as to justify any existence of violence as being the province of and evil people or nation. An argument however is contained in the Biblical records of Genesis 18:19, where two cities Sodom and Gomorra were the provinces (interpreted as location) of evil people, and as a result all persons were destroyed by unusually devastating violent acts of fire and brimstone, which rained on them and also destroyed their entire cities. The substantial argument from this Biblical, historical perspective is that the people were "in grievous sin" as Genesis 18:20 puts it, and such it was the evil in them that perpetrated the violence in the location of Sodom and Gomorra.
In The Song of the Sea, Exodus 15:1-18, Moses and the Israelites praise God as both protector of his people and punisher of those who do not follow the words of the Lord. The song tells a story of the omnipotent force and marvelous power of God in the destruction of the Egyptians, who did not obey the Lord of the Israelite. In Exodus 15: 4 Moses says, “Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea. The best of Pharaoh’s officers are drowned in the Red Sea”. Egypt was a strong and powerful empire, however the might of mankind’s weapons stood no chance to the might of God, who created man and the sea he vanquished Pharaohs men to drown in. This line illustrates the violence and wrath that can ascend upon those who disobey God and
There are many themes running through the Old Testament myth of Exodus – slavery, rescue and redemption, guidance, commandments on how to live, the creation of a nation, and God’s power over other gods. In this paper I will explore what appears to be the chief reasoning behind the creation of the Exodus myth – the explanation of the creation of a monotheistic religion and the similarities of the Exodus myth to the ancient myths, as well as how one should approach the reading of the myth.
Is violence justified in order to combat oppression or is nonviolence the most effective solution? Not using brutal force is the most effective way to restrain violence. In a “long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier” Ishmael Beah goes through a lot, as a kid he should have not needed to experience all the violence he went through.
Exodus is the second of the five “books of Moses” that tells the story of the Exodus of Israelites from Egypt through the Sinai Desert. When Moses was born, the Israelites were oppressed by the Egyptian Pharaoh and bound to a harsh life of labor taking part in building some of the great public works of Egypt such as the pyramids, fortresses, and installations to regulate the flow of the Nile River. For fear that the Israelite population would continue to increase, the Pharaoh insisted that every male Hebrew child would be killed at birth. Ironically, during this oppressive period, Moses, the “future deliverer of Israel”, was born. To protect his life, his mother sent him down the Nile in a specially woven ark. He was found by the Pharaoh’s daughter who took him in and, to add to the irony, she hired his mother to be his foster nurse. The baby boy grew up and was adopted into the Pharaoh’s household and named Moses. His name is derived from the Egyptian root “mose” meaning “son”, but in the Bible, it is said to hale from the Hebrew root meaning “drawn out of the water.”
The Book of Exodus encompasses several of the most significant individuals, as well as events. In the Book of Exodus, Moses was a prominent character that was discussed seemingly throughout the text (Harper 's Bible Dictionary 1952, 655). The Book of Exodus is a segment within the Pentateuch, which covers the first five accounts of the Old Testament. There are three noticeable premises that are accentuated in Exodus, which are deliverance, the covenant, and the Promised Land. The opening section of the Book, which is separated into two parts, is the first eighteen chapters, which review Moses’ lifetime, the dilemmas that the Israelites’ met whilst in Egypt, and the events and plagues that drove the Israelites’ to ultimately depart from Egypt.
As time goes on, history has a way of getting distorted from its most truthful form. Time causes people to drift away from accuracy and become more interested in what they want to remember. Hollywood has a reputation of creating films that cater more to the average viewer, rather than the history buff. Inglorious Basterds, by Quentin Taratino, take very liberal liberty with a history story, and creates a story that will sell to the crowd. This may seem dubious, but it is often not such a bad thing. Hollywood can take a story that may have one connotation, may it be serious or dreary, and turn it into something that evokes different emotions, will still addressing historical issues or topics. Taratino chooses to film a movie of this type because of the way he can portray a very serious topic in way that no one has before. He picks the topic of World War II and the Nazi’s, but does not take the generic portrayal of it. Many previous movies of this subject have been released either show heroic American that battle insurmountable odds, or forsaken Jews that fight threw the worst. While it may seem dark to make a movie that takes a serious subject so lightly, it is part of the process of history. As it becomes more and more distant in time, there is less and less truth and seriousness put into it. It is seen in many other Hollywood movies, such as The Patriot (2000), 300 (2007), Braveheart (1995), and Django Unchained (2012). The interesting thing in many of the movies like these, is the enemy is often portrayed in an extremely negative, almost so extreme, they could be compared to the Nazis. Hollywood uses that Nazis as the level setter for enemies, it does not get worse than them. It is interesting to see how Taratino portrays the ...
The lives and prosperity of millions of people depend on peace and, in turn, peace depends on treaties - fragile documents that must do more than end wars. Negotiations and peace treaties may lead to decades of cooperation during which disputes between nations are resolved without military action and economic cost, or may prolong or even intensify the grievances which provoked conflict in the first place. In 1996, as Canada and the United States celebrated their mutual boundary as the longest undefended border in the world, Greece and Turkey nearly came to blows over a rocky island so small it scarcely had space for a flagpole.1 Both territorial questions had been raised as issues in peace treaties. The Treaty of Ghent in 1815 set the framework for the resolution of Canadian-American territorial questions. The Treaty of Sevres in 1920, between the Sultan and the victorious Allies of World War I, dismantled the remnants of the Ottoman Empire and distributed its territories. Examination of the terms and consequences of the two treaties clearly establishes that a successful treaty must provide more than the absence of war.