Skylar Henderson February 24, 2013 Old Testament Exodus vs. Prince of Egypt The story of Moses is one of the more widely known stories from the Old Testament. The story is found in the book of Exodus and details the life of the prophet Moses. The story of Moses has been the basis of several Hollywood movies. One of the movies, The Prince of Egypt, is a cartoon depiction of the story of Moses. While the movie is very entertaining and will captivate a child’s attention from the beginning, there are not very many accurate details from the Biblical story. One of the first differences that can be spotted is the way that baby Moses is placed in the Nile River. Exodus 2:3 records that Moses’ mother placed him into a papyrus basket …show more content…
This is the core reason that he ordered all male children under the age of 2 to be slaughtered. This characterization is biblically accurate. The characterization of Miriam, Moses’ sister, is accurate as well. Miriam stayed near the river to keep watch over the basket that held her baby brother both in the Bible story and in the movie. In both stories, it is she who speaks up and offers to find a nurse for the baby. This was a clever way for Moses’ mother to speak truth over him as he grew before he went to live with the royal family. In conclusion, the movie, The Prince of Egypt, is a good introductory movie for someone who does not have a full understanding of the story of Moses. It provides the basic story line for Moses’ life although it does take liberties with some aspects of the story. The biblical story of Moses, found in Exodus, will give the viewer and reader a far better understanding of the life of Moses and the important role that he would play in the lives of the Hebrew people. Works Cited “The Prince of Egypt”; Movie, 1998. NIV Study Bible; Zondervan,
This analysis will serve as an attempt to distinguish the differences between the Biblical events that happened in the life of Moses and the events that happened in Moses life according to the events that happened in the movie “The Prince of Egypt”. The author will summarize the points throughout this paper as well as challenging the reader with an application that they could use in their own life.
When the Prince of Egypt would show the scenes of slavery, they were seen as less brutal. For example during the opening scene the Hebrews are shown building Egypt. While this is going on the viewer is able to see how the Hebrew were treated by the Egyptians. The singing puts the scene in a less intense mode. The only dialogue is song which is sung for promise of going to the promise land. Instead of focusing in on the brutality of slavery, the scene gives hope to the slaves. “So the Egyptians made the Israelites their slaves. They appointed brutal slave drivers over them, hoping to wear them down with
In Exodus 2:5, the Pharaoh’s daughter disregards the order to kill the baby boys and rescues a baby from the reeds of the Nile. Recognizing he was Hebrew, she decides to raise him as her own, allowing a Hebrew woman to be his wet-nurse by the suggestion of a young Hebrew girl (not knowing they were the baby’s mother and sister). This baby later becomes known as Moses who eventually leads the Israelites to their freedom. In conclusion, the bible demonstrates how the people did not respect the Pharaoh as a leader of the Egyptian kingdom. Raveh (2013) explains:
Moses is an effective Prophet due to his faithfulness to God; his unification of the Hebrews; and dedication to his mission. Like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Moses sees the harsh persecution of his people in Egypt. Fleeing for his life after killing an Egyptian, Moses is living a quiet life, married, tending to his children and his father-in-law’s flocks. However, when God interrupts Moses’s life and calls upon him to deliver the Israelites from purgatory, Moses answers God’s call. Despite his fears,
In the beginning of the book and the film, Masha’s family is living in poverty. She convinces her father to ask Moses for his job back. When they go to ask Uncle Moses, he ridicules Masha’s father. Masha calls him “a beast, a brute, and a dog.” Masha’s insults exhibits how although he does have money, she does not respect him because he belittles the less fortunate. In the book, Masha meets Uncle Moses in his blue room. The blue room is a filled with luxurious furniture and eccentric blue lighting. While in the blue room, he tells Masha that she does not have to marry him which causes her to contemplate the way she loves him. The book states how “it was as if the blue room had fascinated her, and deep, deep within her she longed for the blue room and its mysterious lights.” The blue room is the epitome of Uncle Moses. As Uncle Moses’s character evolves, she becomes enthralled by his mysteriousness. At the end of the film, Masha and Uncle Moses have a son. When he asks Masha why she is not happy, Masha tells Moses that no amount of money can bring her happiness. Uncle Moses and Masha are highlighted while the rest of the room is dark. He tells her that if he joined “his father in Kuzmin. Everyone would be better off.” Highlighting Uncle Moses while he says this draws attention to his changed perspective of how money and power does not provide respect. Suddenly Masha tells him that “she likes him better than she does her parents.” Masha’s declaration illustrates how she has ultimately come to love the now respectable and compassionate man who is no longer consumed by american materialism and recreating the
Moses’ sister Miriam came out and asked Pharaoh’s daughter if she would want a Hebrew woman to raise the child and Pharaoh’s daughter agreed. She gave Moses to Miriam, who took him to Jochebed. Pharaoh’s daughter later got him back and gave him the name Moses. He grew up as a prince with respect and royalty. He would deliver his people from pharaoh but didn’t understand it. God made him a ruler over them but they still rejected him, the same way Jesus was rejected. Moses and Jesus can be compared as they share some similarities. They were both favored by God and were rejected. Pharaoh sought to kill Moses because he had killed an Egyptian soldier, so he fled to a land called Midian because he would have find refuge there. One day, Moses sat by a well, he saw some women, getting water. The owner of the land came and told them to leave but Moses stood up for them and watered the flock. They told their father and he was brought into the family. The father sat him and he ate with them, later he gave his daughter Zipporah to him. She, later gave him a son. The Israelites cried out to God because they wanted to be free. One day Moses led his flock up a mountain,
To escape persecution from Pharaoh, Moses flees to Midian. By leaving his familiar surroundings, Moses finds himself crossing a threshold into a foreign land. To get to Midian, Moses must cross the Desert of Sin. The crossing of the threshold is the first step into the sacred zone of the universal source (Campbell 81). In Midian, he befriends and then marries the daughter of Jethro, priest of Midian. Moses becomes a shepherd as he adjusts to his new life. There is an enormous contrast between Moses' life as an Egyptian prince and his life as a Midianite shepherd. As a prince he had everything done for him. As a shepherd he had to do everything for himself; he was holding the very job that he had been taught to despise, and he lived as an unknown foreigner. This was a humbling experience for Moses. Living the life of a shepherd and nomad, Moses learned about the ways of the people he would be leading and also about life in the desert. Campbell would say that Moses was swallowed into the belly of the whale (Campbell 90). Moses couldn't appreciate these lessons, but they were preparing him to free Israel from Pharaoh's
In scene five, a soldier tells the Pharaoh what the Princess did. The Pharaoh was not happy and summoned the Princess to him. The princess tells the Pharaoh that by having a Hebrew boy as the prince worshipping their gods the Hebrew God will be insulted. The Pharaoh agrees to this and decides to permit it to happen. The Princess tells Leah of the Pharaoh’s change in heart, and there is no more killing of Hebrew baby boys. So, the Pharaoh can win over the minds of the Israelites if they are to raise a Hebrew prince in the palace under the rule of the Pharaoh. He then uplifts the decree. The final scene is the Princess excitedly telling Leah that the decree has been lifted.
Another interesting difference of the movie and the Bible were the miracles shown in the Book of Exodus. In the Bible, Moses uses a staff to perform the miracles God asks him to do. He even turns the staff into a snake. However, in the movie, he uses a sword to part the Red Sea. In the Bible, God orders Moses to go to the bank of the Nile and use his staff to stretch it out for the rivers and all the reservoirs of water to turn into blood.
a time away from the kingdom, the prince and rightful heir (Simba) returns to bring the
The Torah tells of how the Children of Israel were enslaved in Egypt by a Pharoah who feared them. After many generations of oppression, God speaks to an Israelite man named Moses and instructs him to go to Pharoah and let God's people go free. Pharoah refuses, and Moses, acting as God's messenger brings down a series of 10 plagues on Egypt.
The movie The Lion King, a Disney animated, is about the adventures of a young lion named Simba. He is the son of King Mufasa and Queen Sarabi, the royal family of the Pride Lands. All of the animal kingdom is thrilled to hear about Simba’s birth, except his cruel, evil uncle Scar. He knows that Simba will become the next king, so he sets out to kill both father and son. However, Simba escapes, but Mufasa sadly did not. He died fighting for his son's life. Therefore, Simba now returns as an adult to take back his homeland from Scar with the help of his friends. The Lion King can be shown through narrative archetypes such as Mufasa representing the wise, old man, Scar as the witch or sorceress, and Simba being the hero.
The Prince of Egypt is an animated adaptation of Exodus, which portrays an artistic rendition of the life of Moses while still maintaining the integrity of the original story. As an animated Dreamworks production, this story was targeted towards children, which is nice because it can be very difficult to explain the concept of violence in the Bible to children. While this film is an adaptation there are many accurate depictions of Exodus that the movie does address.
Moses had an older brother, Aaron and older sister, Miriam. After his birth, his parents hid him for three months until they could no longer do so. The mother prepared an ark, laid him in it and left it in the reeds by the Nile riverbank (Gregory, pg. 45). The sister stood a far to watch what would happen to him and as Pharaoh 's daughter came down to bathe; she saw the child and took him as her own. Then without her knowledge, she had Jochebed brought in to nurse the baby. Therefore, Moses grows in the royal family and acquires wisdom in Egyptian ways, commanding armies and leading in victorious battle. As he grows, Moses sympathizes with his fellow Israelites after witnessing the harsh conditions they are forced to live and work and refuses to be regarded as Pharaoh’s daughter. Rather, he chooses to suffer affliction with his people until he notices an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, whom he murders and escapes upon discovery to Midian. It is here where his journey to save the Israelites from bondage begins. The promise of
What is important here to understand is that not only in Moses’s days but in whole ancient world, a woman was viewed as a commodity with the situation being worse with Israelites as they were basically sporting mindsets of slaves. These laws that address women might appear unreasonable as well as unrealistic to downright violation of humanity but in Moses’s camp, these laws helped him maintain order in a mammoth of a group of humans. Everything in ancient Israelite customs carried a certain monetary value and held contracts in their dealings ranging from normal life to marriages. In every marriage, the terms of the marriage AND the treatment of women was inked down in great details. Matters such the bride-price paid, known then as MOHAR, and still in practice in some places, the living conditions as well as how the woman is to be cared for and the amount to be paid in case of divorce and widowhood. All this was done to protect the woman, her life and her