Enter Moses With A Buzz Saw

My dwarvish origin story for the Bible has hit quite a snag — or more like it ran into a buzz saw — over the weekend. For context, consider this handy timeline of the Old Testament I found via Google image search:

In my original post I placed the dwarves getting involved at the time of the Exodus, which means they would have been somehow involved with all of the Moses stuff. And if my revised thinking of the Bible is correct that it’s “mostly correct”, then I have to accept that a guy named Moses brought about ancient plagues in order to deliver a people known as Israel from bondage — even if I don’t think that Israel from the Bible is the same Israel the BoM speaks of.

At first I thought that was fine. The dwarves, after all, possess some level of “magic” and are pretty cunning besides, so I saw them as somehow behind the powers Moses demonstrates. But then I thought about the Red Sea parting and I suddenly had my first real problem. I don’t think the dwarves possess that kind of power. I could chalk it up to exaggeration (like say the dwarves built a bridge and these primitive people looked at it as them parting the waters) or outright fabrication but then I contradict myself about the state of the Bible as reasonably accurate.

Even worse, I remembered that Moses is mentioned a couple times in the BoM doing pretty much exactly what the Bible says he does:

Do ye suppose that they would have been led out of bondage, 

If the Lord had not commanded Moses 

That he should lead them out of bondage?

Now ye know that the children of Israel were in bondage. And ye know

That they were laden with tasks which were grievous to be borne. 

Wherefore, ye know that it must needs be a good thing for them, 

That they should be brought out of bondage.  Now ye know 

That Moses was commanded of the Lord to do that great work, and 

Ye know that by his word the waters of the Red Sea were divided 

Hither and thither, and they passed through on dry ground.  

But ye know that the Egyptians were drowned 

In the Red Sea, who were the armies of Pharaoh.

And ye also know that they were fed with manna 

In the wilderness. Yea, and ye also know that Moses by his word 

According to the power of God which was in him, smote the rock! 

And there came forth water, that the children of Israel might quench 

Their thirst.  And notwithstanding they being led, the Lord their god,

Their redeemer, going before them, leading them by day and giving light

Unto them by night, and doing all things for them which were expedient 

For man to receive, they hardened their hearts 

And blinded their minds, and reviled against Moses 

And against the true and living god.

I mean that’s a pretty solid outline of the Exodus story and really there aren’t any contradictions between that and the Bible tale. This is a major problem because I have borrowed heavily from Bill’s story which places the Jerusalem of the BoM not on our world but where Tirion is, in Valinor.

In the above excerpt, Nephi is attempting to rally his brothers to help him build a ship and he is using this story as a good reason for them to pitch in. He’s using it because this Moses story is THEIR story, meaning Nephi is citing to a Moses that led the children of Israel, his ancestors, to the land of Jerusalem (Tirion) from which Lehi’s family is fleeing.

Do you see the problem? Moses is himself an Israelite so he can’t have led Lehi’s ancestors to Tirion of Valinor and also to Palestine of planet Earth.

It’s one or the other.

The good news is that Nephi seems to vouch for the Bible tale, at least in broad strokes, which means we can safely believe in a Moses tale. I’d really like to place Moses in Tolkien’s writings (by a different name obviously) but so far I am coming up empty.

Either way, this blows up my idea of the dwarves snatching up some beleaguered/enslaved group of people from Egypt (a fake Israel) and leading them out. The best I can come up with right now is that the dwarves don’t enter into the above timeline until much later, maybe finding a group of people already in Palestine. The dwarves name them “Israel”, provide these people a history and law in the form of the Pentateuch, and then teach them the warfare necessary to conquer the land, etc.

That would have been something like 1200 BC which is about the time recorded history first mentions Israel based on records we still have today. In this version, we still have a pretend Israel but they are given a “mostly correct” history that is being borrowed from the REAL Israel.

It could still work this way but only if we assume the dwarves knew the REAL story of Moses leading Israel to Tirion and then co-opted that tale along with the rest of the early Bible tales for their own purposes. That allows the Bible to still be “mostly correct” while also letting the dwarves be responsible for our world’s fake version of Israel.

I’m still thinking through it but I wanted to at least acknowledge I ran into my first major problem. Thanks, Moses, whoever you are.