A History of Religious Ideas, Volume 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries

by Mircea Eliade

The beginnings of the religion of Israel are related in Genesis, chapters 46–50, in Exodus, and in the Book of Numbers. Their content is a series of events, most of which were directly caused by God. We list the most important: the settling of Jacob and his sons in Egypt; the persecution launched some centuries later by a pharaoh who ordered the extermination of the firstborn of the Israelites; the vicissitudes of Moses (miraculously saved from the massacre and brought up at the pharaoh’s court) after killing an Egyptian soldier who was beating a Hebrew, especially his flight into the desert of Midian, the appearance of the “burning bush” (his first encounter with Yahweh), the mission laid upon him by God, to bring his people out of Egypt, and the revelation of the divine name; the ten plagues sent by God to force the pharaoh to consent; the departure of the Israelites and their crossing the Sea of Reeds, whose waters overwhelmed the Egyptian chariots and soldiers that were pursuing them; the theophany on Mount Sinai and Yahweh’s covenant with his people, followed by instructions concerning the content of the revelation and the cult; finally, the forty years of journeying in the desert, the death of Moses, and the conquest of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua.