Facts and Details

MOSES

Michelangelo's Moses Moses is one of the founding fathers of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. A Jew brought up as an Egyptian prince, he opened the way for monotheism by banning magic and abolishing idol worship; rescued the Israelites from slavery and brought them to the promised land; authored the Torah, the Jewish equivalent of the Bible; and delivered the Ten Commandments "the basis of modern man's moral and ethical code." [Source: Harvey Arden, National Geographic, January 1976 [☼].

Moses and his adventures are described in the books of Exodus through Deuteronomy in the Bible and the Torah. He is called Moses by Christians and Moshe by Jews, and Musa to the Moslems. The names are believed to be derived from the Egyptian word mose , or mosu , which means "is born" or "child of somebody." Ancient priests called him the Prince of Egypt and said he learned to speak 70 languages.

Most of the text of the Old Testament (and the Torah) are believed to have been delivered by God through Moses. While people of religion view him as the messenger of the news of Creation, scholars regarded him as the Creator himself because he is source of the texts, which form the cornerstones of Jewish, Christianity and Islam. The Bible reported Moses "wrote all the words of the Lord" but modern Biblical scholar attributes about a fifth of the text to him.

Moses holds a high position not only in three of the world’s great religions but also is a monumental figure in Western civilization and culture. One of the most famous Michelangelo statues in Rome is of Moses. Moses also presides over the main entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington D.C. and is found on the Capitol and the White House. The parting of the Red Sea by Moses, played by Charleston Heston, in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 version of Ten Commandments , is one of cinema’s classic moments. DeMille made another classic version of the Ten Commandments —this one silent— in 1923. Many Christians in Africa see Moses as a black man.

Pharaoh's Daughter dressed in
19th century clothes with
Moses in the Reed Basket Book: Moses: A Life by Jonathan Kirsh. Film: Cecil B. DeMille's Ten Commandments with Charleston Heston; Prince of Egypt , a Dreamworks animation with the voice of Moses supplied by Val Kilmer and his friend Ramses by Ralph Fiennes.

Websites and Resources: Judaism101 jewfaq.org ; Judaism and Jewish Resources shamash.org/trb/judaism ; Aish.com aish.com ; Wikipedia article Wikipedia ; torah’org torah.org ; Chabad,org chabad.org/library/bible ; Religious Tolerance religioustolerance.org/judaism ; Judaism.com judaism.com ; ; Jewish History: Jewish History Timeline jewishhistory.org.il/history ; Wikipedia article on Wikipedia ; Jewish History Resource Center dinur.org ; Origin of Judaism adath-shalom.ca ;Center for Jewish History cjh.org ; Jewish Culture and History Resources ddickerson.igc.org/judaica ;

Books: A Short History of Judaism by I. And D. Cohn-Sherlok (1994); The Gift of the Jews by Thomas Cahill; Ancient Biblical History Books: Egypt, Canaan and Israel in Ancient Times by Donald Redford; Oxford Companion to the Bible ; Palestine Bible as History by Werner Keller; The Bible Unearthed by I. Finkelstein & N. Asher Silberman ; Historical Atlas of the Holy Lands by K. Farrington

Websites and Resources with Torah and Biblical Images: Bible in Pictures creationism.org/books ; Bible Picture gallery biblepicturegallery.com ; ebibleteacher ebibleteacher.com ; Bible-History.com bible-history.com ; Visual Bible Alive visualbiblealive.com ; Pictures from Bible lavistachurchofchrist.org ; Bible Pictures karenswhimsy.com/bible-pictures ; Blue Letter Images blueletterbible.org/images ; Biblical Images preceptaustin.org

Moses and History

Rameses II Many scholars believe that Moses was a real person, perhaps a priest or a judge, even though there is no historical evidence of his existence or the events described in Exodus. Neither Moses or the Exodus is described in ancient Egyptian records, which are fairly extensive.

There are references to “Asiatic” slaves in Egypt that may have been a reference to the Israelites. An Egyptian stele found in 1990 and dated to 1207 B.C., recounting the military victory of Pharaoh Merneptah, says, "Israel is laid waste." But other than that there is little evidence of even the Israelites existing in Moses’s time. No evidence comes from the Israelites themselves because they were a nomadic people with no material culture for archaeologists to dig up

Many scholars believe that the Exodus story was created for theological reasons: to give the Jews a point of origin and provide them with divine blessing to distinguish them from other people. They say that Exodus was intended to be taken metaphorically. They also point that many episodes found in Exodus are found in stories in other ancient Middle Eastern cultures. Stories about babies in baskets, locusts and great plagues were fairly common.

In any case the exodus from Egypt was a central event of the Bible. It is referred to not only in the Pentateuch but also in Prophets and the Psalms. Many historians feel that it marked the consolidation of the Hebrew tribes into a single nation and people.

Egypt, Israel, Moses and History

The Exodus—if it happened— is believed to have occurred around 1290 B.C., which roughly corresponds with the era of the Trojan War and the rule of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II. The Exodus was written along with many other parts of the Old Testament in the 7th century B.C. during the reign of King Josiah of Judah.

Menephthah,
the Pharaoh of the Exodus Some scholars believe the concept of monotheism dates to Moses time rather than Abraham’s time. Monotheism appeared in Egypt under the pharaoh Akhenaten (1388 B.C. to 1336 B.C.), who lived rough 50 years before the time that Moses is thought to have been alive. Akhenaten attempted to introduce a form of monotheism to ancient Egypt. After his death there was a period of chaos and instability and for a while Egypt was ruled by high priests.

According to the Bible, Joseph and the Israelites were welcomed into Egypt by a pharaoh around the 16th century B.C. after their homeland in Canaan was stricken by drought and famine. Between 1630 and 1521 B.C., Egypt was ruled by the Hyksos, a Semitic people from western Asia. Some scholars have suggested the Hyksos may have included Israelites. Egyptian chronicles later refer to a people called the “Apiru,” which some scholars believe may have included the Hebrews and Israelites.

In Egypt, the Israelites were enslaved, a fate which they endured more than 300 years. The Egyptians "made life bitter for them with harsh labor at mortar and bricks." When the pharaoh viewed the Israelites as a threat he ordered that all male children be killed at birth by throwing them in the Nile. Cuneiform tablets refer ancient nomads for the Near Eat that were put to work building places and temples. Archaeologists believe that the Israelites were include in these nomadic groups.

The 19th Egyptian dynasty was founded in 1335 B.C. at a time when the Egyptian empire was breaking up as result of pressure from the Hittite Empire to the north. Some scholars have suggested that the Israelites may have been enslaved during this period by the Egyptians because they may have presented a threat.

Many scholars believe Ramses the Great (Ramses II, ruled 1279 to 1213 B.C.) was one of the pharaohs described in the story of Moses—either the Pharaoh of the Oppression, who enslaved the Israelites, or the Pharaoh of the Exodus, who pursued them into the sea after the Ten Plagues. Many scholars believe the pharaoh mentioned in Exodus was Ramses II (ruled 1279 to 1213). In the historical record there is no mention of Israel until the reign of Ramses son and successor Mernetah. By then Israel was a nation, not a group of displaced people.

Moses's Early Life

Moses on the Nile According to the Bible and the Torah, Moses was born in Egypt to immigrant parents of the servant: Abraham and Jochebed from the Hebrew Levi tribe. After being hidden for three months, Moses was placed by his mother and sister in "an ark of bulrushes, and dabbed it with slime and pitch" and set afloat on the Nile after the Pharaoh issued an edict declaring all male infants born to Israeli slaves had to be killed.☼

Christians and Jews believe Moses was discovered in the bulrushes by the Pharaoh's daughter. Muslims say he was found by the Pharaoh wife. According to the Judeo-Christian story, after being rescued Moses was adopted by the Pharaoh's daughter and was brought up as a prince in the Egyptian royal court where most likely, if the story is based in fact, he would have learned to read hieroglyphics and ride a chariot just as Ramses the Great at King Tutankhamun had. The Bible provides few details. When Moses was a young man he was informed of his true identity by his sister Miriam.

The tale of Moses’ youth resembles old folk stories from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Middle East. According to an ancient Assyrian narrative about the Mesopotamian king Akkad, who lived a thousand years before Moses, "My priestly mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen sealed my lid." In the Egyptian tale of the God Horas his mother Isis hid him from his wicked uncle Seth.

When Moses was three, one episode of his story goes, he snatched the crown off the Pharaoh's head. Dumbfounded, the Pharaoh decided to devise a test to see if Moses realized what he had done. Two plates were placed before the child: one with gold and one with red-hot coals. If he chose the gold one he was to be put to death. If he chose the one with coals he would be spared as "one without knowledge of his acts." Fortunately for him he grabbed the hot one, but unfortunately he stuck it in his mouth and seared his tongue, leaving him with halting speech.☼

Moses is Forced to Flee Egypt

Pharaoh Notes the Jewish People by Tissot Moses was forced to flee from Egypt to the Sinai when he murdered an Egyptian man who was abusing a Jewish slave. According to the Torah, "And he spied an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, when he saw there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand." If he hadn't committed this crime it seems plausible that he would have had a distinguished career in the Pharaoh's court.

Moses fled to a land called Midian, in northwest Arabia, east of the Gulf of Aqaba. While in the desert he met his wife Zipporah, daughter of the Midianite priest Jethro, while she was drawing water from a well. Moses stood up for Jethro when other shepherds tried to shoo him away from the well. For this Jethro offered Moses his daughter. She soon bore Moses a son.

This episode has similarities to a story that circulated in the time of Ramses about a courtier named Sunuhe who fled to the desert and lived with some Bedouins after being blamed for the assassination of a Pharaoh.

Moses and the Burning Bush

One Day while Moses was tending a flock of sheep near Mt. Sinai, after escaping from Egypt, a bush caught on fire: "And an angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush: and he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed."

From the flames came a voice: "Moses, Moses...I am the God of thy Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." It was the first time God had spoken to anybody on Earth for over 600 years. "I will send thee unto Pharaoh," the voice continued, "that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out." ☼

At first Moses hesitated. He described himself as being "slow of speech, and slow of tongue," which some scholars have interpreted as meaning that Moses had a stammer. He did not promise to do as God wished until God had promised to support him with miracles.

Rationalists trying to explain the burning bush story have said that maybe the bush was a kind of desert acacia shrub with brilliantly-colored flowers.

Plagues of Egypt

Moses returned to Egypt and confronted the Pharaoh: "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go." When Moses first asked the Pharaoh to let his people go the Pharaoh responded by increasing the Israelites work load. Then, not only were they required to make and carry bricks, they also had to raise and harvest straw as binder for the bricks.☼

Death of the Pharaoh's Firstborn son
by Lawrence Alma-Tadema When the Pharaoh refused again the Ten Plagues of Egypt were unleashed on the land one after another. In the First the Nile turned to blood, a phenomena some scholars say might have been caused by red mud pouring down the river from Ethiopia. The plagues of frogs, lice, flies, cattle disease and bolis that followed, they say, are conditions usually associated with seasonal floods. The seventh plague, hail and fire, may have been a hailstorm with lightning or a volcanic eruption in the Mediterranean. The eight plague, locusts, still swarm from time to time. The three days of darkness that followed may have been a sandstorm.

In the tenth plague the firstborn of every Egyptian family was killed, even the pharaoh's oldest son. Exodus 12:29 in the Bible reads: "at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn of the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of the Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon." Historians have yet to find any evidence of this event.

Finally after the tenth plague the Pharaoh at last let Moses and the Israelites go. Before the plague struck Israelites were told to sacrifice a lamb and paint their doorways with its blood. Their homes were passed over by the plague, which is the origin of the Passover holiday. During Passover, Jews eat unleavened bread or matzo. The explanation for this tradition is that the Jews were forced to pack up and leave Egypt so quickly they didn't have time to leaven their bread.☼

Moses and the Exodus

After the 10th plague and the observation of the first Passover, Moses and the Israelites embarked on their Exodus from the Land of Goshen in the Nile Delta in Egypt to the Promised Land. The Israelites at first were reluctant to have Moses lead them. There is little evidence of the Exodus. There are accounts of Egyptian raids into Palestine that brought back captives in the 12th century B.C. but there was no record of huge masses of people escaping and crossing the Sinai.

According to the Bible, the Israelites numbered some 600,000 adult males and their families: perhaps two million people. That is an awful lot of people to wandering around a desert with barely enough food to feed goats and Bedouins. Some scholar believe the 600,000 figures was actually taken from a census in Israel centuries later. Other scholars say the Hebrew word eleph which translate to thousand, may in fact mean "family." Some 600 families, with about a total of 1,500 people, seems like a more reasonable number.☼

The route between Goshen in the Nile Delta in Egypt and the Promised Land in Canaan (Israel) crossed the Sinai Peninsula. Some scholars believe that Moses followed a northern route across the Sinai. Other say he took a southern route. Both point to the miracles of manna and quails to back up their argument.

Most of the geographic location described on the Books of Exodus through Deuteronomy are impossible to locate on a map. The journey began on the Nile Delta and ended on Mount Nebo in Jordan, a distance roughly equivalent to the distance between New York and Washington D.C.☼

Most scholars believe that if the Exodus indeed took place the Israelites left the Nile Delta and entered the Sinai where the Suez Canal is today, which completely bypasses the Red Sea. Kadesh-barnes, where the Israelites stopped for 38 years before entering the Promised Land, is thought to be the oasis of Ayn al Qudayrat, near the Israeli city of Beersheba.

There are four major routes between Goshen and Kadesh-barnes. The Northern routes passes through a Sea of Reeds in the Mediterranean. The other three pass through a Sea of Reeds near the present-day Suez Canal. Of these, one route reaches southern Sinai while the other two pass through the center of the Sinai. From Kadesh-Barnea to Mt. Nebo the are two major routes

Proponents of the southern route theory say after skirting the Red Sea, the Israelites headed southeast to Great Bitter Lake and Little Bitter Lake, which are full of reeds and equated with the "Reed Sea." Mt. Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments, is believed to be a 7,497-foot purple granite peak long called Gebel in the southern Sinai.

Moses and the Parting of the Red Sea

After the Israelites left Egypt the Pharaoh changed his mind about letting the Israelites go and sent an army in pursuit of them and cornered them at the Red Sea. To allow the Israelites to escape Moses parted the Red Sea. According to the Torah, "And the Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on the right and on their left." When the Egyptian chariots pursued them the waters of the Red Sea collapsed and drowned them.

To explain the parting of the Red Sea some scientists suggest that Moses passed through the swampy region near where the Suez Canal is today. They speculate that if Moses arrived at a time when a strong low tide coincided with strong winds the Red Sea might "part" enough to be crossed on foot. When the Egyptians crossed the tides ebbed and winds died, swamping the pursuers.

Adding further credence to this theory is the fact that the Hebrew phrase, Yam Suph , traditionally translated to "Red Sea," should actually be read as "Reed Sea." The Bitter Lakes, Lake Sirbonis (a Mediterranean lagoon now called Sabkhet el Bardowil) and Lake Manzala, where the water is shallow enough to be crossed on foot, both have lots of reeds.☼

The victory song sung after a defeat of the Egyptian cavalry resembled Canaanite poems from the 14th century B.C.

Manna and the Amalekites

After crossing the Red Sea, the Israelites could not find enough food and drink. Once when they came to some water that was too bitter to drink, Moses threw a piece of wood in the water that made it miraculously turn sweet. On another occasion God told Moses to strike a rock with his staff and water poured forth.

Manna Once when the Israelites were very hungry God dropped manna from the heaven to feed them. Manna (which means "what is it?” in Hebrew ) is described in the Bible as "a fine and flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. “ In the famous Tintoretto painting, Israelites Gathering Manna in the Wilderness some of the members of the Exodus are pictured with guns.

Scientists think that manna may have been the white honey-like secretion of a plant louse that feeds on the fruit of tamarisk trees. At night it congeals into a sticky substance. During the day it melts in the sun. Bedouin still make a condiment called manna , which is similar to the "wafers made with honey" description of manna in the Bible. Tamarisk trees grow primarily in the south, while the migration routes of the quail, another source of food, are primarily in the north.☼

At Rephidim near Mt. Sinai, the Israelites were attacked by desert people called the Amalekites. According to the Bible as Moses stood on a height and raised his arms. As long as he held out his arms victory was assured. When his arms grew tired and fell, the Amalekites advanced. To assure victory, Aaron and Hur propped up Moses's arms.

Arden tried holding his arms out as Moses had done. "After three minutes," he said, "my upper shoulders began aching sharply. Four minutes and the pain extended from shoulder to elbow. Five minutes the pain became excruciating and. Six minutes, and my arms dropped."☼

Moses and Mt. Sinai

Moses Comes Down from Mount Sinai After crossing a long expanse of desert Moses and the Israelites came to Mt. Sinai. "There was thunder and lightning and a dark cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, and all the people who were in the camp trembled...And Mount Sinai was all smoke because the Lord descended upon it in a fire; and the smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln. And all the people trembled greatly. And as the trumpet blast grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the Lord answered him in thunder...Yahweh called Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses went up." [Source: Exodus 19:16-20]

Moses stayed on Mt. Sinai for 40 days. On the mountain top God spoke to Moses again and told Moses about the covenant between God and the Jews and told him if the Jews kept the Ten Commandments, which were inscribed on two tablets and given to Moses, God would lead them to the Promised Land.

No less than eight Mt. Sinai's have been identified, two of which aren't even on the Sinai peninsula. The one most associated with Moses is a 7,497-foot purple granite peak called Gebel in the southern Sinai. The famous Byzantine Monastery of St. Catherine is located here on the spot where the burning bush incident is believed to have taken place.

Ten Commandments

Moses Breaks the
Tables of the Law "And it came to pass...that there were thunders and lightnings...And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire....

"And God spake all these words, saying.
"I am the Lord they God..."
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me. [1]
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image... [2]
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain... [3]
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy... [4]
"Honour they father and mother [5]
"Thou shalt not kill. [6]
"Thou shalt not commit adultery. [7]
"Thou shalt not steal. [8]
"Thou shalt not bear false witness... [9]
"Thou shalt not covet... [10]

The ban on graven images means that believers may not worship or bow down to idols or even images that attempt to capture the one true God. The understanding is that God is so powerful and overwhelming that he can not be conveyed in an image. He can be worshipped as a spirit.

The ban on using God’s name in vain is reminder that using God’s name is not something that should be taken lightly. Traditionally, Jews have not even used his name at all. Instead they referred to him as Adonai (The Lord) and HaShem (The Name).

Golden Calf and the Ten Commandments

The Israelites broke the Commandments and Moses was forced to use both persuasion and force to bring them back in line. Once God told Moses that he was ready to kill all these "stiff-necked people" (the Israelites) and "make you a great new nation" but Moses convinced God that it would be a waste of God's time and hard work.

Moses came down off Mt. Sinai and found his people worshipping a golden calf. Infuriated, he smashed the tablets with the Ten Commandments and had the calf ground into dust which he forced its worshipers to eat. In 1990, Harvard archaeologists working in the ancient city of Ashkelon unearthed a silver-plated bronze calf, a symbol of Baal, reminiscent of the huge golden calf mentioned in Exodus.

On God's order he returned to the mountain and once again the words were inscribed. He then returned to Mt. Sinai for another set of tablets with the Ten Commandments. This time God revealed himself to Moses (he showed Moses his back not his face).

Moses, a changed man after his encounter with God, descended from Mt. Sinai with a second set of Commandments. According to the Bible the Israelites "shrank from coming near him" and "the skin of his face shone ." For many centuries the Hebrew word meaning "shone" ( qaran ) was translated as "horned" ( qeren ), which gave rise to the Renaissance tradition of showing Moses with horns. The most famous horned statue is Michelangelo's "Moses" in Rome. The horns come from Vulgate and Aquila’s translation into Greek. A closer look at the oldest Hebrew translation indicated Moses face merely glowed from his encounter with God.

After Mt. Sinai, Moses and the Israelites settled in a place called Kadesh-barnea for 38 years. Here the Israelites tended their flocks and waited or an opportunity to enter the Promised Land. From Kadesh-barnea, the Israelites took a circuitous route to the Promised Land. On the east bank of the Jordan River the defeated the Amorites and captured the city of Heshbon, which provided them with a passage into Canaan.

Moses and the Promised Land

Forty years after leaving Egypt the Israelites finally entered the Promised Land in Canaan under Moses' second-in-command Joshua. Canaan was described in the Bible as a "land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates."

In Deuteronomy 11:24-25 God promised Moses: “Every spot on which your foot treads shall be yours; your territory shall extend from wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River—the River Euphrates—to the Western Sea [the Mediterranean]. No man shall stand up to you; the Lord Your God will put the dread and fear of you over the whole land in which you set foot, as he promised you.”

Bur Moses was not was allowed to enter it, only view it from Mt. Nebo in Moab. This was because God told him to bring forth water from a rock by speaking to it. Moses instead hit the rock with his staff, which he had used before to perform many miracles. God interpreted this as a breach of faith. Today any place there is a spring emanating from a rock tradition ascribes the phenomena to Moses.☼

After gazing upon the Land of Canaan and climbing down from Mt. Nebo, Moses died at the age of a 120. Mt. Nebo is in Jordan east of the Dead Sea. The Israelites mourned his death for 30 days before entering Canaan. He was buried near Bethpeor, but no one knows his burial place.

Archaeologists have found evidence of a number of small settlements in the hills to the east and west of Jordan River that date to 1200 to 1000 B.C.—the period after the Exodus described in the Bible’s Book of Judges—that display cultural elements consistent with the Biblical accounts of the Israelites. For example, no pig bones were found, which suggest they didn’t eat pork, which the Israelites didn’t eat.

"During classical times," Rick Gore wrote in National Geographic, "all Palestine, including the Negev desert, was relatively lush, supporting as many as three million people. From 200 B.C. to A.D. 200 the Nabataean civilization terraced the hillsides of the Negev with canals to collect and store flood runoff. They produced bountiful harvests on only three to four inches of rain a year. But as ancient technologies were destroyed, Bedouin life became the only way to survive in the Negev. By the 1800s Palestine's population had fallen to 300,000. [Source: Rick Gore, National Geographic, November 1979]

Moses in the Koran

Yusuf (Moses) appears before the pharaoh
late19th_century Moses (known as Musa to Muslims) is mentioned in 73 passages in the Koran and is referred to by name more than Mohammed. Sura 19:51 says that he was “specifically chosen” by Good and Sura 28:14 states that God gave Moses “wisdom and knowledge.” The Book of Moses is described as a “Light and Guide.” Two miracles performed by Moses—the turning of a staff into a serpent and making a hand glow when placed under his arm—are offered as proof of his status as prophet. The Koran describes the Biblical stories of golden calf and plagues of Egypt. The parting of the Red Sea is mentioned twice.

Not all the stories about Moses in the Koran are found in the Bible. When Mohammed takes his night journey after his death from Medina to Jerusalem to heaven it is Moses that suggests the daily number of prayers be reduced from 50 to five. Also while traveling in the Sinai Moses meets with a “Servant of God” who instructs Moses about the knowledge of God.

A fisherman showed journalist Harvey Edwards two flat flounderlike fish. "He slapped two of the fish together in sandwich fashion. Since each looked rather like half a fish, both of its eyes being on one side, the two together looked remarkably like a sing fish. 'Called samal Musa , Musa fish!' he announced. 'When Musa split the waters, these fish get cut in two. Now that way forever."☼

Image Sources: Wikimedia, Commons, Schnorr von Carolsfeld Bible in Bildern, 1860

Text Sources: World Religions edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions edited by R.C. Zaehner (Barnes & Noble Books, 1959); Encyclopedia of the World Cultures edited by David Levinson (G.K. Hall & Company, New York, 1994); National Geographic, the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Times of London, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

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© 2009 Jeffrey Hays

Last updated March 2011