Lampe on Church History: The Church under Generals, Moses and Joshua

I.  The other interval of the Church, which extends from Moses to the birth of Christ, and comprehends the greater mass of things preserved in writing, it is agreeable to separate into multiple periods.  Now, while the Church abides from this time in Israel alone, and the form of government in the midst of this people repeatedly undergoes various mutations, according to those mutations the times are readily distinguished.

II.  Therefore, the first period under the Generals, Moses and Joshua, is summed up in sixty-five years, from the exodus out of Egypt in the Year of the World 2513, on the fifteenth day of the month Nisan,[1] to the death of Joshua.  For, forty years are given to Moses in Scripture:  but to Joshua are assigned twenty-five by Josephus, whose testimony in this matter we do not reject, because it agrees well enough with the remaining calculations that Scripture exhibits.

III.  This period, although briefer, was especially illustrious for the greatness of the matters conducted.  They came forth from Egypt six hundred thousand Men,[2] which was certain a marvelous multiplication from seventy souls[3] without the space of two hundred and fifteen years.  While Pharaoh, or, if you prefer, Amenophis, pursued, the Israelites, with the pillar of cloud going before, passed through a dried channel of the Red Sea; the Egyptians, drowned by the returning flood, all perished to the man.  Josephus, and others after him, who sought to derive these things from natural causes, have unjustly detracted from the magnitude of this and other miracles.  Vestiges of this history appear to suggest themselves to learned Men in the narrative of Manetho concerning the kingdom of shepherds in Egypt, preserved by Josephus.[4]

IV.  Thus the people of Israel began their journey of forty years through the wilderness.  At mount Sinai it is received into the covenant of God on the fiftieth day.[5]  The ceremonial Law is delivered, and in accordance with that Levitical worship is instituted.  From the holiness of the Lawgiver they detract, who contend that these rites drew their origin from the worship of the most ancient people, only corrected in the sacred rites of the Hebrews, while they were used by other nations without emendation.  By this Legislation a wall was erected between the Israelites and the other nations of the earth, with the Kenites, the posterity of Jethro,[6] excepted, who were thereafter also called Rechabites,[7] and were shepherds in changing habitations in places desert and suitable for grazing.  Frightful miracles are wrought, both immediately by God, and by the hand of Moses.  Although the people with great frequency offended God by their sins, yet it was borne with great longsuffering, was miraculously nourished, and was brought by Joshua, the surrogate of Moses, into the land of Canaan, promised to their Fathers, the admirable fertility of which some profane men have in vain attempted to call into question, the inhabitants of which, by the secret judgment of God, and with many wonders combining, he cuts off, and occupies their cities and regions by lot.  The Canaanites, having first been driven from the habitations of their father to the Phœnician shores, then began to spread themselves along the Mediterranean Sea and to disseminate colonies in many places of Europe, Asia, and Africa.  That this is the true origin of the people and Republic of the Hebrews, the testimonies of foreigners have obscured in such a way that certain sparks of truth appear through the very darkness of them.

V.  While at this time the great longevity of the Patriarch ceased, lest the doctrine of grace should be wounded by it, provision was made in another way for the Church through the Pentateuch written by Moses, through which the doctrine concerning the Redeemer and the salvation of sinners was established in an eminent manner.

VI.  The internal condition of the Church was not very prosperous through the people’s ignorance, hardness, and propensity to idolatry, an example of which was the golden calf worshipped by thm,[8] fashioned after the similitude of Apis[9] or Mnevis,[10] Idol-gods of Egypt, as also Baal Peor, an idol of the Moabites.[11]  Whether to this also is to be referred the tabernacle of Moloch and Chiun or Remphan, objected against the Israelites in the desert by Amos,[12] it is disputed among the learned:  Certainly such was the neglect of sacred rites that all had to be circumcised in the borders of Canaan.[13]

VII.  External enemies were added immediately after the exodus, the Amalekites,[14] then the Edomites,[15] the Midianites,[16] the Moabites, among whom the false prophet Balaam, vainly hired to cure Israel, and especially the Canaanites, whom they spared on account of faintheartedness.

VIII.  But, when the fame of such portents and victories was spread throughout the world by those fleeing, principally from this history arose the great many fables concerning Mercury,[17] Apollo,[18] Hercules,[19] and Typhon.[20]

[1] See Exodus 12; 13:4.

[2] See Exodus 12:37.

[3] See Exodus 1:5.

[4] Against Apion, book I.

[5] See Exodus 19:1, 11.

[6] See Judges 1:16.

[7] See Jeremiah 35.

[8] See Exodus 32; 1 Kings 12:26-33.

[9] Apis was a sacred bull, worshipped in the region of Memphis, as a son of Hathor, a sky goddess.

[10] Mnewer, or Mnevis, was an Egyptian bull-deity, an “aspect” of the chief deity, Atum-Ra.

[11] Numbers 25.

[12] Amos 5:25, 26; Acts 7:42, 43.

[13] Joshua 5:1-8.

[14] Exodus 17:8-16.

[15] Numbers 20:14-21.

[16] Numbers 25.

[17] In the Euhemeristic tradition, Mercury, the fleet-footed messenger of the gods, is related to the historical figure of Canaan, the son of Ham.  מָכַר/machar, to sell, in Chaldean has a signification similar to ‎כְּנָעַן/Canaan/merchant; through the Phœnicians, descendant of Canaan, both goods and information were carried throughout the Mediterranean world.

[18] In the Euhemeristic tradition, Apollo, who was a warrior, the slayer of Python, is associated with the historical figure of Joshua.

[19] In the Euhemeristic tradition, Hercules is associated with the historical figure of Joshua, who made war on the Giants.

[20] Typhon, the enemy of the gods, who made war on Zeus, was thought to be an evil god by the Egyptians.  Thus he is associated with Moses, who made war on the Egyptian gods.