Moses in Graeco-Roman Tradition

Jewish law in ancient, non-Jewish circles associated Moses with magic, divine wisdom, astrology, charms, alchemy, amulets, and phylacteries. Numenius of Apamea presents Moses as a magician with prayers greater than those of Jannes and Jambres (Abrahams et al., Moses, 533; see also Exod 7–8; 2 Tim 3:8). Pseudonymous magical texts such as The Eighth Book of Moses, Secret Tenth Book of Moses, and The Archangelical Book of Moses Several are attributed to Moses (Gager, Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism, 134–60).

Moses is praised and criticized as the Jews’ lawgiver (Gager, Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism; Abrahams et al., Moses, 531–32). Early Greek references to Moses praise him for training youth in moral restraint and heroic endurance, prohibiting anthropomorphic images of God, establishing the Jewish state and religion, and dividing the people into twelve tribes—the perfect number (Abrahams et al., Moses, 531). When conflict with the Jewish people arose, Moses “became the butt of a venomous anti-Semitic literature,” which accuses him of promoting defective laws, seclusion, hatred and sabotage of outsiders, slaughter, and self-idolatry (Gager, Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism, 80–112; Abrahams et al., Moses, 531–32).