We have reports like from Voltaire French philosopher of similarities between Moses and Dionysis for example Dionysis being discovered in a basket in a river and causing the Red sea to part for his followers So now we have the situation of some saying that some of the events in the life of Moses was taken from the Dionysius myth or vice versa Now Moses probably did exist and probably did lead the Israelites to the land of Canaan now Israel but him parting the red sea and floating around in the river Nile are a bit hard to believe The most likely situation is that these events were taken from Orphic myths around about 5 th century BCE when the Exodus story was written The purpose was to give Moses mythic or supernatural credibility to add weight to the newly formed Hebrew religion