page_title: Moses
section_title: Lawgiver of Israel
hierarchical_section_title: Moses / Biblical narrative / Lawgiver of Israel
context_page_description: Moses, also known as Moshe Rabbenu, is the most important prophet in Judaism, and an important prophet in Christianity, Islam, the Bahá'í Faith, and a number of other Abrahamic religions. In the biblical narrative he was the leader of the Israelites and lawgiver, to whom the authorship of the first five books of the bible, the Torah, or "acquisition of the Torah from heaven," is attributed.
  Rabbinical Judaism calculated a lifespan of Moses corresponding to 1391–1271 BCE; Jerome suggested 1592 BCE, and James Ussher suggested 1571 BCE as his birth year. Scholarly consensus sees Moses as a legendary figure, while retaining the possibility that a Moses-like figure existed.
  According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was born in a time when his people, the Israelites, an enslaved minority, were increasing in population and, as a result, the Egyptian Pharaoh worried that they might ally themselves with Egypt's enemies. Moses' Hebrew mother, Jochebed, secretly hid him when the Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed in order to reduce the population of the Israelites.
context_section_description: Moses is honoured among Jews today as the "lawgiver of Israel", and he delivers several sets of laws in the course of the four books. The first is the Covenant Code (Exodus 20:19–23:33), the terms of the covenant which God offers to the Israelites at biblical Mount Sinai. Embedded in the covenant are the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:1–17) and the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 20:22–23:19). The entire Book of Leviticus constitutes a second body of law, the Book of Numbers begins with yet another set, and the Book of Deuteronomy another.
  Moses has traditionally been regarded as the author of those four books and the Book of Genesis, which together comprise the Torah, the first section of the Hebrew Bible.
caption: Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law by Rembrandt, 1659
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