Advertisements

Moses, Jesus, and the Promised Land

AMERICA’S PROPHET:
Moses and the American Story
By Bruce Feiler
335 pp. William Morrow $26.99

Reviewed by Mary P. Burke

In America’s Prophet, Bruce Feiler tells the story of the United States from an alternative perspective—that of those who see the story of Moses guiding Americans’ dreams. He introduces us to people whom we would rarely meet and weaves their tales into this history in a seamless way.

Moses a founding father. Moses the inspiration and model for Superman. Moses more influential in American public life than Jesus. These are just a few of the claims that Bruce Feiler heard while examining the role of Moses in American history and cultural life. America’s Prophet is Feiler’s latest work in a series begun in 2001 with Walking the Bible. This story, like the others in the series, incorporates biblical storytelling, history, current concerns, and Feiler’s own interests and reactions. It had its origins in family visits to Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Philadelphia, and in Feiler’s realization that the trails he had followed in the Middle East have counterparts at home.

Gathering the pieces for this work, Feiler consulted professional historians and scholars such as Karie Diethorn of Independence Hall and Michael Walzer of Princeton as well amateur historians like Jim Baker of the Old Colony Club of Plymouth. He talked to self-appointed guardians of the stories of the past like Jerry Gore of Rippley, Ohio, and author Cecilia Presley, Cecil B. De Mille’s granddaughter. He sailed with members of the Old Colony Club to Clark’s Island, in Plymouth Bay, where the first Sunday service in New England is re-enacted yearly, and climbed a hill leading from the Ohio River in the dark as runaway slaves had. He spent time at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where Martin Luther King was killed; at a Masonic Temple in New York City commemorating Washington’s Inaugural Address; and at a church in Brooklyn where Henry Ward Beecher preached in the mid-1800s and the members of the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, Feiler’s home synagogue, now use on High Holy Days because their own sanctuary is too small for the crowd that attends these services. Along the way, Feiler read sermons, documents, and newspapers, and talked with people.

The result of all this is a story—for first and foremost Feiler is a storyteller—of people’s adopting Moses as a model and motivator during important periods in American history, with the biblical story of Moses woven through. The early settlers, especially in New England, saw themselves recreating the Exodus story when they came to the New World. When the country claimed its freedom from England a century and a half later, preachers and political leaders alike called up the same vision. Feiler notes early in his story that the freedom both the Israelites and the Pilgrims sought was conditional, limited; they sought freedom from tyranny in both Egypt and England, but they were bound by laws—the Ten Commandments, the Mayflower Compact, the Constitution.

Before the Civil War, African Americans found hope and inspiration from the story of Moses, the slave who became a leader. The War Between the States could be called the “War between the Moseses,” Feiler notes. In both North and South in the period leading up to the war, preachers and politicians debated the morality of slavery. With no radios, movies, or TVs available, these public debates were very popular, especially in the areas where slave and free states touched. The debate continued during the war, with Lincoln seen as Moses after his death.

Moses continued to be influential. The Statue of Liberty, from the broken chains at her base to the tablet on Miss Liberty’s left arm and the light around her head, evoked the Moses story for Feiler and others. Many of the new immigrants looked upon the United States as the Promised Land.

I was surprised and amused by Feiler’s story of Bernard J. Kenton, pen name of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and Superman, the character they invented. Anxious about the rise of Hitler, these Cleveland Action Comic readers created a superhero. Set loose in a rocket ship from a planet facing extinction, their hero is discovered by a mid-western family, hides his true identity, and uses his powers to save people. With another challenge, the rise of Communism, Americans remembered their religious roots and called upon Moses again. Cecil B. DeMille, for example, answered the new challenge with two versions of The Ten Commandments.

After reading the Lincoln eulogies, Feiler found himself with a question which I share: Was Moses more influential than Jesus in American life? He carried the question with him, and concluded that the themes of Jesus’ life, including love, charity, and forgiveness, “would not make many lists of the defining characteristics of Americans.” Some scholars disagree with him, but Feiler concludes that “Moses actually helped shape American history and values, helped define the American dream, and helped create America.”

In his explanation of the influence of Moses, three themes stand out for Feiler. Though his life was cut off before he arrived at the Promised Land, Moses had the courage to escape oppression and reach toward the future—the experiences of Washington, Lincoln, and Martin Luther King among others. He championed freedom and order. And the society he wanted to build welcomed the “outsider and the downtrodden.”

I have some issues to follow up on: What has been the role of Jesus in our public life? In an increasingly illiterate society, will the Moses story still resonate in the twenty-first century? But questions aside, I am left with a deep appreciation of the impact of religious stories, especially that of Moses and the Exodus, on American history and culture.

---

Mary P. Burke has taught high school science and university-level political science and has been a researcher/advocate, especially on international women’s issues, for the peace and justice organization Center of Concern. Now retired, she finds her interests far outstrip her time as she builds the next phase of her life. In addition to her continued attention to women’s and church issues, she wants to include writing and more travel in the mix.

Copyright © 2009 by Internet Review of Books
Webdesign by Jasper van der Meer webdesignstudio | XHTML