Editing Moses (section)

=== Tacitus ===
The Roman historian [[Tacitus]] (c. 56–120&nbsp;CE) refers to Moses by noting that the Jewish religion was monotheistic and without a clear image. His primary work, wherein he describes [[Jewish philosophy]], is his ''[[Histories (Tacitus)|Histories]]'' ({{circa|100|lk=no}}), where, according to the eighteenth-century translator and Irish dramatist [[Arthur Murphy (writer)|Arthur Murphy]], as a result of the Jewish worship of one God, "[[pagan]] mythology fell into contempt".<ref>Tacitus, Cornelius. ''The works of Cornelius Tacitus: With an essay on his life and genius'' by Arthur Murphy, Thomas Wardle Publ. (1842) p. 499</ref> Tacitus states that, despite various opinions current in his day regarding the Jews' ethnicity, most of his sources are in agreement that there was an Exodus from Egypt. By his account, the Pharaoh [[Bakenranef|Bocchoris]], suffering from a [[Plague (disease)|plague]], banished the Jews in response to an oracle of the god [[Zeus]]-[[Amun]].

{{Blockquote | A motley crowd was thus collected and abandoned in the desert. While all the other outcasts lay idly lamenting, one of them, named Moses, advised them not to look for help to gods or men, since both had deserted them, but to trust rather in themselves, and accept as divine the guidance of the first being, by whose aid they should get out of their present plight.<ref name=Tacitus />}}

In this version, Moses and the Jews wander through the desert for only six days, capturing the [[Holy Land]] on the seventh.<ref name=Tacitus>Tacitus, Cornelius. ''Tacitus, The Histories, Volume 2'', Book V. Chapters 5, 6 p. 208.</ref>