Did Moses learn and practice Egyptian magic?
Hmmm, maybe Sparlock should be renamed to Moses, and then it's OK for kids to play with him?
Acts 7:22: And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.
Moses was reared as the son of Pharaoh's daughter (Heb 11:24) and groomed for leadership; he would be given a thorough initiation into all the most arcane priestly secrets and the mysteries of Egyptian magic knowledge of his time, taught by the Kher Heb (Egyptian high priest) and priesthood in the great universities to those expected to assume positions of authority. This course of study would have included star-knowledge, necromancy, divining, and other aspects of occult lore, appealing to Egyptian dieties.
Egyptologist E.A. Wallis Budge says:
Moses was a skilled performer of magical rituals and was deeply learned in the knowledge of the
accompanying spells, incantations, and magical formulas of every description . . . [Moreover] the miracles
which he wrought . . . suggest that he was not only a priest, but a magician of the highest order and perhaps
even a Kher Heb.
While serving as a commander of the Pharoah's military forces as a young man (as suggested by non-Biblical sources), it is unlikely that he DIDN'T rely on Egyptian magic (appealing to Isis, Adon, etc) to ensure a military victory against the Ethiopians. Moses actually performed the magic tricks he learned FROM Egyptians (where the "staff turned into snake" trick was well-known amongst Egyptians), but the Torah ascribes his more-powerful magic to YHWH. So the same act is performed, but attributed to another source (YHWH vs Adon).
From:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/ema/ema03.htm
From the Hebrews we receive, incidentally, it is true, considerable information about the powers of the Egyptian magician. Saint Stephen boasts that the great legislator Moses "was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and declares that he "was mighty in words and in deeds," 1 and there are numerous features in the life of this remarkable man which show that he was acquainted with many of the practices ofEgyptian magic. The phrase "mighty in words" probably means that, like the goddess Isis, he was "strong of tongue" and uttered the words of power which he knew with correct pronunciation, and halted not in his speech, and was perfect both in giving the command and in saying the word. The turning of a serpent into what is apparently an inanimate, wooden stick, 1 and the turning of the stick back into a writhing snake, 2 are feats which have been performed in the East from the most ancient period; and the power to control and direct the movements of such venomous reptiles was one of the things of which the Egyptian was most proud, and in which he was most skilful, already in the time when the pyramids were being built.
But this was by no means the only proof which Moses gives that he was versed in the magic of the Egyptians, for, like the sage Âba-aner and king Nectanebus, and all the other magicians of Egypt from time immemorial, he and Aaron possessed a wonderful rod 3 by means of which they worked their wonders. At the word of Moses Aaron lifted up his rod and smote the waters and they became blood; he stretched it outover the waters, and frogs innumerable appeared; when the dust was smitten by the rod it became lice; and so on. Moses sprinkled ashes "toward heaven," and it became boils and blains upon man and beast; he stretched out his rod, and there was "hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous," and the "flax and the barley was smitten;" he stretched out his rod and the locusts came, and after them the darkness. Now Moses did all these things, and brought about the death of the firstborn among the Egyptians by the command of his God, and by means of the words which He told him to speak.
But although we are told by the Hebrew writer that the Egyptian magicians could not imitate all the miracles of Moses, it is quite certain that every Egyptian magician believed that he could perform things equally marvellous by merely uttering the name of one of his gods, or through the words of power which he had learned to recite; and there are many instances on record of Egyptian magicians utterly destroying their enemies by the recital of a few words possessed of magical power, and, by the performance of some, apparently, simple ceremony. 1 But one great distinction must be made between the magic of Moses and that of the Egyptians among whom he lived; the former was wrought by the command of the God of the Hebrews, but the latter by the gods of Egypt at the command of man.
Later on in the history of Moses' dealings with the Egyptians we find the account of how "he stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left." When the Egyptians had come between the two walls of water, by God's command Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, "and the sea returned to his strength," and the "waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them." 1But the command of the waters of the sea or river was claimed by the Egyptian magician long before the time of Moses, as we may see from an interesting story preserved in the Westcar Papyrus. 2 This document was written in the early part of the XVIIIth dynasty, about B.C. 1550 but it is clear that the stories in it date from the Early Empire, and are in fact as old as the Great Pyramid. The story is related to king Khufu (Cheops) by Baiu-f-Râ as an event which happened in the time of the king's father, and as a proof of the wonderful powers of magic which were possessed by the priest 3 calledTchatcha-em-ânkh.
