Rusty Saber: Bible's Exodus passage leads to Egyptian lawsuit

|tab|

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.|ret||ret||tab|

|ret||ret||tab|

The stimulus for this column came from Maria Hoover, Springfield Business Journal section editor, whose new baby, Kaitlyn, and I have shared the same birthday for nearly five months. Maria and I also share a disdain for absurdity.|ret||ret||tab|

She gave me an article from the Internet, knowing I would hail it as a Rusty Saber topic. The article, originally written by Opheera McDoom (surely, that's not her real name) for Reuters, with a Cairo, Egypt, dateline that found its way into Yahoo! News.|ret||ret||tab|

I am not making up any of this! Egyptian lawyer Nabil Hilmi is planning to "sue the world's Jews for plundering gold during the Exodus from Pharaonic Egypt thousands of years ago based on information in the Bible." That's a quote from Hilmi. |ret||ret||tab|

Hilmi is no Egyptian ambulance chaser. He is dean of law at Egypt's al-Zaqaziq University. Things at the law school must be pretty slow, or the dean needs to get a life. He says other lawyers are also interested in the case; they also need to get a life.|ret||ret||tab|

The case would be a biblical passage from Exodus 12: 35-36, which says that after 400 years of slavery, the Hebrews were preparing to flee from Egypt. Moses ordered them to "plunder" gold and silver jewelry and clothing from the Egyptians. If you think this legal action concerns a "theft" taking place thousands of years ago, you would be right. The purported truth of the Bible is to be offered as proof that the crime actually took place.|ret||ret||tab|

Assuming this argument is valid, who will be sued by whom? The other side of this legal issue is taken by Tareq Zaghoul (these Egyptian names are testing the outer limits of my spell check), a lawyer from the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. He said it would be difficult for that biblical passage to stand up in court. "Rather far fetched" is his description of the cockeyed scheme.|ret||ret||tab|

Zaghoul agrees with Jewish commentators who respond that the enslavement of Jews is a proven fact, therefore, Jews have more grounds for a legitimate lawsuit for lost wages.|ret||ret||tab|

It's fitting that Yahoo! placed this article in the category "Oddly Enough." But what if this were a legitimate legal question? If the Exodus story were to be fair game for court action, it is chock full of potential lawsuits. For instance, environmental groups might bring suit against the estate of Moses and the Children of Israel. The wheels of their chariots probably did irreparable damage to the floor of the Red Sea when God parted it, allowing Moses to lead them through. The defense response could be that God did it. The plaintiffs may want to think twice before suing God.|ret||ret||tab|

Once again the Moses estate might face a suit charging him with separation of church and state litigation. Please note, at the time, Moses was the only "state" the Jews had. In this case the Israelites would be plaintiffs. Moses was up on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments from God; the Israelites had been wandering in the desert for 40 years. They were bored and as a change of pace, melted their gold into a calf to worship. |ret||ret||tab|

Moses (aka the state) was furious and put a stop to their idol worships and demanded they abide by the Ten Commandments. It's clear; the state imposed one religion in place of another.|ret||ret||tab|

Civil liberty groups absolutely go bonkers over anything dealing with separation of church and state, especially when the Ten Commandments are involved.|ret||ret||tab|

I'm not certain where one might look today for Canaanites, residents of the Promised Land when Israelites invaded. If the "plundering" suit goes forward, the Israelites and the estate of Joshua are ripe targets. Joshua followed God's instructions, bringing down the walls of Jericho with the blasts from seven trumpets, blown by seven priests. The priests might be brought in as co-defendants. Where are the Canaanites?|ret||ret||tab|

Thanks, Maria. This story was too audacious to pass up.|ret||ret||tab|

[[In-content Ad]]