- From an Episode of The Bible for Normal People. “Pete Ruins Exodus”, Pete Enns: “Another echo of history here is several of the names, one of which is Moses’ name itself. We’ll get back to that soon enough. But Moses is almost—it just sounds like an Egyptian name. You have that element. Moses, that’s at the end of other names, like King Tut, King Tut Moses. That’s the full name, which means something like “born of a god, born of the god Tut or Toth,” spelled, pronounced differently, depending on who you ask. That Moses element seems to be part of an originally longer Egyptian name. That doesn’t prove anything. It doesn’t prove the historicity of Moses. Doesn’t prove the historicity of the Exodus. What is does indicate, though, is that there an Egyptian memory. There’s something about Egypt that seems to be real and strong in Israel’s memory that would inspire the writing down of stories like this.”
- Richard Elliot Friedman makes a good point here though that it seems like the author of the baby in a basket story was unfamiliar that Moses was an Egyptian name. The author gives a somewhat tortured Hebrew etymology in Exodus 2:10 for Moses. It is strange that the Egyptian princess would give Moses a Hebrew name. This is suggestive that perhaps the author knew the name Moses but didn’t actually know it was an Egyptian name. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-Ib50KAIL8