The topic of my research paper addresses the question to what extent the figure of Moses conforms to an ancient conception of a magician. Stated more generally, I began my research project interested in exploring how Moses, taken in a broader context than a figure within the Jewish religious and historical tradition, would have been understood or identified as being a magician. There were clear elements within the Biblical and Jewish traditions of Moses that struck me, from the outset, as being very clearly magical, but I wanted to research if there were other viable ways of interpreting Moses outside of the scope of a prophet who performed miracles.
There are a number of converging factors that make this question a difficult one to answer, including the lack of a clearly articulated conception of what exactly a magician was, what the distinction between magical and religious actions were and how one ought to interpret Moses’ attested actions as related in Biblical/Talmudic accounts compared to seemingly magical texts that have been ascribed to him. I’m approaching this topic trying to steer clear of the unclear distinction between magical and religious activities, aiming to understand what features of the figure of Moses would have been identifiable as being those shared with a magician.
One difficulty that I’ve come across in my research thus far is the existence of a number of dubious manuscripts and apocryphal texts that have been claimed to originate from antiquity, but may very well be much later additions. The issue that I have been having in my research does not arise from the fact that these books exist in and of itself, as I feel that it would be a reasonable move to exclude them from my research given their more than questionable quality and veracity, but rather from the fact that they offer such a compelling lens through which the figure of Moses can be viewed and a stronger connection with his performance of magical acts can be attested. For example, within these works the figure of Moses is claimed to have been the source for what amounts to a very specific spellbook, as well as to have ordered and articulated a hierarchy of angels based on their respective powers and usefulness in the casting of magical spells.
Given that the origin of these texts is hotly contested and may very well be far beyond antiquity, their applicability as sources for a study of classical magic is not a clear-cut issue. By choosing to engage with these texts and include them as sources, I may in fact be undermining my own project by creating not an analysis of the relationship between the figure Moses and the ancient conception of a magician, but of an entirely unknown conception.
According to the Jewish religious tradition, Moses is the source for five books that are collectively known as the Torah. Outside of this canon I have researched an additional five books of Moses. While not all of these are equally magical in their contents, the individuals who have uncovered these “lost” books make the claim that they represent components of a more complete and full tradition of literature on the figure of Moses.