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multicolored. the walls, and fought with great courage; and admiring
the subtlety of his undertakings, and believing him to
When Israeli archaeologists uncovered bodies on the be the author of the Egyptian's success...she fell deeply
fortress of Masada near the Dead Sea they found traces in love with him; and upon the prevalency of that pas-
of a similar plaid cloth. sion, sent to him the most faithful of all her servants to
discourse with him about their marriage. He thereupon
Step-by-step, Elizabeth Wayland Barber leads her read- accepted the offer, on condition she would procure the
ers through the evidence, drawing upon her expertise in delivering up of the city...and that when he had once
textile history and her discoveries in the museums of taken possession of the city, he would not break his
western China. At the end she presents us with the oath to her. No sooner was the agreement made, but it
most conclusive evidence yet that the mummies of took effect immediately; and when Moses had cut of
Urumchi are related to the modern Scots and Irish and the Ethiopians, he gave thanks to God, and consum-
are, therefore, descended from the tribes of Israel. mated his marriage, and led the Egyptians back to their
own land" (Antiquities of the Jews, Book 2, 10:2).
Moses and the Ethiopian Woman
Irenaeus, an early church father, summed it up in these
words: "When Moses was nourished in the king's pal-
Moses, who was used of YEHOVAH to bring the Isra- ace, he was appointed general of the army against the
elites forth from Egypt, was married to an Ethiopian Ethiopians, and conquered them, when he married that
woman. Many have been puzzled about this. We recall king's daughter; because, out of her affection for him,
that Miriam and Aaron -- the sister and brother of she delivered the city up to him."
Moses -- had some differences with him "because of
the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had
married an Ethiopian woman" (Numbers 12:1). The de- An Etruscan Link with Israel of Old
tails of this dispute are not given. What they did not
like about this Ethiopian woman is not explained in the The British Museum conservation department has reas-
Bible. sembled -- from a handful of fragments -- and put on
display a rare specimen of "Etruscan" culture. This is a
Steven tells us that Moses, being raised in Pharaoh's ceremonial siren vessel, believed to date from the
household, was well-educated in the wisdom of the 6-7th century B.C. and attributed to Lydia, in Asia
Egyptians and was mighty in deeds (Acts 7:22). Again, Minor.
the Bible does not explain what these deeds were. But
Josephus, the noted Jewish historian of the first cen- It is accepted that there were large colonies, de-
tury of our era, fills in the details about the deeds of scended from both of the ten northern and two south-
Moses and also the Ethiopian woman! ern tribes of Israel -- who had been carried captive by
the Assyrians into exile in Media, and had subsequently
Egypt had become involved in a war with the Ethiopi- moved westwards under pressure from further east.
ans. Moses was appointed general of the Egyptian They settled, at least temporarily, in the regions of
army. He was very successful in this position, which Asia Minor and the Aegean. It was to Christian com-
explains how he was mighty in deeds. "He came upon munities among these that the apostles (particularly
the Ethiopians before they expected him; and, joining Paul) preached and wrote.
battle with them, he beat them, and deprived them of
the hopes they had of success against the Egyptians, It is hard to escape the claim that the mysterious Etrus-
and went on in overthrowing their cities, and indeed cans, idolatrous and gentilized though they had un-
made a great slaughter of these Ethiopians" (Antiqui- doubtedly become, contained a substantial proportion
ties of the Jews, Book 2, 10:2). of "Israelites of the Dispersion."

Finally Moses and the Egyptian armies besieged the In this connection, we need always to remember the
royal city of Ethiopia called Saba. It was well fortified pre-Exodus "breakaway" of an enterprising section of
and difficult to take. This is where "the Ethiopian the tribe of Dan who moved to Greece well in advance
woman" comes into the picture. According to Jose- of the westward trekking main body of Israel.
phus, her name was Tharbis, the daughter of the king.
"She happened to see Moses as he led the army near -- Wake Up! October, 1980

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