So... about that. First, I love your video; as an Orthodox Jew I really can appreciate your work on that video. Also, I understand that it's "Just a theory... (a FILM theory!)" and not your understanding of the Prince of Egypt nor the Bible, Hebrew or English. However, just for the viewers, I want to try being G-d's advocate: All the story accrued in order of one big plan. Remember that the Israelites came to Egypt because the story of Joseph at the first book of the Tanakh-Bible (idk how to call it, I'm not a native speaker of English), and if you connect those two stories (which Dreamworks did with King of Dreams in 2000) you getting a bigger story about the creation of the Jewish People. In that story, the Exodus (the event, not the book) is first a show-off of G-d for the Hebrews, so they will be sure that He is the one who save them, and later ordered them the Commandments of the Torah. On the Egyptian side, they - and Pharaoh especially - lost their point of redemption before, for their cruelty to the Israelites; but even then, Pharaoh himself decide to "let his heart be hardened" by G-d when he decide to double the labor despite Moses telling him G-d's orders - the hardening of the heart not mean taking action against the Israelites. G-d Himself tell Moses many times during the Exodus story the "Big Plan" of punishing Egypt, taking the Hebrews to mount Sinai (mount Horeb according do Dr. Indiana Jones), making them "G-d's people" and giving them the Land of Canaan. So, in the end a human can't truly understand - not to say justify - G-d's doings, but I hope that my explanation will give a glimpse to His ways of History; if you still having questions or objections you can comment here below, thank you.
For those of you that were wondering, the real reason God "wanted to kill Moses for some reason" was because he hadn't sercomsized his son and that Moses could be punished (not actually die, yet), because it was a very important tradition (plus Moses already had his reputation dirtied up by never paying the price for murder). So Zapora did it for him.
I believe Ramses to be horribly mislead by those around him that and the unrelenting pressure of living in the shadow of his father before him who always called him the weak link. Ramses becomes merely a self fullfilled preminision of his father instead of a son. Ramses is the definition of a tragedy one blinded by stubborness and pride whether he is a willing participant or not. We only catch a faint glimmer of the real ramses whenever he's having a brother moment with moses.
That was exceptional. Theory or no, you've provided me an alternative perspective to consider with a movie I love. Expertly done and I hope you return to TH-cam again someday.
This is actually a point brought up in religions about this specific God. I'm a Christian, and I have also questioned God's actions sometimes. After all, isn't he a merciful and loving God? But we have to add context. God wants everyone to be saved, and to be saved, people have to believe and trust in him. In a world before Judaism was very well-known, that meant great acts of power and firm strictness when dealing with other gods. God hardened Pharaoh's heart to give himself the chance to show his power to the world. He also was showing his wrath to Egypt about their religion, as each of the plagues was a direct attack against one or more of Egypt's gods. Side note: Pharaoh hardened his own heart the first few times, so when God started hardening Pharaoh's heart it was more saying "You won't listen, so I won't let you listen."
@@anonymouslesbian1282 Why would he need too? He's allowed us to make our own free choices and mistakes so we are not robots or the same cookie cutter shape. Tbh I think some of the first mistakes people make is idealizing/overpreaching God like some teddy bear or his "love" being the sweetest thing evah...It can be but, I'll bust anyone's bubble on that one, he's a terrifying etinity along with Jesus who went in and whipped ass when the temple was being exploited as a way for the romans to keep control and turning it into a market place full of things that intentionally were there to discriminate and take advantage of the jewish people. To this day I want more than anything is to have a movie not shy away from that scene or afriad that they'll taint the innocent "lamb" imagery for jesus. I want buff jesus to come in being the son of a capentar beating the absolute crap out of romans with a whip.
Aaaaaaahhhhhh you got me! I'm working on my on review of this movie, and while I don't think I'd ever take the conclusion you read into the text... I kinda love your deep dive into it. I love that you end it with a "Hey ya'll it's a fan theory" I might be crazy but I think it's at least fun/important to ask these question. Especially for believers who often think, "Hmmmmmm, this makes perfect sense" without realizing we (and others) come to text/films with our own biases and view points. Hope people watch the whole video before commenting, cause whoooooooo that title, might be a great type of marketing, but might just rub people the wrong way. RESPECT!
Moses: Why did you send me here and then troll me nonstop? God: Hey! I'm so glad you reached out. I'm actually at capacity / helping someone else who's in crisis / dealing with some personal stuff right now, and I don't think I can hold appropriate space for you. Could we connect [later date or time] instead / Do you have someone else you could reach out to?
For those of you that were wondering, the real reason God "wanted to kill Moses for some reason" was because he hadn't sercomsized his son and that Moses could be punished (not actually die, yet), because it was a very important tradition (plus Moses already had his reputation dirtied up by never paying the price for murder). So Zapora did it for him.
Also an all-knowing and all powerful god brutally murdered a bunch of babies to achieve his own ends, even though he 100% didn't have to do it, because he's all-powerful. I kinda think that's why we'll probably never see another major motion picture adaptation of this story ever again. There's just no way to make the God of this story look like a good guy given current sensibilities.
@@joemama1132 🐊 seems more mercy then Bible God hell chamber. Feel like Bible God iz his own cruel evil Pharoah who thinks he can do whatever he wants and not be resisted against for all da evil Dat actually HE iz fully responsible and not worth of loyalty or allegiance to realize all dis time GOD IZ EVIL and Satan is the real hero. What retarded gawd takes his anger on humanity even for just a simple bloody 🍎??? And Christians say it's humanity fault and issues for gawds ACTUAL stupidity and irresponsibly.
You can’t have it both ways though. Either you take the atheist perspective that this never happened, or take the full Jewish/Christian reality that these people were punished for their rebellion to the one true God and their own evil acts. Taking the first born is mercy to those babies because they will be with God in heaven.
As a not overly religious person, I still really enjoy this movie. Thing I learned from it as a kid is: You have two choices when shit happens. You can hold and grudge and be bitter and alone for the rest of your life. Or You can forgive someone for what they did/apologize for what you did, and make the concerted effort to be better for yourself and everyone around you. If God exists, it is clear which he favours.
Hi there I live in Israel AND I HAVE THE DVD IN HEBREW. I always felt bad for both sides almost equally. Why almost? Because on one hand the story tells us that Israelites are "good guys" and Egyptians are "bad guys", but in general it felt bad to see Rameses tryung to avoid being the "weak link" his dad warns him about.
yoooooooooooooo fr if you email me i will pay you for an Israeli DVD of this movie plus shipping, i am 100% serious (thedoommerchant DOT gmail DOT com)
The "I will give you signs to show Pharoah, but harden his heart so he won't believe them" is just so much pointless drama. Who is this god creating this unnecessarily complex story for? It has the sound of an artist going "I added random flourishes to my painting because I wanted to, and for no other reason."
I think because whoever was writing the translations and whoever approved them in the institutions committed fraud by rewriting the Bible. Entire names and sections are rewritten and erased and changed completely. The book of Jubilees shows a completely different account.
He wanted to make sure that no one interrupted his fireworks show until he is done. He wanted to flex and Pharaoh saying "Yes." to the demands of the slaves to be let go would've gotten in the way of that.
i always understood it as the thought of God making pharoah harden his heart. Of course everyone has different opinions on the matter since translations vary
also the artist thing doesnt rlly make sense, since an artist adding flourishes to their work isnt a bad thing. It means they have passion for their work lol
Just wanted to add my two cents (as someone who is pagan who was raised a Catholic): I think the reason why this change was not made or was not emphasized more is because its about a human story at the end of the day. One of the reasons why multiple people with different beliefs love this movie is because it doesn't preach or force it on you. And I feel like one of the major holes to this theory is that it disregards the background the writers have provided for Ramesees as well as not allowing Ramesees his agency. Remember that in the first half of the movie the best way to get his father's approval was either to be better or stronger than him for Egypt to be prosperous. And without Moses by his side, he was freely influenced by his own father or the ideals of his own father. And as someone who could relate to similar pressures that Ramesees faces growing up on being better and stronger in whatever I do in a culture wherein family is held to be deemed almost always right, I don't think its far off from the switch we see in Ramesees in the second half. If that were true then technically speaking everyone who has daddy issues expressed in a negative or unhealthy way can have the excuse of being possessed by an entity rather than properly processing said issues. Also I don't put too much weight on the way this theory frames the "Let my heart be hardened" as a form of possession. I always thought it was something akin to "Fine so be it, we're doing this." or "Come at me bro". If it was possession then at most its the very rational yet irrational thing called emotions, something that is far more tangible than a foreign entity. Based on the rationale of this theory, an entity or God of revenge would technically be possessing me whenever I say "Let me have my revenge" whenever I lose in a video game.
Latter-day Saint (or Mormon) here. I won’t speak for Jews, Muslims, or other Christians, but in my religion the issue of Pharaoh’s heart being hardened is very similar to the movie. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there is a thing called the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible or JST. While it is not the official Bible of the Church, it is in the footnotes of certain passages. I bring this up because the JST says that Pharaoh hardens his own heart in every instance. Example: “…the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go.” - Exodus 10:20 …Pharaoh hardened his heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go. - JST Exodus 10:20 I’m not sure if the creators of the film knew of this or not when making the narrative of the film, but I thought it was an interesting point.
I did know this, believe it or not. The "weekly bible study" I vaguely refer to doing in my childhood was Family Home Evening. 😉 Considering the LDS church is generally considered to be just one of the extremely numerous subsets of Christianity by people outside the church, I doubt the creators had any idea that the JST even exists, much less that it presumes to specify what's going on with Pharaoh one way or the other. It may be interesting to look at the multitude of existing translations that exist, since there are dozens, and see how many choose to specify and what their justification is for "clarifying."
@@thecommonhatred Wow! That’s pretty cool. Funny thing is the LDS Church curriculum is going over the Book of Exodus right now which led me to rewatch the movie. Partly what led me to watch your video. The Prince of Egypt is a favorite film of mine, and the Exodus is one of the highlights of the Old Testament for me, despite some clear departures (mainly Aaron’s entire character.) that don’t detract too much. Without a doubt, the best “Christian” movie. As for your video, I find the perspective looked at in the video to be an interesting one. While reading last week, I was actually surprised that Rameses was given a line that was actually spoken by God in the Bible. While I don’t view “God as antagonist,” you present some interesting comparisons from the film to the book. As for the original comment, I felt interested to share it because I know other faiths have their own ways of addressing the issue of Pharaoh’s heart. Some say it’s faulty translation, some interpret it differently, some just take it for what it says. But I felt the LDS faith was unique in that the clarification was, at least from the LDS perspective, divinely inspired and mandated. Like you though, I do doubt that the filmmakers were influenced by this. Appreciate the reply. I’d like to say that the end of the movie always amused me a bit. Moses would come down that mountain to see his people worshipping a Golden Calf and smash the tablets he was carrying. 🤣
Being a theologian and historian/religious historian, this is pretty much exactly how I've always watched this movie. In the stories of Moses life in the religious texts, most everything that happens, happens because *Deity(under whichever name is used in that text and that story) wanted it to happen, and nothing could have happened any other way. Moses, and those around him, are narrative witnesses of the events, far more than they are the tools with which *Deity makes those events happen. And yea, I used to be bothered by the new inventions of the movie(like brother-pharaoh etc), but I've come to prefer the movie version of the story on most of those points, it makes it more personal and makes it more relatable. And hey, the stories of Moses in the various religious texts today, are different from what they were hundreds of years ago, and very different from what they were thousands of years ago. (Broad strokes remain the same, but details come and go, mostly due to pre-written verbal tellings differing from each other, and changes that occur during translations, not necessarily in that order.)
For those of you that were wondering, the real reason God "wanted to kill Moses for some reason" was because he hadn't sercomsized his son and that Moses could be punished (not actually die, yet), because it was a very important tradition (plus Moses already had his reputation dirtied up by never paying the price for murder). So Zapora did it for him.
@@marshmallowvampire8503 I assumed it had to have SOMETHING to do with circumcision, but it's so vague [at least in the translation, I have no idea how clear it was in the original] that it really does seem like it comes out of nowhere.
@@thecommonhatred according to Jewish tradition Moshe (Moses) was born without Foreskin (a very rare condition) so it makes sense that he didn’t even consider circumcising his boys.
This interpretation encapsulates my relationship with Christianity/religiousness. I don’t know if god exists or not but if god is real. This weird manipulative version, treating us all like sims is how I feel about it.
Great video It's always surprising to me, as someone who grew up in religion, how many of the people I know that are still in it truly do know understand that the God of these books is a butt hole; yet they take it upon themselves to live in dissonance. People who say religion is a good in society do not account for this suffering. A sort of quiet and terrible despair of the faithful.
In the book of Jubilees there is a section that covers the events in the book of Exodus and Satan does have a role in the events of the plauges. In that book Satan has another name known as Mastema and he was present in Egypt during the Exodus and he did hold influence over Pharaoh and the Empire of Egypt it was often he that was around when Pharoah's heart was harden. As Egypt was a major pagan polytheistic nation that worshipped false gods that were always described in the Bible to be demons and Satan often targeted the decendents of Abraham it would make sense why he would hold much influence over Egypt at this time. And since he hates humans since the days of Adam and Eve he would have no qualms killing human beings if he was allowed the opportunity to be set loose instead of being retrained constantly. He is the angel of Death that striked the First born of Egypt specifically in the book of Jubilees. And it was also him who influenced Pharaoh to gather his army and kill the Hebrews during the Exodus. The God Culture cover this issue in their Answers in Jubilees series. The God Culture is a Bible research channel that is on TH-cam and spreading to other platforms and have their own website. They have a video covering Prince Mastema om TH-cam titled: *"Is Prince Mastema Satan? Who Was The Angel of Death? Answers In Jubilees 51"* Alot of the modern era Bible canon has been unfortunately sublely changed over the course of time changing words and sentences completely subverting the actual meanings with some aspects of occult theology and based stories have been mixed into it's passages causing often confusing discord, agitation, and misinterpretations and fraud paradigms to increase sadly. Catholicism, Jewdaism, even Protestantism has been affected by them to this day. Truthunedited does another good job explaining this in his Bible videos about the occult and how they have long infected Christianity. Books like First Enoch, Jubilees, and 2nd Esdras that would have explained much of the internal context and the origin of demons and they operate has been forgotten sadly and willingly ignored by scholars, institutions, and churches leading to fraudulent interpretations while passages are changed by institutions over the course of 2,000 long years. Many of which are designed to make God look like a hypocritical and antagonist being opposite of his pure Holiness while merging some occult themes here and there. Of course those same institutions have spent over 2,000 years censoring and erasing God's true holy name. Which he does have a name YHWH in ancient Hebrew not modern Hebrew means Yahuah. So if they are willing to do that then they are willing to change the Bible and depict Yahuah Elohim as a bad guy for their own agendas which are often religious ones. Again I would recommend checking out The God Culture and Truthunedited for a deeper understanding of these foundations. They have been around for years and know far more then I do.
The pharaoh who doesn't let go of Israelites is different from the one who was on throne when Moses flees Egypt .. Exodus 2:23 says that the Pharaoh died.
I enjoyed your analysis, but I feel God (esp Old Testament/tanakh) is more akin to Fate which has been anthromorphized in text rather than an actual person in the sky (or bush). Like when theres all the talk about how GOD hardens Pharoahs heart, it can be understood as Fate/Circumstance hardening his heart (which is supported by the text, it is his circumstance not his personality which determines his actions and we are reminded of this repeatedly.) the son entering the room reminds him of his PLACE his CONTEXT as the link between the dead (father) and the living (son). God is the immanent source of all things, and so you cannot attribute anything to any other source (Job gets reminded of this...), after all God must have placed Pharoah in that role/context. I would like to see your take on the Book of Job where God is much more clearly cast as Antagonist, altho I don't know that there will be any animated pictures of Job's travails anytime soon
wow am i late but i LOVE this video SO MUCH this is so well done!!! i really love the capricious old testament god, he's just a manipulative teenager and that sure is entertaining to read about. this god-as-antagonist interpretation is really incredible and as a rameses-in-leather-pants truther i'm behind it 100% but seriously i feel like this film did an excellent job at making god almost... neutral? that is to say, god compels moses into this task but ultimately everything that moses does is of his own volition (the major exception being the tenth plague ofc). i think that's why people of all backgrounds can appreciate it...... we all have times in our life where we feel Called to something, even if that thing is hard.... and that caller could be god, or our own inner voice, or just something that feels bigger than ourselves. moses doesn't free people cause god is pushing him along the whole way. it's a moment of inspiration, that any of us can have, and that can lead us to doing great things. powerful stuff! with great music! woo!!! unrelated, but i really wish the film had kept the polytheistic "secret arts" thing that the court magicians had going on. that would've rocked. anyway my cheesy essay is over..... and this video rocked!
This theory has a decent amount of weight when you think about. The movie aside if you look at the details of the bible you can sum up gods personality as two different things. In the old testament god is a psychotic brat who makes the so called devil look innocent. And in the new testament god is a hypocritical saint. As if he regrets his actions of the past but after maturing for thousands of years decides to change his ways and tries to make up for his own sins by giving people a standard they have no hope of achieving in order to get ever lasting life.........Forget what I said about him changing his ways.
So from what I've learned from reading religious books and talking to some Rabbis in the Jewish tradition the whole hardening the heart of Pharaoh thing is more that God still allowed Pharaoh to have free will but made it easier for him to choose the path of not letting the Israelites go, still if he seriously decided to truly let them go earlier most of the plagues wouldn't have needed to happen and the Exodus would have been a hell of a lot shorter. Fun fact: Shemot (שמות) means names, I feel like this fits the nature of the book better than Exodus because whilst the Exodus is the big event of Shemot it's not everything and this book very much introduces most of the important players for the rest of the 4/5 of the books of Moses (Genesis (B'Reshit)) acting as the introductory book establishing the setting and lore to the rest of the books.
Among minor things, I find that the name of the Pharoah they fought not being mentioned in the Torah speaks badly of the authenticity of this story. It also doesn't help that there are no records of something like this happening from the Egyptian side. Which likely implies that at best this was a story told by the descendants of a small group of escaped slaves (a group not large enough to be remembered by the other side)
Actually addressing a ruler with his title and no other name is normal worldwide. In Arabic records for example the emperor of the Romans 2as called ceaser of the Romans with out mentioning his name
@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl In the movie's defense, it's more of an animated adaptation of the 1958 Ten Commandments movie than an honest accurate retelling from the Bible
The Christian god has always made me wonder, what exactly is this guy? Why is he a tyrant, hypocritical, trying to solve problems in the most difficult of ways? This video essay really shows a lot of the cracks in these religious texts. As an atheist myself, i truly LOVE this movie as well, as it shows that god isn't an all-loving individual, but an omnipresent being with their own agenda and goals, using humans as puppets for their wars, and what it does to the people stuck in it.
not to offend anyone's religious beliefs, but it seems to me to be the reverse, this interpretation makes less sense in the movie than in the source material, as any mention of God's direct intervention with Pharaoh's actions is removed
So... about that.
First, I love your video; as an Orthodox Jew I really can appreciate your work on that video. Also, I understand that it's "Just a theory... (a FILM theory!)" and not your understanding of the Prince of Egypt nor the Bible, Hebrew or English. However, just for the viewers, I want to try being G-d's advocate: All the story accrued in order of one big plan. Remember that the Israelites came to Egypt because the story of Joseph at the first book of the Tanakh-Bible (idk how to call it, I'm not a native speaker of English), and if you connect those two stories (which Dreamworks did with King of Dreams in 2000) you getting a bigger story about the creation of the Jewish People. In that story, the Exodus (the event, not the book) is first a show-off of G-d for the Hebrews, so they will be sure that He is the one who save them, and later ordered them the Commandments of the Torah. On the Egyptian side, they - and Pharaoh especially - lost their point of redemption before, for their cruelty to the Israelites; but even then, Pharaoh himself decide to "let his heart be hardened" by G-d when he decide to double the labor despite Moses telling him G-d's orders - the hardening of the heart not mean taking action against the Israelites. G-d Himself tell Moses many times during the Exodus story the "Big Plan" of punishing Egypt, taking the Hebrews to mount Sinai (mount Horeb according do Dr. Indiana Jones), making them "G-d's people" and giving them the Land of Canaan. So, in the end a human can't truly understand - not to say justify - G-d's doings, but I hope that my explanation will give a glimpse to His ways of History; if you still having questions or objections you can comment here below, thank you.
nice.
For those of you that were wondering, the real reason God "wanted to kill Moses for some reason" was because he hadn't sercomsized his son and that Moses could be punished (not actually die, yet), because it was a very important tradition (plus Moses already had his reputation dirtied up by never paying the price for murder). So Zapora did it for him.
I believe Ramses to be horribly mislead by those around him that and the unrelenting pressure of living in the shadow of his father before him who always called him the weak link. Ramses becomes merely a self fullfilled preminision of his father instead of a son. Ramses is the definition of a tragedy one blinded by stubborness and pride whether he is a willing participant or not. We only catch a faint glimmer of the real ramses whenever he's having a brother moment with moses.
That was exceptional. Theory or no, you've provided me an alternative perspective to consider with a movie I love. Expertly done and I hope you return to TH-cam again someday.
ah, thanks! life gets in the way, as it does, but i've been working on stuff, so--someday! lol
This is actually a point brought up in religions about this specific God. I'm a Christian, and I have also questioned God's actions sometimes. After all, isn't he a merciful and loving God? But we have to add context. God wants everyone to be saved, and to be saved, people have to believe and trust in him. In a world before Judaism was very well-known, that meant great acts of power and firm strictness when dealing with other gods. God hardened Pharaoh's heart to give himself the chance to show his power to the world. He also was showing his wrath to Egypt about their religion, as each of the plagues was a direct attack against one or more of Egypt's gods.
Side note: Pharaoh hardened his own heart the first few times, so when God started hardening Pharaoh's heart it was more saying "You won't listen, so I won't let you listen."
I love what you said you just got a sub
I mean, you would think that an all-powerful/all-knowing God who is “benevolent“ would be able to find a non-violent way to display is power.
@@markgilbertjr413
The fallacy here is thinking God is actually benevolent. He is as Benevolent as Tzeentch or Cthulhu is.
for a guy who supposedly wants everyone to be saved, he sure doesn't try very hard.
@@anonymouslesbian1282 Why would he need too? He's allowed us to make our own free choices and mistakes so we are not robots or the same cookie cutter shape. Tbh I think some of the first mistakes people make is idealizing/overpreaching God like some teddy bear or his "love" being the sweetest thing evah...It can be but, I'll bust anyone's bubble on that one, he's a terrifying etinity along with Jesus who went in and whipped ass when the temple was being exploited as a way for the romans to keep control and turning it into a market place full of things that intentionally were there to discriminate and take advantage of the jewish people.
To this day I want more than anything is to have a movie not shy away from that scene or afriad that they'll taint the innocent "lamb" imagery for jesus. I want buff jesus to come in being the son of a capentar beating the absolute crap out of romans with a whip.
Aaaaaaahhhhhh you got me! I'm working on my on review of this movie, and while I don't think I'd ever take the conclusion you read into the text... I kinda love your deep dive into it. I love that you end it with a "Hey ya'll it's a fan theory"
I might be crazy but I think it's at least fun/important to ask these question. Especially for believers who often think, "Hmmmmmm, this makes perfect sense" without realizing we (and others) come to text/films with our own biases and view points. Hope people watch the whole video before commenting, cause whoooooooo that title, might be a great type of marketing, but might just rub people the wrong way.
RESPECT!
WE👏🏻 STAN👏🏻 AN👏🏻 ATHEIST👏🏻 QUEEN👏🏻 WITH👏🏻 THOUGHTFUL👏🏻 AND👏🏻 RESPECTFUL👏🏻 ANALYTICAL👏🏻 ESSAYS👏🏻 OF👏🏻 RELIGIOUS👏🏻 TEXTS👏🏻
Moses: why did you harden the Pharaoh's heart??
God: (Jenna Marbles voice) for fun and me time
Moses: Why did you send me here and then troll me nonstop?
God: Hey! I'm so glad you reached out. I'm actually at capacity / helping someone else who's in crisis / dealing with some personal stuff right now, and I don't think I can hold appropriate space for you. Could we connect [later date or time] instead / Do you have someone else you could reach out to?
For those of you that were wondering, the real reason God "wanted to kill Moses for some reason" was because he hadn't sercomsized his son and that Moses could be punished (not actually die, yet), because it was a very important tradition (plus Moses already had his reputation dirtied up by never paying the price for murder). So Zapora did it for him.
@@thecommonhatred ah good one
Also an all-knowing and all powerful god brutally murdered a bunch of babies to achieve his own ends, even though he 100% didn't have to do it, because he's all-powerful.
I kinda think that's why we'll probably never see another major motion picture adaptation of this story ever again. There's just no way to make the God of this story look like a good guy given current sensibilities.
At least they died peacefully. That's pretty fucking merciful if you ask me. No pain.
compared to how pharaoh threw babies at crocodiles, i'd prefer dying in my sleep.
Evil Bible God
@@joemama1132 🐊 seems more mercy then Bible God hell chamber. Feel like Bible God iz his own cruel evil Pharoah who thinks he can do whatever he wants and not be resisted against for all da evil Dat actually HE iz fully responsible and not worth of loyalty or allegiance to realize all dis time GOD IZ EVIL and Satan is the real hero. What retarded gawd takes his anger on humanity even for just a simple bloody 🍎??? And Christians say it's humanity fault and issues for gawds ACTUAL stupidity and irresponsibly.
You can’t have it both ways though. Either you take the atheist perspective that this never happened, or take the full Jewish/Christian reality that these people were punished for their rebellion to the one true God and their own evil acts. Taking the first born is mercy to those babies because they will be with God in heaven.
As a not overly religious person, I still really enjoy this movie. Thing I learned from it as a kid is:
You have two choices when shit happens.
You can hold and grudge and be bitter and alone for the rest of your life.
Or
You can forgive someone for what they did/apologize for what you did, and make the concerted effort to be better for yourself and everyone around you.
If God exists, it is clear which he favours.
Hi there I live in Israel AND I HAVE THE DVD IN HEBREW.
I always felt bad for both sides almost equally.
Why almost? Because on one hand the story tells us that Israelites are "good guys" and Egyptians are "bad guys", but in general it felt bad to see Rameses tryung to avoid being the "weak link" his dad warns him about.
yoooooooooooooo fr if you email me i will pay you for an Israeli DVD of this movie plus shipping, i am 100% serious (thedoommerchant DOT gmail DOT com)
@@thecommonhatred 👍
THANK YOU FOR THE LIGHTS WARNING
The "I will give you signs to show Pharoah, but harden his heart so he won't believe them" is just so much pointless drama. Who is this god creating this unnecessarily complex story for?
It has the sound of an artist going "I added random flourishes to my painting because I wanted to, and for no other reason."
I think because whoever was writing the translations and whoever approved them in the institutions committed fraud by rewriting the Bible. Entire names and sections are rewritten and erased and changed completely. The book of Jubilees shows a completely different account.
He wanted to make sure that no one interrupted his fireworks show until he is done. He wanted to flex and Pharaoh saying "Yes." to the demands of the slaves to be let go would've gotten in the way of that.
i always understood it as the thought of God making pharoah harden his heart. Of course everyone has different opinions on the matter since translations vary
also the artist thing doesnt rlly make sense, since an artist adding flourishes to their work isnt a bad thing. It means they have passion for their work lol
Just wanted to add my two cents (as someone who is pagan who was raised a Catholic): I think the reason why this change was not made or was not emphasized more is because its about a human story at the end of the day. One of the reasons why multiple people with different beliefs love this movie is because it doesn't preach or force it on you. And I feel like one of the major holes to this theory is that it disregards the background the writers have provided for Ramesees as well as not allowing Ramesees his agency. Remember that in the first half of the movie the best way to get his father's approval was either to be better or stronger than him for Egypt to be prosperous. And without Moses by his side, he was freely influenced by his own father or the ideals of his own father. And as someone who could relate to similar pressures that Ramesees faces growing up on being better and stronger in whatever I do in a culture wherein family is held to be deemed almost always right, I don't think its far off from the switch we see in Ramesees in the second half. If that were true then technically speaking everyone who has daddy issues expressed in a negative or unhealthy way can have the excuse of being possessed by an entity rather than properly processing said issues. Also I don't put too much weight on the way this theory frames the "Let my heart be hardened" as a form of possession. I always thought it was something akin to "Fine so be it, we're doing this." or "Come at me bro". If it was possession then at most its the very rational yet irrational thing called emotions, something that is far more tangible than a foreign entity. Based on the rationale of this theory, an entity or God of revenge would technically be possessing me whenever I say "Let me have my revenge" whenever I lose in a video game.
Now i just feel bad for Rameses...
Latter-day Saint (or Mormon) here. I won’t speak for Jews, Muslims, or other Christians, but in my religion the issue of Pharaoh’s heart being hardened is very similar to the movie. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there is a thing called the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible or JST. While it is not the official Bible of the Church, it is in the footnotes of certain passages. I bring this up because the JST says that Pharaoh hardens his own heart in every instance. Example:
“…the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go.”
- Exodus 10:20
…Pharaoh hardened his heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go.
- JST Exodus 10:20
I’m not sure if the creators of the film knew of this or not when making the narrative of the film, but I thought it was an interesting point.
I did know this, believe it or not. The "weekly bible study" I vaguely refer to doing in my childhood was Family Home Evening. 😉
Considering the LDS church is generally considered to be just one of the extremely numerous subsets of Christianity by people outside the church, I doubt the creators had any idea that the JST even exists, much less that it presumes to specify what's going on with Pharaoh one way or the other. It may be interesting to look at the multitude of existing translations that exist, since there are dozens, and see how many choose to specify and what their justification is for "clarifying."
@@thecommonhatred Wow! That’s pretty cool. Funny thing is the LDS Church curriculum is going over the Book of Exodus right now which led me to rewatch the movie. Partly what led me to watch your video. The Prince of Egypt is a favorite film of mine, and the Exodus is one of the highlights of the Old Testament for me, despite some clear departures (mainly Aaron’s entire character.) that don’t detract too much. Without a doubt, the best “Christian” movie. As for your video, I find the perspective looked at in the video to be an interesting one. While reading last week, I was actually surprised that Rameses was given a line that was actually spoken by God in the Bible. While I don’t view “God as antagonist,” you present some interesting comparisons from the film to the book.
As for the original comment, I felt interested to share it because I know other faiths have their own ways of addressing the issue of Pharaoh’s heart. Some say it’s faulty translation, some interpret it differently, some just take it for what it says. But I felt the LDS faith was unique in that the clarification was, at least from the LDS perspective, divinely inspired and mandated. Like you though, I do doubt that the filmmakers were influenced by this.
Appreciate the reply. I’d like to say that the end of the movie always amused me a bit. Moses would come down that mountain to see his people worshipping a Golden Calf and smash the tablets he was carrying. 🤣
Being a theologian and historian/religious historian, this is pretty much exactly how I've always watched this movie.
In the stories of Moses life in the religious texts, most everything that happens, happens because *Deity(under whichever name is used in that text and that story) wanted it to happen, and nothing could have happened any other way.
Moses, and those around him, are narrative witnesses of the events, far more than they are the tools with which *Deity makes those events happen.
And yea, I used to be bothered by the new inventions of the movie(like brother-pharaoh etc), but I've come to prefer the movie version of the story on most of those points, it makes it more personal and makes it more relatable.
And hey, the stories of Moses in the various religious texts today, are different from what they were hundreds of years ago, and very different from what they were thousands of years ago.
(Broad strokes remain the same, but details come and go, mostly due to pre-written verbal tellings differing from each other, and changes that occur during translations, not necessarily in that order.)
Into the wilderness 👏 For a feast 👏
It is entierly unfair that you only have 201 subscribers, fantastic content.
THANK YOU. FUCKING THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO.
Why is this video so underrated?
For those of you that were wondering, the real reason God "wanted to kill Moses for some reason" was because he hadn't sercomsized his son and that Moses could be punished (not actually die, yet), because it was a very important tradition (plus Moses already had his reputation dirtied up by never paying the price for murder). So Zapora did it for him.
@@marshmallowvampire8503 I assumed it had to have SOMETHING to do with circumcision, but it's so vague [at least in the translation, I have no idea how clear it was in the original] that it really does seem like it comes out of nowhere.
@@thecommonhatred according to Jewish tradition Moshe (Moses) was born without Foreskin (a very rare condition) so it makes sense that he didn’t even consider circumcising his boys.
This interpretation encapsulates my relationship with Christianity/religiousness. I don’t know if god exists or not but if god is real. This weird manipulative version, treating us all like sims is how I feel about it.
Reminds me of the AI in I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. I think the AI's name was Allied Mastercomputer (AM), and G-d says "I am that I am".
Great video
It's always surprising to me, as someone who grew up in religion, how many of the people I know that are still in it truly do know understand that the God of these books is a butt hole; yet they take it upon themselves to live in dissonance. People who say religion is a good in society do not account for this suffering. A sort of quiet and terrible despair of the faithful.
In the book of Jubilees there is a section that covers the events in the book of Exodus and Satan does have a role in the events of the plauges. In that book Satan has another name known as Mastema and he was present in Egypt during the Exodus and he did hold influence over Pharaoh and the Empire of Egypt it was often he that was around when Pharoah's heart was harden. As Egypt was a major pagan polytheistic nation that worshipped false gods that were always described in the Bible to be demons and Satan often targeted the decendents of Abraham it would make sense why he would hold much influence over Egypt at this time. And since he hates humans since the days of Adam and Eve he would have no qualms killing human beings if he was allowed the opportunity to be set loose instead of being retrained constantly. He is the angel of Death that striked the First born of Egypt specifically in the book of Jubilees. And it was also him who influenced Pharaoh to gather his army and kill the Hebrews during the Exodus.
The God Culture cover this issue in their Answers in Jubilees series. The God Culture is a Bible research channel that is on TH-cam and spreading to other platforms and have their own website.
They have a video covering Prince Mastema om TH-cam titled:
*"Is Prince Mastema Satan? Who Was The Angel of Death? Answers In Jubilees 51"*
Alot of the modern era Bible canon has been unfortunately sublely changed over the course of time changing words and sentences completely subverting the actual meanings with some aspects of occult theology and based stories have been mixed into it's passages causing often confusing discord, agitation, and misinterpretations and fraud paradigms to increase sadly. Catholicism, Jewdaism, even Protestantism has been affected by them to this day.
Truthunedited does another good job explaining this in his Bible videos about the occult and how they have long infected Christianity.
Books like First Enoch, Jubilees, and 2nd Esdras that would have explained much of the internal context and the origin of demons and they operate has been forgotten sadly and willingly ignored by scholars, institutions, and churches leading to fraudulent interpretations while passages are changed by institutions over the course of 2,000 long years. Many of which are designed to make God look like a hypocritical and antagonist being opposite of his pure Holiness while merging some occult themes here and there. Of course those same institutions have spent over 2,000 years censoring and erasing God's true holy name. Which he does have a name YHWH in ancient Hebrew not modern Hebrew means Yahuah.
So if they are willing to do that then they are willing to change the Bible and depict Yahuah Elohim as a bad guy for their own agendas which are often religious ones.
Again I would recommend checking out The God Culture and Truthunedited for a deeper understanding of these foundations. They have been around for years and know far more then I do.
The pharaoh who doesn't let go of Israelites is different from the one who was on throne when Moses flees Egypt .. Exodus 2:23 says that the Pharaoh died.
“But Heyyyy~ That’s just a theory. 🌈” 💀💀
Excellent content. I love the movie. I will now rewatch the movie with this in mind.
I enjoyed your analysis, but I feel God (esp Old Testament/tanakh) is more akin to Fate which has been anthromorphized in text rather than an actual person in the sky (or bush). Like when theres all the talk about how GOD hardens Pharoahs heart, it can be understood as Fate/Circumstance hardening his heart (which is supported by the text, it is his circumstance not his personality which determines his actions and we are reminded of this repeatedly.) the son entering the room reminds him of his PLACE his CONTEXT as the link between the dead (father) and the living (son). God is the immanent source of all things, and so you cannot attribute anything to any other source (Job gets reminded of this...), after all God must have placed Pharoah in that role/context.
I would like to see your take on the Book of Job where God is much more clearly cast as Antagonist, altho I don't know that there will be any animated pictures of Job's travails anytime soon
wow you kinda got to panic attack territory there haha
This was a well constructed video good job
wow am i late but i LOVE this video SO MUCH this is so well done!!! i really love the capricious old testament god, he's just a manipulative teenager and that sure is entertaining to read about. this god-as-antagonist interpretation is really incredible and as a rameses-in-leather-pants truther i'm behind it 100%
but seriously i feel like this film did an excellent job at making god almost... neutral? that is to say, god compels moses into this task but ultimately everything that moses does is of his own volition (the major exception being the tenth plague ofc). i think that's why people of all backgrounds can appreciate it...... we all have times in our life where we feel Called to something, even if that thing is hard.... and that caller could be god, or our own inner voice, or just something that feels bigger than ourselves. moses doesn't free people cause god is pushing him along the whole way. it's a moment of inspiration, that any of us can have, and that can lead us to doing great things. powerful stuff! with great music! woo!!!
unrelated, but i really wish the film had kept the polytheistic "secret arts" thing that the court magicians had going on. that would've rocked. anyway my cheesy essay is over..... and this video rocked!
Antagonist iz da evil guy right??
This theory has a decent amount of weight when you think about. The movie aside if you look at the details of the bible you can sum up gods personality as two different things. In the old testament god is a psychotic brat who makes the so called devil look innocent. And in the new testament god is a hypocritical saint. As if he regrets his actions of the past but after maturing for thousands of years decides to change his ways and tries to make up for his own sins by giving people a standard they have no hope of achieving in order to get ever lasting life.........Forget what I said about him changing his ways.
Make more vids PLEASEEEEEE!! Xx
I'd recommend putting a question mark in your title.
I love this cartoon, but this video was dark. Interesting, but dark
10/10
So from what I've learned from reading religious books and talking to some Rabbis in the Jewish tradition the whole hardening the heart of Pharaoh thing is more that God still allowed Pharaoh to have free will but made it easier for him to choose the path of not letting the Israelites go, still if he seriously decided to truly let them go earlier most of the plagues wouldn't have needed to happen and the Exodus would have been a hell of a lot shorter.
Fun fact: Shemot (שמות) means names, I feel like this fits the nature of the book better than Exodus because whilst the Exodus is the big event of Shemot it's not everything and this book very much introduces most of the important players for the rest of the 4/5 of the books of Moses (Genesis (B'Reshit)) acting as the introductory book establishing the setting and lore to the rest of the books.
Among minor things, I find that the name of the Pharoah they fought not being mentioned in the Torah speaks badly of the authenticity of this story. It also doesn't help that there are no records of something like this happening from the Egyptian side. Which likely implies that at best this was a story told by the descendants of a small group of escaped slaves (a group not large enough to be remembered by the other side)
Actually addressing a ruler with his title and no other name is normal worldwide. In Arabic records for example the emperor of the Romans 2as called ceaser of the Romans with out mentioning his name
@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl In the movie's defense, it's more of an animated adaptation of the 1958 Ten Commandments movie than an honest accurate retelling from the Bible
The Christian god has always made me wonder, what exactly is this guy? Why is he a tyrant, hypocritical, trying to solve problems in the most difficult of ways? This video essay really shows a lot of the cracks in these religious texts.
As an atheist myself, i truly LOVE this movie as well, as it shows that god isn't an all-loving individual, but an omnipresent being with their own agenda and goals, using humans as puppets for their wars, and what it does to the people stuck in it.
The Christian God strikes me as a 4Chan troll taken to 11 centillion.
@@RedSunUnderParadise lmao this is the best comment I've seen about this
*coughs in Presbyterian*
Balls
not to offend anyone's religious beliefs, but it seems to me to be the reverse, this interpretation makes less sense in the movie than in the source material, as any mention of God's direct intervention with Pharaoh's actions is removed