I can't even believe me! I retired so that I would have time to write every day and I am busier than ever! I have spent so much time with my great grandchildren, grandchildren, and children that I am gone about every other week. But it is Sunday and I am actually home, so I will try and pick up the thread of where I was in the story of creation. There is much more to tell.
The Book of Abraham ends with the creation of Eve. The Prophet Joseph told the Saints that there was more and also excerpts from the Book of Joseph in Egypt, but he didn't live long enough to complete the translation. He was martyred at Carthage Jail in Illinois on June 27, 1844. Therefore, I will move to the writings of Moses for the rest of the story of our first parents, Adam and Eve, and their family and generations of progeny.
First, I must go to a place in time not discussed in the Bible concerning Moses. Most people know that Joseph, 11th son of the Patriarch Jacob/Israel, was sold as a slave by his older brothers. He was wrongfully imprisoned and through his ability to interpret dreams, he was freed and taken into the confidence of the pharaoh himself. He later brought his father and the whole family to live in Egypt because there was famine in other lands. The family settled in a part of Egypt known as Goshen.
After Joseph's death, the Israelite lost favor with the Egyptians and were made slaves. Centuries later, a son was born to a Levite family in Goshen. Pharaoh was so afraid of an Israelite prophecy of a boy child who would challenge the authority of Pharaoh, that he had decreed that all boy children be taken from the birthing stools and thrown into the Nile River for the crocodiles. Moses' mother knew this law.
The Israelite midwives found favor with God in that they were not carrying out Pharaoh's heinous orders, saying to Pharaoh that Israelite women were stronger than Egyptian women and delivered themselves upon the birthing stools before the midwives came. This is what Moses' mother did.
Knowing that a boy child could not survive on the streets of Goshen, she hid him for as long as she could. When she knew it was no longer safe to hide him, she wove a basket of reeds and pitched in with tar to make it waterproof. Lovingly, she place her precious on in the basket and set it adrift upon the Nile, praying that God would deliver him. She sent her daughter, Miriam, to follow and see where the basket went.
On that day, Pharaoh's daughter was bathing in the waters of the Nile where she spotted the basket. She had recently been widowed and felt barren with an empty womb. When she saw it was a baby, she sent her attendants away and drew him from the Nile, a gift from the God of the Nile, Hapi.
Moses was raised as a prince in Egypt and was favored by his grandfather, to the annoyance of his cousin, the crown prince. As a young adult, Moses saw and Egyptian overseer beat an Israelite slave to death. In rage, he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. When his crime was discovered, he was cast out of Egypt to die in the desert.
He didn't die, but found the tent of a Bedouin who sheltered him and allowed Moses to marry the sheik's eldest daughter. Moses remained a shepherd and fathered children. One day, while he was out with the sheep, he saw a bush on a nearby mountain. It appeared to be burning, but was not consumed. He was curious, so he climbed the mountain. That is where he met God face-to-face, which is where we pick up the story.
Of course, it was a much more complex set of circumstances and political intrigue, but this is the heart of the story in a Reader's Digest version to bring us to where I want to go: The Book of Moses of the Pearl of Great Price
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