Moses

Moses (Heb. Mosheh z=" drawn"), the lawgiver of Israel, lived probably in the 14th century before Christ, and is said to have attained the age of 120 years. According to the Biblical account he led his. people out of Egypt through the desert, but himself died in sight of the Promised Land, and also gave the law from Mount Sinai, and extended and reformed the national system of the Israelites. There are many traditions as to his life in the writings of Philo and Josephus. The Hexateuch (the so-called "Books of Moses" and the early part of the Book of Joshua) were long accepted as his work, but many critics now place them, at all events in their present form, many hundred years later. See the writings of Wellhausen and Kuenen.