28._ Exodus

A narration of the Bible exists where the God of Israel reveals Himself with special intensity: we talk about the book of the Exodus, the story of how the tribes of Israel were released of the slavery of Egypt and lead to the Promise Land. God manifestes Himself to Moses in the mount Sinai (or Horeb), in the middle of a bramble, or shrub, that burns without being consumed; He assigns to him the mission to release the Israelite town of the slavery in Egypt, and let be known as the God of the ancestors, that now reveals His name: "ehyeh'asër'ehyeh", that said in third person is: "Yahveh".

This event, narrated as the beginning of the foundational myth of the nation of Israel, shows to us Moses like a "prophet", inspired by God, a receiver/emissary of the message that comes from trascendent God, from the future of the Last Newness.
The physical details of the story: the mount, the bramble, the voice of God, are not important in themselves, nor the event as a concrete and real fact in history, but as soon as they form part of the message and of its correct interpretation. We think that the top of the mount is an image of the peak of the process of cosmic evolution, that the bramble burning is an image of the emergence of the trascendence, and the name, that according to the translation maintained by some philologists and experts would be: "I will be who I will be '" (better than the traditional "I am who I am"), in third person: "the One that will be"--, expresses the definitive future of the Last Newness.

It is left the liberation mission: it is an image of the plan of salvation of God, to release all the humanity -- represented by Israel-- of her least and ephemeral condition --represented by the slavery-- in the temporary universe --represented by Egypt-- to take it to the eternal life --represented by the Promised Land.
Therefore, "Yahveh, in the top of the mount Sinai, sets out to release to Israel of its slavery in Egypt to take it to the Promised Land", must be interpreted like: "The-One-that-will-be, from His trascendence in the peak of the cosmic process, sets out to save the Humanity of its temporary and mortal condition, to give it the eternal life with Him".

Later the known episodes come: the plagues, the prodigious escape, the march by the desert, the alliance in the Sinai, the construction of the sanctuary, and the conquest of Canaan. We do not think that there are in them miraculous interventions of God, but, as soon as they have an historical base, that are "normal" episodes narrated in mythical key; they represent legends and ancestral, foundational traditions of the nation of Israel, transmitted first orally and transcribed at very later times to the narrated facts, with the consequent legendary fabulations, but conserving an essential central message.

For example, probably, according to we have heard, the "plagues" and the division of waters are legendary versions of the catastrophic repercussions, in Egypt, of an exceptional swelling of the Nile combined with the gigantic volcanic eruption that took place in the island of Tera (today Santorini) to the north of Crete (causing in addition the decay to the minoic civilization); the abnormal swelling of the Nile would have caused the reddening of waters, proliferation of frogs, mosquitos, flies and locusts, and pest (anthrax?); later, the eruption would have caused ash rains, darkenings, panic, and a great tidal wave arrived until the coasts of Egypt causing first a retirement and then an abrupt swelling of waters in the "sea of canes", by where would have passed the Hebrew tribes.

But the action of God, in our opinion, is not in any physical fact, but in the minds of those who interpreted these facts in religious key, and not exactly in its own interpretations, but in the "later interpretations of interpretations", which finally revealed the true plan of salvation, work of Yahveh --"The One that will be"-, for all the passed humanity, present and future.
The conquest of the Promised Land by Israel becomes thus, as we said, an image, an announcement, an advance of the future resurrection of all the humanity to the eternal life. The alliance of Yahveh with Israel --the Old Alliance, the Old Testament-- represents the solemn promise of God, His message of salvation for all the men.