Talk:Staff of Moses

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Moved them here: Unencyclopedic WTF?? Arguments, anyone?? --BjKa (talk) 09:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I vote against. Nehushtan seems to be a generic category of objects, Article is about (theoretically) one singular alleged historical item. Added a link as "See Also". --BjKa (talk) 09:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Parting of the Red Sea
Removed the following sentence: Moses led the enslaved Israelites out of Egypt and parted the Red Sea using his staff. I don't think they were enslaved any more than any other subject of the pharaoh. But definitely there is no mention of a staff at the parting of the Red Sea. Go check for yourself if you don't believe it. I'm not sure about the "invoked a plague" part. Maybe someone else wants to check? Replaced the Reference http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/1924067.stm with http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/Exodus --BjKa (talk) 09:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, I did check: "And the LORD said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward: But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea". Paul B (talk) 18:02, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Hagia Sofia
It should be clarified, what the H.S. has to do with the staff, and why the document mentioned is not in the Topkapi. --BjKa (talk) 09:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Moses' stick?
In the article entitled Marah (Bible), it is stated: "There is nothing necessarily miraculous about the sweetening of the water, since there is a type of barberry which grows in the desert and has the herbal property of sweetening brackish water". I do believe this wikipedia article severely misses something vital: namely the brackish water sources common to both the Sinai and the Negev desert which are processed at the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research in the Negev. There is (i) this Brackish water with 1/10 of the salinity of the Mediterranean, (ii) salt water from the sea itself and (iii) Artesian wells of drinkable sweet water.

There is popular science book by Gerhard Herm, a german journalist specialized in Documentations of History. From the reference: ''Die Phönizier. Das Purpurreich der Antike, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1987, (ISBN 3-499-18387-0 ): it is pointed out that Moses' stick or rod used to extract the sweet waters from the (brackish) bitter waters was actually an upside down funnel with a long'' stem - giving the appearance of a stick or rod from a distance. The bottom part of that stick would "grab" the sweet water from the Artesian well source before it mixed with the brackish or salty waters. At the top of the stem comes out the sweet water separated from the bitter waters. That's your "purification" process, not the plant mentioned in the wikipedia site. When you mixed waters of different salinities, you eventually get a homogeneous whole but it takes a while, depending on the interplay of mixing and anti-mixing agents. The short delay in time gives an opportunity for Moses' stick to get a hold of the sweet water. The trouble is that this source is in German only and not translated into English - but still valid nonetheless.

The Hebrews would have committed this event to memory via an oral culture which did not get written down in full until the Babylonian exile. However, by then, this simple upside down funnel would have been simplified to a mere stick or rod. (The Babylonians had no use for this simple but effective "technology" because they could get plenty of sweet water from the Tigris and Euphrates.)  As for the addition of special herbs to purify water, this is an old trick, but I doubt that it is effective enough. Potatoes take of salt from an over-salted soup or sauce, and there are many other herbs that draw salt out of a high salinity water, but the amount you can take out this way is small, and I doubt very much you get the magnesium salts. Finally, the Desert Institute in the Negev has gone a long way in exploiting this brackish water.

I suggest adding some of this material itself to the article. I have given you the reference and also create a cross-reference with the article on Marah. If there are no objections, I can do it myself.TonyMath (talk) 19:08, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
 * no votes for or against this suggestion? Mazal TovTonyMath (talk) 22:51, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Birmingham Connection
There's nothing in the article about the staff being in Birmingham Museum. I just watched a documentary about it on Yesterday Channel, incredible.
 * Just watched it in Myth Hunters. Sounds weird to me: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/1924067.stm http://www.grahamphillips.net/moses/moses.html 92.209.32.71 (talk) 02:22, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Secrets of the Bible Episode 6 of 13 | Season 1 http://www.tvguide.co.uk/detail/2141330/121060037/secrets-of-the-bible Nibinaear (talk) 19:11, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Is this the same as Nehushtan?
Should this page be linked to the Nehushtan page? Further, and if so, shouldn't the location of Nehushtan be updated to indicate that it was destroyed by Hezekiah? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1011:B1DC:CF6B:D97C:2561:8C04:FF40 (talk) 02:24, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Some Feedback
Staff of Moses

I just wanted to offer some friendly feedback about my impression of the page since I find the subject interesting.

The introduction is concise and establishes the subject well and the structure of the page is great. However the page itself is rather brief and could offer more information. For instance, the Shia Islam section which only states the claim of possession of the staff but offers little other information on the subject.Of course there are limitations regarding how much information is available. It is also mentioned that the staff is referenced in ten verses in the Quran, yet it is not stated which verses. When I first looked at the page, I was immediately greeted by a banner stating the page needs more citations.

I wish everyone working on this page the best in their endeavors.

KyraAMc (talk) 19:34, 2 February 2024 (UTC)