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Acts and Jubilees both add details not found in the Hebrew Bible in their retelling of Exodus, adapting the account of Pharaoh’s decree for their audiences. Acts, in particular, describes infant exposure using language common in its Greco-Roman setting.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Jubilees 47:2
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
1 And in the seventh week, in the seventh year, in the forty-seventh jubilee [2303], your father went out from the land of Canaan, and you were born in the fourth week, in the sixth year of it, in the forty-eighth jubilee [2330]; this was the time of oppression of the children of Israel. 2 And Pharaoh, king of Egypt, issued a command regarding them that they should cast all their male children which were born into the river. 3 And they cast them in for seven months until the day that you were born. And your mother hid you for three months, and she was reported. 4 And she made an ark for you, and covered it with pitch and asphalt, and placed it in the reeds on the bank of the river, and she placed you in it seven days, and your mother came by night and nursed you, and by day Miriam, your sister, guarded you from the birds.
Date: 170–125 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Acts 7:19
New Testament
17 “But as the time drew near for God to fulfill the promise he had declared to Abraham, the people increased greatly in number in Egypt, 18 until another king who did not know about Joseph ruled over Egypt. 19 This was the one who exploited our people and was cruel to our ancestors, forcing them to abandon their infants so they would die. 20 At that time Moses was born, and he was beautiful to God. For three months he was brought up in his father’s house, 21 and when he had been abandoned, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son.
Date: 70–90 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... In the New Testament period, non-Jews often left their children out to die, but Jews (and in this period, Egyptians) abhorred this practice; here Luke uses the same term often used for child abandonment, increasing revulsion for Pharaoh. In Luke’s period some rescued discarded babies, but most often reared them as slaves; it was known, however, that the biblical Pharaoh did not want babies rescued. Stephen’s hearers might think also of the wicked Gentile oppressor Antiochus Epiphanes, who killed Israel’s babies (1 Maccabees 1:61; 2 Maccabees 6:10). For Pharaoh’s mistreatment of Israelites summarized here, compare Exodus 1:9-11, 22 ..."
Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2014), 338.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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