Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Moses Was High: A Probable Explanation

High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.

Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.

"As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

You can read more here.

Some questions:
-Just because you don't believe something, does that make it not true?
-Just because something seems improbable, does that make it not true?
-What evidence is there that Moses was high?
-What evidence is there that Moses actually heard from God?
-What do you think of Benny Shannon's opinio0n on the matter? Does his personal experience validate his conclusion?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Everyone knows that there were originaly 15 commandments and Moses dropped one of the tablets and now there are 10. He probably was high, he couldn't hold on to the tablets.

Probably got the munchies really bad too. :")

Esther said...

lol, high or not, we got the ten commandments out of it!

Doorman-Priest said...

In my wilder youth, when such things were de rigeur, my "insights" were much less coherent than good old Moses's.

Another failed academic trying to make a name by shock tactics.