Timothy Mahoney hits another home run with this film! He gave us Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus and now gives us Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy, a fascinating documentary on Moses and the origins of the Hebrew alphabet and language. Mahoney, raised in a Christian home, was always taught that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, or the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. These books are Genesis to Deuteronomy. But now Mahoney faces skeptics who present him the “Moses Controversy,” their belief that the Hebrew language wasn’t yet invented during the time of Moses and that Moses could not have written the books, that he was not a scholarly person. So Mahoney, as a detective of historical patterns, sets out to find the truth.
His search takes him to the far-flung corners of the world, including London, England, Egypt, and Israel. He chats with professors everywhere, those with impressive credentials that do not believe Moses authored the Old Testament books, and those that do. Sadly, he encounters Christians that have abandoned their faith. One man, who no longer believes Moses wrote the Torah, says he remains open to the possibility of God and classifies himself as an agnostic. Mahoney examines old stones and tablets with ancient alphabets. Could he have found the earliest writings of Hebrew? Various historical figures are quoted too as Mahoney exhausts his search with every avenue open to him.
The documentary does an incredible job visually speaking as well as with the interviews with various scholars. The viewer is swept away to various locations and graphs and recreations of biblical events flash across the screen. The sound of Hebrew music playing in the background adds a nice touch to the film.
The viewer will find it fascinating to see Mahoney piece a pattern together, and his findings are pretty incredible. He discovers new information that others had missed. The content is wholesome and although young children would find it difficult to navigate, we are awarding our Dove Seal for All Ages to the film. For children 8 or above, the documentary is most educational as it is for adults and lovers of history and archaeology as well as those that have an interest in the Holy Bible.
The Dove Take
Timothy Mahoney has done it again—he’s given us an insightful documentary into the history of an amazing man and his people—Moses and the Hebrews.
