Corrected entry: In the movie, screams of terror are heard outside as the Israelis are eating Passover inside. Very unlikely, as the Israelis lived in the land of Gosh-en separate from the Egyptians, and they all followed Moses' instruction to be protected as in Exodus 12: 28 - "And the children of Israel went away, and did as the lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they."
Corrected entry: If you look carefully when the baby Moses is sent out on the waters, you can see he's wearing a 20th century nappy.
Correction: Checking the date of release of this film (1956), I'm pretty sure that what you think of as a modern 20th century diaper didn't exist yet. It looks to me like a cloth diaper, and they probably haven't changed much in a few millenia.
You can see a diaper pin, which hadn't been invented yet.
Corrected entry: During the scene when God is burning the 10 commandments into the stone tablets, you can see the writing before it is burned in.
Correction: It's beyond the scope of this site to determine how God would have created the 10 commandments.
Corrected entry: When Moses interrogates Bithiah about where he came from, the ring on his finger disappears between shots.
Correction: The ring on his right hand has not vanished, it's merely blocked from view, so we can't see the ring until he moves his hand, which he does. The lower screenshot is deceiving, because if you keep watching this very same shot just as Bithiah says, "Who else? Memnet nursed Ramses. She shall pay for spreading his lies," Moses moves his right hand and we do see his ring, at the top of the screen. He is wearing this ring during the entire scene with Bithiah. See a clip here: https://i.imgur.com/tt2doBf.mp4.
Correction: The mistake's attached YouTube video is unreliable, because it's cut off at the top of the screen when Moses moves his hand. The ring has not disappeared, it's just blocked from view, and when he moves his hand the ring becomes visible at the top of the screen. Here's a clear clip of the relevant part of the scene: https://i.imgur.com/tt2doBf.mp4.
Corrected entry: In the scene after Joshua has an altercation with Dathan about painting his doorpost, Joshua looks up at a crescent moon. However, it is a fact that Passover has been and still is celebrated on a full moon.
Correction: I'd like to agree with this one, but when it is celebrated and when it actually happened could be two different dates. I don't know of anything that states exactly what date in the Hebrew calendar the Tenth Plague was visited on Egypt, and celebrating it on the very-visible full moon makes for great consistency year-to-year.
This also happened when the fingers of the destroying mist on Passover night descended past a thin crescent moon. God told Moses in Exodus 12: 6 to eat and keep this first Passover on the fourteenth day of the Hebrew lunar month, so this would have been a full moon, as it still is for Passover to this very day.
Corrected entry: Before the burning bush Moses and Joshua appear to be close to the same age, but Joshua was really about thirty years younger than Moses also Joshua never was with Moses in exile.
Correction: Moses was 120 years old at the time of his death (Deuteronomy 34:7); Joshua 1:1 identifies Joshua as Moses' assistant. If Joshua is 30 years younger than Moses, that makes him 90 years old when Moses died, certainly old enough to have experienced life in Egypt as well as the entire journey through the wilderness. Either the Biblical chronology is incorrect or the submission's assumption about Joshua's age is incorrect (Joshua was probably much younger than Moses than 30 years). In any case, the difference in appearance between age 90 and age 120 isn't all that significant.
Corrected entry: There's the dramatic scene where the Egyptians are chasing the Hebrews through the parted Red Sea. Yet, when Moses closes the waters, you can see the Egyptians and their horses standing still on the sea bottom. Why did they stop pursuing all of a sudden?
Correction: I don't know about you, but I would pause, too, when a big, powerful guy I was chasing turned to me and raised a big stick. Moses had already brought the plagues among them, so they had to have known something was up. And then when they must have heard the sea crashing behind them I doubt they would not have just continued on their way.
Corrected entry: There is an extreme possibility that Moses and Rameses never knew each other. Moses spent forty years in Midian, so he was 80 when he returned to Egypt. The Bible also gives no account of Moses ever having met Nefretiri.
Correction: The movie is based on the Bible. It would not have been so entertaining if it was straight out factual. If not for Nefretiri in the movie the whole plotline about Moses and Ramses competing against each other wouldn't be as evident. Ramses and Moses had to know each other because Pharaoh (Ramses) cast him out to the desert. As for being 80 when he returned to Egypt, keep in mind biblical characters lived to be 100-200 years old.
Corrected entry: After ascending the throne, Rameses is accepting tribute from many nations. One of the visiting dignitaries is announced as "King Priam of Troy". Priam died at the end of the Trojan War c.1184 BC; Rameses did not ascend the throne of Egypt until c.1290 BC.(Not a mistake. The year BC runs in descending order, while AD runs in ascending order.)
Correction: Not only is 1290 BC before 1184 BC, there are no such established firm dates for the MYTH of the Trojan War, but it probably happened (if it happened) between 1300BC to 1000BC (i.e. the 1200's and 1100's). Also, the movie calls him Rameses the First which is probably a mistake as he only ruled for about 2 years before being replaced by his son, Seti I. It was Rameses II (grandson of Rameses I) who became Pharaoh in 1290BC and reigned for 66 years.
Corrected entry: No where in the Bible were the Midianites descended from Abraham's first son Ishmael, nor did they worship the god of Abraham as depicted in the film. They were a pagan people.
Correction: This is a matter of both interpretation and licence. It never says in the Bible that they AREN'T descended from Ishmael and Jethro most obviously does worship the God of Abraham. In Exodus 18:12 it says "Jethro, Moses' father in law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God" [note the capital 'G' meaning it wasn't a pagan god that was being referred to]. Jethro also councilled Moses on how to perform within the priesthood in Exodus 18:13-27. Now, in the Bible it doesn't mention that Jethro ever converted but it also doesn't mention that he didn't. So either he was converted to follow the God of Abraham, or he always had (which is a belief that is held by some denominations - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, for example [see Doctrine & Covenants 84: 6-7]). The film makers simply chose the latter explanation.
After Sarai died Abraham married Keturah and had six sons. Jethro was a descendent of Keturah. He was a believer as well. Some of his children joined Israel. He brought Moses' wife and children to Moses during the Exidus.
It says in 1st Chronicles that Midian is descended from Abraham through his concubine (or second wife, however you want to interpret it) whose name is Keturah. Seems that the evidence that they came from Abraham's son Midian outweighs the fact that scripture does not say that they do not come from Ishmael.
Corrected entry: When God gives Moses the Commandments, a lightning bolt comes down from the clouds and sears into the tablets...Roman numerals. Pretty odd that the Hebrews were using Roman numerals several hundred years before Rome was even founded...
Correction: Those are not Roman numerals, they are letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
Those do not look like any Hebrew letters I have ever seen... looks like made-up symbols. They easily could have copied the Hebrew from any depiction of the Ten Commandments in any synagogue.
According to Moses and Egypt, a tie-in book published when the movie was released, the Ten Commandments were written in an early Canaanite script that would have been in use at that time.
Corrected entry: Moses' Hebrew mother, Yochibel, tells his Egyptian mother that she and her children can not leave Egypt because they are Levites, appointed shepherds of Israel. The Levites became appointed shepherds of Israel only after Moses received the Law from God on Mount Sinai.
Correction: Prior to receiving the Law from God, the Hebrews were living in the manner they would continue in. Abraham received instruction on how to live from God, and passed that information down to his children. From the time Levi (the son of Jacob) was born, he was the shepherd, the watcher of his brothers. His children continued in this vein. Just the same as the children of Judah were the leaders of the tribes, even before they settled in the land of Canaan and had a king.
Corrected entry: When the Hebrews are leaving Egypt, packed on donkeys carrying water jugs, wearing dusty sandals, the camera pans around to a blind man - wearing a watch.
Correction: I can find no evidence of a watch on the blind fellow. He does wear, on his right wrist, a leather strap, but so do the two children with him.
Corrected entry: There is a scene with a Pepsi can on a rock. A worker must have forgotten to pick it up before filming.
Correction: According to the Pepsi web site, canned Pepsi went into full scale production in 1965, almost a decade after the movie.
Corrected entry: As the Israelites are departing Egypt, several carts are shown being pulled by water buffalo. Water buffalo are not found in Africa - they are native to India and would have been unknown in Egypt at that time.
Correction: They would not have been unknown to Egypt at that time. Like nearly all ancient civilizations, Egypt was big into travel and trade. In fact, Egypt is said to have been one of the biggest trading nations in history, India being another and a favourable trading nation for many cultures. And being as rich as Egypt was at the time, it is quite likely that these buffalo were imported and abundant in Egypt.
Water buffaloes were introduced to the Mediterranean around 600 AD. There is no evidence of water buffaloes in Egypt and the Levant over 3,000 years ago.
Corrected entry: According to the Bible it was the Pharaoh's daughter who found and adopted Moses, not the Pharaoh's sister.
Correction: Pharaoh's sister would also be a Pharaoh's daughter - the current Pharaoh's father.
Corrected entry: Pharaoh refers to himself as "Ramses the First", but he just would have been called Ramses - leaders only get numbers when "sequels" come along, and Ramses II doesn't emerge until 40 years later.
Correction: He is being self centered, making it seem as if he will be so great that people will name their sons after him.
Correction: Maybe so, but in the context of the film the screams were from those (Jews and Egyptians) who did not believe Moses was their deliverer and thus disregarded his instructions from God to mark their homes with the blood of a lamb to protect their families from God's wrath. After the first born of a family who did not mark their homes with the lamb's blood was found dead, people would start believing Moses' words were for real.
Scott215