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This dissertation addresses the literary character and function of the principal portraiture of Moses in the Pentateuch. Pentateuchal authors adapted tropes and traditions, well-attested elsewhere in biblical and other ancient Near Eastern sources, to identify Moses as an exalted, even divinized figure. The portrayal of Moses in the likeness of a "king" serves to elevate Moses and to emphasize the preeminence of his work. Moses is depicted throughout the Pentateuch, from Exodus to Deuteronomy, as God's deputized and empowered agent, a role that is represented especially by the designations "servant" and "man of God" in the political and religious formation of Israel. The first chapter provides an overview of the portrayal of Moses in classical and modern sources. The second chapter provides a broad overview of a number of motifs used to portray Moses. Several of these motifs will be explored in detail in chapters three and four (i.e., the birth and abandonment of Moses, flight and exile, divine commissioning, public emergence and controversy, temple builder, lawgiving and covenant making, and succession). The remaining motifs (e.g., beauty and health, the name "Moses," shepherd, divinity, military leader, judge, humility, and intercessor and appeaser) are included here to give a sense of the full range of the portrayal of Moses. The rest of the second chapter shows how these various individual motifs are typically combined and clustered in the depiction of four famous rulers in the ancient Near East: Hammurabi, Esarhaddon, Nabonidus, and Cyrus. This dissertation concludes that the "royal" presentation of Moses lies not so much in the use of individual motifs. Various motifs, whether royal or not, cluster together to portray Moses as a king. Within the context of the claims made by the prevailing empire of the day, Pentateuchal authors made use of the familiar clustering of motifs to affirm Moses as a more ancient leader, whose work has resulted in the constitution of the community of Israel. The authors of the Pentateuch base Israel's identity and enduring existence on the authority and legacy of Moses as God's trusted and incomparable vice-regent.
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