Those looking for a profound spiritual or religious message in Ridley Scott’s new film Exodus: Gods and Kings, will probably be better off re-watching Raiders of the Lost Ark instead.
As an exercise in political and military themes, however, Exodus is moderately successful. Fundamentally, Exodus is movie about a slave revolt led by a former Egyptian general named Moses. Also, the slave rebels have an unwieldy and very powerful superweapon on their side which they call the God of Jacob. Any other similarity to the God of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, however, is purely coincidental.
The film begins with Moses, a member of the Pharaoh’s royal household, helping Pharaoh’s son Ramses (the future Ramses the Great) lead a pre-emptive strike on a band of Hittites who have aroused the ire of the Egyptian state.
The old Pharaoh is quite fond of Moses, and is a wise old man, giving us the first hint that this is to be a movie about politics when he tells Moses that “men who crave power are best fitted to acquire it, and least fitted to exercise it.” Such wisdom escapes young Ramses, however, who soon succeeds his father.
Read the rest of the article at Mises.org.
Rating: One out of four Rothbard heads 
10:21 am on January 6, 2015
