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Pillar of fire : or, Israel in bondage
Pillar of fire : or, Israel in bondage 626 Pages.
604 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1859
5 people are currently reading
108 people want to read
About the author
J.H. Ingraham
91 books10 followersJoseph Holt Ingraham (January 26, 1809 – December 18, 1860) was an American author.
Ingraham was born in Portland, Maine. He spent several years at sea, then worked as a teacher of languages in Mississippi. In the 1840s he published work in Arthur's Magazine. He became an Episcopal clergyman on March 7, 1852.
In Natchez, Ingraham married Mary Brooks, a cousin of Phillips Brooks.
Under the pen-name F. Clinton Barrington he wrote stories for popular publications like Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion. He met Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1846 and told him that he "has written eighty novels, and of these twenty during the last year."
Ingraham died at the age of 51, in Holly Springs, Mississippi from an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound in the vestibule of his church.
Source: Wikipedia
Ingraham was born in Portland, Maine. He spent several years at sea, then worked as a teacher of languages in Mississippi. In the 1840s he published work in Arthur's Magazine. He became an Episcopal clergyman on March 7, 1852.
In Natchez, Ingraham married Mary Brooks, a cousin of Phillips Brooks.
Under the pen-name F. Clinton Barrington he wrote stories for popular publications like Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion. He met Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1846 and told him that he "has written eighty novels, and of these twenty during the last year."
Ingraham died at the age of 51, in Holly Springs, Mississippi from an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound in the vestibule of his church.
Source: Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 2, 2019
This book is written as a correspondence between Moses and a Phoenician prince. At the start, the reader sees Moses as an Egyptian prince, observes his dawning realization of his heritage, followed by his escape from Egypt, and return many years later.
The heavy research in this book can make it feel like heavy reading at times. But don't give up! I came away fascinated by what it must have been like to go from powerful monarch to member of a slave nation. There are many intriguing details, such as the idea that Aaron may have been enslaved in making idols, which could explain why he so easily fashioned a golden calf!
The heavy research in this book can make it feel like heavy reading at times. But don't give up! I came away fascinated by what it must have been like to go from powerful monarch to member of a slave nation. There are many intriguing details, such as the idea that Aaron may have been enslaved in making idols, which could explain why he so easily fashioned a golden calf!
February 28, 2012
NOTE: This review is of the Lamplighter Publishing edition.
Recommended to us by our friends Steve and Kathy Mueller, who at one time were representatives for Lamplighter Publishing, this book is Biblical historical fiction in which the story of Moses and the Israelite exodus from Egyptian bondage is told through a series of letters, written primarily by Sesostris, Prince of Tyre, to his mother, Queen Epiphia of Phoenicia, while visiting in Egypt, and then forty years later, by Remeses his son to Sesostris while he too is visiting in Egypt after his father has succeeded to the throne. Other than the fictional Prince of Tyre and the obvious “poetic license” needed to fill in the details of the novel, the plot is amazingly true to the Biblical account, with a couple of small exceptions. I do disagree with the author’s assumption that Moses did not learn about his Hebrew heritage until he was around 35. However, it is still a well-written and interesting novel.
J. H. Ingraham (January 26, 1809 – December 18, 1860) was an American author and minister. Born in 1809 at Portland, ME, he spent several years at sea on one of his grandfather’s vessels, and then worked as a teacher of languages in Mississippi, where he began writing. In 1835 he published The Southwest, by a Yankee. The next year Lafitte, the Pirate of the Gulf was issued. Burton; or, The Sieges, a novel of Aaron Burr and Revolutionary Days, appeared in 1838. Novel followed novel in rapid succession so that by 1846 he had written eighty novels. At Natchez, he married Mary Brooks; she was a cousin of Phillips Brooks, who wrote “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” The couple had three daughters and a son. In the 1840's Ingraham published work in Arthur's Magazine and became an Episcopal minister on March 7, 1852. Under the pen-name of F. Clinton Barrington he wrote stories for popular publications like Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion. At the age of 51, he died in 1860, at Holly Springs, MS, from an accidental, self-inflicted gunshot wound in the vestibule of his church.
The Pillar of Fire, published just a year before Ingraham’s unfortunate and untimely death, was the third most popular book read in America the day after the Civil War. It is an eloquently-written, illustrative account of the Prince of Tyre during his visit to Egypt more than 3500 years ago. The author brings full color and inspiration to every page in this suspense-filled drama, including flashbacks which explain how Moses came to be raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. It is said to be one of the books that Cecil B. DeMille used as the basis for the plot of his epic film The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston as Moses. We did this as a family read aloud, and many were the places where we were able to say, “Aha! We know what is going to happen next.” It is the first in the author's Biblical trilogy, followed by The Throne of David and The Prince of the House of David. Everyone enjoyed it. We have read other excellent Lamplighter reprints of Biblical historical fiction, such as Joel: A Boy of Galilee by Annie Fellows Johnston and Titus: A Comrade of the Cross and Stephen: A Soldier of the Cross both by Florence Morse Kingsley.
Recommended to us by our friends Steve and Kathy Mueller, who at one time were representatives for Lamplighter Publishing, this book is Biblical historical fiction in which the story of Moses and the Israelite exodus from Egyptian bondage is told through a series of letters, written primarily by Sesostris, Prince of Tyre, to his mother, Queen Epiphia of Phoenicia, while visiting in Egypt, and then forty years later, by Remeses his son to Sesostris while he too is visiting in Egypt after his father has succeeded to the throne. Other than the fictional Prince of Tyre and the obvious “poetic license” needed to fill in the details of the novel, the plot is amazingly true to the Biblical account, with a couple of small exceptions. I do disagree with the author’s assumption that Moses did not learn about his Hebrew heritage until he was around 35. However, it is still a well-written and interesting novel.
J. H. Ingraham (January 26, 1809 – December 18, 1860) was an American author and minister. Born in 1809 at Portland, ME, he spent several years at sea on one of his grandfather’s vessels, and then worked as a teacher of languages in Mississippi, where he began writing. In 1835 he published The Southwest, by a Yankee. The next year Lafitte, the Pirate of the Gulf was issued. Burton; or, The Sieges, a novel of Aaron Burr and Revolutionary Days, appeared in 1838. Novel followed novel in rapid succession so that by 1846 he had written eighty novels. At Natchez, he married Mary Brooks; she was a cousin of Phillips Brooks, who wrote “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” The couple had three daughters and a son. In the 1840's Ingraham published work in Arthur's Magazine and became an Episcopal minister on March 7, 1852. Under the pen-name of F. Clinton Barrington he wrote stories for popular publications like Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion. At the age of 51, he died in 1860, at Holly Springs, MS, from an accidental, self-inflicted gunshot wound in the vestibule of his church.
The Pillar of Fire, published just a year before Ingraham’s unfortunate and untimely death, was the third most popular book read in America the day after the Civil War. It is an eloquently-written, illustrative account of the Prince of Tyre during his visit to Egypt more than 3500 years ago. The author brings full color and inspiration to every page in this suspense-filled drama, including flashbacks which explain how Moses came to be raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. It is said to be one of the books that Cecil B. DeMille used as the basis for the plot of his epic film The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston as Moses. We did this as a family read aloud, and many were the places where we were able to say, “Aha! We know what is going to happen next.” It is the first in the author's Biblical trilogy, followed by The Throne of David and The Prince of the House of David. Everyone enjoyed it. We have read other excellent Lamplighter reprints of Biblical historical fiction, such as Joel: A Boy of Galilee by Annie Fellows Johnston and Titus: A Comrade of the Cross and Stephen: A Soldier of the Cross both by Florence Morse Kingsley.
October 11, 2024
On my book list because the movie The Ten Commandments is based on it. Starts out with a Syrian man sending letters home to his mom...with extremely descriptive language explaining everything he sees and does on his trip to Egypt, including recognizing the features of the prince he's staying with are very similar to that of the Hebrew slaves. Turns out this prince is actually Moses, and I got through 75% of the book before I realized I just couldn't go on. Marked it as DNF for now and moving on.
July 26, 2020
Historical fiction of Moses. Old book...1859.
Fun thoughts from author of how things might have happened.
Fun thoughts from author of how things might have happened.
April 27, 2019
'Then send out for some pillars and Cecil B. DeMille'
Bob Dylan, Tombstone Blues
And so they did. The result was one of my favourite Sunday afternoon films when growing up, The Ten Commandments, old-school Hollywood spectacle at it's best, based in part on this mid-19th century tome by a long-winded clergyman and author who once told Longfellow that he had written twenty novels in a single year. A plague of novels, you might say.
Don't go expecting any plagues in the first four hundred pages here, however, or even so much as a burning bush. Ingraham takes his sweet time getting to the Moses story we all know from the Book of Exodus, taking us instead on an extended tour of ancient Egypt, its people, customs, military, and religion, all seen through the eyes of Sesostris, a visiting prince from Phœnicia.
As such, I don't know how useful the first two thirds of this book is nowadays, our understanding of Egyptian history has greatly increased since then. Ingraham intends to be as accurate as possible, using the contemporary work of Nolan and Seyffarth as his guide, but even a layman like me could detect that the chronological and historical errors were many.
He set the Exodus in the 16th century BC, which is as likely as any, yet if so then it simply could not have been during the reign of the Pharaoh's Daughter of the Bible. The princess who adopted Moses was probably called Bithia, not Amense as she is here, and was certainly never Pharaoh herself.
During this ethnographic preamble, which turned out to be the bulk of the book, Moses is called Remeses, while Rameses is called Mœris. I admit to being confused by this for a while. Athe outset, Moses is an enlightened Egyptian prince aged thirty-four. He sees beyond the pantheistic religion of his people and believes in "the One God, God of gods."
Rather incredulously he also perceives that the earth is a globe which revolves around the sun, fully three thousand years before Copernicus figured it out.
The Egyptian religion is shown to be above the Phoenician, as the new religion of the Hebrews will be above the Egyptian. As Rameses tells Sesostris:
"The figures of our gods, which you see hewn in marble, painted on temples, standing colossal monoliths in the entrance of the city, are but vicarious forms, not intended to be looked upon as real divine personages. Not a child in Egypt believes that a being exists, with the head of a bird joined to the human form—... They are all, simply personifications of divine attributes."
There was an awful lot of that kind of talk, much more than the average reader would be willing to bear. I bet old Cecil himself skipped most of those parts, though he obviously paid attention to the passages detailing the treatment of the Hebrew slave colony at Goshen, including the incident where Moses stepped in to prevent the ill-treatment of an old man.
Only when Moses was banished from Egypt, staying with the Prince of Uz (more commonly known as Job) did the narrative start to move. In fact when the plagues finally arrived, Ingraham ran through them pell-mell, as though he realised he had already wasted too much time playing the historian.
I was ok with this scholarly approach, or at least found these bits preferable to moments when the author injected some personal drama into all the epistolary sightseeing, such as Amense's efforts to keep the truth of her adopted son's Hebrew identity a secret from him. The scenes between them were the worst kind of melodramatic drivel.
In the final two hundred pages Charlton Heston really came into his own.
Bob Dylan, Tombstone Blues
And so they did. The result was one of my favourite Sunday afternoon films when growing up, The Ten Commandments, old-school Hollywood spectacle at it's best, based in part on this mid-19th century tome by a long-winded clergyman and author who once told Longfellow that he had written twenty novels in a single year. A plague of novels, you might say.
Don't go expecting any plagues in the first four hundred pages here, however, or even so much as a burning bush. Ingraham takes his sweet time getting to the Moses story we all know from the Book of Exodus, taking us instead on an extended tour of ancient Egypt, its people, customs, military, and religion, all seen through the eyes of Sesostris, a visiting prince from Phœnicia.
As such, I don't know how useful the first two thirds of this book is nowadays, our understanding of Egyptian history has greatly increased since then. Ingraham intends to be as accurate as possible, using the contemporary work of Nolan and Seyffarth as his guide, but even a layman like me could detect that the chronological and historical errors were many.
He set the Exodus in the 16th century BC, which is as likely as any, yet if so then it simply could not have been during the reign of the Pharaoh's Daughter of the Bible. The princess who adopted Moses was probably called Bithia, not Amense as she is here, and was certainly never Pharaoh herself.
During this ethnographic preamble, which turned out to be the bulk of the book, Moses is called Remeses, while Rameses is called Mœris. I admit to being confused by this for a while. Athe outset, Moses is an enlightened Egyptian prince aged thirty-four. He sees beyond the pantheistic religion of his people and believes in "the One God, God of gods."
Rather incredulously he also perceives that the earth is a globe which revolves around the sun, fully three thousand years before Copernicus figured it out.
The Egyptian religion is shown to be above the Phoenician, as the new religion of the Hebrews will be above the Egyptian. As Rameses tells Sesostris:
"The figures of our gods, which you see hewn in marble, painted on temples, standing colossal monoliths in the entrance of the city, are but vicarious forms, not intended to be looked upon as real divine personages. Not a child in Egypt believes that a being exists, with the head of a bird joined to the human form—... They are all, simply personifications of divine attributes."
There was an awful lot of that kind of talk, much more than the average reader would be willing to bear. I bet old Cecil himself skipped most of those parts, though he obviously paid attention to the passages detailing the treatment of the Hebrew slave colony at Goshen, including the incident where Moses stepped in to prevent the ill-treatment of an old man.
Only when Moses was banished from Egypt, staying with the Prince of Uz (more commonly known as Job) did the narrative start to move. In fact when the plagues finally arrived, Ingraham ran through them pell-mell, as though he realised he had already wasted too much time playing the historian.
I was ok with this scholarly approach, or at least found these bits preferable to moments when the author injected some personal drama into all the epistolary sightseeing, such as Amense's efforts to keep the truth of her adopted son's Hebrew identity a secret from him. The scenes between them were the worst kind of melodramatic drivel.
In the final two hundred pages Charlton Heston really came into his own.
June 11, 2009
This book was a rather slow read, but I got some interesting ideas from it. For instance, it describes how each of the punishments God meted out on the Egyptians undermined one or more of their "gods", so he was systematically disproving the authenticity of each of the Egyptian gods in turn.
July 30, 2013
Once again, beautiful depictions of age-old stories.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews