The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1575 page)

see
MORMONS
.

 
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Mortal sin
.

According to Christian (mainly Catholic) teaching, a deliberate act of rejecting God as one's final end in favour of some lesser desire. It is held to involve both the loss of sanctifying
grace
and eternal damnation. See also
VENIAL SIN
.

 
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(Lat.,
mortificare
, ‘to kill’). The ‘killing’ or subduing, especially through
ascetic
practices, of unruly or disordered appetites which militate against spiritual advance.

 
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(
c.
13th cent. BCE)
. Jewish leader and lawgiver. According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was born in Egypt to Amram and Jochabel, who hid him in the reeds of the river Nile to escape Pharaoh's order to slaughter all Jewish male babies. He was rescued by Pharaoh's daughter: ‘From the water I drew him’ (Exodus 2. 10),
meshitihu
, hence the name Mosheh (Eng. Moses). While keeping his father-in-law's sheep on Mount Horeb, he encountered God in a
burning bush
. He was commanded to liberate the Hebrew slaves in Egypt and lead them to the
Promised Land
. He guided them for forty years in the wilderness, and, on Mount
Sinai
, he received God's revelation of
Torah
, including the
Ten Commandments
. Before his death, he appointed
Joshua
as his successor. In the Jewish tradition, Moses has a unique status. In Christianity, he appears with Jesus at his transfiguration (Mark 9. 2–8) and, according to the Qur’
n, where he is known as M
s
, he prophesied the coming of Mu
ammad (7. 140).

 
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Moses, Assumption of
.

Jewish
apocryphal
text. The
Assumption
of
Moses
probably dates from the 1st cent. CE. It consists of a prophecy by Moses for his successor
Joshua
, concerning the future of the Israelites and the last days.