On the Origin of Administrative and Management Sciences: A Further Study of Jethro

Abstract

In 2006, we published an article titled “Jethro as the Patriarch of Administration and Management: An Analysis of his Works;” subsequently, we received numerous reactions some of which were laudatory and informative while others challenged our scholarship by demanding further inquiry. However, what had the most profound impact on us was its being utilized as a recommended text in a tertiary institution in the United States of America (US). Following this welcome development, we received an avalanche of feedbacks asking: “where is Midian?” “What society produced the learning and experience that informed such knowledgeable, concise and timeless counsel?” “Jethro was not Jewish and the interface with Moses predates Christianity; so, of what religion was he priest?” Thereafter, the publication of another article that also reviewed the works of Jethro from another perspective and the reactions it also generated gave us the desired impetus to search further. This paper is therefore a response to the intellectual challenge posed by the questions; it searches the pages of the Bible and extra-biblical literatures, scans the history of civilizations in antiquity, burrows into the background of Jethro and concludes that he is the most revered prophet of Druze religion and that the taproot of administrative and management sciences is imbedded in Babylon, which, at a point in history, was ruled by Medians and Persians.

Keywords: Satrap, Hisher, Hidden Prophet, Revealed Prophet, Book of Jasher