Thank you, I’m aware of this. Despite my film-geek credentials on the boards, my background is actually in theater. I have a fine-arts degree with an emphasis in the classics, including Greek theater. And I was using the term as the Greeks did.
There are two keys to understanding “driving the action” in this sense: first, understanding that it’s the action of the story, and second, defining what “action” means. Applied properly, “tortured” readings should not result.
In your examples, Moses is the protagonist of The Ten Commandments because the action of the story is “lead the people to freedom.” In The Lord of the Rings, the action of the story is “destroy Sauron by carrying the Ring to Mount Doom.” The initiation of Sauron’s superobjective precedes the inciting incident of this story. With reference to the original Greeks, Oedipus is the protagonist of his eponymous play, because whatever else might have happened beforehand, and whatever else anybody else might be pursuing, the action of this story is “solve the murder of Laius.”
On the second point, the action is most simply seen as “the change to be accomplished.” In other words, when the protagonist is finished, the world will be different; the antagonist, by contrast, wants to prevent that change. Oedipus, once he unravels the mystery, will punish the king’s murderer; the killer will be exiled. When Frodo is done, the Ring will be destroyed and Sauron will be dead. Frodo’s objective does not result in merely a restoration of the status quo; fundamental change will result.
Okay, yeah, I’ll admit, I was being cutesy with my James Bond example, but since you brought it up… 