Thread by @RabbiHarvey

I'm in a teaching mood tonight, so who wants to sit down and learn a little about the Wilderness Narrative and why it's so important? You thought the Books of Exodus and Numbers were just some stories? Heck no. Dive in with me. #Thread #threadstorytime #threadhorror

So what is the purpose of the Wilderness Sojourn? Simply put, there was a gap between the Exodus narrative and the Holy Land narrative, and some filler was needed. That's what "Bemidbar" is all about, a repository of stories. /1

And where did the authors get these stories? Of course, from other Near Eastern legends! Stories of snakes and raining bread, dangers and encounters with enemies, all to fill the time when the Israelites were "wandering" in the wilderness before they get to Canaan. /2

Now, more importantly, within the Wilderness Sojourn (within Exodus and Numbers) there are 12, count them TWELVE, complaint scenes, meaning 12 scenes that express either a Challenge to Moses’ or God’s Leadership OR Complaints about lack of sustenance. /3

This isn't because the Israelites were so kvetchy. These stories involve concern for survival and the questioning of the legitimacy of leadership, a challenge to Moses or God concerning sustenance, or a rebellion against their leadership. /4

These stories most likely were added late to the final rendition of the extended narrative from Exodus through Joshua. Regardless of their origin, it is not difficult to sense their artificiality.
Artificiality is endemic to the entire literature of the wilderness narrative. /5

By the by, if you've been reading the Torah/Bible in English, you'll miss that very obvious artificiality of these complaint scenes. The PEAK of the 12 scenes is the Golden Calf story. Why is this important? /6

One cannot understand the Golden Calf story without coming to terms with the character of rebellion and murmuring scenes as components of the wilderness narrative. Scholars suggest that it was the desire to insert the Golden Calf story into the Decalogue stories.../7

...that fostered the very notion of the wilderness sojourn as a whole. Without the wilderness, there is no place for the Decalogue tablets or the Golden Calf to take place. In other words, the 10 commandments were made possible BY the wilderness sojourn! /8

Once a need to include this extended episode (Exodus 32-34), the narrative potential of the wilderness was realized and exploited by subsequent authors. Only late in their development were the stories harmonized with the grander conceptualization of a wilderness sojourn.../9

...whose primary function was to make possible the inclusion of the Decalogue scene! In sum, The key to understanding the Decalogues (10 Commandments) and their various versions is understanding the Golden Calf Story. AND The key to understanding the Golden Calf Story.../10

...and how it was written is understanding its relationship to the wilderness stories that are built upon:
Apostasy motifs & Complaint motifs

Wilderness stories are built around seven literary stations:
/11

1. The context of the complaint, historical or geographic
2. The complaint
3. Moses’ response
4. Appeal to God
5. Divine intercession in the form of a reply or instructions
6. A miracle
7. The lesson(s) to be drawn from the story, or a conclusory site-naming (etiology)
/12

The Best example to look at is Exodus 14:10-31 as it is The most complete and logically organized. But we Removed the battle scenes in verses 23-30 as they are embellishments. See attached image: /13

The only narrative imperfection, if it is that, appears in the 4th station “Appeal to God.” Many complaint stories have Moses as a target of the complaint, and Moses transfers the concerns to God. For some reason, this story does not depict that scene explicitly. /14

Assumes the scene, as the 5th station shows God asking Moses why the latter is bringing the complaint to him. Then there is the Divine Intervention (A hodgepodge of themes) The author was attempting to tie in a variety of tropes.“hardening of hearts”
“the leading angel” etc./15

Let's look at Exodus 15 which has an amalgam of motival elements, Disruption to the standard structure, Two miracles and Divine intercession which occurs after the first miracle (which makes little sense). It Relies heavily on standard motifs and tropes we know.../16

...of from other biblical passages. See Image attached. /17

There are three overarching motival elements in one “story”. Thirst and water motif, Testing motif & Miracle of healing motif.
Also we should note the Inclusion of the place name “Marah”, which continues the Geographization of the wilderness sojourn. /18

We see plenty of places identified to anchor the narrative in a physical reality usually at the beginning or ending of a story, but the Etiology is out of place here.
Standard biblical pattern is to name a place as a result of some experience unique to a locale../19

Such as when Jacob names Beth-El (House of El) after recognizing that God (Elohim) dwelled • there (Gen 28:18) Peniel (Face of El) is named after Jacob establishes that he has seen God face to face (Gen 32:31), so here The site naming is premature. /20

The trope violates the standard structure of narratives that serve etiological functions. This violation may have resulted from the overabundance of motival elements forced into these very few verses.Or, an emendation to identify an event known from another piece of literature/21

...now lost. There is no other reference to these “bitter waters” elsewhere in the Tanakh. Y'all KNOW how I love those theories! The magical purification of the dangerous water is a variant on a motif known from other stories. Water often services metaphorical roles/22

It Symbolizes a variety of beliefs, A variant of a core cultural belief, which works in two ways:
Water can both purify and pollute Water can bring life, and cause death.
We see the Same Motif in 2Kings 2:19-22 (see image) /23

Each of these scenes carry remnants of other Near Eastern legends and tropes from other Biblical references, and maybe in a few days I'll continue the lesson so that we get to the Golden Calf...sound good? Enjoy :)
/END

If you want to learn how to read the Bible this way (which is FAR more fun than just saying "my pastor told me it means this...) then pick up my book as a starting place!
amazon.com/Lets-Talk-Rabb…