The Pentateuch: Exodus–Deuteronomy

Abstract

The Pentateuch:Exodus–Deuteronomy Christopher T. Begg, Fred W. Guyette, John M. Halligan, Martin Nitsche, and Richard A. Taylor Christopher T. Begg Catholic University of America Fred W. Guyette Erskine College and Seminary John M. Halligan St. John Fisher College Martin Nitsche Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main Richard A. Taylor Dallas Theological Seminary 1298. [Exodus Covenant Tradition] Micha Roi, "'You Shall Worship God on This Mountain' (Exod 3:12) as a Key to Revealing the Roots of the Sinai Covenant," Beit Mikra 65 (1, 2020) 138-63 (Hebrew). In their attempt to trace the literary development of the Sinai covenant tradition from its earliest stages, many biblical scholars distinguish between the foundational elements of the narrative and those that were added later. This article seeks to identify the original components of the narrative by reading the account of Israel's arrival at Sinai in Exodus 19 as a "scene of return," i.e., a moment at which the protagonist of the story comes back to a sacred place where he had camped during a previous journey. In the case of Moses, the protagonist of the Sinai narrative, the deity's statement to him "you shall worship God on this mountain" in Exod 3:12, which appears in the context of the exchange between God and Moses at Horeb in Exodus 3–4 as an announcement pointing toward a later return by Moses to the site, creates a link between Moses's two stays at the sacred mountain, thereby strengthening the identification of the sites in question and the understanding of Exodus 19 as a "return scene." [End Page 477] Analysis of the five biblical narratives that reflect the "return scene" motif shows that in these narratives the hero returns to a sacred place in order to "worship God" there, an act which serves to "repay" God for having escorted and protected him during his travels and for leading him safely back to his starting point. This mutual exchange involving divine accompaniment and human worship, in turn, gives rise to a covenant between the two parties. The verses that present the two parties to the agreement between God and Israel with its leader Moses, i.e., Exod 19:1-8, constitute the first part of the story of the Sinai covenant. The close affinities between the story of Moses's journey and twofold encampment at God's mountain in Exodus on the one hand and Jacob's journey to Bethel and his double stay there (Genesis 28 and 35) on the other help reveal the elements of the current Sinai covenant narrative that are its original constituents. Comparison of the two narratives leads to the conclusion that the details of the Genesis stories of Jacob at Bethel which seem to have a distinctive and specific character, focusing as they do on a particular time and place, take on an absolute and universal quality in the Sinai covenant narrative with its timeless commands. The Sinai ordinances, which relate to the repudiation of concrete ritual objects, the prohibition of sexual activity within the sanctuary, the erection of an altar, and the offering of sacrifices upon it, and the naming of the Sinai site with God's own name, constitute the second (original) part of the Sinai covenant narrative that is preserved in Exod 20:19-23. The fact that this original narrative speaks of the first covenant between God and Israel as the context within which absolute commands (laws) appear prompted the later insertion of legal codes and other types of material within that original account. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] Google Scholar 1299. [Law-Didactic Torah Composition in Exodus 1–15] Kåre Berge, "Law-Didactic Torah Composition in the Exodus Narrative?" Fortgeschriebenes Gotteswort, 43-53 [see #1707]. B.'s essay seeks to make the case that the extant text of Exodus 1–15 features considerable evidence of an overarching didactic purpose of the narrative, e.g., the use of wisdom vocabulary familiar from the OT Wisdom Books, the depiction of the call of Moses in Exodus 3–4 as one who is charged with providing guidance for the people, the contrast between the "foolish" Pharaoh...