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Scholars Say the Darndest Things

Saint Augustine
@SaintAugustine
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According to Exod 18:21–24, in an encounter prior to Yahweh’s revelation of law at Horeb, Moses’s father-in-law, Jethro, recommended that Moses appoint judges to help him manage Israel’s disputes, and Moses did so. According to Deut 1:9–18, Moses appointed judges, but not at the recommendation of Jethro; moreover, D states that this judicial appointment occurred after Yahweh’s revelation at Horeb, not before. Similarly, according to Exod 20:24, Yahweh told Moses at Horeb that the Israelites may build as many altars as they would like in order to sacrifice to their god; by contrast, Deut 12 insists that Israel may build and sacrifice at only one altar. It also pejoratively characterizes the alternative as “each man doing what is right in his own eyes” (Deut 12:8). Finally, according to Exod 24:10, the elders saw the god of Israel at the mountain. Deuteronomy 4:12, however, insists that Israel saw no divine form on this occasion but instead only heard Yahweh’s voice. Jeffrey Stackert, Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch, page 17

Stackert says these are discrepancies between Deuteronomy and the rest of the Torah.

Stackert clearly knows things I can only dream of knowing--things about ancient history, about the Hebrew language, about whole worlds of scholarship on Deuteronomy. Give the man some credit!

Still, it seems to me that his reasoning here belongs in the YouTube comments section. (In my day it was the AOL Christian Singles chatroom where religion debates of this caliber happened.)

Let's look at these one at a time.

Does the Torah Contradict Itself on Jethro?

Here are the relevant passages, ESV translation:

From Exodus 18: 5 Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness where he was encamped at the mountain of God. . . . 17 Moses' father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. . . . 21 Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. 22 And let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. 23 If you do this, God will direct you, you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.”
From Deuteronomy 1: 5 Beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to explain this law, saying, 6 “The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, ‘You have stayed long enough at this mountain. 7 Turn and take your journey, . . . .' 9 “At that time I said to you, ‘I am not able to bear you by myself. 10 The Lord your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven. 11 May the Lord, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you, as he has promised you! 12 How can I bear by myself the weight and burden of you and your strife? 13 Choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads.’ 14 And you answered me, ‘The thing that you have spoken is good for us to do.’ 15 So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and set them as heads over you, commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties, commanders of tens, and officers, throughout your tribes. 16 And I charged your judges at that time, ‘Hear the cases between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien who is with him. 17 You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God's. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.’ 18 And I commanded you at that time all the things that you should do.

Contrary to Stackert's claim, Deuteronomy 1 does not say that Jethro was not involved. It just doesn't reiterate that he was.

Stackert is correct that Deuteronomy 1 talks about Moses saying these things after the revelation at Mount Horeb/Sinai, while Exodus 18 is talking about something that happened before.

But that's not a discrepancy. That just means two related events happened. The first event is when Moses initially required something, and the second one is when he reiterated it later.

Suppose I tell the kids at breakfast, "If you want any dessert tonight, you'd better clean up the Legos!" And then at dinnertime, I tell them, "Remember when I told you at lunchtime to clean up the Legos if you wanted dessert? Thank goodness, you did! Now we can have ice cream!"

You seeing any discrepancy there?

Yeah, neither am I: I warned the kids twice, once at breakfast and once at lunch; but I only told you about the lunchtime reminder in a dinnertime anecdote.

Does the Torah Contradict Itself on Places of Worship?

Here are the relevant passages, ESV again:

From Exodus 20: 24 An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you.
From Deuteronomy 12: 8 “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, 9 for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you. 10 But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, 11 then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord. 12 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. 13 Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place that you see, 14 but at the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you.

Exodus 20 forbids idols, forbids altars of earth or of unhewn stone, and promises blessing for remembering God anywhere. Deuteronomy 12 follows up with more specific instructions: Destroy pagan altars, and offer sacrifices only at the place designated by God.

At most, what we have here is a later passage forbidding what an early passage merely permits. No contradiction--just more details.

Or an update: The Israelites had some time of wandering between Sinai and Canaan during which to follow the more general instructions from Exodus--40 years of it, after the initial refusal to conquer Canaan. During those 40 years, they showed that they needed a more centralized religion where it would be harder to do "all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes."

Does the Torah Contradict Itself on the Elders Seeing G-d?

Once again, the relevant passages in the ESV:

From Exodus 24: 1 Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. 2 Moses alone shall come near to the Lord, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.” . . . 9 Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, 10 and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness
From Deuteronomy 4:

“And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules[a] that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. . . .

. . .

9 “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children— 10 how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.’ 11 And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. 12 Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.

In other words, 70 elders saw G-d, and the rest of the people didn't. In Deuteronomy 4, Moses is talking to the people as a whole. As simple as that.

Scholars, amiright? They just say the darndest things.

This post was promoted to the Main Feed at the recommendation of Ricochet's members.

Discussion (40)

  • iWe@iWe

    I have written on this before:

    The Torah has Moses retelling the story of the Jewish people from the Exodus until the day of the speech. But this retelling is not the same versions we heard before; indeed, the Moses-specific version comes with very substantial differences! In Numbers, G-d orders the people to send representatives to assess the land of Canaan. In Deuteronomy, those same people were labeled spies – and instead of G-d commanding them to go, it was driven by the agitated people themselves, driven by their fear of the unknown and the human need to avoid risk and plan the future. In other words, the two versions are actually wholly incompatible with the other.

    Yet the Torah presents both. Neither version says the other is actually wrong.

    I think there is a lesson in this, but it is not an easy one for most religious fundamentalists to handle: Moses’ version was true – for him. And the Torah’s earlier version was also true. There was not just one way to tell this story. There was not only one true rendition. This is true about ALL stories, of course. The story itself actually becomes much less important than what the participants and later listeners decide to make of the story!

    and

    The entire last book of the Five Books of Moses, the text I refer to as “The Torah,” is a radical departure from the earlier texts. Deuteronomy is, except for a few verses at the end, a set of speeches given by Moses. These speeches are radical for a very simple reason: the version of events described in them can be very different from how the same event is described earlier in the Torah. Deuteronomy contains Moses’ perspective, and he can present an entirely different set of facts.

    Numbers 13:

    And the Lord spoke to Moshe, saying, “Send thou men, that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel: of every tribe of their fathers shall you send a man, every one a ruler among them.”

    But in Deuteronomy (1:22), Moshe tells the people:

    Then all of you came to me and said, “Let us send men ahead to reconnoiter the land for us and bring back word on the route we shall follow and the cities we shall come to.” I approved of the plan, and so I selected twelve of your men, one from each tribe.

    See the enormous disconnect? In the first telling, the idea is G-d’s. In the second, the idea of sending the spies comes from the people!

    I am well aware that one can try to square the circle and try to make both versions somehow true, though such an attempt flies in the face of the actual words. Nevertheless, that is not nearly as interesting as understanding why the text gives us an entirely incompatible set of explanations for who decided to spy out the land!

    We can understand why Moses might have changed the story: he was not inclined to blame G-d, and he wanted the people to own their own history and be able to consciously grow past it. He wanted the Jewish people to take responsibility and grow even from their failures. Even if it did not really happen that way!

    Yet however we parse it, we have the text with BOTH versions. Which means that the Torah is teaching us, the readers, a very explicit lesson: It is OK to have different – even incompatible – versions of the same story. The purpose of the story is, after all, to grow connections and relationships, to help people make sense of their past, and find the pathways into the future. One could even argue that the Torah’s purpose in telling us the story for a reason easily explains why different explanations of the origin of the world are offered by geologists , physicists, chemists, and, of course, founding religious texts for different religions. There can, thanks to the prism selected, indeed by a vast range of accounts of the creation of the world – with none of them necessarily being wrong.

    And so the purist ideal of “one version,” or perhaps even “one true version,” becomes collateral damage, sacrificed when the purpose justifies it. We can – and should – customize the story for the listener, always seeking to find ways to constructively move forward. It is why it is good and right and proper to find ways to compliment others instead of insisting on “telling it as I see it.” The latter is an act of supreme selfishness and indifference, while the former shows sensitivity and consideration.

    I fear this lesson is often missed by those who insist that there are somehow no inconsistencies in the Torah, that everything dovetails and aligns perfectly. I take the text seriously, so when there are differences within it, then we are to learn from those differences as well.

    The lesson seems evident: there is a deep and inherent value in each person’s perspective. And the notion of a single “true” version of an event is antithetical to the purposes of the Torah. Empathy is a higher goal, because it allows us to build a common vision, an understanding between each other, and between man and G-d.

    It is no accident that the Torah gives us different and contradictory versions of events. It is on purpose, to teach us that, as long as we act in good faith, validating different perspectives, names, and even events, it is an act of love, constructively building relationships. That is what the Torah is all about.

  • Mark Eckel@MarkEckel
    Saint Augustine (View Post):
    Stackert clearly knows things I can only dream of knowing–things about ancient history, about the Hebrew language, about whole worlds of scholarship on Deuteronomy. Give the man some credit!
    Pretty much this summarizes the issue. Yet you extend the kindness of pressing the "scholar's" nose against the glass over and over and over. About the same number of times a parent tells the kids to pick up the Legos. In this case I'll change the analogy - "No soup for you!" No Soup for You!
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