Tag: Midianites

#352. Who initiates the proposal to appoint judges over the Israelites: Moses OR Jethro? (Deut 1:9-13 vs Ex 18:17-23)
#353. When is this judiciary appointment made: before OR after Sinai? (Ex 18:13 vs Deut 1:19)
#354. Where is the judiciary formed: at Rephidim OR Horeb? (Ex 19:2 vs Deut 1:19)
#355. What are the criteria of selecting these judges: “men of truth, who fear god and hate gain” OR “men with wisdom, discernment, and knowledge”? (Ex 18:21 vs Deut 1:13)
#356. Did “Moses do everything that Jethro had instructed him to do” OR not? (Ex 18:24-25 vs Deut 1:9-18)

In my previous post, Moses Retells His Story (Part 1) we saw how a reader might react to the realization that Moses’ renarration of the appointment of the judiciary in Deuteronomy 1:9-18 differed significantly from its “original” narration in Exodus 18:13-26. In that post, I neither attempted to explain why, nor how, these differences existed. I simply presented our 1st person reader grappling with these textual inconsistencies and contradictions which heRead More

#313. Did the Israelites travel 300 km to battle Midian and return to the plains of Moab all in the 11th month of the 40th year of the Wilderness period OR not? (Num 31:1-12 vs Deut 2-3)

In my Introduction to Numbers 21, I laid out the chronological and geographical problems created when the variant traditions represented in this chapter were stitched together and a later chronology and wilderness itinerary were superimposed upon it by its editors (see #268 for a visual diagram of this). To some extent Numbers 31 recalls many of these same chronological and geographical discrepancies. Numbers 31 recounts how the Israelites, commanded by Yahweh, are to avengeRead More