Fact-Checking the Torah -- both-and, not either-or

In Babylonian Talmud Pesachim 6b and other places, Talmud and midrash say “there is no earlier or later in Torah”.

This phrase refers to wrapping up a sidebar (in Olrik’s terms) before moving on to another narrative. Genesis 11 wraps up with the death of Terach, although anybody who can do the math (the midrashic rabbis certainly did it) can tell that Terach lived 65 years after Avraham left Charan. Nevertheless Genesis places most narratives in chronological order due to genetic relationships.

I think the slander episodes in Numbers 12 through 16 are an example of association overcoming chronology.

The first narrative in Numbers 12 has Miriam and Aharon slandering Mosheh’s wife. It takes place specifically while the tabernacle is still outside the camp. After the Levitic consecration, which occurred after the seven days of the yitchata procedure, the tabernacle was moved inside the camp, inside a Levitical buffer zone between it and the non-Levitical Israelites. They were at Sinai when Miriam got leprosy.

This narrative is at the end of Parshah Behaalotkha. Right after that comes Parshah Shlach L’kha and the first attempt to enter the Holy Land. This involves slander of the Holy Land. It happened less than two weeks after the Israelites leave Sinai (“eleven days from Chorev through Har Seir to Qadesh Barnea,” Deuteronomy 1:2). The sequence is valid, but the Miriam incident did not happen at Qadesh, which the Israelites reached after the new camp structure was set up.

The third incident is the rebellion of Qorach and the Reuvenites which slandered Mosheh and Aharon for not getting the Israelites to the Holy Land, and for assuming the priesthood. Parshah Qorach comes immediately after Parshah Shlach L’kha, but some of the things the rebels say make no sense given that chronological order; they make more sense if this rebellion happened at Sinai.

When Datan and Aviram complain that Mosheh has not led them to a land flowing with milk and honey, it’s hypocritical. Their own tribe was among the rebels of the recon party. It’s less hypocritical if they are still at Sinai saying “we came to Sinai and all we got was this lousy tabernacle.”

When Qorach complains that Mosheh and Aharon have arrogated the rulership to themselves, this doesn’t make sense because of Numbers 11. In that chapter not only does the Holy Spirit descend on 72 elders (including Eldad and Medad), but Mosheh explicitly says “I wish all the Israelites had a direct line to Gd.”

The way I think of it, a lot of things produced this clump of narratives. One is the association between these slander incidents.

Another is what Olrik discusses as repetition identifying the importance of an issue, sometimes looking it at it from different angles. The same thing happens in the three (!) captive-wife episodes in Genesis. Here it is so important to emphasize what happens to slanderers of all kinds and classes, that chronology goes to the wall.

A third is a Law of Three; there are only three incidents.

The slander episodes are examples of the Law of Ascents: from 1 person punished to 10 to the 250 elders who joined Qorach and all the relatives of Datan and Aviram. The object of the slander also fits this Olrikian principle: from Mosheh’s wife, to the Holy Land, to Mosheh and Aharon and, by implication, Gd Himself.

I also think that Qorach’s rebellion makes sense if it happened immediately after the death of Nadav and Avihu. In that context, Qorach is saying that it’s an obvious sign that nepotism doesn’t work. It doesn’t make sense to have this happen at Qadesh after the Israelites have been punished for rebellion several times, unless you think Qorach feels invulnerable because he is one of those Levites necessary to the tabernacle service.

To summarize the in-culture structural analysis we have: an expert in Talmud who admits the association principle; the organization of Mishnah which seems to copy the frequency principle; the drill-down structure repeated (if not copied) in Jerusalem Talmud; and the explicit recognition that realtime is sometimes irrelevant. All of these are features of the oral tradition of Judaism.

And narratives associated with these features demonstrate Olrik’s principles.

The discussions in these last four posts are more rocks on the grave of DH. But they are more. The in-culture structural analysis is supplemented by Olrik’s principles, not contradicted. As with Cook, the rabbis and Olrik didn’t know anything about each other, but their material fits together. And that’s a win-win.

One more point on association and then...