Manufacturing Judean Myth: The Spy Narrative in Numbers 13–14 as Rewritten Tradition

Abstract

Modern scholarship has almost unanimously viewed the composition of the spy narrative in Num. 13–14 as a process involving multiple sources or redactional layers which were combined over the period of many centuries. By contrast, this study argues that Num. 13–14 was written nearly in its entirety at a single point in time, at a post-deuteronomistic stage, probably in the late Persian period or early Hellenistic era. The major innovation of Num. 13–14 was its account of the death of the exodus generation and its replacement by the younger conquest generation over a period of forty years in the desert—a theme unknown in deuteronomistic or pre-deuteronomistic writings.

The study offers two major arguments in support of the thesis that Num. 13–14 is a unified post-deuteronomistic composition. First, it is the likely inference from the passage’s dependence on multiple precursor traditions which are themselves either deuteronomistic or date from the Persian period and from the complex manner in which these precursor traditions have been interwoven within Num. 13–14. To this end, the study analyses the integration of the previously independent precursor traditions via the use of a ‘rewritten tradition’ model, a method developed from inner-biblical interpretation models. Second, such an understanding of Num. 13–14 offers significant explanatory power for appreciating a major tension within Deuteronomy: that the Israelites in Moab are alternately identified with the Israelites at Horeb or distinguished from them as the next generation.

Other major findings in this thesis are that (1) the Hebronite traditions (concerning the Judahite leader Caleb, the city of Hebron, and ‘the sons of Anak’ who inhabit Hebron) are not vestiges of ancient legend which have been preserved in the text, but are all secondary to the spy-rebellion tradition derived from dtr Deut. 1; (2) gigantic stature was first attributed to the sons of Anak and Nephilim in the composition of Num. 13–14, and to the Anakim and Rephaim of Deut. 1–3 in post-deuteronomistic Hexateuchal additions which harmonised the text with the expansionary Num. 13–14; (3) the extension of the term ‘Rephaim’ to denote entire giant peoples throughout their associated territories also originates with the Hexateuchal harmonisations in Deut. 1–3; (4) the lengthy plus in LXX Num. 14:23bα, in which exemption is made from the divine punishment for all those aged under twenty years of age, is original to the Hebrew Vorlage; (5) the ‘two divine speeches’ in Num. 14 do not derive from two separate sources, but were composed as a single piece, utilising the technique of Wiederaufnahme in order to incorporate the Mosaic intercession into the composition; and (6) Numbers introduces into the Pentateuch a special concern for Judah and the righteous remnant of Israel, symbolised by Caleb and the innocent young ones of the next generation.