Deuteronomy 26-34, Book of Joshua 1-15

I was just wondering, because God goes to great lengths to explain that bad things would only happen to his people if they strayed from him,why it is that Exodus begins by explaining that the bondage in Egypt happened because of a regime change after the time of Joseph.  Just something to think about.

Deuteronomy continues the the job of summarizing what has come before, and finally gets around to reintroducing the significance of Joshua, making a heavy case for him.  I'll have more on that in a moment.

I'd also like to make mention of the fact that God says the ark of the covenant needs to be plastered.  I don't think that was mentioned previously, when God was being incredibly specific about all that.

There's another song that reads like a psalm, with an emphasis on the Rock, which is I think the second time the idea is mooted in the books of Moses.  In Christianity, Jesus famously rechristens Simon as Peter because it means the Rock, which he intends to build his church on.  Peter is a Joshua figure, by the way.

There's mention that the Hebrews void of counsel may be something of a breach of contract, which may explain what happened to them in Egypt, because that was a significant breach in the Genesis lineage.  I've been bringing that up regularly.  This may have something to do with explaining what befell Balaam, a prophet who failed to sway a people in the direction of God.  God doesn't like that sort of thing.

Moses dies, and Deuteronomy ends by noting that there has been no prophet like him since.  There are plenty of other prophets that follow in the Old Testament, but at later times, and of course Christians have Jesus as the new Moses.

The Book of Joshua may be a continuation of Deuteronomy just as Acts is a continuation of the Gospel of Luke.  Didn't I say something like that previously?  At any rate it's a clear distinction from the way other some of the other books chronicling Moses present themselves.  God is still active, but he's not the God who spent all his time building a culture with rules.  He's more like the God who believes in war and conquest above all else, which to be fair Moses also experienced, but not quite to this heavy extent.

Another difference in perspective is the phrasing of what happened to the Red Sea after the flight from Egypt.  Here it's described as melting, several times.  Tradition, and earlier narratives, have it as being parted.  There's a clear difference.  I stated previously that perhaps the later books of Moses were written sooner than the earlier ones.  This difference may be a sign of things not being solidified yet.  Who looks to the Book of Joshua for information concerning the flight from Egypt anyway?

It may also be worth noting that there's a city called Adam, and it doesn't reference the first man in the passage at all.  Possibly indicates where the name came from, or what it inspired, much as the name Eve is described in Genesis itself as having in itself significance beyond being the name of the first woman.  So another indication that Book of Joshua, like Deuteronomy, came first, and Genesis was solidified later, like a Hollywood prequel.

One bit of continuity is the ending of God providing manna.  However, no mention of quail, which is far less famous, and perhaps for this very reason.  He seemed to provide it for the first time twice anyway.

Another lost heroic woman of the Old Testament is the harlot Rabah, who was a citizen of a Jericho who like Lot was the one good person living there, providing shelter for Joshua's scouts and thus securing her and her family's survival in the most famous conquest of the book (she reads like a preview of women in the New Testament).  But there are more.  Many more.  There was certainly war and conquest elsewhere, but here it's so jubilant and almost the whole point entirely, as if it's the template for what is described in earlier instances.  God does tell Joshua how to do it, but again, that's a marked difference between the interactions God has with his chosen representative and all the covenants and social outlines he spent his time reiterating in previous books.

There is a link, however, with the God of Genesis, insofar as Joshua making at least one deal with citizens of a land the Hebrews approach, even though it quickly degenerates into even more war.  That's what Abraham was famous for, a little like the Solomon of his day, a wise ruler (except for tricking people into thinking his wife was his sister).

Jerusalem is mentioned for the first time.  It is one of five kingdoms that attempt to unite against the Hebrew hoard.  Gaza is mentioned, too.  God points out the Philistines to the aging Joshua.  We met them in Genesis, but things didn't end well then, and they will only get worse later.

As if in confirmation of my observations, the Book of Joshua provides another summaries of Moses' conquests.  Here Balaam is mentioned again, this time as a soothsayer.  It may be entirely possibly that God's previously inexplicable crusade against the magical kind of all variations is a reaction to other relationships he's tried to make that failed, unlike with Abraham and his descendants.  You fail, like Balaam, and you become dead to him, an abomination.  He demands success above all else.  Obedience is about as important to him as human life in general.  He tests and tests, and if you fail, he smites you.  The end.

Caleb is finally referenced again!  At this point he has become another Esau or Lot, someone whose story has branched off from the main record that is the Bible.  It is no doubt very likely that people at that time had a lot more stories.  I'm beginning to wish I had access to those, too.  I like these lost figures like Balaam and Caleb, who begins to sound, in the Book of Joshua, almost like a classic Greek warrior.

The Jebusites, one of several tribes routinely referenced in the books of Moses as antagonistic to God's wishes for his people, are referenced as occupying Jerusalem "to this day," another indication that the memory as of the composing of this book was probably fairly recent.  They also read like the predecessors of today's Palestinians.

Deuteronomy 6-25

Sometimes as I'm reading it seems the later books of Moses may have actually been written first.  I know I've already suggested that Exodus itself predated Genesis, and keeping in mind I'm not approaching this from a scholar's perspective.  These are the impressions I get from reading through the Bible.  Another observation is that these books of Moses may be comparable to the gospels of the New Testament, perhaps one or more of them independently composed (there may be a case to be made of a link between Exodus and Leviticus, like Luke and Acts).

Deuteronomy, meanwhile, makes strong Christian waves the further I read into it.  "Man does not live on bread alone," which is something Jesus says in Matthew, pops up.  Again, Christians seem concerned mostly with the big stories from the Old Testament, and then the later prophets, but there's a ton of material in the early books as well.  Deuteronomy is also where love is first referenced in relation to God, and of course that was another of Jesus's favorite edicts.

Another interesting phrase that has nothing to do with Christianity is, "since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it," which is Moses speaking for God, very strongly suggesting the time in which the Moses chronicles began to be solidified out of oral tradition as being very much removed from the Moses experience itself, where there would be far less direct contact with God, when there was clearly plenty of it in the early books.  This is the first mark of distinction between the traditions the Moses books are meant to introduce and those who are later living them.  A lot of the talk about how God claims several generations (at least; because he proclaims as many as ten sometimes) are not allowed to come back into the faith for various offenses or statuses may also indicate how long from the origin point the stories become codified, because the contemporaries of the record will know exactly how long certain families have been excluded from the community.

And yes, I will go on record suggesting that there was a fair bit of interpreting and not strictly experienced material in these books.  The term "divinely inspired" is kicked around a lot by those who want you to believe everything, but even those who make that effort could not possibly translate what are clearly things relevant only to a specific and very much in the past living condition.  You should not read the Bible as if you need to take everything as if it really was and always will be that way.  Because you will probably not be a believer on the other side of the experience.  It's not a surprise that for a long time the actual reading of scripture was kept to a minimum, even considering basic literacy levels.  There's only so much interpreting that can be done.  You need to be able to think critically.  The material that has been included (and there are certain books that aren't in every version although I will be covering some of this apocrypha because it's in mine, and I love me some Tobit) has the greatest amount of religious significance.  By the time anyone realized how much duplicated material existed in the books of Moses, it was probably too late, the same way the gospels present similar biographies for Jesus but material that appears in one or two but not all of them.  Anyway, there's always the chance I will be smited, and so be considered officially sacrilegious.  But even material of this kind can be lost in the boundless sea that is the internet.  Even though it's apparently incredibly rare to actually read the whole Bible and notice these things, there's a very small chance someone else will stumble upon these thoughts and actually care.

The concept of a Hebrew king is referenced for the first time.

God seems to have remarked on a lot of cultures where the offspring are burned as part of a sacrificial offering.  I find this incredibly frightening.

God also doesn't take kindly to the magical arts.  I figure it's because of competition to miracles and such.  This comes up every now and then, although this is the first time it's gone into with any depth.  Normally it was just "they must be smited.  the end."  He then codifies the tradition of prophecy, and even warns against false prophets.  It seems to be implied that the work of prophets can probably be confirmed in a lifetime, something both Jews and Christians have a hard time considering.  Both are institutions that become as much a culture as a faith as time goes on.

The institution of the three path rule is pretty interesting, three cities on the outskirts of every settlement so that those guilty of accidental murder have a place to flee to (so those pursuing them can't guess right away where they went).  Although this is one of the ways where justice has a chance to flourish, God still seems to have a lot of reasons people need to be executed, mostly by stoning.  God, I ask, or Moses?  It's probably easy to assume the one goes hand-in-hand with the other, but that may not be necessarily so.  A little later, Moses talks about divorce, which Jesus specifically contradicts, saying Moses gave this rule as an appeasement to the people of his time.  There is also a contradiction in Deuteronomy to something said in an earlier book (I'm giving you homework to discover where and/or to confirm that I'm not misremembering) about the ability of a man to marry his brother's widow.  I'm pretty sure that it was stated previously that this is wrong, but here Moses says it's okay, that it preserves a family line already begun.  Family lines were incredibly important in Genesis, but not as much in the books of Moses, except to discuss the descendants of the twelve sons of Jacob, or in other words the twelve tribes.  Moses himself is descended from Levi, who was previously not significant in a positive way, and all Levites are made the first priestly class.

Finally, it's made official that usury is okay as long as it's with gentiles.  So that ensures Jews never have problems with their neighbors again!

Did I say "finally"?  Not really!  Because poor Balaam is referenced again, completely ignoring a whole narrative that paints him in incredibly honorable light and condemning him for Moses' misconception that results in an ignominious death.  Thus begins the full burial job that Revelation later echoes.  This may be another sign that the folks putting the Bible together either just didn't realize the Balaam narrative was there or didn't care to eliminate it.  Or perhaps to suggest Moses' imperfection.  But that still leaves the rest of us, because no one ever talks about Balaam, and certainly not as a wise prophet who greatly helped the exiled Hebrews.  If you want to remember the guy himself, please keep that in mind.  A forgotten hero of the faith.

Numbers 21-36, Deuteronomy 1-5

It strikes me as I'm reading, the deep and perhaps hidden significance of the serpent in Old Testament lore.  In Genesis the serpent was always interpreted to be the Devil in disguise, tempting Eve into enacting original sin, cursed by God ever after to wriggle on its belly, and there are other passages about this sorry fate.  And yet in Exodus God also has Moses and Aaron turn the staff trick of transforming it into a serpent, and the image returns in Numbers in an equally famous episode that the medical establishment later adopted, of serpents that God had sent against his continually mischievous people and then the one he asks Moses to place upon a staff to cure them.

So which is it?  Are serpents representations of evil, or are they perhaps after all agents of God?  The Old Testament is littered with God testing his people, who are constantly failing (except Abraham with his near-sacrifice of Isaac, which seems to be the defining point for the foundation of Judaism).  Maybe this whole time we've been misinterpreting the serpent in the garden.  Maybe God always intended man to become aware of his regular duties, which he'd already been given anyway, to be lord and master of the earth much as God is Lord of everything else (and man).  God has a terrible time accounting for all the ways mankind disappoints him, including his own chosen people, and spends a lot of time smiting them in the early books.  He could have just as easily done the job the first time, but didn't.  Sometimes failure is permanent, but the larger point is that God is constantly testing mankind.

And his agent that first time was a serpent.  Put aside the curse he levels against it.  He continues using serpents in the books that follow.  I'm not trying to upend theology here, but these things keep coming to me.  (Don't smite me!)

Anyway, Numbers gets a ton more interesting with the introduction of and narrative that follows Balaam for a while.  There's this whole story of this prophet who exists entirely outside of the Hebrew lineage, an independent phenomenon in direct communication with God.  His whole story is how he gets out of having to condemn the Hebrews as they continue their journey toward the promised land.  It's like the Bible suddenly splits off into an entirely new story filled with its own mythology, right in the middle of the Moses arc.  His own lord and master is displeased each time Balaam reports what God has told him, that he keeps evading the prospect of taking out the Hebrews.

Unfortunately, his narrative ends abruptly, we switch back to Moses, and the next and last time he's brought up Balaam is summarily executed as a collaborator with the enemy, even listed as a villainous presence who actively conspired against the Hebrews.  There's apparently even something about it in Revelation.  The guy's whole reputation is entirely slandered, even though he clearly was working the opposite of how he ends up being perceived, and to make it all the worse, probably no one outside of devoted scholars are even aware today that he ever existed.  Not cool.  So that's another way my ruminations on the Bible will deviate from the record.  Balaam represents an important development in the history of God's interaction with mankind.  He's confirmation that God didn't just pal up with Abraham and his descendants.  And another way in which Moses kind of ended up doing his own smiting along the way, when God failed to do it himself.

There's an interesting phrase to be found here, "son of man," that is associated with repentance, which is another thing later Christians could probably call their own from the earliest books even though they mostly seem concerned with the prophetic later ones.

The classic pagan god Baal is referenced for the first time, as are Hebrew judges, which becomes important later, notably in the books of Judges.

A man named Phinehas manages to talk God out of another round of smiting, which puts him on a certain kind of level with Moses, who managed the fete earlier (and himself then proceeded to smite in the same righteous manner).  This seems significant.  His name, however, has since been forgotten.  Making a note of it here all the same.

Jericho is referenced for the first time.

A second census is carried out, now that a considerable amount of smiting has occurred..  God is also asked to consider women as capable of inheriting property, which he grants.  So that's another positive indication for women in the face of a number of other examples that don't paint them in such favorable light.

Joshua is officially deemed Moses' successor.  God outlines the holy days.  The Judaic tradition of holy war continues, presaging the Crusades and much of what Islam has become.  The exiles start to settle down, which initially causes God discomfit, but he decides to play along.  Canaan, the promised land, is identified as such.  High priests are referenced for the first time, another thing Christians will definitely recognize.

Deuteronomy, the fourth book of Moses and fifth of the Old Testament, begins with something Numbers had done in a different way, recapping the journey to this point.  The Deuteronomy version highly favors the most favorable Judaic interpretation of events.  It also comes in the form of a great speech on the part of Moses, who had initially beggared God to ask for someone else (i.e. Aaron) to do the talking because he was a poor public speaker.  Here he has no problem at all, and seems to relish the role.

The descendants of Esau and Lot are encountered, who are not part of the Hebrew exiles from Egypt.  They are part of separate traditions.  Imagine a Bible that includes their stories as well, or even Balaam's.

The most striking element now seems how easily war-like and conquer-happy the Hebrews are at God's behest.  They sound like Alexander the Great, or Attila the Hun, that sort of phenomenon.  They fight and beat everyone, and assume their territory for their own, a small (relatively speaking) scrappy band of warriors always good for a fight.  You could easily make a movie about Moses and do almost nothing but warfare.

The ten commandments are referenced again, specifically as a covenant.  My interpretation of them will continue to be in the air.  The familiar ones end up being reiterated, in case you'd forgotten, although at that point are not spoken of in relation to a covenant.  God, as I will argue for now, seems far more interested in emphasizing the way to worship him than the moral codes that dominate the latter of the traditional ten commandments, some of which he goes to great lengths to interpret given specific circumstances again and again, such as murder.

That is all for now.