Joel Swagman (Reviews / TESOL): The Book of Exodus (From The Jerusalem Bible)

(Book Review--The Bible, Religion, The Classics)

Part of my project to read through the Bible.

Started: January 13, 2022

Finished: March 20, 2022

(This review is written using my new format for book reviews.)

I've already given my history with the Bible and my rationale for re-reading it in my review of the first book: Genesis. So I won't repeat all that here. Let's just jump into the review.

Background Information

This is the 2nd book of the Bible, and also the 2nd book of Torah (a.k.a. the books of the law). The first part of Exodus is the narrative--the escape from Egypt--and the second half is a lot of laws being listed off.

As with Genesis, this book was traditionally ascribed to Moses, but modern scholarship has shown that it is composed of 4 sources--the (J) Jawhist source, The (E) Elohist Source, The (P) Priestly Source, and the (D) Deuteronomist. Christine Hayes, in her lectures on the Old Testament, says of Exodus: "Source critical scholars believe that J supplies the main narrative of this unit in Exodus. It’s supplemented by excerpts from E, and then the addition of considerable legal and ritual and genealogical material from P." (See Lecture 7 HERE).

Modern scholars believe Exodus to be myth, and not history. This is based on the fact that archeology has disproven the Biblical account of the conquest of Canaan and has shown instead that the nation of Israel began as a group inside of Canaan and not as group of outside invaders. (There seems to be uniformity on this point from everything I've ever read or listened to on Biblical scholarship--see The Yale Lectures by Christine Hayes, The Unauthorized Version by Robin Lane Fox, The Bible Tells Me So by Peter Enns, and BBC Bible Mysteries.) So, if there's no conquest of Canaan, and no outside invaders, then that would seem to imply no exodus from Egypt.

But some historians think that even if Exodus might not be 100% true, there might at least be some historical memory preserved in it. Even though the majority of the Israelites were Canaanites, perhaps some proportion of the people of Israel might have originally been escaped slaves. And perhaps this is where the myth of Exodus comes from. Christine Hayes explores some of these different theories in Lecture 7 and Lecture 12.

Summary

The narrative sections of this book (Moses and Pharaoh, the 10 plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, etc) are so well-known that I don't think I need to recap them here.

(Although, as with every book of the Bible, it is worth noting that in addition to the stories everyone knows from Sunday School, there are a few bizarre stories that no one ever talks about. Like the part when Moses is journeying to Egypt, and God meets him at night and tries to kill him.)

But in addition to the well-known narrative, there is a lot of law. This, after all, is part of The Torah, which literally means "the books of the law".

Genesis is also technically part of the books of the law, but Genesis was all narrative. (Sidenote: I've always thought it was a misnomer to call Genesis one of the books of the law, but I don't know--maybe the parts about the covenant of circumcision count as part of the law?) But from Exodus onwards, we're getting into a lot of law. So get ready to set the narrative aside for long stretches and just read about the law.

Exodus 1-19 is mostly narrative. (Some law is snuck in here--like the instructions for the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but its mostly narrative.) But then from Exodus 20, we start getting into the laws. Exodus 20-24 is mostly general societal laws (laws on punishments for various types of homicides, laws on how to treat slaves, etc.)

Exodus 20 is also where we get our first version of the 10 commandments. (I say "first version" because there's a second version of the 10 commandments in Deuteronomy 5. Apparently the version in Exodus is from the P Source, and the version in Deuteronomy is from the D source. They're both basically the same idea, but the wording is different. According to the footnotes in The Jerusalem Bible, the version that you normally hear in church is the second version from Deuteronomy 5.)

Then from Exodus 25 to 31, we leave the societal stuff behind, and now it's all about religious objects and rituals --how to construct the tabernacle, and how to construct the other holy materials (e.g. instructions on how to make the alters, how to make the garments for the priests, the sacred lamps, etc).

These lists of instructions are interrupted by The Golden Calf incident in Exodus 32-34, in which we have a brief insertion of narrative. But then once that episode is over, we get back to the description of religious objects.

From Exodus 35-40, we get a description of how the tabernacle and the other holy materials are constructed. It's largely an exact repeat of the earlier instructions, only the verb tenses change. That is, in Exodus 25-31, it says things like "God said to build the tabernacle like this" but in Exodus 32-34, it's like "he built the temple like this."

The Reading Experience

Within the book of Exodus are some of the most iconic stories of Western Civilization. And they are iconic for a reason. As children, we were all fascinated by the stories of the 10 plagues, or the parting of the Red Sea, right?

But that's from a child's perspective. From an adult perspective, the fact that these stories are so overly-familiar can act as a negative. I had to fight to keep my brain from switching into auto-pilot mode as I read through these familiar stories.

But then, midway through the book of Exodus, we start getting into all those old archaic Hebrew laws.

I had bad memories from 7th grade (the last time I read through the Bible straight through) of endless lists of boring laws, so I was dreading coming to this section. But you know what? The section on the societal laws (Exodus 25 to 31) was actually pretty interesting. I found it interesting to compare these laws to today's standards, and see which of these old laws still seems pretty fair and reasonable by today's standards, and which ones have not aged so well. (There are plenty of examples for both categories.)

But from Exodus 35 on, we get the section on the specifications for how to build the temple, and how to construct the sacred objects, and those parts just absolutely bored me to tears.

Not only did it bore me, but I found it really difficult to concentrate on those passages. My mind kept wandering, and I really had to fight to try to get through those sections without losing focus.

But it wasn't just a problem of willpower. I found I also had problems visualizing it. When there are descriptions of what the tabernacle is supposed to look like, I found I couldn't really transfer the written words into a visual picture in my head.

(I wonder if I'm just bad at comprehending literary descriptions. After all, I've been making the same complaint about Tolkien's descriptions. Maybe it's just me.)

"You know what I could really use," I thought to myself, "is some illustrations here. We need an illustrated Bible that could have pictures of exactly what all this stuff looked like: the tabernacle, the offertory table, the lamp-stand, the ephod, the pectoral of judgement--all of this stuff, it would be really nice to have pictures."

And then, I remembered that the Internet exists, and that I could just google this stuff and find illustrations online. So that's what I did, and seeing pictures of this stuff helped me a lot.

It took me 10 weeks to finish Exodus, which is admittedly going at a very slow pace. (I finished Genesis in just over 2 weeks). To be fair to myself, I have gotten really busy recently, but I also just lost my enthusiasm for this reading project once I got into all those boring sections describing the tabernacle and the alters etc.

I even began to regret my decision to start on this reading project. I began to remember how boring I had found these sections of the Bible 30 years ago. I had slogged through it then, but maybe once was enough? Why was I putting myself through this again when I had already read the Bible once? (I whined about some of this on my Weekly Reading Vlogs).

After finally finishing the reading of Exodus, I started listening to some audio versions off of Youtube to keep it fresh in my mind while preparing this review. There are good audio recordings of the Contemporary English Version (HERE) and the King James Version (HERE). The audio recordings for Exodus are under 3 hours long, and can be listened to in an afternoon. Which put things in perspective a bit for me. All that whining and complaining I did, all those weeks, and the book can be finished off in about 3 hours!

Extended Quotation Exodus 26: 1-30

26. 1 “Make the tabernacle with ten curtains of finely twisted linen and blue, purple and scarlet yarn, with cherubim woven into them by a skilled worker. 2 All the curtains are to be the same size—twenty-eight cubits long and four cubits wide. 3 Join five of the curtains together, and do the same with the other five. 4 Make loops of blue material along the edge of the end curtain in one set, and do the same with the end curtain in the other set. 5 Make fifty loops on one curtain and fifty loops on the end curtain of the other set, with the loops opposite each other. 6 Then make fifty gold clasps and use them to fasten the curtains together so that the tabernacle is a unit.

7 “Make curtains of goat hair for the tent over the tabernacle—eleven altogether. 8 All eleven curtains are to be the same size—thirty cubits long and four cubits wide. 9 Join five of the curtains together into one set and the other six into another set. Fold the sixth curtain double at the front of the tent. 10 Make fifty loops along the edge of the end curtain in one set and also along the edge of the end curtain in the other set. 11 Then make fifty bronze clasps and put them in the loops to fasten the tent together as a unit. 12 As for the additional length of the tent curtains, the half curtain that is left over is to hang down at the rear of the tabernacle. 13 The tent curtains will be a cubit longer on both sides; what is left will hang over the sides of the tabernacle so as to cover it. 14 Make for the tent a covering of ram skins dyed red, and over that a covering of the other durable leather.

15 “Make upright frames of acacia wood for the tabernacle. 16 Each frame is to be ten cubits long and a cubit and a half wide,17 with two projections set parallel to each other. Make all the frames of the tabernacle in this way. 18 Make twenty frames for the south side of the tabernacle 19 and make forty silver bases to go under them—two bases for each frame, one under each projection. 20 For the other side, the north side of the tabernacle, make twenty frames 21 and forty silver bases—two under each frame. 22 Make six frames for the far end, that is, the west end of the tabernacle, 23 and make two frames for the corners at the far end. 24 At these two corners they must be double from the bottom all the way to the top and fitted into a single ring; both shall be like that. 25 So there will be eight frames and sixteen silver bases—two under each frame.

26 “Also make crossbars of acacia wood: five for the frames on one side of the tabernacle, 27 five for those on the other side, and five for the frames on the west, at the far end of the tabernacle. 28 The center crossbar is to extend from end to end at the middle of the frames. 29 Overlay the frames with gold and make gold rings to hold the crossbars. Also overlay the crossbars with gold.

30 “Set up the tabernacle according to the plan shown you on the mountain.

****ENDQUOTE****

Hopefully this gives you an idea of how mind-numbingly boring the descriptions are. Now just imagine that going on for 10 more pages!

(The above excerpt is from the NIV translation, even though the version I read was The Jerusalem Bible. But I didn't want to type that whole passage out by hand, so I copied and pasted the text from Bible Gateway. The Jerusalem Bible, for whatever reason, isn't online at Bible Gateway. I don't know why. But at any rate, the reading experience is very similar, so I'm just going to use the NIV here.)

Me Being a Skeptical Jerk

The last time I read through the book of Exodus in its entirety, I was still a believing Christian, and I approached it with a sense of reverence.

Now, I'm reading it as a skeptic, and I'm finding that with this changed mindset, the "problems" in the text are just leaping off the page at me. ("Problems" here meaning all the reasons for not accepting this text as divine revelation.)

At the beginning of this reading project, I had tried to promise that it wouldn't be all about pointing out the problems with the Bible. And yet, it was the problems that I kept noticing. Not only did I keep noticing them, but it fascinated me that I had never noticed them 30 years ago.

(Steve Donoghue has made the comment on his channel a few different times that re-reading a book is a worthwhile exercise, because your experience of the book will have changed because you have changed--I guess this is a classic example of that.)

So here's my dilemma: I've promised to try to treat the Bible as literature, and not just talk about the problems with it. And yet I'm finding that my reading experience has consisted overwhelmingly of me just noticing problems. And now I really want to talk about them.

So, I thought what I would try to do is create a new section in my reviews of the Bible: Me Being a Skeptical Jerk in which I could confine these observations to just one part of the review. I'll give myself free reign in this section, but then for the rest of the review, I'll try to talk about other things. We'll see how it goes.

Right, so these are some of the problems that jump out at me:

* The ten plagues is obviously a fairy tale. It's not that I doubt God's power to do it. (If there is a God, then being omnipotent is part of the definition of God.) But any one of these 10 plagues on their own would have completely destroyed Egypt's economy and social structure. There would be no way Egypt could survive through all ten plagues.

* Speaking of which, there's a weird angle going on with these ten plagues (something that doesn't always get talked about in Sunday school), where God is actively hardening Pharaoh's heart so that Pharaoh won't let the Israelites go. (The reason is that God wants to be able to do all 10 plagues, so that he can show off all of his powers to the Egyptians.) So you get these strange passages where God is hardening Pharaoh's heart and preventing him from letting the Israelites go, and then in the very next line God is scolding Pharaoh for not letting the Israelites go.

10 1. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them 2 that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord.”
3 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, “This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me.

(That's from Exodus 10:1-3, but this same dynamic repeats itself a few times during the 10 plagues section.)

This dynamic was also satirized on South Park 10 years ago.

* God is also overly concerned with what the Egyptians think of him throughout the Book of Exodus. The portrayal we get in Exodus is not of a cosmic God who is the creator of the universe, but of a tribal god who is overly concerned about which nations get to humiliate the other nations in some small little corner of the globe.

* I also found it hard to believe that the cosmic God of the universe was micro-managing how his tabernacle and offertory table would be built. Even given the Protestant framework I grew up in, which regards the old Jewish law as something that was swept away by the New Covenant of the New Testament (and thus not important for our lives nowadays), it is still hard to believe that there was ever a time when God cared about how many frames would be in his tabernacle, or what the curtains would be made out of.

* This is something that will be more prevalent in later books (Deuteronomy, 1st Samuel), but the beginning of God's vendetta against the Amalekites is in Exodus 17. (I've talked about the Amalekites before HERE and HERE).

There are a lot of genocides in the Old Testament (especially once we get into the Conquest of Canaan), so it might be a little bit confusing to determine what makes the Amalekites special. But I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that with all those other peoples, the Israelites needed to purge them from the land, but as long as they were out of the land of Israel, they were fine. With the Amalekites, the commandment seems to be that they need to be completely wiped off the face of the earth no matter where they are. An Amalekite needs to be killed just because he exists.

* The late Christopher Hitchens goes through the 10 Commandments for Vanity Fair.

Hitchens points out the irony that almost immediately after the commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is given, this event happens in the narrative:

25 Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. 26 So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him.
27 Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” 28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. 29 Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.” (From Exodus 32:25-29)

Other Odds and Ends

* I continue to find the footnotes in The Jerusalem Bible interesting, particularly when they point out that different sources are being conflated.

For example, sometimes Aaron will speak to Pharaoh (because Moses can't speak in public), but sometimes Moses will speak directly to Pharaoh. The Jerusalem Bible says that this is because two different sources are being conflated.

The tablets of the law are mentioned in the narrative before Moses receives them from Mount Sinai. This is again because of two different sources being conflated.

In one verse it said that Yahweh spoke to Moses face-to-face. But in a later verse (in the very same chapter) it said that no man could look at Yahweh's face and live. Again, apparently two different sources. Et cetera.

However, I wish there were more footnotes, because there are a lot of other times that it feels like different sources are being mashed together, but I can't say for certain.

For example, those passages I mentioned above where the Bible seems to alternate being blaming Pharaoh for being disobedient, while at the same time making explicit that God was hardening his heart and taking away his free will. Is that contradiction explained by different sources?

And then there are the repetitive sections. God will sometimes say one thing, and then just a few paragraphs later say the exact same thing. Is this repetition for stylistic reasons, or is this because different sources are being mashed together?

And am I wrong for sometimes getting the impression that these different sources are being put together carelessly? Or is there an art behind the editing process that I'm just not grasping?

* As I mentioned in my review of Genesis, the style of the Biblical narrative does not meet the expectations of modern readers. And this continues to be true into Exodus. Various characters suddenly appear with no introduction, and we get no hint of where they came from.

There's this guy named Hur who starts showing up as a companion of Moses in some of the stories, but we don't get any clue as to who this guy is. (According to Wikipedia, "His identity remains unclear in the Torah itself, but it is elaborated in rabbinical commentary.")

Also, about halfway through the book of Exodus, Joshua starts showing up as Moses's sidekick. But he's given absolutely no introduction, or explanation about why he's so tight with Moses.

(Again, is this because multiple sources are being put together?)