In my write-up today of Robert Alter's The Art of Biblical Narrative, I want to talk about Alter's approach to Numbers 16, which is about the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Before I get into Alter's literary treatment of the chapter, however, I'll summarize Richard Elliott Friedman's source-critical division of it in Who Wrote the Bible? I'll also refer to R.N. Whybray's treatment of the chapter in Making of the Pentateuch.
Here's Friedman's source-critical division of Numbers 16:
In JE, Dathan, Abiram and On, from the tribe of Reuben, rise up against Moses. Moses calls them, and they refuse to come up. They accuse Moses of lording it over Israel, and they say that he has failed to bring Israel into the land flowing with milk and honey. Moses beseeches the LORD not to accept their offering, and Moses contends to the LORD that he has not taken any Israelite's donkey, nor has he wronged any of them.
Moses and the elders of Israel go to Dathan and Abiram, and Dathan and Abiram go outside and stand at the entrance of their tents, with their wives and children. Moses vindicates his own authority by calling on the earth to swallow Dathan, Abiram, and all that belongs to them, and the earth does so. The Israelites are then afraid.
In P, Korah---who is a Levite---and 250 princes of Israel gather against Moses. They ask why Moses and Aaron exalt themselves over the LORD's community, when all of the congregation is holy. Moses instructs Korah and the congregation to take incense-burners, to put fire in them, and to set them before the LORD the next day---and the LORD will demonstrate who is holy. Moses then chastises the sons of Levi for seeking the priesthood, after the LORD had separated them to be close to the LORD, to perform the service of the Tabernacle, and to serve the LORD's congregation.
The next day, the 250 men and Aaron take their incense-burners and add fire and incense to them. The glory of the LORD appears, and the LORD instructs Moses and Aaron to separate themselves from the congregation, for the LORD will consume the congregation instantaneously. Moses and Aaron intercede for the congregation, asking God if he will be angry at the entire congregation for the sin of one man. The LORD then tells Moses to instruct the congregation to get away from the tabernacle of Korah. Moses does so, warning that, if they do not obey his instruction, the Israelites will be destroyed with the sinners. The congregation obeys, and a fire from the LORD then goes out and consumes the 250 princes offering the incense.
Now on to Whybray, a critic of the Documentary Hypothesis (of the sort that Friedman champions). Whybray states the following about Number 16, on pages 90-91:
"And there are clear inconsistencies which appear to be due to the combination of two originally separate stories concerning Korah and his associates on the one hand and Dathan and Abiram on the other, but here again conventional documentary analysis does not solve the problem of composition. The documentary critics agreed that the evidence for a separate E strand here is of a very insubstantial nature: the analysis of J and E 'can only be carried into detail in the most tentative way' (Gray, p. 190). Yet on the other hand they agree that the remainder, although attributed to P, is not straightforward and can best be explained on the hypothesis either of a double source or of a later redaction of an original P. Thus the discrepancies in this narrative seem to suggest the presence not of the three 'classical' documents but rather of a quite different set of elements or traditions peculiar to this chapter, the history of whose composition remains obscure."
There's a lot that I don't know about the scholarly debates about this chapter, but I'll just say my impressions, before I move on to Alter. JE appears to be a continuous narrative in Numbers 16, and that may be why source critics find it difficult to separate J from E, in this case. P, however, looks rather bumpy. There appear to be two conflicts in P. First, there's a competition over the priesthood between the Levites and Aaron. Second, Korah leads 250 princes (who are not identified as Levites) against Moses, with the proclamation that all of Israel is holy, not just Moses and Aaron. So what is the conflict in the priestly source of Numbers 16 about? Is it about whether the Levites or Aaron should have the priesthood, or whether all of the congregation of Israel is holy, meaning that Moses and Aaron should not exalt themselves as special? I can see why there are scholars who divide up P in Numbers 16.
Now, on to Alter. I appreciated Alter's citation of the twelfth century Jewish exegete, Abraham Ibn Ezra, who tries to solve problems in Numbers 16. Abraham Ibn Ezra states:
"Some say that Korah was among those swallowed up, and the proof is 'The earth swallowed them up, and Korah' (Num. 26:10). Others say he was incinerated, and their evidence is 'And Korah, when the congregation perished, when the fire consumed'...And our sages of blessed memory say that he was both incinerated and swallowed up. But in my opinion, only in the place of Dathan and Abiram did the earth split open, for Korah is not mentioned there; in fact, Korah was standing with the chieftains who were offering the incense."
The rabbis' harmonization---that Korah was both incinerated and swallowed up---reminds me somewhat of how some Christian fundamentalists have sought to reconcile Matthew 27:5---which says that Judas hung himself---with Acts 1:18---which says that he fell and burst open, as his bowels gushed out: that his bowels gushed out after he hung himself.
I liked that Alter pointed out that the revolt of Dathan and Abiram was a claim of political authority---"appropriately enough, if one recalls that Reuben is the firstborn of Jacob" (page 134).
But let's look at Alter's approach. Alter attempts a synchronic reading of Numbers 16 in three ways:
First, he argues that there is "evidence of some careful aesthetic and thematic structuring in the story" (page 136). The Korahite rebellion begins with the phrase "It's too much for you," and Moses replies to Korah, "Isn't it too much for you?" The "Reubenite speech of rebellion" also begins with "Isn't it enough?" So a common phrase is in both stories. Another example: "the recurrent thematic key-word" in the Dathan and Abiram story is "to go up," and, at the end of that story, Dathan and Abiram "go down" into the underworld. In the story about Korah, we see the Leitworter "to take" and "to come [or bring] close," which are "terms of horizontal movement toward the center of the cult instead of vertical movement toward or away from dominion."
I'm not clear about what implications Alter's observations have for the authorship of Numbers 16. Do these parallels mean that one person wrote all of Numbers 16, or that one story copied the structure of the other? Alter appears to believe that the two stories are from separate sources, so does he think that the redactor put the parallels into the two stories? But these parallels appear to be fairly integral to the stories, so I have a hard time seeing them as later additions. Or maybe the two stories existed in general forms, and a Hebrew writer brought them together, phrasing them in his own words and connecting them together. Alter calls him the "Hebrew writer" here, not a redactor.
Second, Alter raises the possibility that the punishments in the two stories echo other biblical tales. The earth swallowing up Dathan and Abiram may echo the earth swallowing up the blood of Abel---in response to the first act of human violence. And the consuming fire from heaven may refer back to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from heaven---Sodom and Gomorrah being a society "utterly pervaded by corruption" (page 136). So the two stories of Numbers 16 are united in their appeal to archetypical stories about human evil (that's my impression of what Alter is saying).
Third, Alter states that the Hebrew writer perhaps brought the two stories together to say that political rebellion and an attempt to subvert the priesthood are both acts that challenge the authority of God, "and so both must be told as one tale" (page 136).
Alter's point is that a Hebrew writer brought the stories together for some reason---and so he seeks to identify that reason, rather than merely pointing out the existence of different sources.