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Today, I'll blog about some interesting points from my rereading of the "Introduction" to Baruch Levine's Anchor Bible commentary on Numbers 21-36. Here are two points:
1. On page 46, Levine states the following:
"In summary, Numbers 32, the last locus of nonpriestly material in the book of Numbers, is a remarkable melange of traditions on the Transjordanian Israelites. One could see in this chapter an attempt to rehabilitate them by insisting that they had done their duty to their fellow Israelites, and should be accepted as legitimate. Such rehabilitation would be required only if their legitimacy had been challenged to start with, and such a challenge would fit in with the thrust of the Deuteronomic movement in northern Israel of the eighth century B.C.E."
According to Levine, there is debate within the Hebrew Bible about the "religious loyalty of the Transjordanian Israelites" (page 44). Hosea 9:10 dates to eighth century B.C.E. Northern Israel, and it criticizes what the Israelites did at Baalpeor, as does Numbers 25:1-5. Perhaps the message here is that dwelling in the Transjordan is bad news, for the Moabites encouraged Israel's apostasy. Moreover, Deuteronomy 12:10 (which Levine calls "core Deuteronomy") emphasizes the importance of "crossing the Jordan." In Joshua 22, Israelites on the West of the Jordan River hastily conclude that the Transjordanian Israelites are engaging in apostasy, which indicates a debate.
But there are also passages that justify the Transjordanian Israelites' possession of their land, such as Numbers 32, which responds to the concern that the Transjordanian Israelites will discourage the other Israelites from pursuing the Conquest. In response, Numbers 32 holds that the Transjordanian Israelites helped the others with the Conquest, before they returned to their own land. The Deuteronomistic Deuteronomy 2:31-3:16 makes a similar point.
According to Levine, we don't always see this debate in the Hebrew Bible. Levine states on page 45:
"Patriarchs offered sacrifices and experienced theophanies in Gilead, and the Israelite conquests in Transjordan were heroic at the outset. The Israelite league predicated in the Song of Deborah (Judges 5) included Transjordanian tribes, and Deuteronomy 33:6, 20-21 speak of Reuben and Gilead as successful, blessed tribes...Numbers 32 stands in sharp contrast to Genesis 31-32, in which Jacob's adventures just east of the Jordan serve as an etiology of Gilead's status as part of Israel. In effect, the Arameans have ceded Gilead and other parts of Transjordan to Israel and have withdrawn their forces, as symbolized by Laban's peace with Jacob and Jacob's transformation into Israel."
For Levine, there was an acceptance of the Transjordanian Gileadites that pre-dated the critique of them for the Baal-Peor incident. Why would there be a critique of the Transjordan? See number 5 of my post here, as well as the links there. There was an eighth century inscription about Balaam at a sanctuary in the Transjordan, and that sanctuary may have attracted too many Israelites, and so some Yahwists viewed the Transjordanian Israelites as promoters of apostasy. That may account for Numbers 31:16, which says that Balaam was behind the Baal-Peor incident. And so there is a debate about whether the Transjordanian Israelites were good or bad.
2. On page 58, Levine argues that the Midianite kings in Numbers 31 have names that are Persian Period Nabatean toponyms, and that there are Aramaisms in the chapter. Levine thus dates the chapter to the post-exilic period, and he contends that the 'Midianites" were referring to Kederite Arabs.
Levine dates P to the post-exilic period. Why, however, would priests from the Persian Period describe Israel's promised boundaries in light of the "the extent of the Egyptian province of Canaan (or the sphere of Egyptian hegemony) after the battle of Kadesh on the Orontes against the Hittites ca. 1270 B.C.E." (page 56)? Levine's answer is as follows, on page 56:
"This may indicate that priestly writers of the Achamenid Period found meaning in the idea that the God of Israel had granted his people all of the land that had formerly been held by the Egyptians, making them the successors of those earlier rulers of Canaan. This would give them the right to extend their control over larger parts of the Achaemenid province of [Abar Naharah], over which Solomon was said to have ruled (1 Kings 5:4)."
P must have been aware of some pretty old events, if P knew about the thirteenth century B.C.E. "sphere of Egyptian hegemony" in Canaan!
