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126-604: According to most versions of the documentary hypothesis , the Holiness Code represents an earlier text that was edited and incorporated into the Priestly source and the Torah as a whole, although some scholars, such as Israel Knohl , believe the Holiness Code to be a later addition to the Priestly source. This source is often abbreviated as "H". A date generally accepted by the proponents of

252-425: A chiastic structure based on how serious a crime they are viewed, as well as presenting the punishment deemed appropriate for each, ranging from excommunication to execution . Leviticus 20 also presents the list in a more verbose manner. Furthermore, Leviticus 22:11–21 parallels Leviticus 17, and there are, according to textual criticism , passages at Leviticus 18:26, 19:37, 22:31–33, 24:22, and 25:55, which have

378-473: A 'tribute' or 'levy' that is 'offered' or 'contributed' to Yahweh: Some scholars have concluded that these 32 human virgins were to be sacrificed to Yahweh as a burnt offering along with the animals. For example, in 1854, Carl Falck-Lebahn compared the incident with the near-sacrifice of Iphigenia in Greek mythology , claiming: "According to Levit. xxvii, 29, sacrifices of human victims were clearly established among

504-599: A daughter of an 'honorable family' to disgrace and destroy Israel. Hamilton (2005) concluded that Yahweh commanded holy war against Midian "in retaliation for the latter's seduction of Israel into acts of harlotry and idolatry". Olson (2012) stated: "The inclusion of the women of Midian in enticing the Israelites into the worship of an alien god became the reason that justified the later assault against Midian in Numbers 31." He also pointed to Psalm 106 :28–31, which claims that

630-635: A foreigner is never even considered a capital offence by the Holiness code (H). Rather, they had come too close to the holy Tabernacle , also called the 'Tent of the Congregation', an act which in previous episodes in the Book of Numbers (also probably authored by H) had also caused Yahweh to cast a plague on the Israelites, or to threaten doing so. Texts in the books of Exodus and Numbers which have so far been identified as H texts by scholars include: The Holiness Code

756-809: A grouping which includes both pre-Priestly and post-Priestly material. The general trend in recent scholarship is to recognize the final form of the Torah as a literary and ideological unity, based on earlier sources, likely completed during the Persian period (539–333 BCE). A minority of scholars would place its final compilation somewhat later, however, in the Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE). A revised neo-documentary hypothesis still has adherents, especially in North America and Israel. This distinguishes sources by means of plot and continuity rather than stylistic and linguistic concerns, and does not tie them to stages in

882-507: A holy cause, and are required to cleanse themselves afterwards to restore their ritual purity. The Israelite campaign against Midian was blessed by Yahweh, and could therefore be considered a holy war . Simultaneously, however, the Israelite soldiers are said to be defiled by the killing, and in need of a seven-day purification of their bodies, clothes and metal possessions, and to require "atonement for ourselves before Yahweh" (verse 50). Thus,

1008-448: A holy class within Israel, singled out, dedicated to the service of God and demarcated by rules that apply only to them. Israelites may aspire to holiness, but it’s not assumed. However, in the Holiness Code, we have texts that come closer to the idea that Israel itself is holy by virtue of the fact that God has set Israel apart from the nations to himself, to belong to him, just as he set apart

1134-481: A man are clean slates in terms of their identity, unmarked by the enemy, and, after a period of purification, can be absorbed into the people Israel." Hamilton in 2005 called Numbers 31 a "gruesome chapter, where only young virgin girls may be spared ..., and not even young boys are exempted". He argued that the two major concerns of Number 31 are the idea that war is a defiling activity, but Israelite soldiers need to be ritually pure, so they may only fight wars for

1260-419: A man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Next, Moses and Eleazar instructed the soldiers to ritually cleanse and purify themselves, the captives and all objects they had over a period of seven days. Objects mentioned are the clothes, all objects of leather, goat hair and wood, and all metal objects, specifying that all fireproof objects had to be cleansed by both fire and water,

1386-516: A marked departure from these regulations according to Olson. He concluded: "Many aspects of this holy war text may be troublesome to a contemporary reader. But understood within the symbolic world of the ancient writers of Numbers, the story of the war against the Midianites is a kind of dress rehearsal that builds confidence and hope in anticipation of the actual conquest of Canaan that lay ahead." Ken Brown in 2015 stated: "This command to kill all but

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1512-563: A new plague as a punishment for Zimri fraternising with Kozbi, or violating the sanctity of the Tabernacle . After the Israelite victory over the Midianites six chapters later, Moses is said to have made the following connection: "[The Midianite women] were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to Yahweh in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck Yahweh's people." This contradicts verses 25:1–3, which states

1638-574: A result, there has been a revival of interest in "fragmentary" and " supplementary " models, frequently in combination with each other and with a documentary model, making it difficult to classify contemporary theories as strictly one or another. Modern scholars also have given up the classical Wellhausian dating of the sources, and generally see the completed Torah as a product of the time of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE), although some would place its production as late as

1764-529: A similarity of structure with both the Covenant Code and the Deuteronomic Code . Like these, it opens with a law regulating ceremonies at the altar , lists a series of disparate laws, and then closes with a set of promises for obeying the law, and curses for failing to do so. While some of the laws appear more developed than Deuteronomy, for example, the law concerning weights and measures is more detailed,

1890-431: A source, with its origin in the law-code produced at the court of Josiah as described by De Wette, subsequently given a frame during the exile (the speeches and descriptions at the front and back of the code) to identify it as the words of Moses. Most scholars also agree that some form of Priestly source existed, although its extent, especially its end-point, is uncertain. The remainder is called collectively non-Priestly,

2016-471: A woman as well as her daughter, with a ritually unclean woman, with the wife of a neighbor, with another man, or with an animal; and the sacrifice of children to Molech (numerated just prior to Lev.18:22. These prohibitions are listed in Leviticus 18, and again in chapter 20, both times with the warning "lest the land vomit you out." While Leviticus 18 presents them as a simple list, Leviticus 20 presents them in

2142-525: A woman or a foreigner, nor are she and Zimri accused of sexual transgression; they are both simply people from categories forbidden to encroach on the Tabernacle. Only the fact that she is a Midianite princess is used as a pretext for the war against the Midianites. Based on his exegesis of Joshua 24:9, Ellicott (1905) argued that Balaam's curse against Israel and the war in Numbers 31 were two separate acts of hostility initiated by Balak. However, he admits that

2268-417: Is a Priestly redaction (i.e., editing) of a non-Priestly original. Scholars generally recognise that mentions of the Midianites in chapters Numbers 22–24 are secondary Priestly (P) additions. They also generally agree that Numbers 25:1–5 contains an earlier version of the story involving the women of Moab, for which the Israelite chiefs are punished by the judges. This earlier version was later augmented by

2394-520: Is a collection of many laws concerning several subjects. Critical scholarship therefore regards it as being generally a work constructed by the collecting together of a series of earlier collections of laws. One of the most noticeable elements of the work is a large section concerning various sexual activities, which are prohibited "lest the land vomit you out". These prohibitions include sexual relations with one's mother, step-mother, sister, step-sister, sister-in-law, aunt, granddaughter, daughter-in-law, with

2520-473: Is a source of scholarly confusion. It is not clear from chapter 25 alone whether Kozbi – as a Midianite – had anything to do with the Moabites, nor whether she had sex with Zimri, nor whether he had started worshipping other gods because of her, as other Israelite men had with Moabite women according to verse 25:1. Nor is it clear whether she spread an existing plague to the Israelites, or that Yahweh cursed them with

2646-441: Is able to be read coherently even when devoid of H. Nevertheless, the presence of what appears to be a clear ending to H (specifically Leviticus 26, which would be expected to have been moved), such as to be after Leviticus 27, if H were the addition, rather than the original, has presented some problems for such revising of the theory. Israel Knohl (1995) argued that Numbers 25:6–18 and the entire chapter of Numbers 31 were part of

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2772-415: Is also a great similarity between Ezekiel's writing and the hortatory elements, particularly the conclusion, of the Holiness Code. These strong similarities have led many critical scholars to question whether Ezekiel was the author of the code, or at least the collector, and it remains an open question whether the Holiness Code influenced Ezekiel, or Ezekiel influenced the Holiness Code. The Holiness Code has

2898-435: Is also alleged by critical scholarship that several additional laws, written with a style unlike that of the Holiness Code but like that of the remainder of Leviticus, were inserted into the body of the text by the Priestly source. These alleged additions are: The section concerning continual bread and oil is, in critical scholarship, viewed as part of the description of the structure of the tabernacle, and vestments, present at

3024-512: Is one of the models used by biblical scholars to explain the origins and composition of the Torah (or Pentateuch , the first five books of the Bible: Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers , and Deuteronomy ). A version of the documentary hypothesis, frequently identified with the German scholar Julius Wellhausen , was almost universally accepted for most of the 20th century. It posited that

3150-471: Is regarded as holy, not just the priestly class: This theme, and the exhortation, "you shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy," they find their fullest expression in the block of text; Leviticus 17 through 26 that's referred to as the Holiness Code. There's an important difference between Leviticus 1 through 16 and the Holiness Code. According to Leviticus 1 through 16, Israel's priests are designated as holy:

3276-401: Is the thing which Yahweh has commanded, saying ... , and Leviticus 26 strongly resembles the conclusion of a law code, despite the presence of further laws afterward, such as at Leviticus 27, giving the Holiness Code the appearance of a single distinct unit. Professor Christine Hayes discusses a difference between the Holiness Code and the rest of Leviticus: in the Holiness Code, Israel itself

3402-459: Is unable to confirm either way. The narrative of Numbers 31 specifically is one out of many in the Hebrew Bible seeking to establish the Israelites as the chosen people of the god Yahweh, who blessed them with victory in battle, health and prosperity, as long as they were faithful to his commands. This second generation of Israelites suffered not a single casualty throughout Numbers 26–36, while

3528-636: The Babylonian captivity (597–539 BCE), or the late monarchic period at the earliest. Van Seters also sharply criticized the idea of a substantial Elohist source, arguing that E extends at most to two short passages in Genesis. Some scholars, following Rendtorff, have come to espouse a fragmentary hypothesis, in which the Pentateuch is seen as a compilation of short, independent narratives, which were gradually brought together into larger units in two editorial phases:

3654-645: The Binding of Isaac and the extermination of the Amalekites were immoral divine commandments in the Old Testament, and recalled the previous debate: "The Bishop of Llandaff , in an argument with Thomas Paine , once said, 'Well, when it says keep the women,' as Paine had pointed out, he said, 'I'm sure God didn't mean just to keep them for immoral purposes.' But what does the Bishop of Llandaff know about that? It says, 'Kill all

3780-498: The Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE), after the conquests of Alexander the Great . The Torah (or Pentateuch) is collectively the first five books of the Bible: Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers , and Deuteronomy . According to tradition, they were dictated by God to Moses, but when modern critical scholarship began to be applied to the Bible, it was discovered that the Pentateuch

3906-503: The Mesha Stele as evidence that the neighbouring Moabites performed human sacrifices with prisoners of war to their god Chemosh after successfully attacking an Israelite city in the 9th century BCE. Before the 7th-century BCE reformers of king Josiah of the southern Kingdom of Judah tried to end the practice of human/child sacrifice, it appears to have been commonplace in Israelite military culture. Other scholars have concluded that

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4032-473: The Nineteenth Dynasty's occupation and rule over Canaan under pharaoh Ramesses II (r. 1279–1213 BCE), they say there is no indication that this included all so-called "Proto-Israelites", most of whom would have experienced Egyptian rule inside Canaan itself in the late 13th century BCE. Na'aman argued that the existing narrative in the collective Hebrew memory of Egyptian rule "was remodeled according to

4158-650: The Romans . Many in these groups see references to sexuality therein and as being reiterated for emphasis elsewhere in the Bible ; for example, in the Epistle to the Romans . Orthodox Jews continue many of the practices, but they generally regard precepts not in current practice as being in only temporary abeyance until a Third Temple can be rebuilt and they can be restored. Documentary hypothesis The documentary hypothesis ( DH )

4284-584: The people of Israel with some specified as applicable for Proselytes . Some of its teachings are still in practice in the evangelical church, however see Leviticus 18 and Biblical law in Christianity for details. Among Mainline Protestants , there is debate about how much of this passage can be applicable today since the Levitical priesthood and animal sacrifice ended in AD 70, with the destruction of Jerusalem by

4410-455: The "camp on the plains of Moab , by the Jordan across from Jericho ", where Moses and Eleazar received them. Moses was angry that the soldiers had left all women alive, saying: "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to Yahweh in the Peor incident, so a plague struck Yahweh's people. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with

4536-600: The 2006 documentary The Root of All Evil? Part 2: The Virus of Faith , Richard Dawkins condemned Moses' acts in Numbers 31, asking: "How is this story of Moses morally distinguishable from Hitler 's rape of Poland , or Saddam Hussein 's massacre of the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs ?" He contrasted this behaviour with Moses' own Commandment of ' Thou shalt not kill '. Seth Andrews wrote in Deconverted (2012) that Numbers 31

4662-525: The Bible is what you call it—a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy" ... The women-children were not reserved for the purposes of debauchery, but of slavery;—a custom abhorrent from our manners, but every where practiced in former times, and still practiced in countries where the benignity of the Christian religion has not softened the ferocity of human nature. Debating Baptist minister Al Sharpton in 2007, atheist writer Christopher Hitchens argued that

4788-557: The Deuteronomic and the Priestly phases. By contrast, scholars such as John Van Seters advocate a supplementary hypothesis , which posits that the Torah is the result of two major additions—Yahwist and Priestly—to an existing corpus of work. Some scholars use these newer hypotheses in combination with each other and with a documentary model, making it difficult to classify contemporary theories as strictly one or another. The majority of scholars today continue to recognise Deuteronomy as

4914-423: The Hebrew Bible does not sufficiently indicate whether this was the case. Balak's motives for waging war against Israel range from pure hatred to self-defense. Susan Niditch explained in 1995 that the 'priestly ideology of war in Numbers 31' regarded all enemies as unclean, and therefore 'deserving of God's vengeance', except those still in possession of feminine virginity: "Female children who have not lain with

5040-478: The Hebrew noun מָ֫עַל ‎ ma-‘al used in verse 31:16 for 'encroachment', which has the connotation of 'close proximity' and 'violation of priestly authority'. According to Shectman, the resulting combination of לִמְסָר־ מַ֥עַל ‎ lim-sār-ma-‘al means "to instigate sacrilege/trespass". In several other places in the Book of Numbers (e.g. 18:5–7), the stated punishment for encroachment on certain parts of

5166-517: The Hexateuch') of 1876–77, and sections on the "historical books" (Judges–Kings) in his 1878 edition of Friedrich Bleek 's Einleitung in das Alte Testament ('Introduction to the Old Testament'). Wellhausen's documentary hypothesis owed little to Wellhausen himself but was mainly the work of Hupfeld, Eduard Eugène Reuss , Graf, and others, who in turn had built on earlier scholarship. He accepted Hupfeld's four sources and, in agreement with Graf, placed

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5292-506: The Holiness Code (H) was the appendage, and the Priestly Code (P) the original. This view also identifies passages outside the traditional area of H, specifically in Exodus and Numbers, as belonging to the Holiness Code rather than P, such as the order to sound a trumpet on certain dates. In consequence, this view sees the author of H as the editor of P, rather than the reverse, in particular as P

5418-594: The Holiness Code. Two of which contain a list of sexual prohibitions, and one of which was a development of the Ritual Decalogue . Most critical scholars and religious commentaries regard the Holiness Code as bearing strong resemblance, in several places, to the writing of Ezekiel . Ezekiel dwells repeatedly on offences which the Holiness Code condemns, and spends little time concerned with those outside it (e.g. Leviticus 18:8–17 in comparison with Ezekiel 22:10–11), and several extensive lists of such parallels exist. There

5544-485: The Holiness code (H), which was later added to the Priestly source. He pointed to similarities in content, such as the focus on purification in Numbers 5:1–4, chapter 19 and 31:19–24, as well as in linguistics in Numbers 10:9, 27:17, 31:6,19 and Exodus 40:15, all of which had been previously identified with the Holiness School (HS) by other scholars. Some linguistic and theological features also distinguish Numbers 31 from

5670-551: The Incident at Peor, except that the plague had passed (Numbers 26:1). Yahweh instructed Moses and his priest Eleazar to take a census amongst the Israelites (Numbers 26), settled an inheritance dispute and the future succession of Moses by Joshua (Numbers 27), instructed the Israelites how to conduct certain sacrifices and festivals (Numbers 28–29), and regulated vows between men and women, and fathers and daughters (Numbers 30). In verses 1 and 2, Yahweh reminded Moses to take revenge on

5796-405: The Israelite men began to fraternise with Moabite women by having sex with them and worshipping their gods , including Baal ( Numbers 25:1–3 ). This angered Yahweh, and he instructed Moses to massacre all Israelite men who had done this; Moses passed on these instructions to the judges of Israel ( Numbers 25:4–9 ). In verse 6, the narrative suddenly shifts when the Israelite man Zimri brings

5922-420: The Israelite soldiers in Numbers 31:19 is also used to argue that the Israelites recognized war as being "destructive". In The Age of Reason (1795), Thomas Paine wrote about the chapter: "Among the detestable villains that in any period of the world would have disgraced the name of man, it is impossible to find a greater than Moses, if this account be true. Here is an order to butcher the boys, to massacre

6048-466: The Israelites panicked when Moses entered the Tabernacle, fearing they were all going to die. She concluded that Numbers 25:6–18 served three purposes: illustrating the encroachment law, legitimising Phinehas' ascendancy to the high priesthood, and justifying the War against the Midianites in Numbers 31. Unlike the non-P text in 25:1–5, there is no indication that there is anything particularly wrong with Kozbi as

6174-426: The Israelites through Moses to execute vengeance and divide the spoils, the Israelite soldiers obey, then do more than Yahweh commanded (extension); the purification is the only action that happens only once and functions as a bridge between the two series. Both Olson and Brown noted that Moses is portrayed as remarkably passive in chapter 25 and, as he was failing to solve the problem, Phinehas had to intervene and take

6300-490: The Israelitish women', thus warranting their execution in Numbers 31:13-18. Sarah Shectman argued in 2009 that Zimri and Kozbi were not guilty of sexual transgressions at all; sex with a foreigner is never even considered a capital offence by the Holiness code (H). Rather, they had come too close to the holy Tabernacle , also called the 'Tent of the Congregation'. She based this on the Hebrew verb מָסַר ‎ masar and

6426-550: The Jews." After recounting the story of Jephthah's daughter in Judges 11 , he reasoned: "the Jews (according to Numbers, chap 31) took 61,000 asses, 72,000 oxen, 675,000 sheep, and 32,000 virgins (whose fathers, mothers, brothers &c., were butchered). There were 16,000 girls for the soldiers, 16,000 for the priests; and on the soldiers' share there was levied a tribute of 32 virgins for the Lord. What became of them? The Jews had no nuns. What

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6552-533: The Levites, who were responsible for the care of Yahweh's tabernacle . Some of the Midianite golden jewellery plundered during the war (combined weight: about 418 pounds/190 kilograms ) was also offered as a gift to Yahweh "to make atonement for ourselves before Yahweh". The scholarly consensus is that this war did not take place, certainly not as narrated. Within the wider context of the Exodus , there probably never

6678-653: The Midianite priest Jethro / Reuel / Hobab acted positively towards Yahweh in Exodus chapter 12, and his daughter Zipporah became Moses' wife (Exodus 2:21). Scholars find it difficult to explain how Moses commanded the Israelites to exterminate and enslave the entire Midianite people while having a Midianite wife and father-in-law. Numbers 31 and similar biblical episodes are sometimes referred to in religious morality debates between apologists and critics of religion . Rabbi and scholar Shaye J. D. Cohen (1999) argued that "the implications of Numbers 31:17–18 are unambiguous ... we may be sure that for yourselves means that

6804-404: The Midianite woman Kozbi (daughter of Midianite king Zur ) to the Israelite camp, after which the Israelites are said to have been hit by a plague that left 24,000 dead. Phinehas killed Zimri and Kozbi, ending the plague. Yahweh claimed that Kozbi brought this plague upon the Israelites and told them to "treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them". The next four chapters say nothing about

6930-497: The Midianite women (or rather, a single Midianite woman, who had already been slain) did, has puzzled scholars. Knohl (1995) argued that the original non-P text (preserved in 25:1–5) had Moabite women as the main characters, but the DH editor (seeking to legitimise Phinehas and his descendants' claims to the priesthood) replaced them with Midianite women in a sloppy manner so that the resulting new text (25:6–18 and all of chapter 31) confused

7056-490: The Midianite women to seduce the Israelite men to sexual immorality and idolatry in the same manner as he had previously done with the Moabite women. The execution of Midianite women who had had sex with (Israelite) men was therefore a just punishment for 'compromising the men of Israel', while turning prisoners into sex slaves was supposedly 'inconsistent with the many other laws against sexual immorality'. Berea concluded that making

7182-617: The Midianites as instructed in Numbers 25:16–18, as his last act before his death. Accordingly, Moses instructed a thousand men of each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel – 12,000 in total, under Phinehas' leadership – to attack Midian. The Israelite soldiers are narrated to have killed all Midianite men, including the five kings, as well as the sorcerer Balaam. According to verse 49, the Israelites themselves suffered zero casualties. All Midianite towns and camps were burnt; all Midianite women, children and livestock were deported as captives to

7308-412: The Moabites. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown added that Yahweh wanted to spare the Moabites because they were the descendants of Lot (Deuteronomy 2:9). Victor P. Hamilton concluded in 2005 that Yahweh commanded holy war against Midian "in retaliation for the latter's seduction of Israel into acts of harlotry and idolatry". Johann Peter Lange believed that young Midianite boys were also guilty of 'corrupting

7434-509: The Old Testament, not least because many have concluded that the Hebrew Bible is not a reliable witness to the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, representing instead the beliefs of only a small segment of the ancient Israelite community centered in Jerusalem and devoted to the exclusive worship of the god Yahweh . Numbers 31 Numbers 31 is the 31st chapter of the Book of Numbers ,

7560-507: The Pentateuch is a compilation of four originally independent documents: the Jahwist , Elohist , Deuteronomist , and Priestly sources, frequently referred to by their initials. The first of these, J, was dated to the Solomonic period (c. 950 BCE). E was dated somewhat later, in the 9th century BCE, and D was dated just before the reign of King Josiah , in the 7th or 8th century BCE. Finally, P

7686-450: The Pentateuch") by Rolf Rendtorff . These three authors shared many of the same criticisms of the documentary hypothesis, but were not in agreement about what paradigm ought to replace it. Van Seters and Schmid both forcefully argued that the Yahwist source could not be dated to the Solomonic period (c. 950 BCE) as posited by the documentary hypothesis. They instead dated J to the period of

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7812-626: The Priestly Torah (PT) text, such as the wrath of God , which is mentioned several times by HS but never by PT. Some scholars think that the text of Numbers 25:6–18 was written at a time when the priestly line of Phinehas ' descendants was being challenged. Sarah Shectman (2009) agreed with Knohl and other scholars that Numbers 25:6–18 is to be identified as an H text, and argued that traditional interpretations of verse 25:6 as an act of sexual transgression were incorrect. In fact, Zimri and Kozbi were not guilty of sexual transgressions at all; sex with

7938-400: The Priestly work last. J was the earliest document, a product of the 10th century BCE and the court of Solomon ; E was from the 9th century BCE in the northern Kingdom of Israel , and had been combined by a redactor (editor) with J to form a document JE; D, the third source, was a product of the 7th century BCE, by 620 BCE, during the reign of King Josiah ; P (what Wellhausen first named "Q")

8064-458: The Tabernacle by non-Israelites or non-Levite Israelites is death. Shectman also noted that Numbers 8:19 claimed that a "plague will strike the Israelites when they go near the sanctuary", and in Numbers 16:42–50 (or Numbers 17:7–15 in some Bible editions ), this actually happened and 14,700 Israelites died of a plague before Aaron stopped it by making an incense offering to Yahweh. In an incident soon after (Numbers 17:10–13 or Numbers 17:25–28 ),

8190-664: The Torah, and the number was later expanded to three when Wilhelm de Wette identified the Deuteronomist as an additional source found only in Deuteronomy ("D"). Later still the Elohist was split into Elohist and Priestly ("P") sources, increasing the number to four. These documentary approaches were in competition with two other models, the fragmentary and the supplementary . The fragmentary hypothesis argued that fragments of varying lengths, rather than continuous documents, lay behind

8316-605: The Torah. In 1780, Johann Eichhorn , building on the work of the French doctor and exegete Jean Astruc 's "Conjectures" and others, formulated the "older documentary hypothesis": the idea that Genesis was composed by combining two identifiable sources, the Jehovist ("J"; also called the Yahwist) and the Elohist ("E"). These sources were subsequently found to run through the first four books of

8442-419: The Torah; this approach accounted for the Torah's diversity but could not account for its structural consistency, particularly regarding chronology. The supplementary hypothesis was better able to explain this unity: it maintained that the Torah was made up of a central core document, the Elohist, supplemented by fragments taken from many sources. The supplementary approach was dominant by the early 1860s, but it

8568-452: The account in Numbers 25:6–18 with the Midianite women and Phinehas' priesthood as their new focus, perhaps using elements from Psalm 106 :28–31 to work with. These additions, as well as the mention of a Midianite in chapter 25 in a story about the Moabites, may have been an attempt by a later editor to create a connection between Moab and Midian. Martin Noth argued that the author of chapter 31

8694-642: The added text was written at a time when the priestly line of Phinehas' descendants was being challenged. The Book of Numbers traces the origins of the Israelite–Midianite conflict in Chapters 22 through 25. The Israelites, travelling from Egypt and encamping on the eastern bank of the Jordan River across from Jericho , were on the brink of war with the Moabites (not Midianites). The Moabite king Balak hired

8820-569: The addition of phrases such as And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, designed to put the code into the context of the remainder of a code being given by God, as is the case for the remainder of Leviticus. By 1955, scholars agreed that the Holiness Code consisted of at least Leviticus 17–26, but some twenty passages outside of it were also identified as H, including Leviticus 11 (verses 1f. and 25–40 being contested), Numbers 15:34–41 and Exodus 31:13f.. It

8946-422: The allotment of the spoils", while "the actual battle is summarized in two verses". The Israelite soldiers' actions closely followed the holy war regulations set out in Deuteronomy 20:14: "You may, however, take as your booty the women, the children, livestock, and everything else in the town, all its spoil", but in this case, Moses was angry because he also wanted the male children and non-virgin women to be killed,

9072-419: The apostasy and plague recounted in Numbers 25, and commentators have generally accepted that explanation and concluded that the text portrays the utter destruction of Midian as the fulfillment of YHWH's call for 'vengeance'." Some commentators concluded that motive for the War against the Midianites was that Zimri and Kozbi had illicit sex, with Keil and Delitzsch (1870) writing: "[Zimri brought Kozbi] into

9198-401: The appearance of once standing at the end of independent laws or collections of laws as colophons . For this reason, several scholars view the five sections preceding between each of these passages as deriving from originally separate documents. In particular, the two segments containing the sexual prohibitions, Leviticus 17:2–18:26 and Leviticus 20:1–22:33, are seen as being based on essentially

9324-528: The author(s) wished to convey a theological message about who Yahweh, Moses, Eleazar and Phinehas were, and how powerful the Israelites would be if Yahweh was on their side. Olson (2012) noted that the name Kozbi comes from the three Hebrew consonants kzb , meaning "to lie, deceive"; the idea that Kozbi deceived the Israelites is emphasised in verse 25:18: "[The Midianites] deceived (or: 'harassed, assaulted, vexed'; נִכְּל֥וּ ‎ nikkəlū ) you with their tricks ( בְּנִכְלֵיהֶ֛ם ‎ bəniḵlêhem ) in

9450-587: The authorship, meaning and ethics of this chapter of Numbers. It is closely connected to Numbers 25. The majority of modern biblical scholars believe that the Torah (the books of Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers, and Deuteronomy , written in Classical Hebrew ) reached its present form in the post-Exilic period (i.e., after c. 520 BCE), based on pre-existing written and oral traditions, as well as contemporary geographical and political realities. Numbers

9576-417: The camp of the Israelites, before the eyes of Moses and all the congregation, to commit adultery with her in his tent". Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871) as well as Keil and Delitzsch (1870) suggested that the Midianites had instigated the Moabite women to seduce the Israelite men (verses 1 and 2), and so only the Midianites were to atone for the 'wickedness' which 'violated the divinity and honour' of Yahweh, not

9702-427: The congregation; but the young maidens, not being polluted by the flagitious habits of their mothers, nor likely to create disturbance by rebellion, were kept alive. You [Paine] give a different turn to the matter; you say—"that thirty-two thousand women-children were consigned to debauchery by the order of Moses."—Prove this, and I will allow that Moses was the horrid monster you make him—prove this, and I will allow that

9828-528: The death of 24,000 victims of the plague which God sent as punishment. When Balaam saw that he could not curse the children of Israel, the Rabbis assert that he advised Balak, as a last resort, to tempt the Hebrew nation to immoral acts and, through these, to the worship of Baal-peor. The God of the Hebrews , adds Balaam, according to the Rabbis, hates lewdness, and idol worshipping; severe chastisement must follow Thus

9954-401: The end of Exodus, which has accidentally become inserted at this point due to scribal error. The case law example of blasphemy is believed to be the work of one of the later editions of the Priestly source, in which several other case law examples were added, such as that concerning the daughters of Zelophehad ( Numbers 36). The remainder of the alleged additions arguably deform the laws from

10080-568: The evolution of Israel's religious history. Its resurrection of an E source is probably the element most often criticised by other scholars, as it is rarely distinguishable from the classical J source and European scholars have largely rejected it as fragmentary or non-existent. Wellhausen used the sources of the Torah as evidence of changes in the history of Israelite religion as it moved (in his opinion) from free, simple and natural to fixed, formal and institutional. Modern scholars of Israel's religion have become much more circumspect in how they use

10206-537: The first generation suffered much death in the wilderness (chapters 13–14, 25). The claims that 12,000 Israelite soldiers exterminated or captured the entire Midianite population and destroyed all their towns without suffering a single casualty are held to be historically impossible, and should be understood as symbolic. Moreover, even other biblical books set in later times still refer to the Midianites as an independent people, such as Judges chapters 6–8, where Gideon fights them. Some Biblical non-literalists hold that

10332-450: The focus on purification in Numbers 5:1–4, chapter 19 and 31:19–24, as well as in linguistics in Numbers 10:9, 27:17, 31:6,19 and Exodus 40:15, all of which had been previously identified with the Holiness School (HS) by other scholars. Some linguistic and theological features also distinguish Numbers 31 from the Priestly Torah (PT) text, such as the wrath of God, which is mentioned several times by HS but never by PT. Some scholars think that

10458-502: The four-source hypothesis is sometime in the seventh century BC, when it presumably originated among the priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Holiness Code also uses a noticeably different choice of vocabulary, repeating phrases such as I, Yahweh , am holy ; I am Yahweh ; and I am Yahweh, who makes you holy , an unusually large number of times. Additionally, Leviticus 17 begins with This

10584-693: The fourth book of the Pentateuch ( Torah ), the central part of the Hebrew Bible ( Old Testament ), a sacred text in Judaism and Christianity . Scholars such as Israel Knohl and Dennis T. Olson name this chapter the War against the Midianites . Set in the southern Transjordanian regions of Moab and Midian , it narrates the Israelites waging war against the Midianites, commanded by Phinehas and Moses . They killed

10710-664: The hypothesis, is based on JE , which already possessed a legal code, namely the Covenant Code and Ritual Decalogue . The majority of critical scholars thus support the position that, while the Ritual Decalogue was replaced by the Ethical Decalogue , the Holiness Code was chosen, or designed, to replace the Covenant Code. The Holiness Code is believed to have been written as a form to avoid sexual deviations, sexually transmittable diseases and other forms of physical illness for

10836-425: The influence of the prophets and the development of an ethical outlook, which he felt represented the pinnacle of Jewish religion; and the Priestly source reflected the rigid, ritualistic world of the priest-dominated, post-exilic period. His work, notable for its detailed and wide-ranging scholarship and close argument, entrenched the "new documentary hypothesis" as the dominant explanation of Pentateuchal origins from

10962-405: The initiative to slay Kozbi and Zimri, was granted the eternal priesthood and later allowed to lead the Israelites against Midian. Brown added that chapter 27 further undermined the political position of an increasingly disobedient Moses in favour of the priesthood, with Yahweh revealing Moses' time is up and he will soon die. This supports the view that the added text was written at a time when

11088-533: The late 19th to the late 20th centuries. In the mid to late 20th century, new criticism of the documentary hypothesis formed. Three major publications of the 1970s caused scholars to reevaluate the assumptions of the documentary hypothesis: Abraham in History and Tradition by John Van Seters , Der sogenannte Jahwist ("The So-Called Yahwist") by Hans Heinrich Schmid , and Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch ("The Tradition-Historical Problem of

11214-482: The latest, while Wilhelm Vatke linked the four to an evolutionary framework: the Yahwist and Elohist to a time of primitive nature and fertility cults, the Deuteronomist to the ethical religion of the Hebrew prophets, and the Priestly source to a form of religion dominated by ritual, sacrifice and law. In 1878, Julius Wellhausen published Geschichte Israels, Bd 1 ('History of Israel, Vol 1'). The second edition

11340-420: The maintenance of the priests, in the same manner as the tithes (Numbers 18:26–28, and Leviticus 27:30–33), so that they might put the cattle into their own flocks (Numbers 35:3), and slay oxen or sheep as they required them, whilst they sold the asses, and made slaves of the gifts; and not in the character of a vow, in which case the clean animals would have had to be sacrificed, and the unclean animals, as well as

11466-492: The majority show less development, and the implication of multiple sanctuaries implied by the Holiness Code's laws, concerning altar ceremonies, is usually understood to imply a date prior to the banning of sanctuaries outside the temple at Jerusalem. A similar comparison with the Covenant Code implies that the date of the Holiness Code is between that of the Covenant Code, and that of the Deuteronomic Code, highly suitable for

11592-496: The manner they would otherwise have, to the laws supported by the Priestly Code . Whether these represent alterations to the law over time, lawmaking by the writer of the political faction supported by the Priestly source, or simply details present but not originally thought worth mentioning, is a matter of some debate. More recent critical scholarship, particularly that of Israel Knohl , and Jacob Milgrom , has argued instead that

11718-440: The matter of Peor and in the matter of Kozbi, the daughter of a Midianite leader, the woman who was killed when the plague came as a result of that incident." This suggests she was not a historical character, but invented as a metaphor for danger to the Israelites. Brown (2015) described how the structure of Numbers 31 showed a pattern of 'command, obedience, extension, purification, command, obedience, extension.' Yahweh commands

11844-470: The men, including their five kings and Balaam , burnt their settlements and took captive the women, children and livestock. Moses commanded the Israelites to kill the boys and women who had sex with men and spare the virgin girls for themselves. The spoils of war were then divided between Eleazar , the Levitical priesthood , soldiers and Yahweh . Much scholarly and religious controversy exists surrounding

11970-495: The men, kill all the children, and keep the virgins.' I think I know what they had in mind. I don't think it's moral teaching." In 2010, Hitchens mocked the Ten Commandments for banning adultery but not rape : "Then again, what about rape? It seems to be very strongly recommended, along with genocide, slavery, and infanticide, in Numbers 31:1–18, and surely constitutes a rather extreme version of sex outside marriage." In

12096-447: The mothers, and debauch the daughters." Richard Watson, the Bishop of Llandaff , sought to refute Paine's arguments: I see nothing in this proceeding, but good policy, combined with mercy. The young men might have become dangerous avengers of, what they would esteem, their country's wrongs; the mothers might have again allured the Israelites to the love of licentious pleasure and the practice of idolatry, and brought another plague upon

12222-401: The other hand affirms the connection between the Midianites and Moabites but argues that the Moabites were spared due to being descendants of Lot . Alternatively, he argues that the Midianites sinned more egregiously than the Moabites in the Peor incident, thus warranting their extermination. Likewise, Coke describes the Midianites as 'cruel and odious' offenders who were willing to prostitute

12348-403: The plague broke out due to Yahweh being angry at the Israelites for "eating sacrifices offered to lifeless gods" at Peor. Finally, Olson argued that Moses' apparent failure to punish the idolaters (25:4–5) is what motivated Phinehas to take matters into his own hands by killing Zimri and Kozbi. Brown (2015) stated: "In Num 31:16, Moses justifies his command by appealing to the Midianites' role in

12474-465: The plains east of Moab. He also observes that the Ammonites joined the Moabites in corrupting Israel, according to Deuteronomy 23:3-4. Barnes likewise suggests that the Peor incident was only perpetrated by the Midianites. Thus, the appearance of the Moabites in Numbers 25:1 is most likely due to the Moabites initiating the incident or being close courtiers of Balak, according to Benson . Poole on

12600-528: The position it finds itself within the Torah. In the documentary hypothesis, the Priestly source is a work which, after its initial edition, suffered under the hand of several later, less skilled, editors, who each variously inserted documents, added additional laws, or expanded on the laws already present. Thus the original narrative, and the legal code within it, became surrounded by an extensive body of legal, and ritual, elements, as well as numerical, genealogical, and geographic, data. The underlying narrative, in

12726-446: The priestly line of Phinehas' descendants was being challenged, as it bolsters their legitimacy as the priestly successors of Moses. Scholars disagree about the exact motive Yahweh is claimed to have had in ordering Moses to wage the War against the Midianites. Evidently, something that the Israelite man Zimri and especially the Midianite princess Kozbi did was at the root of the conflict, though what offence they allegedly committed

12852-453: The rape of one woman, only to authorize the rapes of six hundred more. They regret the results of one slaughter, so they commit another to repair it." Keith Allan in 2019 remarked: "God's work or not, this is military behaviour that would be tabooed today and might lead to a war crimes trial." According to the Book of Exodus, the Midianites had sheltered Moses during his 40-year voluntary exile after killing an Egyptian (Exodus 2:11–21),

12978-500: The realities of the late eighth and seventh centuries in Canaan, integrating the experience with the Assyrian oppression and deportations ." The modern scholarly consensus is that the biblical person of Moses is largely a mythical figure while also holding that "a Moses-like figure may have existed somewhere in the southern Transjordan in the mid-late 13th century B.C." and that archaeology

13104-459: The rest only by water. The plunder from the Midianite campaign was "675,000 sheep, 72,000 cattle, 61,000 donkeys and 32,000 women who had never slept with a man." Yahweh instructed Moses and Eleazar to divide these spoils according to a 1:1 ratio between the Israelite soldiers on the one hand, and the Israelite civilians on the other. Yahweh demanded a 0.2% share of the soldiers' half of the spoils for himself; this tribute would be given to him via

13230-679: The same law code, with Leviticus 20:1–22:33 regarded as the later version of the two. Chapter 19, which ends in a colophon, has a similarity with the Ten Commandments (Ethical Decalogue), although presenting a more detailed and expanded version, leading critical scholars to conclude it represents a much later version of that decalogue. Notably, it contains the commandment popularly referred to as love thy neighbour as thyself (the Great Commandment ). By this reckoning, there are thus at least five earlier law collections which were redacted together, with an additional hortatory conclusion, to form

13356-400: The seventh day to himself to belong with him. Initially, the Holiness Code was considered part of the Priestly source by some scholars holding to the documentary hypothesis . However, other scholars generally believed it to have been an originally separate legal code (referred to as "H") which the Priestly source edited and chose to embed into their writing after. Some such editing is simply

13482-453: The sorcerer Balaam to curse the Israelite soldiers from the peak of Mount Peor , but the Israelite god Yahweh forced him to instead bless the Israelites encamped at Shittim , which he did ( Numbers 22–24 ). Due to his behavior with the Midianites, the Rabbis interpret Balaam as responsible for the behavior during the Heresy of Peor , which they consider to have been unchastity , and consequently

13608-500: The surviving virgin women and girls "as servants and integrating them into Israel may have been the best among lousy alternatives". It is not clear what happened to Yahweh's 0.1% share of the spoils of war, including 808 animals (verses 36–39) and 32 human virgin women/girls (verse 40), who are entrusted to the Levites , who are responsible for maintaining Yahweh's tabernacle (verses 30 and 47). Two Hebrew terms are used to indicate they are

13734-491: The time of her writing, "increasingly scholars suggest that Israelites engaged in state-sponsored rituals of child sacrifice". Although "[s]uch ritual activity is condemned by Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and other biblical writers (e.g., Lev 18:21, Deut 12:31, 18:10; Jer 7:30–31, 19:5; Ezek 20:31), and the seventh-century reformer king Josiah sought to put an end to it, [the] notion of a god who desires human sacrifice may well have been an important thread in Israelite belief." She cited

13860-407: The two tribes. Olson (2012) agreed, writing: "Some of these disjunctions within the narrative may have resulted from the combining of earlier and later traditions into one story." Ellicott (1897), however, proposed that Balaam entered into Midianite service after being dismissed by the Moabite king Balak. Nonetheless, he elaborates that the Midianites in Numbers 31 were wealthy tribes that lived in

13986-405: The use of military violence, even if divinely mandated, is cast as a negative act that, in order to be erased, requires ritual cleansing of the body and possessions, as well as sacrifice in the form of 0.2% share of the soldiers' spoils as a tribute to Yahweh. Dennis T. Olson wrote in 2012 that "the bulk of the chapter deals with the purification of soldiers and booty from the impurity of war and

14112-419: The virgin girls is without precedent in the Pentateuch. However, [Judges 21] precisely parallels Moses's command. ... Like Num 25, the story recounted in Judges 19–21 centers on the danger of apostasy, but its tale of civil war and escalating violence also emphasizes the tragedy that can result from the indiscriminate application of [vengeance]. The whole account is highly ironic: the Israelites set out to avenge

14238-418: The virgin girls who are allowed to live, are made into sex slaves for disgusting, homicidal post hoc mercenaries that do all of their bidding from a man who says that a god that (no one can see) tells them to do. This is one of the most sickening things in the so-called 'Holy' Bible." Christian apologist John Berea speculated in 2017 that Balaam was 'dismissed without pay by king Balak of Moab', and then set up

14364-532: The virgins and animals were kept alive and used by the Levites as their share of the spoils. Some even posited that human sacrifice (especially child sacrifice) was foreign to the Israelites, thus making the possibility of sacrificing the Midianite virgins unfeasible. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch argued in 1870 that the 32 were enslaved: Of the one half the priests received 675 head of small cattle, 72 oxen, 61 asses, and 32 maidens for Jehovah; and these Moses handed over to Eleazar, in all probability for

14490-418: The warriors may 'use' their virgin captives sexually", adding that Shimon bar Yochai understood the passage 'correctly'. On the other hand, he noted that other rabbinical commentaries such as B. and Y. Qiddushin and Yevamot claimed "that for yourselves meant 'as servants'. Later apologists, both Jewish and Christian, adopted the latter interpretation." The following command to purify the Midianite girls and

14616-441: The women were Moabites, and verses 25:16–18, in which Yahweh himself claimed that the plague did not hit the Israelite camp until the Midianite princess Kozbi entered it (without reference to sex or foreign gods worship), leading Yahweh to instruct Moses to kill the Midianites, not the Moabites. The fact that the Moabites and Midianites are equated as having committed the same offences, and Moses blames Balaam (a Moabite) for whatever

14742-451: Was a product of the priest-and-temple dominated world of the 6th century BCE; and the final redaction, when P was combined with JED to produce the Torah as we now know it. Wellhausen's explanation of the formation of the Torah was also an explanation of the religious history of Israel. The Yahwist and Elohist described a primitive, spontaneous, and personal world, in keeping with the earliest stage of Israel's history; in Deuteronomy, he saw

14868-684: Was an invasion of Canaan (the " Promised Land ") by all Israelites escaping from slavery in Egypt. Scholars such as Mark S. Smith assert that Israelite culture emerged from the wider Canaanite culture surrounding it, with whom it had strong linguistic , religious and other cultural links. There was no political unification of several Semitic Canaanite tribes into a single Israelite state until after 1100 BCE. Although some Egyptologists such as Redford (1997), Na'aman (2011) and Bietak (2015) have argued that some Canaanites (referred to by Bietak as "Proto-Israelites") may have been deported to Egypt during

14994-484: Was challenged by an important book published by Hermann Hupfeld in 1853, who argued that the Pentateuch was made up of four documentary sources, the Priestly, Yahwist, and Elohist intertwined in Genesis-Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers, and the stand-alone source of Deuteronomy. At around the same period, Karl Heinrich Graf argued that the Yahwist and Elohist were the earliest sources and the Priestly source

15120-417: Was generally dated to the time of Ezra in the 5th century BCE. The sources would have been joined at various points in time by a series of editors or "redactors". The consensus around the classical documentary hypothesis has now collapsed. This was triggered in large part by the influential publications of John Van Seters , Hans Heinrich Schmid , and Rolf Rendtorff in the mid-1970s, who argued that J

15246-491: Was not the unified text one would expect from a single author. As a result, the Mosaic authorship of the Torah had been largely rejected by leading scholars by the 17th century, with many modern scholars viewing it as a product of a long evolutionary process. In the mid-18th century, some scholars started a critical study of doublets (parallel accounts of the same incidents), inconsistencies, and changes in style and vocabulary in

15372-494: Was one of several parts of the Bible that made him seriously question the Christian God's ethics, claiming that his Christian friends and family did not have satisfactory answers, and ultimately did not really care to think about the moral implications of such texts. In 2012, M. A. Neeper called Numbers 31:17–18 'appalling': "Instead of trying to "save" the people of Midian, [Moses] orders many of their deaths. The "lucky" people,

15498-476: Was printed as Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels ("Prolegomena to the History of Israel") in 1883, and the work is better known under that name. (The second volume, a synthetic history titled Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte ['Israelite and Jewish History'], did not appear until 1894 and remains untranslated.) Crucially, this historical portrait was based upon two earlier works of his technical analysis: "Die Composition des Hexateuchs" ('The Composition of

15624-543: Was probably aware of the combined non-P/P(H) text (with the Moabite–Midianite connection) in chapter 25, and probably knew the entire composite Pentateuch, therefore Numbers 31 was written in whole or in part by an author writing later than regular P. Israel Knohl (1995) argued Numbers 31 was in fact part of the Holiness code (H), which was later added to the Priestly source. He pointed to similarities in content, such as

15750-428: Was the Lord's share in all the wars of the Hebrews, if it was not blood?" Carl Plfuger in 1995 cited Exodus 17, Numbers 31, Deuteronomy 13 and 20 as examples of human sacrifice demanded by Yahweh, adding that according to 1 Samuel 15, Saul "lost his kingship of Israel because he had withheld the human sacrifice that Yahweh, the god of Israel, expected as his due after a war." Susan Niditch remarked in 1995 that, at

15876-402: Was to be dated no earlier than the time of the Babylonian captivity (597–539 BCE), and rejected the existence of a substantial E source. They also called into question the nature and extent of the three other sources. Van Seters, Schmid, and Rendtorff shared many of the same criticisms of the documentary hypothesis, but were not in complete agreement about what paradigm ought to replace it. As

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