174 JOEL S. BADEN then every non-priestly connection between the two must have oc- curred after P by definition. There are a number of difficulties with this analysis, however. We may first note the lack of consistency in the manner of these purportedly post-priestly additions. As noted above, some of these supposed linking passages are verbally explicit, with references to the patriarchs by name or with historical recollections of the descent into Egypt. It might be possible, under certain circumstances, to see such passages as interpolations designed to bridge the patriarchs and the exodus. Yet these types of links do not constitute the majority of the connective material. In order to attribute all of the above passages to a post-priestly redactor, we would have to imagine that he not only added explicit verbal links, but also inserted far more subtle elements: the description of the Israelites as strangers in Egypt in the naming of Moses’s son and in the Covenant Code, as well as in Pharaoh’s plans in Exodus 1; the introduction of tribal designations in Exodus 32 and Numbers 16; and the almost off-handed references to Goshen in the plagues narrative. Not only are these more subtle elements a strange way to accomplish the task, but they are themselves irregularly placed: for example, Goshen is referred to in only two of the non-priestly plagues, and the description of the Israelites as strangers occurs in only two of the laws of the Covenant Code and in the naming of Moses’s son, a strange place to create a link if there ever was one. At the same time, the explicit verbal references to the patriarchs are equally irregular: in the call of Moses and in the message to Edom in the middle of Numbers, but nowhere else. Furthermore, none of these linking texts look the same from passage to passage; there is no con- sistency in the content or the form of the passages. If they are all at- tributable to a post-priestly redactor, he has changed his method of linking the patriarchs and exodus at virtually every turn. More importantly, for a supposedly post-priestly redactional layer, these passages linking the patriarchs and exodus seem not only to ignore the historical claims of P, they often firmly contradict them. In Exod 1,8-12, Pharaoh’s attempt to prevent the Israelites from multiplying is predicated on the fact that Israel is still but a rel- atively small group; yet according to P, the Israelites had already proliferated — finally and decisively, to the extent that they filled the land — in Exod 1,7 (and, in fact, already back in Gen 47,27). Ac- cording to Exod 1,8-12, the Israelites multiply as a result of being enslaved, while in P the Israelites are enslaved as a result of having © Gregorian Biblical Press 2012 - Tutti i diritti riservati