177 THE CONTINUITY OF THE NON-PRIESTLY NARRATIVE stylistic matter); the use of the cohortative with the particle -nā’ as in Exod 3,3 and 18 is common in non-P, and completely absent from P; the repetition of a character’s name in a divine address fol- lowed by the response hinnēnî as in Exod 3,4 — indeed, the use of hinnēnî as a response to an address in any context — occurs mul- tiple times in non-P and never in P; the list of Canaanite nations in Exod 3,8 is found in various forms in the non-priestly text, but not once in P; the use of lekâ (or the plural form, lekû) as an exhortative preceding a volitive form as in Exod 3,10 is frequent in non-P but unattested in P. The list could go on, but the point should be clear enough: the purportedly post-priestly author writes in perfect non- priestly style. If stylistic considerations have any weight at all, in this case they are heavily tilted toward the identification of the sup- posed post-priestly writer with the non-priestly writer. As already noted, the most significant block of text assigned to the post-priestly redactional layer is Exod 3,1–4,18. This raises the question, however, as to where the original non-priestly material may be found. It is argued that Exod 4,19-20 appear to be a good continuation of Exod 2,23aα; however, the ability to delete text and retain a sensible narrative is not a valid method for discerning lay- ers. The issue is not whether the text immediately before and after 3,1–4,18 makes sense when this passage is removed, though; the issue is how much of the remaining non-priestly narrative is in fact directly reliant on the content of 3,1–4,18 in order to make sense. Exod 4,21-23, in which God refers to “all the marvels I have put within your power”, is entirely dependent on 4,1-17, as is 4,27-31, in which Moses relates to Aaron the details of his encounter with God in 3,1–4,17 and the two of them proceed to carry out the divine instructions. All of Exodus 5 follows from Moses and Aaron’s de- mand in 5,1 and 3 that Pharaoh let the Israelites go worship God in the wilderness, thereby fulfilling God’s command from 3,18; the same demand is made at every stage throughout the non-priestly plagues narrative. And so on. In short, to assign Exod 3,1–4,18 to a post-priestly redactional layer requires that virtually every sub- sequent part of the non-priestly story also be attributed to the same layer, since everything that follows depends on Exod 3,1–4,18. Why Moses is the spokesman for the Israelites, how he knows what to say to Pharaoh, why God is intervening to rescue the Israelites in the first place — these and many other questions would be left unanswered if Exod 3,1–4,18 did not stand at the head of the non- © Gregorian Biblical Press 2012 - Tutti i diritti riservati