ENGL 340
Prof. G. Steinberg

Response Paper:  Exodus

Choose one of the following areas as the focus of your response paper:

1. The peculiarities of Biblical narrative that began in Genesis continue in Exodus.  The father-in-law of Moses has two different names, for example -- Reuel and Jethro.  Moses complains to God that he’s not a good speaker three different times.  Whose staff is turned into a snake?  The people thirst for water in the desert at Marah, as well as at Meribah and Massah.  When Moses comes down from the mountain with the tablets of the Law, he first finds the people worshipping the golden calf (and punishes them) and then finds them “running wild” (and punishes them again).  Similar repetitions and discrepancies occur throughout the book.  Choose one repetition or discrepancy.  Why doesn’t the story just proceed chronologically?  What effect does the repetition or discrepancy have?  What do we learn from the repetition and variation?  What does the repetition tell us about how the story might have been composed?
2. How are women portrayed in today’s reading assignment?  What role do women have in the stories?  What defines a woman’s place?  What defines a good woman or a bad woman?  For what is a woman valued?  What does the portrayal of women suggest about ancient Hebrew attitudes toward women?
3. What do you make of the Law that Moses receives from God?  The Ten Commandments are famous, but Moses receives far more than just ten rules (and we’re not reading Leviticus, where even more of the Law is given).  How might the Law that Moses receives serve as the basis of a civilization?  Which laws seemed designed primarily as part of a law code for the newborn Hebrew nation?  Which laws seem more religious in thrust?  What laws are surprising?  What laws seem eminently practical (in terms of building a civilization or a religion)?  What laws seem totally impractical?
4. The Biblical scholar, Meir Sternberg, used to say that refusals were always a bad sign in the Hebrew Bible.  Any person who refuses something to someone else is always in the wrong, according to Sternberg.  Is Sternberg’s observation borne out in Exodus?  Watch for every time someone makes a request of someone else.  Does the requestee refuse the requester?  If so, is the requestee in the wrong?  If not, is the requestee in the right?  If Sternberg’s observation is true, what does this negative judgment on refusals tell us about ancient Hebrew culture?  What must the ancient Hebrews have thought about refusals?

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