ENGL 340
Prof. G. Steinberg

Response Paper:  Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua

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

1. Choose another doublet in Exodus and Numbers (besides Exodus 16 and Numbers 11).  What is the relationship between the two different versions of the story?  How are the versions similar?  How do they differ?  Why do they differ?  What effect do their similarities and differences have?
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. The Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) provides a literary foundation for the rest of the Bible.  Many of the images and plot motifs of the Pentateuch will be repeated in later books in order to characterize events and people in relation to the foundational stories of Hebrew culture.  This kind of repetition of images/motifs is called typology by biblical scholars.  Choose an image or plot motif in Joshua that seems very similar to one from the Pentateuch.  How is this repeated image or motif in Joshua different from the original in the Pentateuch?  How is it the same?  Why does the writer of Joshua want to associate Joshua and the Israelites with the Pentateuch at this particular moment?  What effect does the association have on you as a reader?  How does the association affect your understanding of what is happening in the book of Joshua at that moment?  What is the writer of Joshua trying to say by repeating the image/motif from the Pentateuch?

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