ABSTRACT
II. The text ofNum. 5:11-31 has been subjected to critical analysis by such scholars as Stade,12 Carpenter,13 Baentsch,14 and Press. IS Numerous difficulties have been discussed. In their various analyses, they stressed repetitions of discrete actions (as the approach before YHWH, vv. 16, 18; the oath, vv. 19, 21; the draught, vv. 24, 26-27; and the meal offering, vv. 15, 18) and/or variations in technical terminology (as the meal offering, vv. 15, 18; and )azkarah-offering, vv. 15, 18). Starting primarily from his assumption of "two parallel introductions" (vv. 12-13, 29-30). Stade divided the "zusammengesetzten Character der Eiferopferthora" into two distinct sources.16 G.B. Gray summarized the assured results of exegesis on Num. 5:11-31 for his generation. He noted that "the text has either been interpolated and otherwise modified, or it rests on a compilation from two parallel but distinct toroth.))17 Accordingly, such recent commentators as North have concluded that the present text reflects a harmonized redaction-both with respect to the quantity ofdocumentary sources and the degree to which the ordeal is magical or not. 1S At this point, however, we must turn to another putative contradiction which has been generally accepted.
