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I want to take our time today to talk about something that I think is hugely important with respect to not only how we read our bibles.
But also how we think about what we read in out Bibles.
I want to talk around roughly 3 areas.
And use Exodus 16 as a case study for these 3 areas.
These areas are Inspiration, Theology & Chronology.
More importantly how both theology and Chronology relate to inspiration.
What I am going to show you today is not new information.
It is also not my information.
This information is from the works of several scholars, like Michael Heiser, John Durham, Nahum Sarna and others.
All who are experts in their fields.
You can also get the references for this material in the show notes.
But the point here is that this not my thoughts of what I think the bible says about a particular set of verses.
This is researched scholarship.
And if there is one thing the church needs today.
It is a heavy dose of good scholarship.
Not more shoot from the hip monologues.
But I will save more of that rant until the end of the episode today.
So, as evangelicals we place a lot of emphasis on the chronology of the Bible.
Why is that?
Obviously because we believe it to be true.
And to be true it must be historical.
And to be historical is must be chronologically consistent…right?
But let me ask you a another question.
Can God (in His Word) suspend or create a disconnect from chronology for His own purposes.
You would probably say...”well he’s God, He can do whatever He wants!” He’s God.
And you'd be correct!
But now let me ask you this.
Does that make you uncomfortable?
Does it it mess with your view of inspiration?
I want you to think about those questions as we work through parts of Exodus 16 today.
So let’s start by reading the entire chapter of Exodus 16 before we dive in!
So we want to focus on 3 main areas of this section.
Law
Verse 4 says...
Question.....When was Israel given the Law?
At mount Sinai.
They have’t been given the law yet.
So how should we think about this.
We could say this is the law in general.
Like general rules.
This could refer back to Exodus 15:25 in the preceding chapter where it says,
So this could be instruction before being given the Law.
Sarna in his commentary on the Torah writes this.
Exodus 15:25 leads us to assume a tradition about laws given before the Sinaitic revelation.
So that’s a fairly easy things to work though.
But what about what comes next?
Sabbath
In verse 22-30 we have reference to the Sabbath.
But again.
When was the Sabbath instituted?
Was it just part of their thinking?
But how would they know about the Sabbath if it hadn’t been told to them yet?
But it’s in Genesis!
Right.
But Genesis hadn’t been written yet.
So here there is reference to the Sabbath BEFORE anyone even knows what it is.
There are only two times that this word is used prior to the giving of the Law in Exodus 20.
Once is here in Exodus 16:23.
The other is Genesis 2:2-3.
Where God’s rests during creation.
But this is the first use of it as a noun in Exodus 16:23.
Shabbat in the entire Torah.
As we read through this.
It looks like they should’ve know what this is.
But how would they?
So what are some of the options for the way we could look at this?
You could argue that Moses didn’t write this.
You could argue that Moses wrote it later in his life and added the stiff about the Law and the Sabbath in at that time.
This may sound plausible.
But then you have to ask what did he say at the time it actually happened.
Then you have the added issue of him adding details that weren’t actually true at the time they really happened.
So this approach becomes problematic.
We cannot say they should’ve know from Genesis.
Because again they do not have it yet.
Now you could say that Moses and God had a conversation.
God told Moses to do it.
And he complied.
But we have no evidence for that conversation.
We could say oral tradition.
But that again is an argument from silence.
From my own perspective.
I think God told Moses to do this.
Maybe Moses not knowing why.
The Why comes later.
As a test.
The Bible pretty much tells us that God wanted to see if they would follow.
God of course knowing.
But for Moses benefit of seeing the people follow.
The instruction in keeping the Sabbath as a sort of precouror to the form instuctions gioven later in the giving of the Law at mount Siani in Expodus 20.
But the point here is that we don’t know.
But just because we cannot know exactly it is no excuse not to reason our way through the text.
And most of us have just breezed roight over this,.
But the next thing requires even more thought .
Manna
So lets read verse 33-34 again.
There are two phrases that occur here that are of speacial interst to us.
“before the Lord” and “ before the testimony”
It is common knowldge umong scholars that “the testimony refers to the Ark of the covenant.
Do you see the problem?
The Ark hasn’t been built yet.
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