Literary Approaches

Numbers contains the greatest variety of literature of any biblical book: poetry, prophecy, song, prayer, blessing, lampoon, diplomatic letter, civil law, cultic law, oracular decision, census list, temple archive, and itinerary (Milgrom, Numbers, xiii). Due to the wide variety of genres, scholars who study the Bible as a literary work have applied numerous strategies for interpretation.

In recent decades, contextual or perspectival approaches—in which the interpreter uses a specific viewpoint or social issue as a lens—have been on the rise (Sakenfeld, “New Approaches”). Examples include:

1. gender or feminist approaches (Rapp, Mirjam; Burns, Has the Lord; Trible, “Subversive Justice”; Gafney, Daughters of Miriam);

2. racial or African ethnocentric approaches (Adamo, “African Wife”; Africa and the Africans; Williams, “And She Became”);

3. Pentecostal readings (Ma, “If It Is a Sign”; Cotton, “Pentecostal Significance”; Hymes, “Numbers 11”).

Although some sustained treatments also are evident (Sakenfeld, “Numbers”), these perspectival approaches generally focus their attention on individual passages in which their respective scholarly communities have a vested interest. These include passages such as:

• Num 12, in which God defends Moses’ choice of an Ethiopian wife (Adamo, “African Wife”);

• the pericopes about Zelophehad’s daughters, which deal with women’s rights (Num 27:1–11; 36:1–12; Shemesh, “Gender Perspective”); and

• Num 11, in which God divides His spirit among the elders for the good of Moses and the people (Hymes, “Numbers 11”).