Misquoting Moses with Joel Baden
Oct 9, 2026 · 1 hr 9 min · 13 segments
The Bible offers two different accounts of how the ancient Israelites took possession of the Promised Land. In the last part of Numbers and in the book of Joshua, the Israelites sweep the land in a…
Joel BadenHost
Megan CraigHost
I wanted to give us a little bit of literary groundwork before we dive into what scholars actually think happened in history because we will inevitably have to refer back to some things in the Books of Joshua and Judges quite a bit as we make our comparisons about the formation of ancient Israel.
Joel, what do you think actually happened if it wasn't the conquest? There's a biblical story.
That's one of the few things that we can confidently say is true about the reality behind the Hebrew Bible.
Well, you just asked a question that's gonna take me 45 minutes to answer, so, uh, I'm glad-
Um, okay, where to begin? There are, um, there is a pretty consistent, despite the variations you just talked about, there's a pretty consistent biblical story of where Israel came from.
Roughly consistent, which is to say it begins somewhere in the Pentateuch, right? That's, uh, whether it is, uh, with Abraham being called by God, uh, and sort of becoming the ancestor of a people, and you get, of course, Abraham and then Isaac and Jacob, and then Jacob's kids are the 12 tribes.
So, you know, you've got this family origin story, uh, that is the one that we all take for granted.
You've also got, and this is, uh, gonna be maybe a little bit surprising to some people, um, you also have a separate story or at least a separate tradition Going back before the Bible was written.
A separate tradition in which Israel becomes a people essentially when they're taken out of Egypt.
Uh, and you might say, "That's the same story, Baden." And yeah, like I know, i- in our Bibles it is, but in the, you know, scholars tend to think that before the Biblical texts were written, what we had was a bunch of, uh, different kinds of traditions, oral traditions, sometimes written traditions, uh, that have been fused together over time into a sort of coherent or semi-coherent whole.
Um, and the s- traditions about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the 12 tribes are one set of traditions.
I wanted to give us a little bit of literary groundwork before we dive into what scholars actually think happened in history because we will inevitably have to refer back to some things in the Books of Joshua and Judges quite a bit as we make our comparisons about the formation of ancient Israel.
Joel, what do you think actually happened if it wasn't the conquest? There's a biblical story.
That's one of the few things that we can confidently say is true about the reality behind the Hebrew Bible.
Well, you just asked a question that's gonna take me 45 minutes to answer, so, uh, I'm glad-
Um, okay, where to begin? There are, um, there is a pretty consistent, despite the variations you just talked about, there's a pretty consistent biblical story of where Israel came from.
Roughly consistent, which is to say it begins somewhere in the Pentateuch, right? That's, uh, whether it is, uh, with Abraham being called by God, uh, and sort of becoming the ancestor of a people, and you get, of course, Abraham and then Isaac and Jacob, and then Jacob's kids are the 12 tribes.
So, you know, you've got this family origin story, uh, that is the one that we all take for granted.
You've also got, and this is, uh, gonna be maybe a little bit surprising to some people, um, you also have a separate story or at least a separate tradition Going back before the Bible was written.
A separate tradition in which Israel becomes a people essentially when they're taken out of Egypt.
Uh, and you might say, "That's the same story, Baden." And yeah, like I know, i- in our Bibles it is, but in the, you know, scholars tend to think that before the Biblical texts were written, what we had was a bunch of, uh, different kinds of traditions, oral traditions, sometimes written traditions, uh, that have been fused together over time into a sort of coherent or semi-coherent whole.
Um, and the s- traditions about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the 12 tribes are one set of traditions.
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