Behaaloschah proves that the Torah was written by Men

So last weeks parshah was a real mess. Anybody notice?

Let's look at Chapter 11.

Chapter 11 starts off with the people complaining, and God 'burns them'. So now it's the death penalty for complaining? That's not very nice. Then they continue to complain, but didn't they just get burned bad for complaining? I guess they didn't learn their lesson. They say that they miss the 'fish, which we were wont to eat in Egypt for nought; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic'. Err, weren't they poor downtrodden slaves in Egypt?? Guess not.

Anyway, then we are told that the Manna tasted like 'cake baked with oil' וְהָיָה טַעְמוֹ, כְּטַעַם לְשַׁד הַשָּׁמֶן, remember this for later.

Then Moshe complains to God, and there's some back and forth, and God decides to send so much quail that it will come out of their noses, and they will be totally sick of it. In the middle of this is a weird and out of place interlude with Eldad & Medad. Anyway back to the story, so the quail comes, and you might think that's the end of the story, but no! Apparently God is no longer satisfied with just making the people sick to death of quail, so he sends another plague, and lots more people die. For complaining. How sad.

So, a complete mess of a story, and it doesn't portray God very nicely either. [Note: I think God is nice - assuming He exists. It's just whomever wrote down this story was a bit of a sicko. I guess he didn't like people complaining.]

But wait, there's more.

Take a look at Shemos 16. A remarkably similar story. The people complain about the lack of food. God says you shall eat quail in the evening and manna in the morning. The verse actually makes it sound like this was the schedule for every day - a meat dinner, pasty for breakfast. And the people are happy and nobody dies. And what does the manna taste like? Oil Cake? No! Cakes baked with honey (וְטַעְמוֹ, כְּצַפִּיחִת בִּדְבָשׁ)

So we have two stories with quails and manna. One story before Sinai, one after Sinai, so it can't really be the same story (at least not without kvetching). In one story, the quail is a one time event and a terrible punishment. In the other story, it doesn't seem to be much of a punishment, more like a nice fleishik dinner. And it also implies it happened every day. Also the taste of the manna is different. In Shemos its Honey Cakes, in Bamidbar its Oil Cakes. Could oil cakes and honey cakes taste the same? Sure, but why change the description?

What's going on here?

The answer is obvious. Two ancient legends about manna and quails, each retold by two different authors, in two different ways.

Now, these problems are so obvious I'm sure they caught the eye of the meforshim too. I haven't had the chance to review all the meforshim, but I can imagine the game they play. Each one invents an entirely bogus kvetch (or beautiful drash, as the case may be) to 'explain away' all the problems. Sure, these drashot teach meaningful lessons and sound nice at the shabbat table. But are they likely to be true? Hardly.

Isn't all this obvious? (Answer: Sure, as long as you are not blinded by fundie bias).

But Gil, RJM and Y Aharon will have fun kvetching this lot away. And I bet I've only scratched the surface here.

Update! I just noticed another messy bit. In Shemos 16 posuk 8 Moshe tells the people they will eat meat in the evening and manna in the morning) Yet 4 pesukim later, at posuk 12,God tells Moshe to go tell that to the Bnai Yisrael!. Bizarre.