Chronological and Thematic Order/0

Chronological and Thematic Order

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Introduction

When writing a historical narrative, an author must balance the competing elements of chronology and thematic order.  Should events be told in the order that they occurred or based on their relationship to one another?  When should one component outweigh the other?

The Biblical text sets chronological order as the norm, but in many places it is sacrificed for literary reasons. At times, two narratives completely swap places with one another, appearing in reverse order.  In other cases, several elements of different stories might chronologically overlap.  Instead of switching off between the two, Torah will usually complete one narrative unit before moving to the other.  This might take the form of a short epilogue that is brought forward to provide closure to the unit, or several verses which are pushed off to serve as an introduction to a later story.  The misplaced piece can be one verse long, or several chapters in length.

In several places in Torah, the achronology is explicit in the text.  Time markers such as people's ages, the passage of years, or more rarely, definitive dates, clue the reader into the phenomenon.  More often, though, scenes are ambiguous and for textual or conceptual reasons a case might be made for achronology, but no proof can be found in the text.

Two Elements Reversed

• Vayikra 1-5 and 6-7 – Vayikra 1:1 teaches that the laws of sacrifices listed in chapters 1-5 were all said to Moshe in the Ohel Moed.  In contrast, the directives of Chapters 6-7 were given earlier, at Har Sinai, and relate to the Tabernacle's consecration and the ceremony conducted by the priests in the eighth day (see Vayikra 7:37 and 9:1).  R. D"Z HoffmannVayikraAbout R. David Zvi Hoffmann suggests that in this case the written account orders the chapters differently because there