Chronological and Thematic Order/0
Chronological and Thematic Order
Introduction
When deciding how to arrange 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 be preferred over the other?
The Biblical text sets chronological order as the norm, but in many places it is willing to sacrifice it for literary reasons. At times, two units completely swap places with one another, appearing in reverse order. In other cases, several elements of two stories might chronologically overlap. Instead of constantly switching back and forth between the two, the 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.1 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, the true timing of scenes is ambiguous, and for textual or conceptual reasons a case might be made for achronology, but no definitive proof can be found in the text.
Two Elements Reversed
- Vayikra 1-5 and 6-7 – Vayikra 1:1 teaches that the national laws of sacrifices discussed in Chapters 1-5 were all said to Moshe in the Ohel Moed. In contrast, the directives of Chapters 6-7, aimed at the priests, were given earlier at Har Sinai and relate to to the sacrificial ceremonies surrounding the Tabernacle's consecration (see Vayikra 7:37 and 9:1). It is possible that the written account flips the order due to the differing needs of the desert generation and the future nation. In the desert, Moshe first transmitted the laws relating to priests since these were necessary for them to fulfill their immediate tasks. When writing for generations, however, it was more important to begin with those laws which are relevant for all times, and only afterwards to include directives related to one time events.
