Memory and Tradition in the Book of Numbers

The book examines the ways in which the editors of Numbers created a narrative of the forty-year journey through the wilderness to control understanding of the past and influence attitudes in the future. The book explores politics, collective memory, and the strategies used by its priestly editors to convince the children of Israel to accept priestly rule. The book also focuses on the tragic dimension of the long journey and the transmission of tradition, memory, and values that occurs in such an atmosphere of crisis.