Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- ONE Desert Bound
- TWO Weaving by Design
- THREE Priestly Purposes
- FOUR Variations on a Theme: Shaping Memory in the Wilderness
- FIVE Crisis and Commemoration: The Use of Ritual Objects
- SIX Falling in the Wilderness: The Politics of Death and Burial
- SEVEN Inheriting the Land
- APPENDIX A The Priestly Sphere of Activity in the Book of Numbers
- APPENDIX B The Use and Variation of God's Address to Moses and to Aaron
- APPENDIX C Death Reports
- APPENDIX D Proper and Improper Treatment of the Dead
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Scriptural Index
- Selected Hebrew Index
APPENDIX D - Proper and Improper Treatment of the Dead
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- ONE Desert Bound
- TWO Weaving by Design
- THREE Priestly Purposes
- FOUR Variations on a Theme: Shaping Memory in the Wilderness
- FIVE Crisis and Commemoration: The Use of Ritual Objects
- SIX Falling in the Wilderness: The Politics of Death and Burial
- SEVEN Inheriting the Land
- APPENDIX A The Priestly Sphere of Activity in the Book of Numbers
- APPENDIX B The Use and Variation of God's Address to Moses and to Aaron
- APPENDIX C Death Reports
- APPENDIX D Proper and Improper Treatment of the Dead
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Scriptural Index
- Selected Hebrew Index
Summary
A partial list of biblical references to the proper and improper treatment of the dead outside the book of Numbers.
Within Torah
Genesis 23:4 Abraham negotiates for a family tomb on behalf of his deceased wife Sarah. The episode illustrates the importance of having property in order to have a tomb to bury one's loved ones.
Exodus 14:11 “Were there no graves in Egypt that you brought us out to die in this wilderness?” A matter-of-fact statement that Israelites expected to be buried in graves at the time of death.
Deuteronomy 28:26 In the midst of the curses against Israel: “Your carcasses shall become food for all the birds of the sky and all the beasts of the earth, with none to frighten them off.” Note that this is nearly identical to Jeremiah 7:33.
Within Prophets
I Samuel 31 This chapter describes the humiliating way in which the Philistines treated Saul. The disrespect to his corpse triggered shock and humiliation among the children of Israel. After his death he lay exposed on the hill for a day, had his head cut off and armor spread among the Philistines, and then was impaled on a wall at Beth Shean. The next day the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard about it and removed him, burned him, and buried his bones under a tree.
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- Information
- Memory and Tradition in the Book of Numbers , pp. 189 - 192Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007