{"id":3877,"date":"2020-04-03T16:08:39","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T20:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/?p=3877"},"modified":"2020-04-03T16:08:39","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T20:08:39","slug":"how-do-you-read-moses-and-aaron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/2020\/04\/03\/how-do-you-read-moses-and-aaron\/","title":{"rendered":"How do you read Moses and Aaron?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This book has several interesting additions, particularly a wide array of paratext. At the beginning, there is a table of contents that outlines the sections of the book, of which there are six, and what is covered in each of the chapters within those sections. Each of these sections, called books, is dedicated to one aspect of Jewish religious life. This includes such subjects as important persons, important places, and idolatry.<\/p>\n

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\nMost of these books contain around ten chapters, with the exception of the second book, which has five. The book is around 200-250 pages long, so taking into account the number of books and chapters, each chapter would be about four pages long. That length, and the specificity of the chapters, makes me think that this book wasn\u2019t meant to be read so much as consulted when particular information was needed. What challenges that idea is the fact that there are no page numbers attached to the books or chapters in the table of contents, which would make it exceptionally difficult to consult the book quickly for specific information. Given that, it seems that the book must have been read in its entirety, and that the table of contents was in place merely to inform the reader of the specific information present in the book.<\/p>\n

In addition to the table of contents at the beginning, there is a table of Biblical references at the end. The table lists every book in the Bible in order, followed by a list of all the chapters and verses from that book that are referenced in Moses and Aaron. These are listed in columns in the order they appear in the Bible, with the chapter on the left, the verse(s) in the middle, and the page from Moses and Aaron on the right. There are three such columns per page, and when the listing for a book of the Bible is completed, the list for the next book begins immediately below it within the same column, wasting no space. As with many other features of this book, this section is not designed primarily for display purposes, and is just about making sure the information is clear and accessible.<\/p>\n

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\nWhat this tells me is the opposite of what the table of contents revealed. This table of biblical references is meant for easy navigation and quick reference. The difference between this and a very granular, paginated (as opposed to the one present in Moses and Aaron) table of contents is that this table of references is in the back of the book and therefore seems to be a resource for interpreting the book after the fact and not for navigating it during the initial use. Additionally, the fact that it\u2019s organized in the order of the Bible as opposed to the order in Moses and Aaron means that it isn\u2019t meant to be a resource for people to follow along with what biblical references are being made as they read Moses and Aaron, but it\u2019s for people to use when making theological arguments that call on both Moses and Aaron and the Bible. That makes me feel like this book was written, primarily, as a theological text to be used by other theologians. Anyone looking for more information about Jews could simply look in the Bible and then find the place in Moses and Aaron where that Bible passage was referenced. I won\u2019t go too far into audience here, but from these elements, it seems that this book was meant to be read and understood as a complete text, but also returned to later as needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This book has several interesting additions, particularly a wide array of paratext. At the beginning, there is a table of contents that outlines the sections of the book, of which there are six, and what is covered in each of the chapters within those sections. Each of these sections, called books, is dedicated to one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9733,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[399580,499941],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9733"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3886,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3877\/revisions\/3886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}