3 - Exodus and the liturgy of baptism

Summary

Texts associated with the liturgy of baptism have been adduced many times in published attempts to resolve the complexities of the verse of Exodus. Noting the presence in the poem of both Genesis-based and Exodus-based passages, James W. Bright concluded in 1912 that Exodus is ‘based on Scripture selected to be read on Holy Saturday’, specifically lections prepared for the night-long Easter Vigil treating Noah, Abraham and the miracle at the Red Sea. In particular, Bright was struck by the intrusive appearance of a two-part patriarchal narrative about the Flood and Abraham's binding of Isaac in the second half (or last third) of Exodus. More recently, James E. Cross, discussing the insertion of these Genesis-based stories into the poem's account of the Israelites' crossing of the Red Sea, notes that ‘the unusual structural principle (if it is not lack of structural principle) needs some explanation’. Indeed, no textual loss from Junius 11 can be adduced to explain the abruptness with which the treatment of Noah in Exodus (362–79: ‘Niwe flodas/Noe oferlað …’) follows lines celebrating the Exodus and the lineage of the Israelites (346b-361: ‘Mægen forð gewat …’). The poem's allusion to the Israelites' patriarchal ancestry (fæderæðelo (Ex 361b)) in the latter sequence of lines might be seen as providing a transition of sorts into the reminiscence on Noah, but nineteenth-century studies of Exodus tended to regard the whole of the poem's Genesis-based narrative (lines 362–446; that is, 362–79, on Noah, and 380–446, on Abraham and Isaac) as a gross interpolation comparable to the matter now ascribed to Genesis B or, as we shall see, to certain exceptional lines in the central section of Daniel.