SOURCE: Nicholson, E. W. “The Origin of the Tradition in Exodus XXIV 9-11.” Vetus Testamentum 26, no. 2 (April 1976): 148-60.

In the following essay, Nicholson discusses the religious and historical background of the tradition of divine manifestation.

In two previous articles (‘The Interpretation of Exodus xxiv 9-11’, VT 24 (1974), pp. 77-97, and ‘The Antiquity of the Tradition in Exodus xxiv 9-11’, VT [Vetus Testamentum] 25 (1975), pp. 69-79) I argued that this short passage is a separate unit of tradition in the Sinai pericope; that the introduction to these verses in Exodus xxiv 1-2 is not original; that the tradition neither knows of nor implies the existence of a covenant between Israel and God; that it is a theophany tradition and is strikingly different in several ways from the theophany tradition(s) in Exodus xix and elsewhere in the Pentateuch; and finally that this theophany tradition is of great antiquity and very probably...