Jochebed - Textual Criticism

Textual Criticism

Textual scholars attribute the genealogy to the Book of Generations, a document originating from a similar religiopolitical group and date to the priestly source. According to biblical scholars, the Torah's genealogy for Levi's descendants, is actually an aetiological myth reflecting the fact that there were four different groups among the Levites – the Gershonites, Kohathites, Merarites, and Aaronids; Aaron – the eponymous ancestor of the Aaronids – couldn't be portrayed as a brother to Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, as the narrative about the birth of Moses (brother of Aaron), which textual scholars attribute to the earlier Elohist source, mentions only that both his parents were Levites (without identifying their names). Biblical scholars suspect that the Elohist account offers both matrilinial and patrilinial descent from Levites in order to magnify the religious credentials of Moses.

It has been proposed by a number of Biblical scholars that Ichabod and Jacob may ultimately be linguistic corruptions of Jochebed, and possibly once have referred to the same individual