What exactly is described in the poetry of Exodus 15?
What different accounts of the crossing of the sea are combined in Exodus 14?
What can we say about the literary genre of these chapters?
What is the symbolic significance of the sea in biblical tradition?
How do we now appropriate the idea that God is a warrior?
Application Questions:
Have you ever felt like God cleared a path for you, like God did for the escaping Israelites? How did this feel? Was anyone else affected?
Each of the different sources tells the story of the encounter at the sea differently. How is interpreting of the Exodus as a historical fact different from understanding it as a mythical tale?
This story depicts God as a warrior when Moses says that he will fight for the Israelites. How does this characterization of God fit with or contradict our modern ideas of God? Can (and should) we reconcile these differences?