Scholarly Views
Two genealogies are given for Zelophehad by the Bible; in the Book of Chronicles, he is listed as a son of Manasseh. in other places where his genealogy is mentioned, he is listed as a son of Hepher, who was the son of Gilead, and therefore merely a descendant of Manasseh. Both of these genealogies treat Zelophehad as members of the tribe of Manasseh. The apparent contradictions have been addressed by naming Zelophehad as a descendant rather than as the second .
According to Shammai Feldman, Zelophehad and his daughters are a fiction created simply to illustrate some of the legal rules of inheritance; Jewish textual scholars regard the accounts concerning Zelophehad's daughters as accretions added to the earlier priestly source narrative by writers from the same pro-Aaronid religio-political group. The presence of Zelophehad and his daughters in the earlier census is marked by the King James Version as having dubious authenticity.
Read more about this topic: Daughters Of Zelophehad
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