The meaning given to a story when it is handed down over successive generations, in written or oral form, will often change imperceptibly. This is particularly true of stories which have a specifically ideological or religious content, for it is then in the interest of the preserving community to continue to relate the story, if it is believed to have continuing value, to their circumstances and developing understanding of themselves. A direct result of such a process is often the loss of the original meaning. It seems to me that the original significance of the curious episode of the burning bush in Exodus 3 has been lost in this way.

The recovery of an original meaning will to a large extent depend on our ability to recover the original circumstances in which the story took shape, and indeed to ascertain precisely the literary type to which the story belongs. So long as the present story is regarded as being rooted, however obscurely, in the history of the pre-settlement era, then its true meaning, both theologically and in the history of religious thought, can only remain hidden. In this brief discussion I shall suggest a different historical context from the one normally accepted, in order to obtain a better understanding of the story.