The Haggadah’s insistence that God, without an intermediary, saved the Israelites from Egypt is a veiled retort to the Christian belief that God relied on Jesus as an agent of redemption. Moreover, the midrash replaces the Arma Christi tradition of recounting the weapons Jesus used to save humanity during the Crucifixion with its own distinctively Jewish arsenal of redemption: pestilence, a sword, the Shechinah, the staff, and blood.The author argues that this Haggadah tradition could go as far back as late antiquity.
I don't doubt that the passage as we have it offers a counter to Christianity. The essay deals with many things outside my expertise, but I can add some background to it.
The basis of the idea of an angel leading the Israelites to the Promised Land is Exodus 23:20, 23, which say so in so many words. Of course, the meaning of the passage is open to various interpretations, but a literal understanding of it seems also to have been taken up in Jewish tradition.
In the Hekhalot literature, the main passage about the high-priestly angelic figure called "the Youth" (הנער) quotes Exodus 23:20 in relation to him. Apparently he is that angel. In addition, the hand of the Lord rests upon him and the Shekhinah is present before, or in the midst of, God's throne of glory. The Youth passage appears in various places in the texts.
It is even possible that the mysterious priestly figure Mechizedek, mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 14 and Psalm 110, was identified with this angel in the Qumran Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. This is based on its use of the odd term קרוב, "sanctuary," which arguably is based on the phrase "my name is in the midst (קרב) of him" in Exodus 23:21.
It is therefore possible that the Haggadah is countering both Christian and Jewish interpretations of Exodus 23 which posit an intermediary figure in the Exodus from Egypt.
For a detailed discussion of the evidence concerning the Youth and Melchizedek, see:
James R. Davila, Hekhalot Literature in Translation: Major Texts of Merkavah Mysticism (SJJTP 20; Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 345-47, 366-69 (cf. 408-9) (the Youth passages)
Davila, “Melchizedek, the ‘Youth,’ and Jesus.” Pp. 248-74 (esp. p. 263) in Davila (ed.), The Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity: Papers from a Conference at St. Andrews in 2001 (STDJ 46; Leiden: Brill, 2003).
Davila, Liturgical Works (Eerdmans Commentaries on the Dead Sea Scrolls 6; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000), pp. 98, 147-49.
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