Numbers 11:8—Did the manna taste like a honey wafer or like fresh oil?

Problem: Here the manna’s “taste was like the taste of pastry prepared with oil.” But in Exodus 16:31 asserts that the “taste of it was like wafers made with honey.”

Solution: The latter description may have been what the manna tasted like in its natural state; the former, after it was cooked. Notice that in the same verse it speaks of the people who “ground it on millstones” and “cooked it in pans.” But even granting the two passages are speaking about the manna in the same condition, they are not mutually exclusive.

This excerpt is from When Critics Ask: A Popular Handbook on Bible Difficulties (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books, 1992). © 2014 Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Click here to purchase this book.