sacrificial & purity systems of leviticus
TRANSCRIPT
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Purity System of the Hebrew Bible
The Book of Leviticus
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Book of Leviticus: Part I
Chapters 1-16
From the “Priestly Source” (7th-6th century)
Concerned with:
1) Sacrifice
2) Various forms of ritual impurity
3) Dietary Laws
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Book of Leviticus: Part II
Chapters 17-26
“Holiness Code” (6th - 5th century)
“You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (19:2 & others)
Blessings & Curses (i.e., being vomited out by the land”)
Holy = set apart
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The Sacrificial System
Leviticus 1-7 & 16
6 categories
Oral component?
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#1: Burnt Offering
2x/day: sunrise & sunset
completely burnt
100% God’s - none remains for priests’ comsumption
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#2: Grain Offering
Bread cooked in one of several ways:
unbaked
baked in oven, griddle, or pan
roasted grain
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#3: Peace or Wellbeing
“Shalom”/”Salam” = peace, wellbeing, wholeness
Voluntary; a “well-wishing”, often as a thank-you
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#4: Sin Offering
Covers Unintentional Sin
“Sin” = “to miss the mark”
Against priest, congregation, leader, or commoner
Egalitarian; offering based on income
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#5: Guilt Offering
Unintentional sin (“missing the mark”)...
against a holy thing (i.e., something dedicated to God)
against any thing/one else
in the case of someone acting deceitfully or oppressively
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#6: Day of Atonement
Means of annually cleansing the temple/tabernacle
The 1x a year the priest enters the Holy of Holies
Yom Kippur
“yom” = “day”
“kippur” = literally “covering”
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Sacrificial System: Summary
Focus on:
Unintentional sin (“missing the mark”)
Daily & occasional giving
Individual responsibility
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Purity System
1970s: Jacob Milgrom, UC Berkeley
Considered antiquated by modern readers
particularly Protestant Christians
not followed by vast majority of Jews
Preserved out of tradition & reverance
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Purity System
Underlying rationale:
maintain categories of creation
connection to Gen 1 & the command to fill the earth & subdue it
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Category #1 (of 2): Moral Impurity
Any wrong done intentionally or unintentionally
Transgressing the law(s)
Not taking care of ritual impurity
An act that one can avoid
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Category #2 (of 2): Ritual Impurity
Cannot be helped
3 main categories:
Corpse (transferred to house)
Sexual fluids
Skin disease
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What do ritual impurities have in
common?Reverence for life
Reflecting God as much as possible
Reflection of God as 1) eternal & 2) asexual
“Let us make humankind in our image” (Gen 1:26-28)
“You are to be holy, for I the Lord your God am Holy” (Lev 19:2)
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Relation of 4 Terms:
Lev 10: Death of Aaron’s Sons
2 Sam 6: Death of Uzzah
Impure
Holy Common
Pure
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Sickness of the Land
For example, Lev 18:25-27...
“...and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you 27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), 28 lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.”
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Mary Douglas
Purity & Danger: Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (1966)
Anthropological Perspective
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Mary Douglas
“Dirt” = matter out of place
Assumes categories of where things belong
Not a matter of hygene
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Mary Douglas
Food laws of Leviticus 11
Categories assumed by authors of Leviticus, not layed out
Key example: prohibition of pork
Limits humankind’s effect on nature
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Mary DouglasConnection of Leviticus & Genesis 1
from same literary source
both concerned with maintenance of creation and the categories implied therein
Gen 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
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Underlying Rationale:
Concern for ethical relationship to nature
Promotion of life and fertility
Gen 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
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In your own words...1) What is the underlying rationale(s) for the purity system?
2) According to this system, what does it mean for day-to-day life to be...
a. made in the image of God (Gen 1:26-28) or to be holy, because God is holy (Lev 19:2)?
b. to have dominion over the sea, heavens, earth, and everything in them (Gen 1:26-28)?
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