Book of Leviticus
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Leviticus is the third book of the Hebrew Bible, also the third book in the Torah (five books of Moses). Christians refer to the Hebrew Bible as the Old Testament. The English name is derived from the Latin Liber Leviticus which is from the Greek (το) Λευιτικόν (i.e., βιβλίον). In Jewish writings it is customary to cite the book by its first word, Vayikra ויקרא, "and He called". (Vayikra is also the name of the first weekly Torah reading or parshah in the book.) The main points of the book are concerned with legal rules, and priestly ritual. Despite the English title of the work, it is important to note that the book makes a very strong distinction between the priesthood, who are identified as being descended from Aaron, and mere Levites.
Summary
In contrast to the other books of the Pentateuch, Leviticus contains very little in the way of narrating the story of the Israelites.The book is generally considered to consist of two large sections, both of which contain a number mitzvot, or commandments. The second part, Leviticus 17-26, is known as the Holiness Code. It places particular emphasis on holiness that which is considered sacred. Although Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy also deal with religious regulations, Leviticus focuses almost entirely on this subject and thus constitutes a major source of Jewish law.
The priestly code
The first part Leviticus (chapters 1-16), together wih Leviticus 27, constitutes the main portion of what scholars call the Priestly Code, which describes the details of rituals, and of worship, as well as details of ritual cleanliness and uncleanliness. It emphasizes the role of the Aaronic priesthood, comprised strictly of "Aaron and his sons." [1]Within this section are:
Laws on sacrifice
- Burnt offerings, grain offerings, and fellowship (peace) offerings. (1-3) Priests need only sacfrice a handful of any grain offering, keeping the rest for their own consumption. Burnt offerings are distinguished from fellowship offerings in that fellowship offerings are "for food," and may involve female animals as well as male ones.
- Sin (guilt) offerings, and trespass offerings. (4-5) Sin offerings are made for those who unintentionally violate a commandment. Penalties are also specified for such acts as failing to offer testimony in a public law case, touching ceremonially unclean objects, and careless oath-taking. Trespass offering regard entering forbidden areas, as well as touching or harming sacred objects. For crimes of theft and fraud, both a sin offering and restitution must be made, the latter consisting of the full value of any lost property plus an additional one fifth of its worth.
- Priestly duties and rights concerning the offering of sacrifices. (6-7) Priests are not to consume any part of the burnt offering. They may consume all but a handful of grain offerings, and are allowed to consume certain portions of sin offerings within the Tabernacle confines.
Narrative conerning Aaron and his sons
In Leviticus 8, Aaron and his sons are formally ordained. Moses ceremonially washes and dresses them, and then anoints Aaron as the high priest.
After conducting several animal sacrifices, Moses consecrates Aaron by anointing him with sacrificial blood and then consecrates Aaron's sons by sprinkling them with blood and anointing oil. After this, Aaron and his sons eat a sacrimental meal and must remain in the the sacred tent for seven days.
On the eighth day, Aaron assumes his duties as high priest, carefully conducting various offerings. God signals his approval of Aaron's work by sending fire from heaven to consume the sacrifices he has offered. (Lev 9:24) However, when Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu use "unauthorized fire" in attending the altar, they are immediately slain by God for this sin. (Lev. 10:1) Priests are forbidden to tear their garments during the mourning process.
Although conveyed in narative fashion, the story of the consecration of Aaron and his sons also represents a detailed manual for the formal investitute of priests throughout the period of the Tabernacle and later Temple of Jerusalem.
Purity and impurity
- Laws about clean and unclean animals. (11) Land animals must chew their cud and also have cloven hooves. See creatures must have both fins and scales. Bats, and certain time of meat-eating birds are forbidden. Among the insects, only certain types of locusts and grasshoppers are permitted.
- Laws concerning ritual cleanliness after childbirth. (12) Circucision of males is commanded on the eighth day after birth. Women are "unclean" for 33 days after the birth of a male, and 66 days after the birth of a female. The mother must also offer year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin offering.
- Detailed laws concerning skin diseases, as well as mildew on clothes and houses. (13-14)
- Laws concerning bodily discharges such as puss menstrual blood, semen, all of which render both a person and his/her clothes "unclean." (15)
- Laws instituting a day of national atonement, Yom Kippur. Also included are various prohibitions against entering inner sacturary of the Tabernacle and the tradition of sending the scapegoat into the wilderness. (16)
The Holiness Code
- Laws concerning idolatry, the slaughter of animals, dead animals, and the consumption of blood. (17)
Chapter 18:3-45 contains an address of God to the Israelites, setting forth the blessing that will flow from obedience and the curses that will result from rebellion to the Law. The speech closely resembles to Deuternomy 28 and often cited as evidence of the separate character of the Holiness Code. This section places particular emphasis on holiness, and the sacred versus the profane. The laws are less clearly categorized as in earlier chapters, with various topics often lumped together. Within this section are:
- Laws concerning sexual conduct such as incest, adultery, male homosexuality, bestiality, and sex during menstruation. Also prohibted is sacfricing one's child to the god Moloch. (18)
- A set of decrees similar to the 10 Commandments: honor one's father and mother, observe the sabbath, do not worship idols gods, make fellowship-offerings acceptably, the law of gleaning, injunctions against lying and stealing, do not swear falsely or take God's name in vain. Laws are instituted against mistreating the deaf, the blind, the elderly, and thepoor, against the poisoning of wells, and against hating one's brother. sex with female slaves is regulated, as are harming oneself, shaving, prostitution, and the observance of sabbaths. Sorcery and mediumship are banned. Resident aliens are not to be mistreated, and only honest weights and measures are to be used.. (19)
- The death penality is intituted for both Israelites and foreigners who sacrifice their children to Molech, and also for people who consult sorcerers and mediums, those who curse their own parents, or commit ceratin categories of incest or bestiality. The punishment for having sex with a mentstruating woman is that both parties are to be "cut off from the people." (20)
- Laws concerning priestly conduct, and prohibitions against the disabled, ill, and superfluously blemished, from becoming priests. Laws against presenting blemished sacrifices. (21-22)
- Laws concerning the observation of the several annual feasts and the sabbath. (23)
- Laws concerning the altar of incense. (24:1-9)
- The narrative case law of a blasphemer being stoned to death. The death penalty is specified for murder cases, and for cases of inury, the law is to be "fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth." Foreigners are not to be given different punishments from Israelites. (24:10-23)
- Laws concerning the sabbath and jubilee years, the rights of Levites, real estate law, and laws governing slavery and redemption. (25)
- Finally, a hortatory conclusion to the section, giving promises regarding obedience to these commandments, and warnings and threats for those that might disobey them, including sending wild animals to devour their children. (26:22)
Although it comes at the end of the book, Leviticus 27 is regarded by many scholars as originally part of the priestly code. In its present form it appears as an appendix to the just-concluded Holiness Code. In addition to regulations concerning the proper discharging of religious vows, it contains an injunction that one-tenth of one's cattle and crops belong to God.
Jewish and Christian views
Orthodox Jews believe that this entire book is the word of God, dictated by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. In Talmudic literature, there is evidence that Leviticus was first book of the Bible taught in the early rabbinic system. Although the sacrifices decreed in Leviticus were suspended after the destruction of Temple of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., other Levitical laws are considered still valid. Indeed, rabbinical tradtion in some ways goes beyond these laws. Talmudic debates often centered on how exactly to interpret and apply the various regulations of Leviticus and other books of the Torah.
Reform and secular Jews generally take the view that the Levitical laws are no longer binding for the most part.
Christians believe that Leviticus is the word of God, but generally hold that most of the non-ethical laws of the Hebrew Bible become obsolete as a result of the New Covenant initiated by Jesus. Sacfrices became unnecessary because Jesu himself brought atonement to believers through his death and resurrection. Paul's letters deal in detail with the need for Christians to realize that only faith in Jesus, and not obedience to the Jewish laws, brings salvation. As far as the dietary laws are concerned, some cite 1 Corinthians 10:23-26, in which Paul directs followers to "eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience."[2] to exempt them from following the dietary laws set forth in Leviticus. In addition, they cite Acts 10, in which God directs Saint Pater to "kill and eat" ritually unclean animals, declaring, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."
Critical views
According to the documentary hypothesis, much of Leviticus is identified as originating from the priestly source, "P," which also runs through parts of several other books of the Torah. Strongly supportive of the Aaronic priesthood, Leviticus is nevertheless said to consist of several layers of accretion from earlier collections of laws. The Holiness Code, however, is regarded as an independent document later combined with other sections into Leviticus as we have it today.
The priestly source is envisioned as a rival version of the stories contained within JE, which in turn is a comination of two earlier sources, J and E. P is generally more uplifting of the role of Aaron, while E—though by some to have originated from the non-Aaronic priesthood at Shiloh—is overtly critical of Aaron. The Holiness Code is seen as being the law code that the priestly source presented as being dictated to Moses at Sinai, in the place of the Covenant Code preserved in Exodus. On top of this, over time, different writers, of varying levels of narrative competence, ranging from repetitive tedium to case law, inserted various laws, some from earlier independent collections.
Structure
Chiastic structure is a literary structure used most notably in the Torah. The structure comprises concepts or ideas in an order ABC…CBA so that the first concept that comes up is also the last, the second is the second to last, and so on. A second chiastic structure can also be of the form ABBAABB…ABBA.
Chi is a Greek letter that is shaped like an X. Chi is made up of two lines crossing each other, so the line that starts leftmost on top comes down and is rightmost on the bottom, and vice versa. If one thinks of the lines as concepts, one sees that concept A , which comes first, is also last, and concept B, which comes after A, comes before A. If one adds in more lines representing other concepts, one gets a chiastic structure with more concepts.
The ABC…CBA chiastic structure
The ABC…CBA chiastic structure is used in many places in the Torah, including Levitics. This kind of chiastic structure is used to give emphasis to the central concept—"C." A notable example is the chiastic structure running from the middle of the Book of Exodus through the end of the Book of Leviticus. The structure begins with the covenant made between God and the Jewish People at Mount Sinai and ends with the admonition from God to the Jews if they will not keep this agreement. The main ideas are in the middle of Leviticus, from chapter 11 through chapter 20. Those chapters deal with the holiness in the Tabernacle and the holiness of the Jewish homeland in general.
The chiastic structure points the reader to the central idea, that of the expected holiness of the Jews in what they do. The idea behind the structure is that if the Jews keep the covenant and all the laws around the central concept, they will be blessed with a sense of holiness in their Tabernacle and in their land in general.
See also
- Torah
- The Bible and homosexuality
- Torah portions in Leviticus: Vayikra, Tzav, Shemini, Tazria, Metzora, Acharei, Kedoshim, Emor, Behar, and Bechukotai
Notes
- ↑ The Book of Deuteronomy specified that not only descendents of Aaron, but any Levite who moves from the outlying areas to the captital should be recognized as an authorized priest, leading modern scholars to the belief that Deuteronomy is a later work, reflecting the centralizing reforms of the seventh century B.C.E.
- ↑ Paul's standard here seems to be contracted by the policy of the Jerusalem church in which the gentile Christinas were instructed to "abstain from food polluted by idols... from the meat of strangled animals and from blood." (Acts 15:20) Markets in major cities of the [[Roman Empire]] often sold meat ritually slaughtered by pagan priests.
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External links
Online translations of Leviticus:
- Jewish translations:
- Leviticus at Mechon-Mamre (Jewish Publication Society translation)
- Leviticus (The Living Torah) Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's translation and commentary at Ort.org
- Vayikra - Leviticus (Judaica Press) translation with Rashi's commentary at Chabad.org
- ויקרא Vayikra - Leviticus (Hebrew - English at Mechon-Mamre.org)
- Christian translations:
- Online Bible at GospelHall.org
- Leviticus at The Great Books (New Revised Standard Version)
- Translations identifying sources according to the documentary hypothesis:
- Leviticus with sources highlighted, at Wikisource
- The law code of Leviticus isolated, at wikisource
- The description of priestly ritual, in isolation, at wikisource
Related article:
- Book of Leviticus article (Jewish Encyclopedia)
- The Literary Structure of Leviticus (chaver.com)
Free Online Bibliography on Leviticus:
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