Perspectives on Purity and Purification in the Bible

LIBRARY OF HEBREW BIBLE/ OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES

474 Formerly Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series

Editors Claudia V. Camp, Texas Christian University Andrew Mein, Westcott House, Cambridge

Founding Editors David J. A. Clines, Philip R. Davies and David M. Gunn

Editorial Board Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald, Gina Hens-Piazza, John Jarick, Andrew D. H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller, Yvonne Sherwood

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PERSPECTIVES ON PURITY AND PURIFICATION IN THE BIBLE

edited by

Baruch J. Schwartz, David P. Wright, Jeffrey Stackert, and Naphtali S. Meshel

Copyright © 2008 by Baruch J. Schwartz, David P. Wright, Jeffrey Stackert, and Naphtali S. Meshel All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, T & T Clark International. T & T Clark International, 80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038 T & T Clark International, The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX T & T Clark International is a Continuum imprint.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Perspectives on purity and purification in the Bible / edited by Baruch J. Schwartz ... [et al.]. p. cm. -- (The library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament studies ; 474) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-567-02832-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-567-02832-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Purity, Ritual--Judaism. 2. Cohanim. 3. Sacrifice--Judaism. I. Schwartz, Baruch J. BM702.P447 2008 296.3'2--dc22 2007051330

06 07 08 09 10 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS Preface List of Abbreviations

vii ix

INTRODUCTION

1

Part I SYSTEM THE FUNCTION OF THE NAZIRITE’S CONCLUDING PURIFICATION OFFERING Roy E. Gane

9

SIN AND IMPURITY: ATONED OR PURIFIED? YES! Jay Sklar

18

PURE, IMPURE, PERMITTED, PROHIBITED: A STUDY OF CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS IN P Naphtali S. Meshel

32

DIRT AND DISGUST: BODY AND MORALITY IN BIBLICAL PURITY LAWS Thomas Kazen

43

DOES THE PRIESTLY PURITY CODE DOMESTICATE WOMEN? David Tabb Stewart

65

Part II METHOD BLOOD AS PURIFICANT IN PRIESTLY TORAH: WHAT DO WE KNOW AND HOW DO WE KNOW IT? William K. Gilders

77

METHODOLOGY AND IDEOLOGY IN THE STUDY OF PRIESTLY RITUAL Jonathan Klawans

84

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Perspectives on Purity and Purification in the Bible

PAGANS AND PRIESTS: CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON METHOD Frank H. Gorman Index of References Index of Authors

96

111 116

PREFACE The essays in this volume are based on papers read at two sessions on Purity and Purification in Pentateuchal law held at the 125th Anniversary Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature at its 125th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, November 2005. In coordinating these sessions on behalf of the Pentateuch Section’s steering committee, I had the gracious assistance of David P. Wright, who then agreed to join with me in editing the present volume. Sincere thanks to him, and to our colleagues Jeffrey Stackert and Naphtali S. Meshel, for their devoted efforts in this cooperative venture. Thanks also to committee co-chairs Diane M. Sharon and Thomas B. Dozeman for encouraging us to conduct the sessions and for urging us collect the papers for publication. On behalf of the editors it is a pleasure to thank the participants for contributing their papers to this collection. Most important, heartfelt thanks go out on behalf of the editors and contributors to Claudia V. Camp and Andrew Mein for inviting us to include this collection in the Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies, to Henry Carrigan, Burke Gerstenschlager, Katie Galoff, Gabriella Page-Fort, along with the rest of the acquisitions, editorial and production staff at T&T Clark International/Continuum, and to Duncan Burns, copyeditor and typesetter of this volume, for their painstaking and accommodating work in bringing this project to completion. Baruch J. Schwartz Jerusalem, April 2008

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ABBREVIATIONS AB ABD AJS Review AUSDS AV

BRLJ BZAW CBQ CC ConBNT FOTL HAT HTR HUCA ICC IDB JB

JAAR JAOS JBL JANES JQR JSOT JSOTSup LXX

NAC NASB

NCBC NEB

NICOT NIV

NIVAC NJPS/V NRSV

OBT OTL OTS PEQ RB

The Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by D. N. Freedman. 6 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1992 Association for Jewish Studies Review Andrews University Seminary Doctoral Dissertation Series Authorized Version Brill Reference Library of Judaism Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Catholic Biblical Quarterly Continental Commentaries Coniectanea biblica: New Testament Series Forms of the Old Testament Literature Handbuch zum Alten Testament Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual The International Critical Commentary The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Edited by G. A. Buttrick. 4 vols. Nashville: Abingdon, 1962 Jerusalem Bible Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society Jewish Quarterly Review Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series Septuagint New American Commentary New American Standard Bible New Cambridge Bible Commentary New English Bible New International Commentary on the Old Testament New International Version NIV Application Commentary New Jerusalem Publication Society Version New Revised Standard Version Overtures to Biblical Theology The Old Testament Library Old Testament Studies Palestine Exploration Quarterly Revue biblique

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RSR

Recherches de science religieuse Revised Standard Version Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series South Florida studies in the history of Judaism Scripta hierosolymitana Studies in Jerusalem in Late Antiquity Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Edited by G. Kittel and G. Friedrich. Translated by G. W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–76 Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament. Edited by G. J. Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren. 10 vols. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1970–2000 Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Vetus Testamentum Supplements to Vetus Testamentum Word Biblical Commentary Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

RSV

SBLDS SFSHJ SH SJLA TDNT ThWAT TOTC VT VTSup WBC ZAW

INTRODUCTION Two related themes hold the essays in this volume together: the question of whether the purity laws central to the priestly writings, together with the broader ritual legislation contained therein, constitute a systematically conceived corpus, and the question of the methods and perspectives that ought to be employed for assessing such a system. The first question arises in the wake of research conducted during the last generation, research that tended to emphasize the internal coherence of the priestly legislation. This includes the work of biblical scholars, primarily Jacob Milgrom, and that of anthropologists, most notably Mary Douglas. Their research has been a sort of intellectual fertilizer, yielding a bumper crop of younger scholars who have now begun to study the priestly corpus and its concerns—reviewing, questioning, and proposing corrections to the accomplishments of their influential mentors. The essays that appear here range from specific questions to broad methodological issues. The first five explore the question of system. Roy E. Gane’s essay, “The Function of the Nazirite’s Concluding Purification Offering,” proposes a new solution to one of the apparent inconsistencies in the system of the haÓÓƗt rituals. Within the overall context of haÓÓƗt sacrifices prescribed, Gane finds the interpretation that the Nazirite’s haÓÓƗt is required because of the desanctification occurring when he exits his status as a Nazirite difficult to sustain. Turning instead to the analogy of the haÓÓƗt performed in the consecration of the priests, Gane suggests that the Nazirite’s haÓÓƗt is a function of his having dedicated his hair to the deity, which is the culmination of his vow. The function of the haÓÓƗt is therefore to effect purification, making it consistent with the majority of cases. The essay “Sin and Impurity: Atoned or Purified? Yes!” by Jay Sklar likewise seeks to solve a classic crux in the attempt to interpret the priestly legislation as a coherent system, namely, the precise meaning of the verb kipper. Rejecting the vacillation posited by several scholars in the use of the word, he finds that the term has a dual meaning, signifying at the same time both ransoming (with which the concept of “atone” is associated) and purifying. This duality of meaning, he suggests, explains why the term appears in contexts of both sin and impurity: the rites that achieve the goal of kippur resolve situations that both endanger and defile. The essay by Naphtali S. Meshel, “Pure, Impure, Permitted, Prohibited: A Study in Classification Systems in P,” seeks to expose the system underlying the dietary laws of Lev 11. Noting precisely which animal carcasses are called impure and which are called abominable, and differentiating between those that

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are said to pollute and those that do not pollute, Meshel is able to arrive at a complex yet symmetrical classification of animals based on whether they are pure, may be eaten, or may be touched. This classification, he discovers, was the result of a sophisticated intellectualization of traditional and simpler dietary rules, and was probably not practiced or even intended to be practiced. Rather, it appears to make a theological statement: the prohibitions about contact and ingestion are divinely decreed inasmuch as their logic does not follow what was conceived as the natural order or the taxonomy of animals. Thomas Kazen’s “Dirt and Disgust: Body and Morality in Biblical Purity Laws” goes beyond the study of the biblical texts in order to make sense of the nexus of ritual and moral impurity. Kazen employs insights drawn from developmental psychology and evolutionary biology to show how the emotion of disgust underlies the aversion both to noxious or harmful agents and to unacceptable behaviors. Hence the use of the terminology for impurity with regard to behaviors is not simply a function of secondary, metaphorical extrapolation, but a primary use of that terminology, and what appears to be an inconsistency in priestly conceptions is in fact a form of coherence. His analysis of the dietary laws of Lev 11 can profitably be studied in conjunction with Meshel’s analysis. David T. Stewart’s “Does the Priestly Purity Code Domesticate Women?” seeks to get behind the priestly text and to detect the hidden female voice or perspective in the purity laws of Lev 11–15. He notes that women and their concerns appear, explicitly or implicitly, in the inclusive introduction to the subsection of Lev 13:29–39, in the context of weaving in 13:47–59 (a passage perhaps originally addressed to women), in the law of purification after childbirth in ch. 12 and in the laws of purification from regular and irregular sexual flows in ch. 15. He argues that the male perspective responsible for creating the texts of these chapters has appropriated these female realms and effaced female concerns, and he suggests that the chapters also reflect an uneasiness that the (male) writers may have had with female potentiality. The last three essays raise questions not only of system but of method. William K. Gilders’ essay, “Blood as Purificant in Priestly Torah: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?” expresses some doubts on the validity of the reigning interpretations of the priestly texts by asking pointedly whether the various blood rites indeed achieve purification. Gilders makes use of the blood rites prescribed for the person cured of scale-disease in Lev 14 as a heuristic avenue. His purpose is not to show that interpreting these rites as acts of purification is necessarily wrong, but that the specific texts in question actually say very little about the purpose of the blood rites. Turning from Lev 14, Gilders makes more general observations regarding descriptions of blood manipulation in the priestly writings, arguing that the P authors never explain what blood actually does to impurities or why blood possesses purifying power. He thus questions whether the conceptual gap-filling performed by scholars in their quest for systematic interpretation of priestly ritual is justified, and suggests that the texts are more interested in praxis or performance than in the meaning of the performances.

Introduction

3

Jonathan Klawans’s study, “Methodology and Ideology in the Study of Priestly Ritual,” treats three broad issues. He calls attention to apologetic interests that may be at work in some of the symbolic approaches to ritual employed by scholars, and suggests that appeal to the prophetic texts may lead to a more objective understanding of the actual degree to which symbolism infused priestly performance in Biblical Israel. To accomplish this, Klawans explores the apparent contradiction between the lack of ethical interest in priestly prescriptions and the foregrounding of ethical interests in prophetic texts. An inversion in perspective, based on a more dispassionate approach, reveals that priestly thought is more precisely nuanced than prophetic, in that it distinguishes shades of gray, as against the often black-and-white perspective characteristic of prophetic denunciation. Klawans concludes by calling into question the models of religious development from the Priestly Torah to the Holiness Legislation proposed by recent scholarship, models that often imply that P’s legislation was indifferent to moral issues. Linear trajectories, he warns, should be avoided. Frank H. Gorman, in his wide-ranging essay, “Pagans and Priests: Critical Reflections on Method,” is concerned, like Klawans, about the symbolic interpretation of ritual that has come to dominate scholarship, but his questions are more basic: What is a symbol, how is symbolic meaning determined, and what different types of symbolism are there? Scholars, he observes, do not always keep these questions separate. Gorman too notes some of the inconsistencies in the priestly legislation and asks whether its authors even intended to provide a fully coherent body of literature or whether the perception of system may in fact be the creation of interpreters. He is further concerned with ascertaining the precise nature of what is represented by the ritual legislation preserved in P: are the actions prescribed really rituals in the historical, practical sense, or have they perhaps been written to be read, but not necessarily to be performed? Gorman concludes by criticizing some of the comparative analysis found in contemporary scholarship, finding that it errs on the side of privileging the ritual legislation in the Bible over the “pagan” rites of Israel’s neighbors, a value-laden and apologetic enterprise. In sum, there is a range of views represented, from cautious skepticism to relatively confident reconstructions. Between these two poles we have discussions elucidating priestly thought in terms of common humanity and extrabiblical, theoretical models and disciplines. This sampling is representative of the range of views that can be found in the larger literature on biblical purity and ritual. All of the authors provide recommendations for approaches they believe should be adopted and specific questions that need to be explored in future scholarship. We would add here only a few of our own broad methodological observations. When it comes to matters of systematization and symbolic interpretation, it must be realized that as soon as one translates the text, one has already affirmatively committed oneself to these matters to a significant degree. Difficult terms in P such as kipper and haÓÓƗt cannot be translated without making a decision about what they represent systematically, and even symbolically, in the

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Perspectives on Purity and Purification in the Bible

thought-world of P, and this applies to all of the many so-called termini technici employed by P as well. Moreover, any interpretation of the text—any representation of it “in other words”—entails decisions about systems of ideas and symbolic significance. We can strive to follow Klawans’s and Gorman’s advice to be aware of what we are doing when we are doing it. Yet at the same time, since these matters come into play at every point of engagement with the text, at every word and between the words and lines, exaggerated self-awareness can become debilitating. Moreover, it is no simple matter to be aware of what is not apparent, and that is why the next generation can often see things to which we are oblivious. With regard to system, while one must be careful about assuming complete, or even extensive, consistency in the priestly writings, one should start from the indications of the texts themselves. These indicate that the corpus does at least seek to represent a system of thought to a significant degree. At the level of the individual pericopae, for instance, the presentation of the several cases of the haÓÓƗt in Lev 4 and the contrasts between them, which betray gradations of cases, are clearly indicative of systematic conceptualization, and literary features such as the chiastic shape of ch. 15 are evidently expressive of a coherence not only of composition but of thought as well. Larger units of legislation, such as the arrangement of different types of sacrifices across Lev 1–7 and the treatment of impurities in chs. 11–15, for all the questions that can be raised regarding the particulars, display sufficient coherence for us to avoid extreme agnosticism; indeed such evidence predisposes us at least to begin by searching for system. One difficulty that complicates this endeavor is the presence of distinct diachronic strata in the priestly writings, primarily the Priestly and Holiness strata. The system that may be visible in each stratum of the priestly work is harder to discern because the amount of text available for study is necessarily reduced. At the same time, diachronic distinctions allow us to investigate the development of thought. To be sure, as Klawans has argued, this investigation can be adversely affected by the imposition of evolutionary models that may be tendentious and may arise from considerations beyond the text. Further, we must recognize the inherent difficulty of comparing systems when only one of the two strata contains legislation on a topic while the other says little or nothing about it, and we should take care to avoid the fallacy involved in assuming that silence about a particular matter is evidence of acquiescence, disagreement or ignorance—or, for that matter, of anything else. But comparing texts, especially when one text appears to have been influenced by another, and intuiting how ideas and practice have changed from one text to another, is still the primary and best way we have of exploring the history of biblical religion. Some scholars eschew all study of the stratification of these texts, preferring instead to attempt systematic analysis of the priestly writings as a whole. This, however, can effectively skew historical understanding just as much as an approach that searches only for development and ignores coherence. One can only agree with Gorman on the need to avoid confusing different types of symbolism and to show appropriate regard for the complexity of

Introduction

5

semiotic analysis, distinguishing as required between signs, signals, symbols, indices and icons. We would also stress the importance of keeping the interpretation of ritual symbols (such as scarlet material in Lev 14:4–6, 49–51 and Num 19:6, perhaps representing blood) separate from anthropological analysis that examines how ritual may reflect social categories, keeping in mind that different symbolic approaches may be complementary. We would further emphasize the need to avoid as much as possible the temptation to equate latent or implicit meaning with manifest or explicitly stated rationales. One should ask oneself what it is that one is looking for: the underlying conceptions of the society that allegedly practiced these rituals, in which case an etic approach is indicated and comparative material may be very useful, or the manner in which the rituals were understood by the practitioners, in which case an emic approach is most appropriate and the textual evidence is helpful but not conclusive, or the interpretations of the rituals provided by the literary elite, in which case the question is hardly anthropological in the narrow sense of the term, but is rather explicitly ideological or theological and the textual evidence is crucial. Gilders rightly reminds us of the laconic nature of the priestly writings. The analysis of the text can only proceed on the basis of what the text provides in its context, and should begin by assuming that what is necessary for understanding the text is incorporated therein. At the same time, an examination of genre might reveal that the gaps can best be filled by attempting systematic analysis of the broader context. By “the text,” after all, we do not necessarily mean the smallest textual unit; the dictum of the Talmudic sages that “the words of the Torah are sparse in one passage and plentiful in another” is often applicable to the priestly writings when studied in their fullest form. The key to dealing with the problems posed by the methods plied in these essays is to be found in the explicit recommendation of the writers, which we cannot but endorse: to be in dialogue with the whole range of competently argued views, and to make every effort to take into account the legitimate objections that may be raised about systematic, diachronic, and symbolic interpretations of biblical ritual practice and ritual texts. David P. Wright Baruch J. Schwartz Jeffrey Stackert Naphtali S. Meshel

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Part I

SYSTEM

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THE FUNCTION OF THE NAZIRITE’S CONCLUDING PURIFICATION OFFERING Roy E. Gane

Introduction Numbers 6:13–20 outlines a ceremony, including a purification offering (vv. 14, 16), to be performed at the end of a successfully completed Nazirite period. The purpose of this mandatory purification offering constitutes a crux. For what nondefiant sin or severe physical ritual impurity—the evils remedied by noncalendric purification offerings elsewhere (e.g. Lev 4:1–5:13; 12:6–8; 14:19)— could such a sacrifice expiate in this context?1 The answer to this question may affect or at least test our understanding of purification offerings in general. Sin and/or Desanctification of the Nazirite? Most commentators fail even to mention the special problem of the Nazirite’s concluding purification offering.2 Some have attempted to interpret his/her need for expiation as arising simply from human imperfection and consequent ongoing need for pardon3 or as a result of “the sins committed involuntarily during the period of consecration.”4 But elsewhere in pentateuchal ritual law, 1. On the nature of evils that are removed from offerers through noncalendric purification offerings, see R. Gane, Cult and Character: Purification Offerings, Day of Atonement, and Theodicy (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 198–213. 2. See, e.g., R. D. Cole, Numbers (NAC 3B; Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2000), 125. On the concluding purification offering in Num 6:14, P. J. Budd simply refers the reader to his comment on vv. 11–12, in the context of premature termination of Naziriteship due to corpse contamination (Numbers [WBC 5; Waco, Tex.: Word, 1984], 72), without acknowledging the difference between the cases. Similarly on vv. 16–17, T. Ashley mentions “the purification offering, to deal with impurities that have been brought into the sanctuary,” without attempting to identify the “impurities” remedied by the sacrifice (The Book of Numbers [NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993], 144–46). B. Levine describes the Nazirite’s concluding purification offering as expiatory, but does not raise the question of why expiation is needed in this case (Numbers 1–20 [AB 4; New York: Doubleday, 1993], 225–26). 3. E.g. F. B. Meyer, The Five Books of Moses (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1955), 129: “Sinoffering for the sin that mingles with our holiest service.” 4. C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (trans. J. Martin; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1872), 3:39; cf. A. Noordtzij, Numbers (trans. E. van der Maas; Bible Student’s Commentary; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 65.

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except during the special initiation ceremonies of (a) consecration and inauguration in Exod 29 and Lev 8–9 and (b) purification of the Levite work force in Num 8, a noncalendric purification offering is required when someone realizes his/her liability with regard to an identifiable evil (e.g. Lev 4:13–14, 22–23, 27– 28; 5:4–5), not because the person may have sinned or become impure without realizing it or because of an assumption that over a period of time he/she must have sinned or become impure.5 We would expect Num 6 to prescribe a purification offering that is required only if the Nazirite realizes that he/she has sinned or needs purification.6 But that is not how the text reads. Nor does the text hint that the motivation for taking the Nazirite vow in the first place is “an incurred sin or guilt” and the Nazirite submits to the votive obligations (including the purification offering) “as an act of penitence.”7 Ramban found a kind of sin for the Nazirite in his desanctification: up to this point he had been separated for holiness and service for YHWH, “and he should therefore have remained separated forever.”8 However, Num 6:8, which Ramban cites, speaks of the temporary Nazirite’s special holiness only during the promised time of separation, giving no indication that the votive obligation extends for the duration of one’s life. Jacob Milgrom picks up on Ramban’s idea of desanctification, but regards it as legitimate rather than sinful.9 Milgrom points out that like temporary Naziriteship, votive dedication of land to the sanctuary applies for a limited period of time, “the land reverting to its owner on the Jubilee and the Nazirite reverting to 5. Cf. J. Milgrom, Numbers (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1990), 48. The nature of expiation provided by calendric purification offerings for the community, which are appointed for specific days according to the cultic calendar (e.g. Num 28:15, 22; 29:5, 11, 16, etc.), is not clear from the biblical text (cf. Gane, Cult and Character, 63 n. 72). 6. According to b. Nazir 19a, R. Eleazar Ha-Kappar does come up with a specific sin for the Nazirite, whether he remains ritually pure or his vow is voided by defilement: the sin of excessive self-denial. But in b. Nazir 3a the same rabbi is reported to regard as a sinner only the Nazirite who contracts ritual impurity. 7. Against the suggestion of R. Knierim and G. Coats (Numbers [FOTL 4; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005], 91). 8. Ramban, Numbers (trans. C. Chavel; Commentary on the Torah; New York: Shilo, 1975), 55–56; cf. A. Rodriguez, Substitution in the Hebrew Cultus (AUSDS 3; Berrien Springs: Andrews University Press, 1979), 120–21. 9. J. Milgrom, “Sin-Offering or Purification-Offering?,” VT 21 (1971): 237–39 (237); idem, Cult and Conscience: The Asham and the Priestly Doctrine of Repentance (SJLA 18; Leiden: Brill, 1976), 69; idem, Numbers, 48; cf. Z. Weinberg’s suggestion that the Nazirite’s purification offering renews a normal relationship with the deity (“Purification Offering and Reparation Offering,” Beth Miqra 55 [1973]: 524–30 [526] [Heb.]). Some scholars interpret the Nazirite’s entire concluding set of sacrifices, including the purification offering, as accomplishing his desanctification: G. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 121; idem, Numbers (TOTC; Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 1981), 88; N. Amorim, “Desecration and Defilement in the Old Testament” (Ph.D. diss.; Andrews University, 1985), 166–68; T. Cartledge, “Were Nazirite Vows Unconditional?,” CBQ 51 (1989): 409–22 (414); P. Jenson, Graded Holiness: A Key to the Priestly Conception of the World (JSOTSup 106; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 51. Jenson supports the idea of a desanctifying rite of passage here by referring to other ritual activities that some scholars have

GANE The Nazirite’s Concluding Purification Offering

11

his lay status upon the termination of his vow (Lev. 27:21, by implication; Num. 6:13).”10 Rather than resolving our crux, Milgrom’s analogy reinforces it: a monetary fine for land redemption is imposed only when the owner (voluntarily) shortens the period of dedication. This parallels the need for a Nazirite to offer expiatory sacrifices if he (involuntarily) aborts his period of separation by unavoidable corpse contamination (Num 6:10–12), but not if his term is brought to completion.11 Notice that the Nazirite, unlike the land owner, has no option of legally shortening the period of dedication.12 As Milgrom recognizes, desanctification is outside the scope of purification offering function attested elsewhere.13 The biblical text provides no clear rationale for such a radically exceptional usage, which would compromise the cohesion of the purification offering system. Alfred Marx agrees that the Nazirite’s sacrifice desanctifies. However, by contrast with Milgrom’s treatment of the case as an anomaly, Marx uses this instance as a central example of the “rite of passage” function that he finds to be the common denominator of purification offerings.14 Marx is right that purification offerings carry out a kind of “passage” in the sense that they restore status with YHWH.15 However, his system seriously overextends the “passage” significance of purification offerings and he does not adequately justify desanctification in the case of the Nazirite.16 “Passage” is not the defining trait of purification offerings, as Marx would have it, because other classes of sacrifice, such as the ordination sacrifice of the priests (Lev 8:22–28) and the Nazirite’s own concluding well-being offering with its accompaniments (Num 6:17), also contribute to changing states of persons. A purification offering can be included in a “passage” process of priestly consecration because it serves a purifying function prerequisite to transition into construed as desanctification: changing of clothes and washing by the high priest on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:23–24), and scouring or breaking vessels used for cooking purification offering meat (6:21 [Engl. v. 28]). However, these activities can better be explained in terms of purification (Gane, Cult and Character, 172–73, 186–90). 10. Milgrom, Numbers, 355–56; cf. 48. 11. Ibid., 356; cf. idem, Cult and Conscience, 67–68. This point is missed by Rodriguez, who suggests by analogy with Lev 27 that the Nazirite’s concluding purification offering is a “rite of redemption” that expiates for the “sin” of desanctification (Substitution, 121). 12. Naphtali Meshel; personal communication. 13. Milgrom, Numbers, 48. 14. A. Marx, “Sacrifice pour les pèches ou rite de passage? Quelques réflexions sur la fonction du ­aÓÓƗt,” RB 96 (1989): 27–48. Marx interprets combinations of purification and burnt offerings (e.g. of the Nazirite in Num 6:14, 16) as coordinating to provide dynamics of passage: purification offerings accomplish separation from the previous state and burnt offerings effect aggregation to a new or renewed state. Therefore, he proposes that the purification offering should be labeled “sacrifice of separation.” 15. D. Wright characterizes processes of contracting “tolerated” impurities, being in a state of impurity, and undergoing purification from them as “rites of passage” (“The Spectrum of Priestly Impurity,” in Priesthood and Cult in Ancient Israel [ed. G. A. Anderson and Saul M. Olyan; JSOTSup 125; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991], 150–81 [173]; cf. 174). 16. J. Milgrom, “The ÐaÓÓƗt: A Rite of Passage?,” RB 98 (1991): 120–24; idem, Leviticus 1–16 (AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 289–92; cf. my critique in Gane, Cult and Character, 195–97.

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a state of enhanced intimacy with the deity (e.g. Exod 29:10–14; Lev 8:14–17).17 However, the goal of consecration is carried out by application of anointing oil (Exod 28:41; 29:7; 30:30; 40:13, 15; Lev 8:12, 30), rather than by a purification offering.18 The “passage” function of purification offerings is confined to purification; it is not so broad or plastic as to serve also for sanctification or desanctification. Empowerment of the Nazirite? Albert Baumgarten argues that because vital force resides in hair, when the Nazirite cuts and offers his hair to YHWH, this part of his joyful celebration lowers his status and strength below the normal level. Therefore, to restore the balance and protect him from possible harm, he needs to offer a purification offering.19 Aside from systemic flaws in Baumgarten’s approach to purification offerings as rituals of empowerment, which Milgrom and I have diagnosed elsewhere,20 his explanation of the Nazirite’s sacrifice is immediately invalidated by the fact that this purification offering is performed (Num 6:16) before the Nazirite cuts his hair (v. 18), when he would not yet need transcendental medication to remedy his weakness. Baumgarten tries to address this problem by citing R. Eliezer, according to whom the haircut accompanies the slaughter of the purification offering (m. Nazir 6.7).21 But Num 6 rules out such a protocol by requiring the Nazirite to offer his well-being offering and basket of grain, with an accompanying grain offering and drink offering (v. 17), between his purification offering and his haircut. Preparation for Culmination of Nazirite Sanctity? N. Kiuchi suggests that the Nazirite’s concluding ceremony “could mark the culminating point of the Naziritehood expressing the special relationship between God and the Nazirite. Thus ‘desanctification’ seems rather secondary in the essential nature of the ceremony.”22 Kiuchi compares the Nazirite’s ceremony 17. Cf. J. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC 4; Dallas: Word, 1992), 56–57. 18. Cf. Milgrom, “The ÐaÓÓƗt: A Rite of Passage?,” 121. 19. A. Baumgarten, “ÐaÓÓƗt Sacrifices,” RB 103 (1996): 337–42 (341–42); cf. the suggestion of C. Lemardelé that the Nazirite’s sacrifice protects him from impurity (“Le sacrifice de purification: Un sacrifice ambigu?,” VT 52 [2002]: 284–89 [286–88]). 20. Baumgarten, “ÐaÓÓƗt Sacrifices,” 339–40; idem, “The Paradox of the Red Heifer,” VT 43 (1993): 442–51; J. Milgrom, “Confusing the Sacred and the Impure: A Rejoinder,” VT 44 (1994): 555–57; Gane, Cult and Character, 186–91. 21. Baumgarten, “ÐaÓÓƗt Sacrifices,” 341 n. 15. Baumgarten attempts to confirm his interpretation by referring to vulnerability that results from cutting hair in the story of Samson, a lifelong Nazirite (Judg 16), and vulnerability in folklore (pp. 341–42). Even if he is right about the nature of vulnerability in these kinds of cases, he has not established that the same dynamics apply to the temporary Nazirite of Num 6. 22. N. Kiuchi, The Purification Offering in the Priestly Literature: Its Meaning and Function (JSOTSup 56; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 55.

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with the installation of the priests in Lev 8–9. Justifying this comparison are the facts that the Nazirite’s holy status resembles that of the high priest23 and the categories of sacrifices brought by the Nazirite are the same as those offered by the priests: purification, burnt, grain, and well-being offerings. Focusing on the inauguration ceremony in Lev 9, Kiuchi observes that the priests, who are already holy after their seven-day period of ordination (Exod 29; Lev 8), nevertheless need expiation/purification through a purification offering (Lev 9:8–11) because they approach YHWH. He concludes that similarly in Num 6, the already holy Nazirite “needs expiation/purification simply because he approaches God (v. 13),” not because he has committed any particular offense.24 Presumably Kiuchi takes these cases of approaching YHWH to be special because elsewhere in pentateuchal ritual law an Israelite does not need to bring a purification offering every time he/she approaches God with another kind of sacrifice (e.g. Lev 1–3). Kiuchi’s reasons for comparison with Exod 29 and Lev 8–9 are sound. However, he fails to point out a crucial difference between Lev 9 and Num 6: whereas the priests approach YHWH as officiants, even when they are also the offerers, the Nazirite remains a layperson, who can only approach YHWH as an offerer.25 In spite of his super-sanctity, he needs a priest to officiate his sacrifices. Therefore, the parallel between the priestly and Nazirite approaches breaks down. Kiuchi was on a productive track until he took a wrong turn. By backing up slightly, we can build on his strengths while avoiding his weakness. Rather than the inauguration in Lev 9, it is the priestly consecration prescribed in Exod 29 and described in Lev 8 that presents the strongest parallels to the Nazirite’s ritual complex prescribed in Num 6.26 For one thing, in Exod 29 and Lev 8 the priests are only offerers, not also officiants; it is Moses who officiates. Moreover, the special offering of breads in a basket (Exod 29:2–3, 23–25, 32, 34; Lev 8:2, 26–28, 31–32) is strikingly similar to that of the Nazirite (Num 6:15, 17, 19–20). Unique to these two cases of celebrating consecration are baskets containing unleavened cakes and wafers, of which representative items are placed on the palms of the offerers with portions of animal sacrifices (ordination and well-being offerings, respectively) and raised by the officiants as elevation (9AH?E) offerings dedicated to YHWH.27 23. Like the high priest, the Nazirite is prohibited from any corpse contamination (Lev 21:11; Num 6:6–7) and his holiness to YHWH is signified on his head as a CK$?, “separation/consecration” (Exod 28:36; 29:6–7; 39:30; Lev 8:9, 12; 21:12; Num 6:7–9, 11–12, 18–19). The Nazirite’s ban on wine is much more stringent than that of the priests (including the high priest), which only applies when they are on duty at the sanctuary (Lev 10:9; Num 6:3–4); cf., e.g., Milgrom, Cult and Conscience, 67 n. 240; idem, Numbers, 355; Wenham, Numbers, 86–87; Jenson, Graded Holiness, 50. 24. Kiuchi, The Purification Offering, 56. 25. On differences between the Nazirite and the priests, see Wenham, Numbers, 88. 26. Wenham (ibid., 87) and Noordtzij (Numbers, 65) notice that the Nazirite’s set of offerings are like those of the priestly consecration in Lev 8, but they do not follow up on implications for the function of the Nazirite’s purification offering. 27. These rituals are somewhat similar to the 95HE, the joyful thank offering of well-being, in that meat portions are accompanied by unleavened bread cakes and wafers (Lev 7:12–15—but also including leavened bread).

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In Lev 8, when the priests offered their purification offering (vv. 14–17), their multi-stage consecration/ordination “rite of passage” was in progress, but not yet complete. They had already been washed and arrayed in holy vestments (vv. 6–9, 13), and Moses had consecrated Aaron by pouring anointing oil on his head (v. 12). After the purification offering came further acts of consecration: Moses put blood from the ram of ordination on the extremities of Aaron and his sons, affecting them pars pro toto, and sprinkled the rest of the blood on the altar (vv. 23–24). A little later, Moses sprinkled anointing oil and some blood from the altar on Aaron and his sons, thereby consecrating them (v. 30). Finally, the priests had to remain in the sacred precincts to complete their ordination (vv. 33–35). Now we can better assess the Nazirite’s purification offering. Before this sacrifice, he has already been holy from the beginning of his votive period. But after this, he is to shave his hair and put it on the fire under the well-being offering (Num 6:18), thereby relinquishing the token portion of himself that represents his separation to holy YHWH.28 The irrevocable and therefore permanent dedication of hair would consecrate the Nazirite, pars pro toto, to a higher level of holiness. This extraordinary votive gift of symbolic self-sacrifice to YHWH (cf. v. 2) is as close as the Israelite cult comes to human sacrifice.29 E. Diamond argues that whether the fire under the well-being offering is the altar fire or another fire for cooking its meat portions for human consumption (the Hebrew does not specify), the Nazirite’s act of putting (*E?) his hair in the fire (Num 6:18) is part of the sacrificial procedure, rather than mere discarding of consecrated material, for which Hebrew would employ the Hiphil of (=, “throw/cast” (cf. Ezek 5:4).30 This argument fails because in sacrificial contexts the Hiphil of (= can be used not only for disposal (Lev 1:16), but also for throwing that is not disposal (Num 19:6; Ezek 43:24).31 I agree with Diamond that the Nazirite’s act of placing his hair on the fire is part of the sacrifice, but I reach this conclusion by a different route. Even disposal can be viewed as a postrequisite part of the ritual if this activity is prescribed as part of the procedural paradigm.32 Cooking meat from the Nazirite’s well-being offering over a fire is certainly an integral part of the sacrifice because continuation of the sacrificial process requires the ram’s shoulder to

28. On hair, which represents vitality because it grows throughout life and was offered in place of whole persons in ancient rituals, see Milgrom, Numbers, 356–57. 29. Cf. G. B. Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Numbers (ICC; New York: Scribner’s, 1903), 69; E. Diamond, “An Israelite Self-Offering in the Priestly Code: A New Perspective on the Nazirite,” JQR 88 (1997): 1–18. Diamond points out that in Lev 27:1–8 the monetary equivalent of a person is vowed to God, but in Num 6 “one dedicates one’s physical self pars pro toto” (pp. 4–5). 30. Ibid., 10–12; against, e.g., M. Noth, Numbers (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), 57. 31. I am indebted to Naphtali Meshel (personal communication) for drawing my attention to Num 19:6 and Ezek 43:24. 32. R. Gane, Ritual Dynamic Structure (Gorgias Dissertations 14, Religion 2; Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias, 2004), 61, 141–42, 153–54, 156–75, 296, 304–5, 311.

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have been boiled (Num 6:19), and prescriptions for well-being offerings in general require their sacred meat to be (cooked and) eaten by offerers while they are in a state of ritual purity (Lev 7:15–21). Whether the Nazirite puts his hair on the altar fire, as could be suggested by the wording, “under the sacrifice of well-being” (Num 6:18), that is, the sacrifice as a whole rather than specifying a portion of it, or whether he puts it on a cook fire, the act is prescribed and therefore part of the sacrificial procedure. It is not disposal because emphasis is on placement (*E?) of the hair on a ritual fire rather than its mere incineration, which would be indicated by the verb ,C (Lev 4:12, 21—outside the camp; 6:23 [Engl. v. 30]; 7:17, 19, etc.). Notice that if the Nazirite puts his hair on the fire burning on the altar, it would be the only occasion when a lay offerer is ever permitted to place anything on this holy object, which is otherwise exclusively a locus of priestly officiation. It is true that the Nazirite as a whole does not retain his Nazirite sanctity after his hair is burned up and his well-being and grain offerings are finished, as shown by the fact that he is permitted to drink wine (v. 20b). But for a brief, shining moment, the ceremony does seem to mark “the culminating point of the Naziritehood,” to borrow Kiuchi’s phraseology.33 If so, the purification offering has a prerequisite function of purification within an overall process of ascending sanctity, as in the consecration of the priests, not the descending sanctity of desanctification. Further support for the idea that the Nazirite’s concluding rituals belong to his dedication rather than serving as his exit from consecration is found in v. 21, where his offering complex is an integral part of what he has vowed to give to YHWH.34 Whereas Kiuchi suggested that desanctification may be downgraded to “secondary,”35 I conclude that the final ceremony of the Nazirite does not enact desanctification at all. His culminating sanctification simply burns itself out, after which he is no longer a Nazirite.36 There are two key differences between consecration of the priests and of the Nazirite. First, whereas the priests offer their consecration gifts at the beginning of lifelong service at the sanctuary, a Nazirite offers his at the end of a temporary, voluntary period of holiness. This difference is reflected in the fact that whereas the Nazirite offers his special basket with a well-being offering (Num 6:17), the functionally equivalent animal sacrifice for the priests is their ordination ()J :=F!>!:) offering, which is also eaten by the offerer(s) (Exod 29:19–28, 31–34; Lev 8:22–32), but signifies authorization37 of the priests for their permanent role.

33. Kiuchi, The Purification Offering, 55. 34. Cf. Cartledge, “Were Nazirite Vows Unconditional?,” 415. 35. Kiuchi, The Purification Offering, 55. 36. Compare Samson, whose literal rather than symbolic self-sacrifice culminated and ended his career as a lifelong Nazirite (Judg 16:28–30) (a point made by Naphtali Meshel in a personal communication). 37. Literally, “filling the hand”; Exod 28:41; 29:9, 29, 33, 35; Lev 8:33.

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Second, while the purification offering of the priests is on their behalf, as shown by the fact that they lean their hands (one hand each) on the head of the victim (Lev 8:14), this sacrifice primarily decontaminates (Piel of I) the altar, upon which they are to officiate expiatory sacrifices (Exod 29:36–37; Lev 8:15; cf. Ezek 43:18–27).38 The nonpriestly Nazirite has no such connection with the altar. Conclusion Like the purification offering of the priests at their consecration in Exod 29 and Lev 8, it appears that the Nazirite’s concluding purification offering (Num 6:14, 16) accomplishes purification that is necessary before a person can be elevated to an extraordinary degree of sanctity, which exceeds the holy status that the Nazirite has previously enjoyed during his/her votive period.39 This explains why a purification offering “was not also imposed upon the Nazirite upon entering his or her holy status.”40 While purification presupposes some kind of prior condition of impurity,41 the evil removed by prerequisite purification in these cases is unspecified.42 The purification offerings of the priests and Nazirite are like calendric rituals, such as festival offerings (Num 28–29), in that they are required at times that are predetermined (by the command of YHWH and expiration of the votive period, respectively), whether or not there is awareness of sin or impurity.43 The sacrifices of the priests and Nazirite appear to raise the purity of already basically pure persons, who need no remedy for specific, known evils, to a higher level that is compatible with a higher level of sanctity.44 Compare the fact that before basically pure priests, who are free from any particular impurities and therefore 38. The two functions of this purification offering are closely related because the priests and altar serve together within the holy sphere (cf. G. Klingbeil, A Comparative Study of the Ritual of Ordination as Found in Leviticus 8 and Emar 369 [Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1998], 269). Note that the purification offerings of consecration and of the Day of Atonement, which specify that they purge sancta (Exod 29:36–37; 30:10; Lev 8:15; 16:16, 18–20, 33), are exceptional in this regard; all other purification offerings remove evils from their offerers (Gane, Cult and Character, 106–43). 39. Cf. R. Gane, Leviticus, Numbers (NIVAC; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 535. 40. Milgrom, “The ÐaÓÓƗt: A Rite of Passage?,” 121. 41. Ibid. 42. Milgrom suggests that during the consecration week the priests may have incurred some unavoidable physical ritual impurity (Leviticus 1–16, 522). However, it appears unlikely that the initial decontamination of the altar could remedy specific evils of the priests because the altar itself was undergoing qualification for its function (Kiuchi, Purification Offering, 42). 43. For the suggestion that treatment of the inauguration ceremonies as calendric may explain omission of the hand-leaning gesture in Lev 9, see Gane, Cult and Character, 55 n. 34. However, hand-leaning is included in the consecration sacrifices of Lev 8 (vv. 14, 18, 22). 44. Cf. Jenson’s suggestion that in cases such as Lev 8:14–17; 9:8; and Num 8:8, where purification offerings do not seem to deal with specific sin or impurity, they may “be part of a comprehensive ritual to insure that purification is complete or fully assured” (Graded Holiness, 157; cf. 156).

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eligible to contact sancta (cf. Lev 22:1–9), are permitted to engage in sacred officiation at the altar or in the sacred Tent, they must wash their hands and feet with water drawn from the sacred laver in order to reach an elevated level of purity (Exod 30:17–21). My bottom line is that the Nazirite’s termination purification offering does purify like all other instances of this class of sacrifice.45 Therefore, it is an integral part of the purification offering system, although it occupies a special niche alongside the purification offering of the priests at their consecration.

45. Strong support for the conclusion that purification offerings uniquely purify is found in the fact that privative *>: + a term for sin or ritual impurity, expressing removal of that evil, follows and is syntactically governed by CA< only in goal formulas of purification offerings (Gane, Cult and Character, 116–19, 139).

SIN AND IMPURITY: ATONED OR PURIFIED? YES! Jay Sklar

The goal of this essay is to answer one basic question: Why does the verb CA6
This essay draws heavily from my dissertation, now published as Sin, Impurity, Sacrifice, Atonement: The Priestly Conceptions (Hebrew Bible Monographs 2; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2005). I am thankful to Sheffield Phoenix Press for granting me permission to draw from this book in the following pages. 1. A more thorough review of the literature can be found in Bernd Janowski, Sühne als Heilsgeschehen. Studien zur Sühnetheologie der Priesterschrift und zur Wurzel KPR im Alten Orient und

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be conveniently grouped into two main camps. The first camp translates CA6 though no one is allowed in there (Lev 16:16);41 and (2) those suffering from a major impurity must bring a purification offering; since the blood of this offering has a purifying function (Lev 8:15), and since it is placed upon the sanctuary and its sancta, it follows that the sanctuary and its sancta have been polluted by the major impurity and are in need of cleansing.42 This leads to the second consideration, namely, that the defiling of sancta is a sin of the most serious consequences in the priestly literature. Thus the priests are warned, “If any one of all your descendants throughout your generations approaches the holy things, which the people of Israel dedicate to the LORD, while he has an impurity, that person shall be cut off from my presence: I am the LORD” (Lev 22:3). Again, after a series of warnings to the priests about not approaching the holy gifts while impure, we read: “They shall therefore keep my charge, lest they bear sin for it and die thereby when they profane it: I am the LORD who sanctifies them” (22:9).43 In short, it is not simply that the person has a major impurity. Rather, through their major impurity they have also (inadvertently) defiled sancta, a sin of the most serious consequences.44 It thus stands to reason that the verb CA6 HJ=77 CA6
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or her city of refuge.52 The reason that CA6< ! may not be accepted is given in v. 33: murder pollutes the land. The severity of this is such that no CA6
Summary This essay has attempted to answer the question: Why does the verb CA6
Sacrifice, Atonement, 87 n. 23. For a more thorough critique of Milgrom’s understanding of the purification offering, see now Roy E. Gane, Cult and Character: Purification Offerings, Day of Atonement, and Theodicy [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005], especially Chapter 6.) Second, Schwartz has correctly identified that one element of CA6 thoroughly interprets the rite. Can we assume that the tradents who composed and transmitted the textual formulation of the bird ritual for a person would necessarily have agreed with the explanation found in the later passage? We are becoming increasingly aware that H differs from P in some striking ways. Is it not possible that this included the interpretation of ritual actions? The Rites at the Tent of Meeting (Leviticus 14:10–32) Whereas the ritual complex involving the birds is prescribed for both the person and the house, and this is all that is performed for the purification of the house, the person being purified is required to participate in a further ritual complex at the Tent of Meeting. This takes place after a seven-day period during which the person going through purification launders his clothing, shaves his hair and bathes, and moves back into the encampment (14:8–9). On the eighth day the person being purified comes to the Tent of Meeting. Prescriptions are given both for the primary form of the rite (vv. 10–20), and for a reduced form for those too poor to bring the standard offerings (vv. 21–32). The first part of the ritual complex is the same in both cases. Everyone is required to bring one male lamb as a “reparation offering” ()7 )7 . The priest takes some of the blood of this offering and daubs it on the lobe of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, and the big toe of the right foot of the person being cleansed (C9 !2>:!9,2 vv. 14, 25). This is a surprising and unique use of the blood of this sacrifice.10 However, this manipulation is identical with what is done with the blood of the ordination ram in the priestly ordination rite (Exod 29:19–20; Lev 8:22–24). Neither of the blood manipulations is explained in its context, and interpreters have offered many divergent explanations.11 All fill a conceptual gap. It is possible that the blood application purifies, but the text does not tell us this explicitly. Does the person still need purification at this juncture? Does C9 !2>!:92 mean “the one who is being purified” or could it also mean “the purified one”? The blood manipulation is followed by manipulation of oil (vv. 15–18a, 26– 29a), some of which is daubed over the blood on the earlobe, thumb, and toe (vv. 17, 28). At the end of the prescriptions for the oil ritual, we are told: CA
Perspectives on Purity and Purification in the Bible

The texts are relatively rich on what is to be done, especially when setting out details on ritual practices not previously prescribed, but significantly silent on what the individual ritual acts accomplish and how they accomplish it. Their clear concern is with ritual praxis, not with the explication of the meaning of this praxis. Blood as Purificant: Some General Reflections From specific observations and conclusions related to the ritual actions represented in Lev 14, I turn now to some more general observations and reflections. According to Jacob Milgrom and others, the blood of the E I functions as a ritual detergent.17 From his perspective, that understanding should be read into the implied reference to the E !I blood in Lev 14. The argument for this understanding of the blood rite, however, is supported, naturally, by reference to other passages. I have examined these texts in some detail in my book Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible, and offer here a brief summary of the arguments and conclusions reached there.18 There are only a very few instances where the verb ! I: refers to the effect of the E I blood manipulation. One verse is particularly decisive, Lev 8:15. Much hinges, therefore, on the understanding of the verb there. Does it mean “purify”? Most scholars would affirm that it does, based on contextual usage. But it is worth noting, again, that the basic etymological sense of the verb is “de-sin.” If blood, as purificant, is a “ritual detergent,” what does it do to the impurity it removes? Milgrom suggests, somewhat contradictorily, that the blood both absorbs impurity and transfers it to the carcass of the victim on a pars pro toto basis. Milgrom argues from analogy with elimination rites in other cultures, but there are, in fact, no exact parallels that truly illuminate.19 He sees the ritual instructions of Lev 6:20 as providing evidence to support this view, as well as the practice of burning those victims whose blood was taken into the Tent. However, there is a problem with this evidence. If the blood absorbs impurity, and all of the victim somehow becomes implicated in this impurity, how is it that the usual internal organs and fat can go to the altar, and more significantly, that the blood that remains is poured at the base of the altar? Are we really to imagine impurity-laden blood being poured out on a sanctum? My questions here are not so much intended to refute Milgrom’s position. I do not wish to substitute one form of problematic certainty for another. Rather, my intention is to highlight the not insignificant gaps in our understanding of what is going on in the rituals represented in Priestly texts. We are told far more about what to do than about why it is done. 17. Jacob Milgrom, “The Modus Operandi of the E I: A Rejoinder,” JBL 109 (1990): 111–13 (112); Wright, Disposal, 129–31; Frank H. Gorman, The Ideology of Ritual: Space, Time and Status in the Priestly Theology (JSOTSup 91; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 81, 87. 18. Gilders, Blood Ritual, 109–41 (129–39). 19. Ibid., 129–30.

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A variation on Milgrom’s explanation has been offered by Baruch Schwartz, who suggests that the blood does not itself absorb impurity; instead it removes and eradicates it.20 This explanation is, to me, more attractive, as it eliminates the problem of impure blood being kept in holy space. However, the explanation remains speculative. It, too, fills a conceptual gap. I turn now to a fundamental question. If blood does purify, however that effect occurs, why does blood purify? That is, why does it have the power to purify? The identification with “life” (A6?6) has, for many interpreters, provided the essential conceptual element.21 However, it is significant that P identifies blood with “life” only once (Gen 9:4), and never explicitly relates this identification with blood’s purifying effect. Thus, we must recognize that the explanation of blood’s purifying effect by reference to “life” is conceptual gap-filling. We “know” that blood purifies because it is the locus of life by recreating a Priestly explanation that may have been assumed by the authors of the ritual texts, but which those texts never actually made explicit. Thus, we must acknowledge that no Priestly text ever explicitly explains the purifying effect of blood manipulation with reference to blood’s identification with life.22 To conclude: While there is significant evidence that blood was understood as a purificant, and that Priestly tradents understood it to function as some kind of ritual “disinfectant” or “detergent,” and while it does not seem unreasonable to connect the identification of blood with life to its role as a purificant, I cannot escape a strong awareness of just how many significant gaps there really are in our knowledge of what the tradents who composed the Priestly materials actually believed about blood and its cultic roles.

20. Schwartz, “Bearing of Sin in the Priestly Literature,” 17–18. Note that Schwartz allows that the blood itself may not eradicate the impurity; instead it is possible that “the impurity, or its residue, is retro-absorbed by the carcass of the slain animal and eradicated by its eventual disposal” (17 n. 55). In my view it is just as possible to see the blood as itself eradicating the impurity—as a “detergent” would. 21. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 46. 22. Lev 17:11 does explain cultic blood manipulation with reference to the conceptual identification of blood with life. However, this verse employs the verb CA!6
METHODOLOGY AND IDEOLOGY IN THE STUDY OF PRIESTLY RITUAL Jonathan Klawans

There is nothing novel to the claim that ideological stances—Christian, Jewish, and other—impact the ways in which scholars study the Pentateuch. Lest I be misunderstood, I want to begin by stating one claim that will not be made here. Methodology, however understood (and I will speak below about “approaches” more generally), is not an antidote to ideology (again, however understood).1 Far from understanding any particular approach as the way to avoid stances aligned with ideologies, I will try to elucidate some ways in which methodological choices can reflect ideological stances. And this is where there is much more analytic work to be done. James Barr has paved the way as perhaps no one else but he could in his History and Ideology in the Old Testament. But this work— as its title suggests—remains focused on issues pertaining to historiographic work on the Hebrew Bible. A full account of the ways in which various contemporary ideologies impact on the understandings of ancient Israelite religion in general (and its priestly cult in particular) remains to be written, and it remains a desideratum. Because description is the first step of any sound analysis, it is not enough to claim that ideologies affect scholarship; the specific interrelationships between approaches and perspectives must be explained and assessed. I would like to examine three questions relating to the understanding of cultic matters, and spell out the ways in which—as I see it—approaches to these questions can be understood as aligned with one ideological stance or another.2 The three general questions I would like to examine here are these: (1) Are the

1. The claim that methodological rigor serves to counter ideological stances is made, for instance, by Philip R. Davies, “Method and Madness: Some Remarks on Doing History with the Bible,” JBL 114 (1995): 699–705 (700). For a critical discussion of this particular claim—and of the revisionist approach to history (and ideology) in general—see James Barr, History and Ideology in the Old Testament: Biblical Studies at the end of a Millennium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 59–101 (69–70). 2. Obviously, the present analysis cannot be comprehensive, either in terms of topics or ideologies covered. Some fuller analysis of certain themes—especially with regard to the typically inverse relationships between symbolic approaches and supersessionist ones—can be found in my Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). The present analysis interfaces with—but does not represent a summary of—the arguments of this book.

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central ritual structures of the priestly cult—purity and sacrifice—symbolic systems? (2) What is the relationship between ethics and ritual in the priestly corpus in particular, and in biblical religion more generally? And (3) how do we go about dating the priestly strands in relation to each other and in relation to other priestly texts? I will conclude with some preliminary suggestions for avoiding some of the pitfalls in this nexus between ideology and methodology. Symbolism and Priestly Ritual The question of symbolism as it pertains to priestly ritual is as good a place as any to begin a discussion of the relationship between methodology and ideology. Indeed, just identifying the topic introduces a host of loaded terms— symbolism, ritual, priestly—that could keep us occupied for some time. For the sake of making some descriptive progress, I suggest we can describe three overall approaches to this issue. One approach—which I will refer to as “ubiquitous symbolism”—is modeled most famously by Mary Douglas. This approach argues—and, to be honest, assumes—that symbolism is to be found practically everywhere. Not only is symbolism ubiquitous, it is also unified. While Douglas has modified and revisited her take on the dietary and purity laws over the years, the fundamental tenet that we can speak of a single symbolic system here remains the same.3 As anyone who reads more of Purity and Danger than its third chapter knows, Douglas’s arguments were addressed against a very specific target: the long history of Protestant anti-ritualism, as evidenced especially (but not exclusively) in the works of James Frazer and William Robertson Smith.4 The Protestant biases of these and other classic works on religion in general and biblical ritual in particular have been sufficiently established (not only by Douglas, but notably also by Jonathan Z. Smith5), that we need not argue her case against the nineteenth-century giants once again. But it must be said that Purity and Danger is not an unaligned critique. It is an apologetic defense of ritual systems, one that is explicitly in sympathy with Jewish, Catholic, and Hindu ritual practices.6 Indeed, as far as the broader field of ritual studies is concerned, the jury is still out on Douglas’s ubiquitous symbolism. Her critics’ arsenal includes the

3. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), 29–57 (Chapters 2 and 3), 114–28 (Chapter 7); compare, more recently, the broad thrust of Leviticus as Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). On these works, see my Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple, esp. 17–20, 45–46, and “Rethinking Leviticus and Rereading Purity and Danger: A Review Essay,” AJS Review 27 (2003): 89–101. 4. Douglas, Purity and Danger, 7–28 (Chapter 1), 58–72 (Chapter 4); see esp. 18–19, 62–63; see also Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (Routledge Classics ed., with a new introduction; London: Routledge, 2003), esp. 1–38 (Chapters 1 and 2) and 152–67 (Chapter 9). 5. Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christians and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 1–34. 6. See, for instance, Douglas’s comments regarding the ritual observances of M. N. Srinivas and Franz Steiner in the acknowledgments (p. vii) to Purity and Danger.

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charges of inadequate evidence and predisposition toward a Catholic viewpoint.7 Clifford Geertz’s symbolic anthropology is similarly criticized in the field as being both apologetic and insufficiently analytic.8 Anyone who has ever used Purity and Danger Chapter 3 in an undergraduate Hebrew Bible class in the service of defending the meaning of biblical dietary laws would have to admit that the charge of pro-ritualist apology is not one that can be dismissed lightly. If we speak of Douglas’s approach as one of “ubiquitous symbolism,” a second approach taken in biblical studies toward priestly rituals is one of “selective symbolism.” As I have argued more fully elsewhere, the works of Jacob Milgrom in particular exhibit this kind of selectivity.9 In his case, a sympathetic and symbolic interpretation of rituals concerning purity and diet is balanced by a rather dismissive approach to matters sacrificial, one that sees various integral aspects of priestly practice (including the shew bread and the sacrificial act itself) as fossilized vestiges.10 In exhibiting selective symbolism, Milgrom is neither alone nor in bad company. The classic work of William Robertson Smith too exhibits precisely the same disparity. In his case, however, the disdain is directed toward purity rites (“taboos” in his parlance), which are seen as meaningless survivals from primitive times. At the same time, Robertson Smith respected sacrifice: for him it was social, symbolic, and appropriate; it even possessed a “sacramental efficacy.”11 So, ironically, Milgrom’s take on 7. For a classic statement of the former critique, see Melford E. Spiro, review of Purity and Danger, American Anthropologist, NS 70 (1968): 391–93; for a classic statement of the latter critique, see Edmund Leach, “Mythical Inequalities” (review of Natural Symbols), New York Review of Books 16 (January 28, 1971): 44–45. For a fuller discussion of Mary Douglas’s life and work— including the impact of her Catholic upbringing—see Richard Fardon, Mary Douglas: An Intellectual Biography (London: Routledge, 1999); see esp. 75–101 (on Purity and Danger) and 102–24 (on Natural Symbols). 8. Nancy K. Frankenberry and Hans H. Penner, “Clifford Geertz’s Long-Lasting Moods, Motivations, and Metaphysical Conceptions,” Journal of Religion 79 (1999): 617–40. 9. See my “Ritual Purity, Moral Purity, and Sacrifice in Jacob Milgrom’s Leviticus,” Religious Studies Review 29 (2003): 19–28; for a fuller discussion of the context of Milgrom’s work, see my Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple, 17–41. For Milgrom’s (partial) response, see his “Systemic Differences in the Priestly Corpus: A Response to Jonathan Klawans,” RB 112 (2005): 321–29. 10. Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1992), esp. 440, 1003; see also Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 3B; New York: Doubleday, 2001), 2091–93. Compare the comments of Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel: An Inquiry into Biblical Cult Phenomena and the Historical Setting of the Priestly School (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1985), 17, 221–25, and Roland de Vaux, Studies in Old Testament Sacrifice (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1964), 38–42. In his response to my criticism (“Systemic Distinctions”), Milgrom reiterates his view that various elements of Israel’s cult are indeed vestiges (pp. 322–24). Hyam Maccoby also speaks of various sacrificial practices (including the red-cow and scapegoat rituals) as vestiges throughout his Ritual and Morality: The Ritual Purity System and Its Place in Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); see esp. ix, 93, 102, 114, 123, 125, 139–40. 11. William Robertson Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites: The Fundamental Institutions (3d ed., with an introduction and additional notes by Stanley A. Cook; New York:

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sacrifice today looks a lot like Robertson Smith’s disdainful take on taboo offered a century earlier; and Milgrom’s approach to purity looks a lot like Robertson Smith’s approach to sacrifice. The common denominator here is selective symbolism, and in both cases, the selectivity is all too easily diagnosed. Robertson Smith’s conservative Protestantism combines with Victorian prudery and yields a disdain for taboo and a valorization of sacrifice. Milgrom’s work is sympathetic to practices concerning diet and purity that are still maintained by traditional and modern Jews; it is less sympathetic to those aspects of the cult that are seemingly unethical or outdated, such as animal sacrifice. It must be said that there is nothing inherently wrong with a selective approach to symbolism: why, after all, should symbolism be found everywhere? Moreover, it is quite possible that some rituals do survive as poorly understood survivals, performed simply by the force of tradition more than the power of symbolism: the Sabbath practices of Marrano Jews may be one telling example. Still, we have to tone down the rhetoric here. I am all for academic freedom, but we might do well to ban phrases such as “fossilized vestige” from our scholarly lexicon. A more serious problem concerns the lack of analytical criteria for determining what is and what is not a survival. The contemporary descriptions of sacrificial practices as fossilized vestiges—just like Robertson Smith’s dismissal of biblical taboos—are rhetorical, not analytic: they stand and are accepted simply on the force of their assertion. There is rarely an argument presented, or evidence collected. If a selective approach to symbolism is to continue, analytical criteria for the establishment of survivals must be developed and employed. And ideally the selections then made might not so obviously cohere with contemporary religious and cultural biases. A third approach to biblical rituals denies that biblical rituals are symbolic altogether. This type of approach has been taken most recently by Ithamar Gruenwald, who defends his view in part by noting—as I have above—that advocates of ubiquitous symbolism may be engaged in an apologetic activity.12 In his view, symbolic approaches to symbolism are theological ones. Gruenwald may be correct in his diagnosis here. Moreover, Gruenwald has allies in the field of religious studies, in figures such as Jonathan Z. Smith (who asserts the arbitrary nature of Israelite cultic practices in particular)13 and Frits Staal (who speaks of the “meaninglessness of ritual,” in general).14

Macmillan, 1927), esp. 269 and 312; for his very different take on purity (taboos) see 446–54. For a fuller discussion of Robertson Smith’s selective approach, see Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple, 18–19, 32–34. 12. Ithamar Gruenwald, Rituals and Ritual Theory in Ancient Israel (Leiden: Brill, 2003), esp. 1, 5–6, 34–35, 200–201. See also my review of this book in AJS Review 29 (2005): 163–65. 13. Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 83–86, 96–117. 14. Frits Staal, “The Meaninglessness of Ritual,” Numen 26 (1979): 2–22; Gruenwald rightly steps back from Staal’s extreme position in this regard (Rituals and Ritual Theory, 198). For a general discussion on ritual and symbolism, see Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 61–89.

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The problem for Gruenwald’s position is that denying that ritual is symbolic can also be a theological move. Indeed, all our problems here result from the fact that there is not a theological or religious approach to symbolism. For centuries—indeed, for millennia—the question of whether one can take a symbolic (or allegorical) approach to ritual has been questioned by some, and defended by others. Figures like Philo, Josephus, and Pseudo-Aristeas defended ritual practices against various calumnies by asserting their symbolic significance.15 But others have feared that symbolic understandings would lead to the abandonment of the letter in favor of the spirit. That is why later religious figures such as Moses Maimonides and Moses Mendelssohn—with certain rabbinic traditions behind them—argued in favor of the arbitrary nature of practices such as the dietary laws.16 Denying symbolism can be as much of a theological move as asserting it. Another problem here is that the general conversation is just that: all too general. Staal’s examples come primarily (if not exclusively) from the rituals of India. Assuming for a moment that we accept Staal’s interpretation of Hindu rites, does that mean that biblical rites are necessarily similar in their essential non-symbolic nature? The case for the symbolic or non-symbolic nature of rituals needs to be made on a case-by-case basis. Moreover, the claim that rituals are non-symbolic in essence is a claim pertaining to origins—it cannot be denied that, at the very least, some rituals are infused with symbolic meanings in certain religious traditions, at least according to some religious authorities (e.g. Philo). Even if some cultures’ rituals remain free of symbolic explanation, that fact does not eliminate the possibility that symbolism looms large in others. Even if it could be established that rituals were originally arbitrary, that does not preclude the possibility that developed ritual systems infuse rituals with symbolism. Since we are interested here in a developed ritual system, it matters little that symbolism may be secondary, and it matters even less that symbolism may be absent elsewhere. I think we can find a way out of this impasse, if we put the general questions of origins and comparison aside, and try to determine what we can with regard to the role of symbolism in ancient Israel. Perhaps the strongest argument in 15. On symbolic approaches to cultic rituals among second temple Jews, see Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple, 111–44. 16. Moses Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed (trans. with an introduction and notes by Shlomo Pines; 2 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 2:502–10, 612–13 (= Guide 3.25–26, 49); Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem: Or On Religious Power and Judaism (trans. Alan Arkush, with introduction and commentary by Alexander Altmann; Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 1983), 117–18, 133–34. See the discussion of rabbinic sources in Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (trans. Israel Abrahams; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 365–99. One rather famous tradition attributes to the late first-century sage Yohanan Ben Zakkai the view that the red heifer ritual of Num 19 has no known symbolic or rational basis (Pesikta de Rav Kahana, Parah 7). On the latter source, see Bernard Mandelbaum, ed., Pesikta de Rav Kahana: According to an Oxford Manuscript, with Variants from All Known Manuscripts and Genizoth Fragments and Parallel Passages, with Commentary and Introduction (2 vols.; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1987), 1:74.

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favor of the symbolic nature of ancient Israel’s cultic rituals comes, in my view, from a rather unlikely place: the biblical prophets.17 Progress on the question of the symbolic nature of ancient Israel’s cult requires that we recognize the problematic and biased nature of some of the scholarly terminology frequently used with reference to our themes. Of course, many thematic discussions of prophecy in biblical Israel point out that the prophets were wont to perform “symbolic acts” in order to dramatize and illustrate their message to the Israelite people.18 It suffices for our concerns to note only a few of the more famous actions: Hosea’s marrying a prostitute to symbolize Israel’s infidelity (Hos 1:2); Isaiah’s walking barefoot and naked to symbolize Egypt’s impending doom (Isa 20:1–6); Jeremiah’s wearing a yoke to symbolize God’s desire for the nations to submit to Babylon (Jer 27:1–15). What is seldom appreciated in the context of the present theme is that the very existence of this phenomenon proves that the prophets were aware of and sympathetic to symbolic behavior. By referring to the prophets’ behavior as “symbolic action,” while dryly describing cultic behavior as “ritual,” scholars force a divide between, and prevent a comparison of, two phenomena that are not altogether different, and ought in truth to be mutually informative. But surely, Max Weber might object, there is a difference between a passionate, spontaneous, individual, symbolic act and a communal, cultic ritual.19 To that argument one must remember that Hosea married a prostitute (Hos 1:2)— possibly two (Hos 3:1–3)—and remained so married for some time. Isaiah, it is said, walked naked and barefoot for three years (Isa 20:3). Jeremiah must have worn that yoke for some time as well (Jer 27:1–2; 28:1, 10). The historicity of such claims is not our concern; I simply call attention to the fact that one can safely wonder whether all prophetic “symbolic actions” were conceived as fully spontaneous or free of regulation.20 A repeated, patterned, symbolic action is hardly all that different from a ritual. The suggestion—still made in some quarters21—that the prophets opposed sacrifice because they denied the efficacy of ritual really makes them out to be 17. For a fuller treatment of the relationship between priests and prophets (as well as ritual and ethics), see Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple, 75–100. 18. E.g. Joseph Blenkinsopp, A History of Prophecy in Israel (rev. and enlarged ed.; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 146, 157, 167; J. Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962), 165–73; H. Ringgren, Israelite Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966), 214– 15, 256–57, and 284; Alexander Rofé, Introduction to the Prophetic Literature (trans. Judith H. Seeligmann; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 71–73; Marvin A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39: With an Introduction to Prophetic Literature (FOTL 16; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 19–20. 19. For the classic articulation of Max Weber’s contrasting “ideal types” of the priest and prophet, see his The Sociology of Religion (Boston: Beacon, 1963), 20–31, 46–59. 20. For a recent assertion of the difference between symbolic acts and rituals, see Ronald S. Hendel, “Prophets, Priests, and the Efficacy of Ritual,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (ed. David P. Wright, David Noel Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 185–98. See esp. 188–89, where Hendel contrasts symbolic actions with ritual. 21. E.g. Hendel, “Prophets, Priests.”

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the hypocrites that the priests are commonly assumed to have been: how could the prophets believe in the efficacy of their own symbolic behavior but deny efficacy to ritual? Indeed, the phenomenon of prophetic symbolic action demonstrates the fact that symbolic action was part of the culture of ancient Israel. This, in my view, is the most compelling argument that various aspects of the priestly cult (sacrifice included) ought to be understood as symbolic. Indeed, if biblical and ritual studies emerged in a non-Protestant context, I highly doubt we would even have two different terms here at all. We would, rather, be accustomed to speaking of either the symbolic actions of Israel’s priests, or the ritual actions of Israel’s prophets. Ritual and Ethics Reconsidering the relationship between priestly rituals and prophetic symbolic action leads us to our second question, concerning the relationship between ritual and ethics. The importance of this distinction—historically—for the understanding of priestly matters need hardly be stated; the figures of Julius Wellhausen and Max Weber easily come to mind. It is well known that Wellhausen and Weber were aligned with their religious and cultural biases. Peter Berger perhaps put it most clearly: Developed by 19th-century Protestant scholarship, an image of the Old Testament prophets has so successfully filtered down to the religiously interested laity that it is quite difficult for anyone ever subjected to a Protestant Sunday school to think in other terms. One of the stereotypes connected with this image is the notion of the prophets as opponents of the priests, brave individualists defying the religious authorities of their time. It does not require great sophistication in the sociology of knowledge to guess why this image was developed by Protestant scholars (though perhaps psychological gifts too may be needed to interpret the rather strange affinity of German university professors, mostly teaching in theological faculties of established churches, for prophets as against priests!). In any case, during the period that the Wellhausen school dominated Old Testament scholarship, the notion that priests and prophets were fundamentally opposed attained almost axiomatic status.22

The Wellhausen school no longer dominates biblical studies; but the views Peter Berger argues against here are not entirely of the past. Ronald Hendel23—following, in part, William McKane24—has recently called for a return to Weber’s dichotomy when understanding the prophets—and, presumably, the priests as well. Also, curiously, the image of the closeted, elite, and morally indifferent priesthood has been resurrected by some members of the Kaufmann school. Yehezkel Kaufmann himself moved in this direction,25 and 22. Peter L. Berger, “Charisma and Religious Innovation: The Social Location of Israelite Prophecy,” American Sociological Review 26 (1963): 940–50 (942). 23. Hendel, “Prophets, Priests.” 24. William McKane, “Prophet and Institution,” ZAW 94 (1982): 251–66; cf. also James G. Williams, “The Social Location of Israelite Prophecy,” JAAR 37 (1969): 153–65. 25. See, e.g., Yehezkel Kaufmann, Toledot ha-Emunah ha-Yisreelit (8 vols.; Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1937–58), 2:532–88; cf. Kaufmann, Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian

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Israel Knohl has landed there most decidedly26 (a move that Milgrom has criticized27). To be sure, Knohl’s Divine Symphony does begin with an assertion that the priestly tradition itself makes a notable advance over its pre-Israelite, pre-monotheistic predecessors. By abandoning myth and adopting an abstract notion of God, the priests “attained an astounding level of abstraction and sublimity.”28 But this applies to their theology. According to Knohl, the “elitist Priestly circles…generated the ideology of a faith that is completely detached from social, national, or material needs.”29 Marvin Sweeney is correct to see this as a turn back to Wellhausen.30 Mary Douglas is correct to accuse such approaches of “P-baiting.”31 As to why such moves would be made by Jewish scholars—I will consider that shortly. So what happens if we try to smoothen the contrast between ritual and ethics, between priests and prophets? Indeed, this is precisely what many biblicists have been doing for years. Perhaps the most common approach is to suggest in some way that the prophets are not objecting to sacrifice per se, but to cultic abuse. One form of the argument is stated succinctly by Roland de Vaux: “The prophets are opposed to the formalism of exterior worship when it has no corresponding interior dispositions (Isa 29:13).”32 Another form is stated with equal economy by Abraham Joshua Heschel: “when immorality prevails, worship is detestable.”33 The common denominator here is that proper worship presupposes moral righteousness.

Exile (trans. Moshe Greenberg; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), 101–21; Haran, Temples and Temple-Service, 1–12, 132–48; Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 179–90; cf. Joseph Blenkinsopp, “An Assessment of the Alleged Pre-Exilic Date of the Priestly Material of the Pentateuch,” ZAW 108 (1996): 495–518 (496–99). 26. Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), esp. 138–39; cf. also 175–80, 214–16, and 222–24. See now also The Divine Symphony: The Bible’s Many Voices (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America), esp. 9–11, 60–69. To be sure, Knohl struggles in his more recent work to describe P as being less interested in ethics while still treating P with some sympathy. The ritual structures of P are symbolic (ibid., 19, 24), and he asserts that the priests were not struck with “moral apathy” (ibid., 22). Still, on the whole, Knohl’s rhetoric speaks of a “closed, elitist Priestly class” (ibid., 11) whose literary failings lead to a “schism between morality and ritual,” left to be addressed by the prophets (ibid., 61). The Holiness Code’s breaking of this schism is viewed by Knohl—using classic evolutionist language—as a revolutionary moral advance, “traced to the religious and spiritual development of Israel” (ibid., 69). 27. E.g. Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27, 2440–46. 28. Knohl, Divine Symphony, 9. 29. Ibid., 11. 30. Sweeney, review of Knohl, Divine Symphony, AJS Review 29 (2004): 162–63. 31. Douglas, Leviticus as Literature, 33–34, 128–31; term used on p. 129. 32. Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel (New York: McGraw–Hill, 1961), 454–56; cf. also, e.g., Harry M. Orlinsky, Ancient Israel (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1960), 128–30, and H. H. Rowley, From Moses to Qumran (New York: Association Press, 1963), 83–87. 33. Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1962), 195.

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There is some substance to these approaches. Nonetheless one must recognize that Hendel, McKane, Robert Caroll, and Meir Weiss have a point when they suggest that contemporary ideas of religious piety have impacted the discussion.34 If Weber and Wellhausen articulated an approach to prophecy that was too close for our comfort to their conservative Protestant backgrounds and biases, then we must be equally on guard against the possibility that scholars such as Heschel, de Vaux, and H. H. Rowley (to name only three) have articulated positions that are in line with contemporary Jewish, Catholic, or Protestant perspectives. Part of what we find here—especially when the question is phrased in terms of individual, internal dispositions—is that the scholarly dispute on Israelite ritual has become the arena for contemporary theological disputes of the place of ritual and morality. In all too many cases, one finds that scholars understand the prophets to say precisely what one can easily recognize as a contemporary religious attitude to the question of ethics and ritual.35 I part with McKane and Hendel, however, in their call for a turn back to Wellhausen and Weber.36 Perhaps I just like the priests too much. But I think the real problem here is not disagreement over the values of the priestly tradition. The real problem here is the lack of disagreement over the religious or ethical value of the prophetic tradition. Scholarship has given the prophets the monopoly on biblical ethics. We take the prophets at their word, and we take the priests at the prophets’ word too. That is not a balanced approach, but a selective one; a selection in line with an all-too religious Jewish and Christian reverence for Israel’s prophets. Yes, we who have read Heschel are inclined to compare the prophets to the best of our own social reformers—like Dr. Martin Luther King. And there is, to be sure, some truth to this comparison. But the comparison is imbalanced. If we take a dispassionate stance (and that, after all, is our task), we would have to grant that there is an element of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy in our prophets as well: Can we not find instances of exaggerated claims of widespread guilt,37 or the refusal to see any shades of gray between the black and the white? The priests were all about gray—differentiating between more significant and less significant transgressions, taking into account questions of intention—and that is not always a bad thing, morally speaking.

34. Hendel, “Prophets, Priests,” 190–91; McKane, “Prophet and Institution,” 252–53; Robert P. Carroll, From Chaos to Covenant: Prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 96–106; Weiss, “Concerning Amos’ Repudiation of the Cult,” in Wright, et al., eds., Pomegranates, esp. 213–14. 35. See, e.g., Carroll, From Chaos to Covenant, 96–106, and the literature cited in previous note. 36. For a fuller attempt to rethink the divide between priests and prophets, see Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple, 75–100. 37. Yes, ancient Israel did have its suffering poor, and its share of indifferent wealthy people. And there were communist spies in various levels of the U.S. government in the McCarthy era.

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The History of Priestly Traditions The ethical evaluation of the priesthood is not just an abstract question. For both Wellhausen and Kaufmann—and the schools that follow them—the relationship of priests to ethics is the key for placing them in a historical trajectory. We understand why Wellhausen placed the priests in the later period—as a key step in the devolution of Judaism. But why would, of all people, Jewish Kaufmannians resurrect Wellhausen’s and Weber’s image of a detached priesthood? Truth be told, modernist Judaism—in its various non-Orthodox guises—can be just as evolutionist and supersessionistic as Wellhausen’s Protestantism.38 And supersessionism needs a foil—preferably a couple of them. Kaufmannian evolutionism—in line with modernist Jewish supersessionism—conceives of an amoral and theologically challenged Canaanite religion.39 This is succeeded first by a theologically astute but still somewhat morally challenged priesthood. Then we get the prophets, who set things aright. So Wellhausen’s and Weber’s image of the closeted, morally indifferent priesthood—originally conceived in Protestant terms—is put to the service of a Jewish myth of ethical advance.40 The difference is that Wellhausen’s supersessionism offends living, religiously observant Jews who consider themselves to be heirs of the Pharisees; Jewish supersessionism is considered less remarkable because, I think, those who could be offended by it—Canaanites primarily, temple priests secondarily—are long gone. But worse than offending the dead, the myth of ethical advance involves an all-too-religious unquestioning of prophetic ethics. As I have already indicated, one thing I would like to see is more critical reflection on the precise nature of the prophetic ethical advance. But turning to history, it is also important to think critically about when—or if—such an advance ever took place. Considering the fact that Third Isaiah (58:1–5) was complaining about some of the same issues as Amos (2:6–8), how can we be so sure that some substantive ethical advance was made in the eighth or seventh century B.C.E.? The problem with such reconstructions of Israel’s history is that the evolutionist model is inherently flawed. Just as Wellhausen had his reasons for supposing that second temple Judaism was in a state of moral decline, so too Kaufmannians have their reasons for arguing that first temple Israelite tradition exhibited a linear, positive, ethical development over the same period. Of course, their arguments are not purely evolutionist: on the whole, Knohl’s careful identification of H-sounding redactional material in various P texts is compelling, and Milgrom too gathers much evidence to the effect that H is a

38. This is one of the central theses of Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple; see esp. 7–10. 39. Cf. Jon D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), 109–11, and Levenson, “Is There a Counterpart in the Hebrew Bible to New Testament Anti-Semitism,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 22 (1985): 242–60. 40. Consider, for instance, Knohl’s comments in Divine Symphony, 68–69 and 84–85.

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later textual layer than P.41 But this can only tell us about the relative placement of P and H; their absolute dates—vis-à-vis the prophets—are still up for grabs. Moreover, the textual arguments are put to evolutionist ends: their historical reconstructions are based on the assumption that what is more ethical must be later, and what is earlier is deemed subject to due criticism. So how then are we to proceed? In my view the fact that so much of the discussion of the priority of P vs. H (or vice versa) is evolutionist in nature should give sufficient cause to be wary. Instead, we should follow the model proposed by Rolf Rendtorff and Joseph Blenkinsopp—and recently put to service by Douglas—that the priestly traditions (both within and without Leviticus) ought to be interpreted as we have them, and as integral parts of the Pentateuch as a whole: After working through the writings of what may be called the Kaufmann school, one is tempted to suggest that it would be more profitable to put one’s time and energy into a positive and unprejudicial assessment of P as a religious text, an assessment based on a synchronic reading without reference to the circumstances of its composition and reception, rather than attempting to refute Wellhausen’s arguments by means of chronological displacement.42

In order to make progress in the understanding of Israelite religion, the priestly traditions of the Pentateuch need to be studied as a whole, regardless of the history of their component parts. The priestly traditions—to say nothing of the priests who were responsible even for the earliest of these traditions—deserve a sympathetic hearing. If we must have a reconstruction of the textual history, can it be done without imagining a period of time when the priests were closeted and indifferent to the moral challenges of their day? Concluding Reflections There is no single method or approach that will lead us out of this morass. I would, however, like to offer some suggestions. First, I think it behooves us to reflect critically now and then on the key terms of debate. Our terms—even the dryer ones such as “ritual,” “symbol,” and 41. See Knohl, Sanctuary of Silence, 1–7 and 199–224; cf. Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 3A; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1319– 64. 42. Blenkinsopp, “An Assessment,” 497. Compare Douglas, Leviticus as Literature, 1; Rendtorff, “How to Approach Leviticus,” in Proceedings of the 10th World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division A: The Bible and Its World (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1990), 13– 20, and Rolf Rendtorff, “Is it Possible to Read Leviticus as a Separate Book?,” in Reading Leviticus: A Conversation with Mary Douglas (ed. John F. A. Sawyer; JSOTSup 227; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 22–35. An earlier articulation of this approach can be found in Herbert Chanan Brichto, “On Slaughter and Sacrifice, Blood and Atonement,” HUCA 48 (1976): 19–55 (43, 47, and 50–55). See also the comments of Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism: An Anthropology of Israelite Religion and Ancient Judaism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 124, and Stephen A. Geller, Sacred Enigmas: Literary Religion in the Hebrew Bible (London: Routledge, 1996), 62–64.

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“ethic,” (to say nothing of “survival”)—are not neutral terms. Our distinctions (cult vs. ethics; ritual vs. symbolic acts) are not neutral distinctions. They are defined and colored by centuries of religious and philosophical dispute. Second, it behooves us to try not to take sides in the ancient disputes. If we sympathize with the prophets, we should try too to sympathize with the priests; if we criticize the priests, why not try on a critique of the prophets for size? Third, we may do well to put history of religion on the back-burner and focus for a while on the meanings of our texts. If we must do history, we should shun linear trajectories. Fourth, we may do well to think critically and publicly now and then about how the various sides of scholarly debate regarding method and approach could be aligned with known contemporary ideologies. Fifth, I think we would do well on an individual basis to ask ourselves if our methodological choices, terminological decisions, and historical reconstructions may be too closely aligned with our own ideologies.43 We may do well to identify and bracket those issues that we feel we cannot deal with dispassionately. Like a good judge, we may need to recuse ourselves now and then. I want to make clear one thing I am not calling for. I do not think the field (or the SBL conferences) needs public soul-searching by individuals. And I would caution against this on both aesthetic and ethical grounds. We have the right to keep our religious commitments and convictions to ourselves; and we have the right not to hear about other scholars’ personal struggles. Besides—methodologically—autobiographical information is, by definition, unverifiable and therefore of little use. I would suggest, however, that we each ask ourselves—and I have been asking myself this—whether we are reaching our conclusions because they match our convictions, or whether we are able to reach conclusions despite commitments we may have. Advances will come not by our defending our positions, but by our questioning of them. Biblical studies is probably destined to be populated in part by scholars who hold religious views toward the Bible, and even adhere to a large or small degree to biblical commands. It would be hypocritical of me to decry this phenomenon, for I cannot rightfully wish things were otherwise without wishing myself out of work. Moreover, it has also long been known that atheistic and secularist biases can produce their own distortions of religious phenomena—the figures of James Frazer and Sigmund Freud may come to mind.44 Still, I think those who approach the study of the Pentateuch from within religious perspectives can do a bit better than has been done heretofore. I have tried to do my part here—and in other recent work as well45—and I hope that the efforts are well received and appreciated. 43. In seeking to address the allegation that methodological choices reflect ideological stances, we scholars of the Pentateuch may be well advised not so much to select one particular methodology over another, but to implement our methodologies in a more careful and balanced manner. 44. See E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Theories of Primitive Religion (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), 14– 17. 45. See especially Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple.

PAGANS AND PRIESTS: CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON METHOD Frank H. Gorman

Introduction The present study emerged from reflections on method and interpretation in relation to critical analysis of the ritual associated with the jealous husband (Num 5:11–31) and the ritual of the red cow (Num 19:1–22). These texts led me to the purification of the formerly skin defiled (Lev 14:1–20) and the ritual for the day of “atonement” (Lev 16:1–34), texts that have several similarities as well as significant differences. The rituals depicted in these texts are often thought to contain elements of a “pagan” or “primitive” past. Biblical interpreters have generally sought to demonstrate how the priests drew on and adapted common ritual traditions of the ancient Near East to generate their own ritual system. The focus of my reflections will be the work of Jacob Milgrom. The reasons are two: (1) his work is well known, substantive, and influential in the discipline and (2) his work has been particularly influential in my own work. Although my initial reflections focus on the relationship of pagans and priests, they broaden to include questions, methodological and theoretical, critical for the ongoing analysis of the priestly traditions. Comparing Pagans and Priests Comparison of priestly rituals with other religions of the ancient Near East has been, and often remains, a value-laden enterprise, informed by cultural and religious values and ideologies.1 Delitzsch2, for example, applauded Babylon’s 1. G. W. Van Beek, “Archaeology,” IDB 1:195–207; W. G. Dever, “The Patriarchal Traditions 1,” in Israelite and Judean History (ed. J. H. Hayes and J. M. Miller; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977), 70–79; idem, “Archaeology, Syro-Palestinian and Biblical,” ABD 1:354–67; D. P. Wright, “The Disposal of Impurity in the Priestly Writings of the Bible with Reference to Similar Phenomena in Hittite and Mesopotamian Cultures” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1982), 1–12; H. Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990), 87–102; M. Malul, The Comparative Method in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Legal Studies (Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1990); G. A. Klingbeil, A Comparative Study of the Ritual of Ordination as Found in Leviticus 8 and Emar 369 (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1998), 325–40. 2. F. Delitzsch, Babel and Bible (trans. J. T. McCormack, W. H. Carruth, and L. G. Robinson; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1906); J. J. Finkelstein, “Bible and Babel: A Comparative

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superiority over Israel, whereas Kaufmann3 emphasized the unique and superior elements of Israelite religion. Biblical scholarship has generally used comparative materials to illuminate biblical texts and Israelite practices so as to demonstrate Israel’s superiority and/or distinctive beliefs and ritual practices.4 Milgrom, in the tradition of Kaufmann, seeks to demonstrate that priestly theology was superior to the religious practices of other nations.5 In discussing “Priestly theology,” he identifies three basic premises of “pagan religion”: (1) the deities are subject to a metadivine realm; (2) this realm spawns both malevolent and benevolent entities; (3) humans are able to use magic to acquire power from this realm and coerce the gods.6 Priestly theology seeks to negate these premises so as “to sever impurity from the demonic and to reinterpret it as a symbolic system reminding Israel of the divine imperative to reject death and choose life.”7 I want to raise four critical questions concerning Milgrom’s “comparative” analysis. First, is “pagan religion” so easily reduced to a homogeneous reality with a common “essence?”8 Are the similarities of “pagan” religions, reduced to a common message, more important than the concrete differences? What is the primary focus of comparison: the “essence” of the religions, their practices, their messages, or their texts? Is the identification of “similarities” based on concrete details or cognitive essences? Does an examination of the parts (rites) lead to the essence of a religion (its meanings), or does the (assumed) essence guide the interpretation of the details?9 Second, is his discussion of pagan practices in the context of priestly theology value-free?10 In such a comparison, “theology” is clearly valued more highly than “practice.”11 Such dualisms are, as suggested by Bell, more an Study of the Hebrew and Babylonian Religious Spirit,” Commentary 26 (1958): 431–44; H. B. Huffmon, “Babel und Bibel: The Encounter between Babylon and the Bible,” in Backgrounds for the Bible (ed. M. P. O’Connor and D. N. Freedman; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1987), 125–36. 3. Y. Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (trans. M. Greenberg; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), 60 (and throughout). 4. In addition to n. 1, see J. Milgrom, Leviticus (CC; Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2004), 11–14. For helpful discussions of the comparative method, see Wright, Disposal of Impurity, 1–12; M. S. Smith, The Early History of God (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1990), xix–xxxiv (and examples throughout); Eilberg-Schwartz, Savage in Judaism, 87–102; T. Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses (New York: Ballentine, 1992), 1–6 (and examples throughout); B. Lang, The Hebrew God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), vii–x (and examples throughout). 5. Milgrom, Leviticus, 9; Kaufmann, Religion of Israel, 60–121. 6. Milgrom, Leviticus, 8, cites Kaufmann, Religion of Israel, 21–59. See also J. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 42–51. 7. Milgrom, Leviticus, 13; idem, Leviticus 1–16, 42–52. 8. See Klingbeil, Comparative Study, 325–40. 9. This reflects problems associated with the hermeneutical circle. 10. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 42–51; idem, Leviticus, 8; idem, Numbers (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1990), 353. 11. For dualisms in the interpretation of biblical rituals and human experience, see F. H. Gorman, “Ritual Studies and Biblical Studies: Assessment of the Past; Prospects for the Future,” Semeia 67 (1994): 13–36; C. Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 13–66; idem, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 23–89.

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element of scholarly thinking and discourse than of actual ritual practices.12 Milgrom’s position suggests that priestly “rituals” are better “to think” than “to do.” Thus, the “meaning” of a ritual is more important than its “enactment.” The result is that analysis focuses more on discursive theology than ritual enactment.13 Third, does the priestly cult actually operate without magic? Kaufmann identifies two basic types of magic, both of which are, in his estimation, alien to Israelite practice: (1) acts that coerce the gods and (2) acts that are inherently effective.14 As Knohl notes, however, the statement of “forgiveness” associated with the E I and ) is not specifically said to have God as its subject (see, for the E I, Lev 4:20, 26, 31, 35; Num 15:28; for the ) , Lev 5:10, 13, 16, 18, 26; 19:22).15 Forgiveness is the guaranteed result of enactment, that is, ritual is inherently effective, and is not based on an existential decision of Yahweh— to forgive or not to forgive—at the moment of enactment.16 The priest effects expiation through the formal enactment of the ritual and the one presenting a sacrifice is forgiven through participation in the ritual enactment (Lev 4:35b). Fourth, are pagan rituals less symbolic than those of the priests (both known only through texts)? I am not aware of a sustained argument by Milgrom that pagan religion is empty of symbolism, but his argument that the priests constructed a symbolic system to negate pagan beliefs and practices suggests this. A 12. Bell, Ritual Theory, 49–54; idem, Ritual, 61–89. 13. For discussions of this issue, see F. H. Gorman, The Ideology of Ritual, (JSOTSup 91; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 13–38; N. Jay, Throughout Your Generations Forever (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 1–29; W. K. Gilders, Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 1–11; R. Gane, Cult and Character: Purification Offerings, Day of Atonement, and Theodicy (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 3–24; I. Gruenwald, Rituals and Ritual Theory in Ancient Israel (BRLJ 10; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 1–39; D. Janzen, The Social Meanings of Sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible (BZAW 344; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004), 1–35. From the perspective of ritual studies, see R. L. Grimes, Beginnings in Ritual Studies (New York: University Press of America, 1982), 53–69; Bell, Ritual Theory, 1–93. 14. Kaufmann, Religion of Israel, 40–42. The definition of “magic” remains problematic, especially in relationship to theology and ritual. See B. A. Levine, In the Presence of the Lord (Leiden: Brill, 1974), 77–91; M. Douglas, Purity and Danger (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), 7–28. The following discussions are helpful and represent a variety of perspectives: W. J. Goode, “Magic and Religion: A Continuum,” Ethnos 14 (1949): 172–82; E. Leach, Culture and Communication (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 29–32; Grimes, Beginnings in Ritual Studies, 45–47; J. Middleton, “MAGIC: Theories of Magic,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 9:82–89; D. R. Hill, “MAGIC: Magic in Primitive Societies,” in Encyclopedia of Religion 9:89–92; S. J. Tambiah, Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 1–31; T. F. Driver, The Magic of Ritual (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991), 166–91; J. K. Kuemmerlin-McLean, “Magic: Old Testament,” ABD 4:468–71; J. A. Scurlock, “Magic: Ancient Near East,” ABD 4:464–68; Bell, Ritual, 46–52; P. Boyer, Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thoughts (New York: Basic, 2001), 229–63. 15. I. Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 88, 135 n. 42. 16. This also true of the sacrificial smoke that provides “a soothing aroma” for Yahweh and is inherently efficacious. Consideration must be given to the possibility that the cult establishes limits and boundaries for Yahweh as well as for Israel.

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symbolic approach to culture, however, would view “religion” as symbolic by definition.17 Were Babylonian rituals empty of symbolism and, therefore, empty of meaning?18 The question is critical in that the search for symbolic meaning provides a hermeneutical directive for interpretation. Milgrom draws on Babylonian (as well as Hittite) purgation texts to argue that the priests also constructed purgation rituals, but emphasizes that Babylonian rituals drove away demonic forces whereas priestly rituals purged symbolic impurity from the sanctuary.19 Is the Israelite ritual more symbolic than the pagan ritual? How significant is the difference between “malevolent demonic powers” and “malefic symbolic impurity” generated by (demonized) humans?20 Equally important, both rituals reflect superstitious beliefs in the efficacy of ritual actions, as well as the removal or elimination of unseen but powerful forces that are destructively operative in the realm of sacred space. Interpretation and Symbolic Systems Milgrom employs a hermeneutics of symbolism to interpret the priestly materials.21 He states, “the ritual complexes of Lev 1–16 make sense only as aspects of a symbolic system.”22 This includes both the sacrificial and the purity/impurity rulings.23 Central to this system is the divine tent, the place of Yahweh’s symbolic presence.24 When sacred space is made unclean (by symbolic impurity), the blood of a E I symbolically cleanses it.25 Milgrom fails to clarify four critical issues relating to symbolism. (1) What constitutes a symbol? (2) How does the interpreter consistently determine symbolic meaning? (3) What are the ways in which a symbol is related to and generative of its symbolic meaning? (4) What sort of symbolism is present in the 17. See V. Turner, The Ritual Process (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977 [originally 1969]), 14; idem, From Ritual to Theatre (New York: Performing Arts Journal, 1982), 20–60; C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973), 3–30; Douglas, Purity and Danger, 65. For important criticisms of this approach, see Bell, Ritual Theory, 182–96; idem, Ritual, 61–89; T. Asad, Genealogies of Religion (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 27–79. 18. Are we to believe, for example, that “pagan” cultic meals in Babylon were less symbolic than those in Israel? D. C. Dennett’s comments, from outside the field, are interesting (Breaking the Spell [New York: Viking, 2006], 164–65). 19. Milgrom, Leviticus, 163–67; idem, Leviticus 1–16, 1067–70, 1071–84. See also K. van der Toorn, Sin and Sanction in Israel and Mesopotamia (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1984), 1–9, 56–93. 20. Milgrom discusses his view of the differences in Leviticus 1–16, 42–51, and Leviticus, 8–16. 21. On symbolism, see R. Firth, Symbols: Public and Private (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press), 1973; D. Sperber, Rethinking Symbolism (trans. A. L. Morton; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975); E. M. Zuesse, Ritual Cosmos (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1979); F. W. Dillistone, The Power of Symbols in Religion and Culture (New York: Crossroad, 1986). 22. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 45; idem, Leviticus, 11; idem, “Confusing the Sacred and the Impure: A Rejoinder,” VT 44 (1994): 557. 23. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 42–51; idem, Leviticus, 8–16. 24. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 43; idem, Leviticus, 9. 25. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 46; idem, Leviticus, 12.

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priestly materials: literary (textual analysis), social (an analysis of practice), or cognitive (analysis of a cognitive system)? Note the different types of symbolic meanings in the following four examples. First, in discussing the E I and the priestly understanding of collective responsibility and sin, Milgrom argues that good people suffered along with brazen sinners because the former allowed the latter to flourish: “Thus, in the Priestly scheme, the sanctuary is polluted (read: society is corrupted) by brazen sins (read: the rapacity of the leaders) and also by inadvertent sins (read: the acquiescence of the ‘silent majority’), with the result that God is driven out of his sanctuary (read: the nation is destroyed).”26 The sanctuary is a symbol of society and (symbolic) pollution is a symbol (or metaphor) of corruption. God is a symbol for the nation and the departure of God from the sanctuary is a symbol for the destruction of the nation. Second, the ascending smoke of a sacrifice may be seen as “a physical symbol of personal prayers and wishes rising to God.”27 In this view, the smoke is associated with the prayers of the people rather than the “fragrant aroma” that calms and soothes Yahweh (see, e.g., Lev 1:9, 13; 2:2; 3:5, 16; 4:31). Third, the purity and impurity rulings are symbols that “reveal deeper, basically ethical values that remain relevant to this day.”28 The purity rulings are symbolic statements of ethical values that retain value in the contemporary context. Fourth, the blood prohibition reflects a rational formulation designed to oppose the practices of Israel’s neighbors.29 This explanation is anything but symbolic. Further, he states that the dietary system rests on rationally constructed ethical foundations designed to teach the inviolability of life.30 Symbolic interpretation seems to mean little more than that one word or idea stands for or refers to something else. How does one determine the “true meaning” of symbols? Is there a method to inform and guide the interpretation? From a ritual perspective, the emphasis on ritual as a form of symbolic communication runs the risk of emptying ritual enactment of intrinsic value. Must the rituals be enacted in order for their message to be communicated? Although Milgrom states that the priests answered questions—he does not indicate whose questions or what questions—in rituals rather than in words, his approach suggests that words are necessary for understanding meaning.31 Certainly, he believes the messages are (most?) clearly and effectively communicated through (rational) scholarly analysis and discourse. “Ritual” is, however, first and foremost the act of “doing something” through structured activity.32 The enactment 26. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 50; idem, Leviticus, 15. 27. Milgrom, Leviticus, 17; idem, “Systemic Differences in the Priestly Corpus: A Response to Jonathan Klawans,” RB 112 (2005): 321–29. 28. Milgrom, Leviticus, 101; idem, Leviticus 1–16, 704–42, 763–68, 816–20, 948–53. 29. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 704–42; idem, Leviticus, 105. 30. Milgrom, Leviticus, 106; idem, Leviticus 1–16, 704–42. 31. Milgrom, Leviticus, 32. I see Milgrom’s priestly “system” as a linguistic construct that may or may not have anything to do with actual ritual enactment. 32. Although obvious, the study of priestly materials often proceeds as if it is not. From a variety of perspectives, see, for example, R. A. Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning, and Religion (Richmond,

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of priestly rituals accomplished what the structured activity set out to accomplish, for example, purification, transformation, passage, or forgiveness.33 Finally, would the common people have understood the symbolic meaning of priestly rituals (assuming the rituals were enacted)?34 Did they participate in the cult in order to communicate a (symbolic) message? If so, to whom were they speaking: themselves, the priests, the community, or God? Did priests and laypersons share a common understanding of ritual? If, as Milgrom correctly notes, the priestly duties included instruction (see Lev 10:10),35 would not such instruction include an effort to correct incorrect beliefs and practices? Milgrom argues that the priests maintained pagan practices because of the demands of the people, although this clearly raises questions concerning the nature of priestly power, authority, and pedagogy.36 This becomes more significant if, indeed, the priests (and the people) viewed the cult as the revealed will of Yahweh. A Consistent System? Milgrom states, “the entire complex of the priestly impurity rules is only a symbolic system…[and] [t]he symbolism of the hat>t>at and, indeed, of the entire impurity system operates consistently throughout.”37 Thus, the priestly materials reflect a consistent, coherent, symbolic system of meaning.38 Milgrom shifts the question of consistency, however, from the enactments themselves to the Calif.: North Atlantic Books, 1979), 173–221; Grimes, Beginnings, 54–55; S. F. Moore and B. G. Myerhoff, “Introduction: Secular Ritual: Forms and Meanings,” in Secular Ritual (ed. S. F. Moore and B. G. Myerhoff; Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1975), 3–24; P. Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (trans. R. Nice; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 80–97; Bell, Ritual, 138–69; Boyer, Religion Explained, 229–63. 33. F. Staal, “The Meaninglessness of Ritual,” Numen (1979): 2–22; P. Smith, “Aspects of the Organization of Rites,” in Between Belief and Transgression (ed. M. Izard and P. Smith; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 103–28; O. Herrenschmidt, “Sacrifice: Symbolic or Effective?,” in Isard and Smith, eds., Between Belief and Transgression, 24–41; Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, 52–65; Boyer, Religion Explained, 229–63; W. K. Gilders, Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 1–11. 34. Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, 60–121; Milgrom, “Systemic Differences,” 323–24; I. Knohl, The Divine Symphony (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 2003), 1–8. Cf. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 52–57. 35. Milgrom, Leviticus, 32. 36. Milgrom often explains the continued existence of pagan practices in priestly rituals as a demand of the people that the priests could not or would not change. See Milgrom, “The Paradox of the Red Cow (Num XIX),” VT 31 (1981): 68–69; idem, Numbers, 353, 441. For criticism, see J. Klawans, “Pure Violence: Sacrifices and Defilement in Ancient Israel,” HTR 94 (2001): 133–40 (see n. 14); idem, “Ritual Purity, Moral Purity, and Sacrifice in Jacob Milgrom’s Leviticus,” RSR 29 (2003): 19–28. 37. Milgrom, “Confusing the Sacred,” 557–58; idem, Leviticus, 12–18. 38. Milgrom, “Confusing the Sacred,” 558. Both M. Douglas, Natural Symbols (London: Cresset, 1970), 72–73, and Geertz, Interpretation, 33–54 discuss culture in terms of systemic order and meaning. See Klawans’s discussions in Impurity and Sin in Ancient Israel (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 21–42; idem, “Ritual Purity, Moral Purity,” 19–28; idem, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 17–73.

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messages they communicate. In this way, a collection of diverse ritual enactments (or textual rituals) and purity rulings are turned into a unified theological and ethical system. The belief in a “consistent system” functions as a methodological presupposition that guides the interpretive process (the “systemic fallacy”). The interpreter’s ability to produce a coherent system on the basis of the priestly texts, however, does not provide proof that the system is in the texts themselves (or behind them or underneath them).39 In such an approach, the interpreter assumes that the priestly writers wanted (or “intended”) to write a significant number of texts that were based on and reflected a consistent system of meaning (“the intentional fallacy”).40 The texts, however, do not indicate clearly that a specific type of sacrifice functions in the same way in every instance. For example, does a E I offered according to the requirements of the calendrical ritual cycle (a community ritual) function in the same way(s) as a E I required for a specific occasion of sin and impurity (generated by an individual or the community)?41 Does a E I in a ritual of founding (Lev 8 and the inauguration of the priesthood) function in the same way as a E I in a maintenance ritual (the regularly prescribed sacrifices based on the calendar) or in a ritual of restoration (Lev 14)?42 If ritual processes have distinct reasons for being enacted (i.e. they effect different and distinct outcomes), is it not possible, or even probable that the same sacrifice in name may function differently in distinctively different types of rituals?43 The priests may have been more context sensitive than system oriented. 39. Douglas would not necessarily agree with this. See Implicit Meanings (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975), 276–314. 40. The problematic relationship between “the intentional fallacy” and “the systemic fallacy” runs throughout Milgrom’s work. The assumption of a system in the materials reflects an assumption that the priestly writers intended to create such an underlying system. Milgrom’s discussion of the dietary rulings and ethics is an excellent example. See Milgrom, “The Biblical Diet Laws as an Ethical System,” Interpretation 17 (1963): 288–301; idem, “Ethics and Ritual: The Foundations of the Biblical Dietary Laws,” in Religion and Law: Biblical-Judaic and Islamic Perspectives (ed. E. B. Firmage, B. G. Weiss, and J. W. Welch; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 160–91; idem, Leviticus 1–16, 643–1009 (704–42); idem, Leviticus, 101–61 (103–10). Wright (“Observations on the Ethical Foundations of the Biblical Dietary Laws: A Response to Jacob Milgrom,” in Firmage, Weiss, and Welch, eds., Religion and Law, 193–98) makes helpful observations on Milgrom’s work. On the same issue, see E. Firmage, “The Biblical Dietary Laws and the Concept of Holiness,” in Studies in the Pentateuch (ed. J. A. Emerton; VTSup 41; Leiden: Brill, 1990), 177– 208; W. J. Houston, Purity and Monotheism (JSOTSup 140; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 68–123; idem, “Towards an Integrated Reading of the Dietary Laws of Leviticus,” in The Book of Leviticus (ed. R. Rendtorff and R. A. Kugler; VTSup 93; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 142–61. 41. J. Gammie, Holiness in Israel (OBT; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989); Gane, Cult and Character, 129–43; Gorman, Ideology, 215–27. 42. On distinct types of rituals, see Gorman, Ideology, 52–55; idem, “Priestly Rituals of Founding: Time, Space, and Status,” in History and Interpretation (ed. M. P. Graham, W. P. Brown, and J. K. Kuan; JSOTSup 173; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 47–64; G. A. Anderson, “Sacrifice and Sacrificial Offerings (Old Testament),” ABD 5:875–77; Gruenwald, Rituals, 25–26. 43. S. M. Olyan, “What Do Shaving Rites Accomplish and What Do They Signal in Biblical Ritual Contexts?,” JBL 117 (1998): 611–22; Gilders, Blood Ritual, 86–87; Levine, In the Presence, 1–8.

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The following chart demonstrates one way of recognizing important similarities and differences in three ritual texts: Lev 14:1–32; Lev 16:1–28; and Num 19:1–13.44 Text Ritual process

Lev 14:1–32 Purification and restoration of individual to camp

Occasion Temporal focus

Situational First day of eight-day ritual Outside the camp to inside the camp

Location and movement

Lev 16:1–28 Purification and removal of sin on behalf of the community Calendrical One day, once a year Purification inside camp and removal of sin to a place outside the camp (to Azazel) Two goats E I sacrifice

Animals Status of animals in the ritual Blood sprinkling

Two birds Not identified as a sacrifice Seven times on Seven times in holy person being cleansed place and on altar

Additional materials

Cedar, crimson material, hyssop (used to sprinkle person)

Ritual washing and cleansing

Launder clothes, shave, bathe (on day one and day seven)

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Bathe (twice) change clothes (twice) (only the high priest)

Num 19:1–13 Purification of individuals; available for anyone in the community Situational Third and seventh days of seven-day process Preparation outside camp; sprinkling of unclean inside camp Red cow Ashes of the red cow are mixed with water Seven times toward the front of the tent, mixture of water and ashes placed on person Cedar wood, hyssop, and crimson material (burned with the cow and sprinkled on person) Launder, bathe, wait until evening on day of sprinkling

I would argue that the sevenfold sprinkling of blood in these rituals reflects distinct functions within distinct types of ritual (see C9 in Lev 14:7; CA< in 16:11, 16, 17, 18, and C9 in 16:19; and C9 in Num 19:4, 11–13).45 They are not easily grouped into a single system of enactment and/or meaning. In Lev 14:7, blood from a non-sacrificial bird is sprinkled on a person for cleansing (C9) from a previously defiling skin condition. In Num 19:4, the sevenfold sprinkling of the red cow’s blood (a E I)46 toward the tent47 takes place outside the camp. The action is not explained and, importantly, its blood is not placed on 44. See the discussions of Milgrom, Numbers, 438–43; idem, Leviticus, 39–41; N. Kiuchi, The Purification Offering in the Priestly Literature (JSOTSup 56; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987), 111–59; Gorman, Ideology, 61–102, 151–79, 191–214; Gilders, Blood Ritual, 109–41; M. Douglas, “The Go-Away Goat in the Book of Leviticus,” in Rendtorff and Kugler, eds., The Book of Leviticus, 121–41; Gane, Cult and Character, 45–284. 45. See Th. C. Vriezen, “The Term hizza: Lustration and Consecration,” OTS 7 (1950): 201–35; Gilders, Blood Ritual, 109–41. 46. Milgrom (Numbers, 160) translates E I in v. 9 as “purification offering.” 47. Milgrom argues the sprinkling consecrates the blood and makes it sacrificial (Numbers, 440, and Leviticus, 40). Cf. Gilders, Blood Ritual, 109–41.

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Perspectives on Purity and Purification in the Bible

the altar. In Lev 16:11–19, the annual day of purification, the blood of a bull and a goat, both termed a E I, is sprinkled seven times inside the holy of holies and seven times on the outer altar to purify (CA