Calabro, David, A Reexamination of the Ancient Israelite Gesture of Hand Placement, in: Wiley, Henrietta L.; Eberhart, Christian A. (eds.), Sacrifice, Cult, and Atonement in Early Judaism and Christianity. Constituents and Critique (Resources for Biblical Study 85), Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017, 99–124.

Erbele-Küster, Dorothea, Reading as an Act of Offering. Reconsidering the Genre of Leviticus 1, in: Houtman, Alberdina; Poorthuis, Marcel; Schwartz, Joshua J.; Turner, Joseph (Hg.), The Actuality of Sacrifice. Past and Present (Jewish and Christian Perspectives Series 28), Leiden 2014, 34–46.  Show MoreAbstract from OTA 38, 2015, 699, #2211: Exegesis of the sacrificial system in Leviticus 1-7, the book’s offering tōrôt, has long been focused on issues of source- redaction- and form-criticism. However, reading these texts simply as ritual handbooks does not reveal how they function on a canonical level. Furthermore, such readings ignore the question of why these texts have been read in situations far beyond cultic sacrifice. This is the point of departure for E.-K.’s rhetorical interpretation of these texts. Along with other scholars, she seeks to explain the ways in which Leviticus 1 can be read as a fictional text, without denying its possible actual ritual use. Accordingly, rather than focusing on the historical practice of offerings in ancient Israel, she concentrates rather on the literary features of the chapter and their rhetorical function. Her main questions are thus: Why are texts re-read beyond cultic situations? What is fictional about the reading process? How does the text understand sacrifice as expressed in its literary and rhetorical form? [Adapted from author’s introduction —C.T.B.]