Adu-Gyamfi, Yaw, The Live Goat Ritual in Leviticus 16: Scriptura 112, 2013, 1-10. Show MoreAbstract: The live goat ritual in Leviticus 16 has, for many decades, attracted debate in biblical scholarship. However, the main focus has often been on the identity of Azazel. This article examines some aspects of the live goat ritual in Leviticus 16: (1) the use of two hands rather than the usual one hand laid over the head of the goat; (2) the content of the confession over the goat; (3) the purpose of the rite; (4) whether the ritual is a sacrifice or something else; and (5) the significance of the ritual. I contend that the two hands used are representational, that the ritual is a unique sacrifice, and that the ritual symbolized a complete eradication of sin from the community.
Awabdy, Mark A., Did Nadab and Abihu Draw Near before Yhwh? The Old Greek among the Witnesses of Leviticus 16:1: CBQ 79, 2017, 580–592. Show MorePublished abstract: Leviticus scholars debate the reasons for the differences between the Old Greek (OG) and Hebrew witnesses. Leviticus 16:1 offers an intriguing example that raises the literary question, Did Nadab and Abihu draw near before Yhwh (MT, SP) or only offer strange fire before Yhwh (OG, Tgs., Syr., Vg. and possibly 11Q1)? In this article, I explore the internal evidence of the OG, assess the targums, and give particular attention to reevaluating the fragmentary evidence from Qumran. My conclusions illuminate another dimension of the mystery of the biblical traditions of Aaron’s oldest sons.
Eberhart, Christian A., To Atone or Not to Atone: Remarks on the Day of Atonement Rituals according to Leviticus 16 and the Meaning of Atonement, 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, 197–231.
Gaines, Jason M.H., Parallelism and Other Poetic Constructions in the Holiness Legislation: Revue Biblique 125, 2018, 481–503. Show MoreAbstract from OTA: This paper examines the compositional style of the Holiness Legislation (HL, Leviticus 17-26), and concludes that a significant number of the complex’s verses are best understood as featuring literary, grammatical, lexical, and phonological parallelisms. Redefining the component sentences of the HL as parallelistic rather than linear has significant exegetical ramifications, providing as it does evidence that a given verse of the segment consists of a single law that is reformulated and intensified by way of multiple clauses rather than multiple laws. Prolix repetition is, G. suggests, often necessary to convey the kernel content of a particular law, while the non-essential elements of its formulation enable the author to display his literary artistry. Parallelism thus governs the lines of the HL by determining their shape and form.
Gilders, William K., Is There an Incense Altar in This Ritual? A Question of Ritual-Textual Interpretive Community, in: Christian A. Eberhart/Thomas Hieke (eds.), Writing a Commentary on Leviticus: Hermeneutics–Methodology–Themes (FRLANT 276), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019, 159-169. Show MoreTaking a theoretical start from the work of Stanley Fish on the authority of interpretive communities (presented in his influential 1980 book, Is There a Text in This Class?), Gilders explores how interpreters determine that the ritual complex for the “Day of Atonement” set out in Leviticus 16 includes, or does not include, the application of blood to a golden incense altar inside the tent-shrine. The importance of interpretive assumptions about the incense altar and the blood rituals it receives are the focus of his paper. He investigates the activity of two significant ritual-textual interpretive communities that engage with Leviticus 16 and the ritual complex it presents: those who adopt a largely holistic and synthesizing approach to the text and those who attend to what David Carr calls the “fractures” in the textual corpus. Gilders highlights the crucial role played by Exodus 30:10 for interpretive decisions to see an incense altar and blood rites directed at that altar in Leviticus 16. His paper concludes that the answer to its titular question is: It depends on whom you ask!
Gilders, William K., “And They Would Read Before Him the Order for the Day”: The Textuality of Leviticus 16 in Mishnah Yoma, Tosefta Kippurim, and Sifra Aḥare Mot, in: Nihan, Christophe; Rhyder, Julia (eds.), Text and Ritual in the Pentateuch. A Systematic and Comparative Approach, University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2021, 312–325.
Greenberg, James A., A New Look at Atonement in Leviticus: The Meaning and Purpose of Kipper Revisited (Bulletin for Biblical Research Supplement 23), University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2019. Show MorePublished abstract: In this book, James A. Greenberg examines animal sacrifice in Priestly Torah texts found in Leviticus 1–16, Exodus, and Numbers. Through his analysis, Greenberg identifies a new valence of kipper as a process that produces a positive result between two objects and argues that the Israelite sanctuary exists to facilitate a connection between YHWH, sancta, and the Israelites through the medium of blood. Rather than beginning with a priori assumptions of what sacrificial terms and symbols mean, Greenberg allows his interpretation to develop through an accumulation of textual clues. To avoid the exegetical pitfalls of symbolic and structuralist approaches, he focuses on what the language of the ritual says about sacrifice and what it seeks to accomplish. His investigation considers why the flesh and blood of an animal are used by the priest as he mediates on behalf of the offerer through the medium of YHWH’s sanctuary, what the difference is between intentional and unintentional sin, how the meaning of kipper changes from one sacrifice to the next, whether the sanctuary can be both holy and unclean, and how priests conceive of YHWH’s interaction with sancta, the offerer, and the animal.
Hieke, Thomas, Participation and Abstraction in the Yom Kippur Ritual According to Leviticus 16, in: Christian A. Eberhart/Thomas Hieke (eds.), Writing a Commentary on Leviticus: Hermeneutics–Methodology–Themes (FRLANT 276), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019, 151-158. Show MoreHieke reflects on “Participation and Abstraction in the Yom Kippur Ritual according to Leviticus 16.” Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is widely observed as a Holy Day among Jewish people all over the world. Although it goes back to the description of the ritual in Leviticus 16, the actual celebration of the day differs widely from the biblical text. A long and intensive process of abstraction took place over centuries. The issue of abstraction lies at the roots of the ritual itself; abstraction already occurred at the time when the ritual was actually carried out at the Second Temple in Jerusalem (before 70 C.E.). Yet the inner logic and concern of Yom Kippur was central for the composers of the book of Leviticus and the Torah: They placed the description within the center of the Torah. Hieke demonstrates that the central position of Leviticus 16 (the prescription for the Day of Atonement) is also justified and corroborated by content-related aspects. In Leviticus 16, all groups within the people of Israel participate (the High Priest, the priests, the Israelites), all sorts of sins and impurities are eliminated, and the ritual itself shows the highest degree of abstraction (a minimal amount of blood in an empty room suffices for the efficacy of the ritual). Methodologically, an exegetical commentary has to explore the inner logics of the text and to detect its semantic concepts. In this sense, Leviticus 16 represents a comprehensive reset of cultic and social relationships; the concept includes purification as well as reconciliation (or atonement), in a collective and individual way as well. By means of abstraction, the ritual itself turns into a metaphor, even at the time when it actually still took place in Jerusalem. Jews all over the diaspora abstained from food consumption and thus participated spiritually in the ritual of the Holy Day. These concepts constitute the basis and starting point for multiple transformations and further abstractions as well as metaphorical charging in Judaism (the liturgy in the synagogue, fasting, rest from working) and Christianity (the christological application in Rom 3:25: Christ as hilasterion – expiation or place of atonement, etc.).
Kantor, Benjamin, “Untying the Knots of the Yoke”: Yom Kippur and an Agricultural Allusion to Jubilee in Isaiah 58:6, in: CBQ 85, 2023, 666–685. Show MorePublished abstract: A number of scholars have identified allusions to the Jubilee Year found in Isaiah 58. Among these are the trumpet imagery of v. 1 (cf. Lev 25:9) and the self-affliction in vv. 3 and 5 (cf. Lev 16:31). While Jubilee allusions have also been seen in v. 6, which describes the release of slaves alongside imagery of breaking the yoke, I claim here that not all of the allusions to Jubilee in Isa 58:6 have been identified. Though most commentators see the yoke merely as a metaphor for subjugation, there is actually something deeper and more profound going on. The agricultural imagery, when understood rightly in its ancient philological and cultural context, is actually calling to mind the anticipation of the first rainfall that would have accompanied a Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) on which the Jubilee would be announced. The ancient farmer, who would have been anxious to plow the fields at the right time and avoid potential loss, is called to refrain from plowing and to respect the Jubilee legislation to let the land lie fallow. This serves as a metaphor to call those in society, who regard personal gain as more important than having compassion for their fellow human beings, to repent and embrace the commandments of Yhwh.
Körting, Corinna, Yom Kippur (Lev 16): A Complex Ritual Beyond Space and Time, in: Scheuer, Blaženka; Davage, David Willgren (eds.), Sin, Suffering, and the Problem of Evil (FAT II/126), Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021, 155–170. Show MoreK. examines the detailed ritual instructions for the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16. She asks what the purpose of this text may have been at a time when the central elements of the ritual – the temple and the ark – were absent. K. finds that the fact that the ritual instructions are described in such detail serves to create visual and auditory images of the ritual, which in turn engage the worshipping community in the ritual even when it can no longer be physically performed (adapted from published abstract). Besides Leviticus 16, K. also includes a study of the related tractate in the Mishnah, Yoma.
Parker, B.J., The Restoration of Shalom: An Intertextual Reading of Leviticus 16 and Psalm 65, in: The Evangelical Quarterly 87, 2015, 252-263. Show MoreAdapted from published abstract: In this paper P. seeks to explore the intertextual relationship between The Day of Purification (or Day of Atonement) in Leviticus 16 and Psalm 65. P. adopts Ziva Ben-Porat’s approach to reading intertextually as the approach allows the exegete to attempt to balance concerns of both the reader and historical development. P. argues that markers in the text of Psalm 65 such as כפר, creation theology, and עטרת שנת, activate both the entire text of Leviticus 16 and the theological world it connotes. The outcome is a psalm that draws on a rich theological tradition that became especially important in the post-exilic period.
Ruane, Nicole J., Constructing Contagion on Yom Kippur. The Scapegoat as Ḥaṭṭāʾt, in: Christian A. Eberhart/Thomas Hieke (eds.), Writing a Commentary on Leviticus: Hermeneutics–Methodology–Themes (FRLANT 276), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019, 139-150. Show MoreRuane considers how the writer of Leviticus 16 understood the two goats of the Yom Kippur rites to act together as a single ḥaṭṭāʾt offering (16:5). Ruane argues that although this ritual complex with the two goats is quite different from the paradigmatic ḥaṭṭāʾt rites in Leviticus 4–5, it nonetheless must be understood as a ḥaṭṭāʾt offering. Moreover, taking this designation of the two goats as a ḥaṭṭāʾt seriously helps to articulate the fundamental features of all ḥaṭṭāʾt rites, namely, the separation of the offering into two distinct parts, one of which becomes portrayed as harmful or unclean, and the elimination of that negative part.
Stökl Ben Ezra, Daniel, Heiligste Versöhnung. Jom Kippur im antiken Judentum und Christentum: BiKi 69, 2014, 102–107. Show MoreAbstract: The Yom Kippur is the central feast and fast of Judaism until today. The ritual as described in Leviticus plays a basic role in post-biblical Judaism and Christianity. S. B. E. describes its reception in the New Testament (e.g., Acts 27:9-10) and Early Christianity (Epistle of Barnabas, John Chrysostom, Adversus Judaeos). He presents a detailed comparison of Mark 15:6-15 and its synoptic parallel in Matt 27:15-26. The changes that Matthew introduces in the Markan text as his source demonstrate that Matthew wants to allude to the Day of Atonement blood ritual in the temple.
Watts, James W., From Ark of the Covenant to Torah Scroll: Ritualizing Israel’s Iconic Texts, in: MacDonald, Nathan (ed.), Ritual Innovation in the Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism (BZAW 468), Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 2016, 21–34. Show MoreThe builders of Jerusalem’s Second Temple made a remarkable ritual innovation. They left the holy of holies empty. They apparently rebuilt the other furniture of the temple, but did not remake the ark of the covenant that, according to tradition, had occupied the inner sanctum of Israel’s desert tabernacle and of Solomon’s Temple. The fact that the ark of the covenant went missing has excited speculation ever since. Watts considers how biblical literature dealt with this ritual innovation. Why did the Pentateuch, a Second-Temple-era work at least in its final form, describe in elaborate detail the manufacture and use of a ritual object (Exod 25:10 –22; 37:1–9; 40:20 –21; Lev 16:12–16) that did not exist in its own time? How did this Torah support and validate Second Temple rituals that deviated from its prescriptions in such a central way? Watts’ thesis is that the Pentateuch was shaped to lay the basis for Torah scrolls to replace the ark of the covenant as the iconic focus of Israel’s worship.
Williams, Jarvis J., Cultic Action and Cultic Function in Second Temple Jewish Martyrologies: The Jewish Martyrs as Israel’s Yom Kippur, 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, 233–263.
