The Odd Biblical Book of Leviticus…
…AND SUBSEQUENT JUSTIFYING/RECONCILING EFFORTS, WHICH MAY DEFINE MODERN ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS. As I suspected, a re-reading of Leviticus has confirmed notions that it is a book of antiquated weirdness. Devoted mostly to animal sacrifice, slavery, forbidding of eating obscure animals, stonings of gay men, and narrow views of women’s periods, it could almost have been dreamt up by Monty Python cast members. That the three largest modern religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) justify, but haven’t fully reconciled this wayward book is a sad indicator of the condition of our modern world. This is a shame too, since (literalists beware), a few omissions could make the Bible a solid guide for rational, moral behavior.
Examples: You don’t believe me about the Book of Leviticus? Well here is a synopsis by verse:
Leviticus 1: The Lord instructs Moses on the specifics of how animals (mostly burnt offerings of unblemished, male, drawn and quartered cattle, goats, and sheep) shall be sacrificed at the altar of the new Tabernacle (where God has conditionally agreed to interact with humanity). Poor people can sacrifice burn offerings of turtle doves and pigeons to please God. These sacrifices are to be processed by Aaron (John Carradine in the 1956 “The Ten Commandments” movie), and his four sons, who serve as priests.
Leviticus 2: Specific instructions about bread to be offered, specific oils and unleavening involved.
Leviticus 3: Offers of thanksgiving, which may be male or female unblemished cattle, sheep, goats, and the specific handling of their innards and how their blood shall be splattered about the tabernacle.
Leviticus 4: If a priest or the people of Israel sin unintentionally, they need to sacrifice an ox. If one of the leaders sins unintentionally, they need to sacrifice a billy goat, one of the common people…a nanny goat (note: lambs are optional). Specific instructions for handling of blood and fat.
Leviticus 5: Anyone touching a dead, forbidden animal, or human discharge, knowingly or not, is guilty and must offer a sacrifice. As before, turtle doves and pigeons may be substituted for cattle, sheep, goats, and if one is REALLY poor, 1/10th a bushel of grain may be substituted.
Leviticus 6: Anyone guilty of robbery (or false testimony) must return item, plus a 20% fine, and then offer a ram for sacrifice. Aaron and sons need to offer 1/10th a bushel of grain made into unleavened bread and fried with olive oil, apparently as a precursor to processing the guilt offerings.
Leviticus 7: More specific instructions re: unleavened bread (Leviticus appears to hate yeast) and sacrificial offerings, and how Aaron and his four sons must process them.
Leviticus 8: Pertains to the consecration of the Tabernacle, which involves Moses, Aaron and his sons doing more detailed animal sacrifice (this place has turned into a virtual slaughterhouse by now), and not leaving for seven days.
Leviticus 9: Having done everything properly, the people come to the Tabernacle and the Lord appears, while everyone falls on the ground in awe and grace.
Leviticus 10: Discusses how Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu did not sacrifice animals properly (using unholy fire), and God put them to death. God then instructs the family of Aaron to not mourn, and tells Aaron to not drink wine or other strong drink in the Tabernacle.
Leviticus 11: Animals that chew cud and have cloven hooves may be eaten, thus the camel, rock badger, hare, and pig may NOT be eaten. Any water creature without fins and scales may NOT be eaten. The Eagle, falcon, raven, hawk, seagull, cormorant, pelican, vulture, heron, bat, stork, owl, ostrich, osprey may NOT be eaten. Insects may not be eaten, except for locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers. Anyone touching dead bodies must wash immediately and be quarantined. Anyone touching the mole, rat, lizard, gecko, mouse, snail, chameleon or the places they inhabit will be defiled and quarantined. Animals that crawl or slither shall not be eaten.
Leviticus 12: When a baby boy is born, the mother is defiled for seven days, and must not enter the Tabernacle or touch anything sacred for 33 days. Males shall be circumcised the 8th day. When a baby girl is born, the mother is defiled for two weeks, and must not enter the Tabernacle or touch anything sacred for 66 days. After, she shall bring a yearling lamb as a burnt offering, a turtle dove and pigeon as a sin offering.
Leviticus 13: Deals with those having diseases, lesions, hair loss, or burns, and how the priests shall deal with them. Leprosy is mentioned several times.
Leviticus 14: Deals with lepers who appear to have healed.
Leviticus 15: Deals with men with genital discharge, and what a man must do after sex. Also, a menstruating woman is defiled for 7 days, and anyone having sex with her, touching her, her clothes or bedding during that period is defiled. On the 8th day, she needs to bring 2 turtle doves and 2 pigeons as burnt and sin offerings to the priest.
Leviticus 16: Conditions and punishments for entering the Holy Place behind the veil (this sounds like the “Wizard of Oz”).
Leviticus 17: Forbids eating of blood and eating an animal that has died on its own.
Leviticus 18: You cannot marry a relative, homosexuality and bestiality are forbidden, as is sex with a woman within 7 days of her period. Punishment is being cast out of the land.
Leviticus 19: Gives rules for harvest, forbids lying, stealing, gossip, making fun of the unfortunate, hating your brother, not seeking vengeance, not giving daughters to prostitution, respecting the elderly and foreigners. Also, most beard trimming and tattoos are not allowed.
Leviticus 20: No one may consult with mediums or wizards. Basically, anyone not having sex with their wife must be put to death. Both parties of a homosexual act must be put to death. Incest and bestiality are punished by death. Gives further warning against eating forbidden birds or animals.
Leviticus 21: Instructions for priest’s hair, states that priests shall not marry prostitutes, divorced women, women of another tribe. Instructions for high priest’s hair, states that he shall marry only a virgin. Men with bodily defects may not offer sacrifices to God.
Leviticus 22: More instructions about animals to be sacrificed
Leviticus 23: In addition to Sabbath, provides for annual festivals including Passover, Festival of Unleavened Bread, Festival of First Fruits, Festival of Pentecost, Festival of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Festival of Tabernacles. Gives instructions for behavior at these festivals.
Leviticus 24: Provides for the lamps and bread in the Tabernacle. States that murderers shall be executed, other crimes subject to “eye for an eye” laws, foreigners subject to same laws as citizens.
Leviticus 25: Defines every 50th year as freedom from debt enslavement (Year of Jubilee). Land shall be bought and sold at a fair price, the poor shall be attended to, and “you may purchase slaves from the foreign nations living around you…they will be permanent slaves to pass on to your children”
Leviticus 26: Once again warns of the worship of false idols and images (giving specifics). States that obeyance will produce good crops and healthy livestock, while failure to obey will create crop failures, droughts, pestilences, and diseases. Gives specific warnings such as “I will send wild animals to kill your children”, “you shall eat your own sons and daughters”, “I will desolate your land, utterly amazed at what I have done to you”, “and for those left alive, I will cause them to be dragged away to enemy lands as prisoners of war, and slaves.” (in short, “I will smite you seven times for your sin”). Wow, God is not only angry here, but getting some major payback.
Leviticus 27: Establishes the monetary value of a vow (different depending on sex, age, wealth), gives priests discretionary powers in receiving vows and sacrifices, speaks of a “Year of Jubilee” and pretty much establishes the tithe (giving of 10% to the Tabernacle).
Some Takeaways: Actually, Leviticus is a kind of a fine-print follow-up to the Ten Commandments, except it lacks some clarity on the big one, “Thou Shalt Not Kill”. For that, one must go to Exodus 20:12 “Thou Shalt Not Kill” (King James Version) or “You must not murder” (Living Bible), and then Exodus 21:12 “Anyone who hits a man so hard that he dies shall surely be put to death”. Self-defense is covered in Exodus 22:2 “If a thief is caught breaking into a house and killed, the one who killed him is not guilty”. God appears to obliquely condone killing in War, as he appears in Joshua 5:14 as a “Commander of the Army of the Lord”, then lays out the battle plan for the fight against Ai (Joshua 8:1–2). He further tells Saul “Go, attack the Amalekites and destroy all that belongs to them” (1 Samuel 15:3). Leviticus also contains two directly conflicting orders, “one who kills needs to himself be killed” and yet “one who kills should be banished from the Country”. But the most antiquated measures by today’s standards are perhaps saved for Deuteronomy 18, which states “When you go to war and the Lord your God delivers your enemies to you, and you see among the captives a beautiful girl you want as your wife, take her home with you. She must shave her head, pare her nails and change her clothing, etc”, then “If a man has two wives but loves one and not the other, and both have borne him children…”, (instructions follow for how to give inheritance), and famously “If a man has a stubborn, rebellious son who will not obey his father or mother…then the men of the City shall stone him to death”. These last three might be considered a form of a) Genocidal rape b) Polygamy and c) Filicide. (Chery,2024),(gotquestions.org,nd)
Immediate Questions: Right off the top, this seems hugely unfair to livestock, small birds, and women with periods, while putting a huge amount of pressure on Aaron and his four sons (that two of Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, are “smitten” by God, for what seems a minor infraction compounds this problem). Was there a succession plan for when Aaron ran out of sons? Some of Leviticus seems reasonable even in modern times (I don’t suppose many of us are craving ocelot, albatross, or gecko meat), but hello, much of this is justification for polygamy, slavery, gay-bashing, filicide, and types of murder, all of which are currently illegal. Most of the rest is just…weird, I mean nobody sacrifices things anymore, and I didn’t even realize until now how that was such a big part of the Moses story. Additionally, it would’ve been quite unseemly if Charlton Heston had started splattering the blood of a goat, or if Yvonne DeCarlo had offered up a burnt pigeon after her period, in Cecil B DeMille’s 1956 classic.
Lame Justifications by Biblical Apologists: There are many Biblical apologists out there who make excuses for the murky directives of Leviticus (Exodus and Deuteronomy). First, when they want to justify a killing, they use the word “kill”, and not justify a killing the word “murder”, though most Biblical translations use the word “kill” throughout. As for Leviticus, one reference states “The overall message is of sanctification, forgiveness, and acceptance” (to me, more like an orgy of senseless animal slaughter followed by some Ten Commandment follow-up, strange rituals involving priests, slaves, gays, and female suppression involving burnt turtle-doves). One apologist goes so far as to say Biblical mention of slaves actually means “foreign workers” in ancient Aramaic (but if that’s true, why can they be handed down to your offspring, like a restored ’64 Mustang). (Swindoll,nd)
Jesus the Reconciler, and Views of Other Abrahamic Faiths: Christians have a convenient side-step for the inscrutable comments in Leviticus and other Old Testament books. It is the New Covenant of Jesus (generally thought to be foretold in Jeremiah 31:31–34, and restated in Hebrews 8:6–13, which loosens Christians from the sacrificial and judicial, if not the moral laws). This frees us from many of the “old laws” of those stuffy Pharisees and Sadduccees. Modern Jews? As part of the Torah, it is said that “some families dread the idea of their children having to study the diagnosis and treatment of leprosy for months on end before their b’nei mitzvah”, but also Reform Judaism outright rejects the ancient Israel priestly tradition. Traditional Jews still eat food blessed by Kosher Rabbis (which employs many of the practices of Leviticus). Islam recognizes the Torah (containing the first five books of the Bible, including Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy) as God’s word through Moses. But Islam also has a concept of “tahrif” (corruption of God’s word by Christians and Jews), which may allow an avoidance of the more unwieldy portions of the Torah. (reformjudaism.org,nd)
If Leviticus was “Expunged”, What would Take Its Place?: First, you can understand why its hard to expunge the “word of God handed down through Moses” (It evokes the look on Mel Brooks Moses’ face when he states “Behold…the Fifteen (crash of one tablet breaking)…Ten…Ten Commandments!” The really bad thing about Leviticus and mention of disobedient child/gay slayings, slaves, extra wives, and even animal sacrifice is that its pretty obvious ammunition against Biblical literalists (yes, some of the relatives you argue with at Thanksgiving). If some of this antiquated or hypocritical information were edited out, the Ten Commandments and the rest may hold up a lot better. I might add that its also troubling to see such a vengeful (and even arbitrary or moody) God in these books, quite a contrast to the peaceful and accepting Biblical Jesus. It just adds to the old adage “God is a Republican, Jesus is a Democrat”. If there is to be any kind of political and religious healing in this world, I suppose Biblical clarity and sensibility is a good start.
Other Vern Scott Articles on the History of Religion:
