Re: Naked Bible 79: Leviticus 17-18
We aren’t through with Leviticus. Already we’ve discovered some details that most readers never catch because the Hebraic and ANE background are missing. Starting in Leviticus 17 through 26, we are looking at what most scholars refer to as the Holiness Code. What may not be obvious is that the items discussed in these two chapters refer to worship. It has to be done right.
Thus, when the first few verses refer to killing an animal, it refers to sacrifice, not just slaughter for food (see Deuteronomy 12:15-16). The whole point is twofold: forbidding offerings to other deities, but also to ensure that every sacrifice to Jehovah comes to the Tabernacle. If nothing else, this ensures that the priests get their share.
Heiser belabors the meaning of “cut off” — Hebrew karath. I believe he overstates the situation. After his wrestling through all the references how that word is used elsewhere in the Bible, I think it boils down to ostracism or excommunication. The offender becomes a Gentile, and an unwelcome one, at that. Whether or not God does more to them is not the point; they are not allowed back into fellowship. Moreover, when they die, they likely will not be “gathered to their ancestors”. There is no expectation of welcome into eternal fellowship in the afterlife.
The term translated into English as “detestable things” or “abominations” (Hebrew toebah) refers to various pagan worship practices. Consuming blood was a pagan practice, but in Leviticus 17 blood belongs to God. The blood is the life, and life belongs to God. Don’t steal from the Lord! That blood was spilled in place of your own blood, substitutionary atonement. That’s the whole point of the sacrificial system; you bring a substitute to die in your place.
There is a strong record of pagan ritual magic using blood in other ways than consumption. Thus, Heiser notes a high probability that draining and burying the blood prevents anyone else collecting the spilled blood from food slaughter to be used in pagan rituals. It’s also a way of honoring the life given to sustain yours. You bury your fallen ones and leave the enemies to rot in the open.
Regarding Chapter 18, we note there are a lot of sexual boundaries here. It should be obvious that “uncovering nakedness” refers to having sex with someone. The boundaries here don’t match those in our American culture and law, but they make sense in the context of the Old Covenant.
He diverges just a moment to explain the business of Noah and his son Ham exposing his nakedness in Genesis 9. Hebrew tends to euphemism (AKA, symbolism, parable) for some things too sensitive to state plainly. Recall that uncovering one parent is the same as both. The best way to make sense of that story is to understand that Ham had sex with his own mother, and that the child of that union was Canaan. That’s why Canaan is the one who suffers the curse.
The whole thing includes the image of taking control of the tribe, as Absalom did with his father’s concubines. Ham was trying to seize control of the household. He crows to his brothers about this and they refuse to go along with it. They engage in a ritual act of putting their father’s covering back over their mother. They reject the usurpation. Noah’s curse on the child (naming him before birth) halts Ham’s attempt to begin a new dynasty.
I’m disappointed that Heiser leaves this pagan ritual theme behind when he addresses other sexual boundaries. This whole section of Leviticus is about ritual acts of idolatry. Everything in this chapter is certainly under that covering. Thus, it is not about sex itself; it is ritual sex acts. That’s what defiles the land. All the chatter about why it’s wrong for men and not for women misses the point: lesbian sex was not a common ritual in the ANE.
Also note that a man having sex with his menstrual wife is a small issue in Leviticus 15:4, but here it becomes an excommunication offense. The difference is the context of this latter portion of the Book of Leviticus. Here we are dealing with pagan ritual idolatry. The meaning of the act is the whole point.
Heiser’s argument about wasting procreative activity stands on its own, but does not fit here. Homosexuality is wrong regardless of why anyone does it. But any sexual act for the purpose of magic or idolatry is particularly evil; the Covenant tribe must be cleansed of such people. Paul’s prohibitions on such acts are more because he defines such self-centered behavior as a New Testament form of idolatry — self worship, the worship of the fleshly urges.
