Leviticus: Purification Offerings

Hey Leviticus class!

I am going to post here an excerpt from the world's greatest Leviticus scholar, Jacob Milgrom. His writing is a little technical, but hang with it, because I think this is very helpful for understanding Leviticus 4 . . . tomorrow I'll post my notes about Leviticus 4 and expand on some of the theology he brings up.

This is from Milgrom's Leviticus: A Continental Commentary:

In the introduction I stated that biblical rituals are symbolic acts that, in the main, contain within them ethical values. This axiom is nowhere better illustrated than in the purification offering (often wrongly translated as "sin offering"). To make this point I will focus on one rite, with one ingredient, of one sacrifice: the daubing of blood on the horns of the altar (vv. 7, 25). According to Leviticus, the purification offering is prescribed as a response to moral impurity-defined as an unintended breach of prohibitions (4:2)-and to severe cases of physical impurity. Physical impurity in this context applies to either gender and has to do only with ritual, not with one's character or morality. Two examples  of such physical impurity are the genital flow from a new mother and from a gonnorhean (chaps. 12 and 15). The first question to ask is naturally: Who or what is being purified? Surprisingly, it is not the person with the moral or physical impurity. According to Leviticus, if his or her impurity is physical, only bathing is required to purify the body; if the impurity is moral (the unintended breach of a prohibition), a remorseful conscience clears the impurity. In neither case does the offering purify the person bringing the offering. If the bringer of the sacrifice is not affected, who then is being purified? The telling clue is the destination of the blood of the sacrifice. It is not smeared on the offerer; it is smeared, rather, on the altar. The act is described by the word kippur, "purge" (as in Yom Kippur: the Day of Purgation). In commanding that the blood be daubed on the horns of the altar, the text is indicating that the altar is contaminated and must be purified. Since the offerer must bring the sacrifice, the offerer must in some way be implicated in the contamination of the altar.

Thus the first principle: Blood is the ritual cleanser that purges the altar of impurities inflicted on it by the offerer. If an individual has accidentally violated a prohibition, the priest purges the outer (sacrificial) altar with the blood of the offerer's purification offering (4:27-35). If the entire community has accidentally violated a prohibition, the priest purges the inner (incense) altar and the shrine, the outer room of the tent, with the blood of the purification offering brought by the community's representatives (4:13-21). If, however, ever, individuals have brazenly violated prohibitions, then, once a year, on Yom Kippur, pur, the high priest purges the entire sanctuary, beginning with the inner and holiest area containing the ark. In this case, the purification offering is not brought by the culprits-deliberate sinners are barred from the sanctuary-but by the high priest himself (see fig. 2). This graded impurity of the sanctuary and its purgation leads to the second principle: A sin committed anywhere will generate impurity that, becoming airborne, penetrates the sanctuary in proportion to its magnitude.

Israel's neighbors also believed that impurity polluted the sanctuary. For them, however, the source of impurity  was demonic. Therefore, their priests devised rituals and incantations to immunize their temples against demonic penetration. Israel, however, in the wake of its monotheistic revolution, abolished the world of demonic divinities. Only a single being capable of demonic acts remained-the human being. The humans were even more powerful than their pagan counterparts: they could drive God out of God's sanctuary.

Thus the third principle: God will not abide in a polluted sanctuary. To be sure, the Merciful One would tolerate a modicum of pollution. But there is a point of no return. If the pollution levels continue to rise, the end is inexorable. God abandons the sanctuary and leaves the people to their doom.  The priestly writers would claim that sin may not blotch the face of the sinner, but it is certain to blotch the face of the sanctuary, and, unless quickly expunged, God's presence will depart. Thus the fourth and final principle: the priestly doctrine of collective responsibility. Sinners may go about apparently unmarred by their evil, but the sanctuary bears the wounds, and with its destruction, all the sinners will meet their doom.

Jacob Milgrom. Leviticus (Continental Commentary) (Continental Commentaries) (Kindle Locations 568-579). Kindle Edition.