Priestly Sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible: A Summary of Recent Scholarship and a Narrative Reading
The field of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament has come to no consensus on the meaning of sacrifice in ancient Israel. The most influential theory of the meaning of biblical sacrifice, at least in the Priestly Writing (P) of the Pentateuch, is that of Jacob Milgrom. Milgrom argues that the purification sac...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2008
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| In: |
Religion compass
Year: 2008, Volume: 2, Issue: 1, Pages: 38-52 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The field of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament has come to no consensus on the meaning of sacrifice in ancient Israel. The most influential theory of the meaning of biblical sacrifice, at least in the Priestly Writing (P) of the Pentateuch, is that of Jacob Milgrom. Milgrom argues that the purification sacrifice, as presented by P in Leviticus 1-7, is key to understanding P's sacrificial system, as its blood provided a ritual detergent on the altar for Israel's unintentional sins and impurities, thus permitting the continued presence of God in the sanctuary. Milgrom's theory has recently come under challenge, and a reading of P's narrative throughout the entire Pentateuch, and not only in Leviticus 1-7, shows that, for the Priestly Writing, sacrifice seems to draw Israel's attention to the differences between the divine and human realms, and thus points to Israel's moral failings in relationship to the divine law, as well as to the punishment Israel will suffer for this failure. |
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| ISSN: | 1749-8171 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion compass
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2007.00054.x |