“Any Outsider Who Encroaches Will Be Put to Death”: Numbers 18:7 and its Interpretation in Second Temple Literature
In its biblical context, the injunction stipulating that “the outsider who encroaches shall be put to death” seems to apply to any non-priest or non-Levite who tries to participate in the tabernacle services. This interpretation seems to have been adopted during the Second Temple period, as attested...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2024
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| In: |
Journal for the study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman period
Year: 2024, Volume: 55, Issue: 2, Pages: 196-210 |
| Further subjects: | B
exclusion of gentiles
B Hasmoneans B Herod B balustrade inscription |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In its biblical context, the injunction stipulating that “the outsider who encroaches shall be put to death” seems to apply to any non-priest or non-Levite who tries to participate in the tabernacle services. This interpretation seems to have been adopted during the Second Temple period, as attested to by the Temple Scroll (11QTa). There is no source that states that an unauthorized entrant to the temple is subject to capital punishment, except for a gentile: Philo and Josephus write that a gentile who enters the temple court is subject to the death penalty. Several scholars propose that this punishment derives from a reinterpretation of the biblical injunction, and it seems that this interpretation originated during the Hasmonean rebellion. The claim that Herod innovated the injunction subjecting a gentile who ascended beyond the balustrade to death is difficult to accept. |
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| ISSN: | 1570-0631 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal for the study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman period
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15700631-bja10081 |