Analysis of Participants’ Agent Role in the Two Major Divisions of Leviticus

Abstract

This paper progresses the research on Leviticus, giving the first priority to syntax and results in a text-hierarchical structure, and the second priority to the analysis of participants’ roles and results in the discourse functions between the syntactic divisions. This study considers the ETCBC linguistic inventory that includes the annotated linguistic database of the Hebrew Bible at all linguistic levels such as grapheme, morpheme, phrase, and clause,49) together with the text-hierarchical structure constructed on the basis of the annotation of all clause relationships that occur in a text, using the text-linguistics of Eep Talstra. This methodology stems from the linguistics of Wolfgang Schneider, who adopted the linguistic model of Weinrich who had defined syntax as a means of communication. Schneider viewed that syntax is a description of the linguistic forms that conduct the process of communication, and that word order is a form that has its own function. In the same line, Talstra observes the verb form and its placement in the clause as well as the adjunct phrases in the clause, and describes the function of the word order. I call this an Elaborate Divine Speech Formula [divine speech formula + locative or time phrase]. In my conjecture, the EDSFs in the four books of the Pentateuch except Genesis demarcate the major divisions as follows: Exod 1:1-4:18, 4:19-11:10, 12:1-40:38; Lev 1:1-24:23 (subdivided into 1:1-15:33 and 16:1-24:23), 25:1-27:23; Num 1:1-8:26 (subdivided into 1:1-3:13 and 3:14-8:26), 9:1-36:13 (subdivided into 9:1-20:22, 20:23-33:49, 33:50-34:29 and 35:1-36:13); Deut 1:1-32:46 and 32:47-34:12.BR This paper focuses on the demarcations in Leviticus, which might be different from the demarcations of scholars who made thematic divisions. For example, most scholars propose Lev 17:1-26:46 as one literary unit with a holiness code. This paper does not seek to present syntactic division in competition with semantic divisions, but rather as an alternative way of looking at the text that puts Leviticus in the context of the Pentateuch in a different light and of the discourse functions between the syntactic divisions.