The Story of Sacrifice: Ritual and Narrative in the Priestly Source

Abstract

Liane Feldman directly challenges the overuse of form and redaction criticisms in the legal and ritual texts of the pentateuchal Priestly material and the unwillingness of narrative critics to engage these as narrative. In chapter 1 (pp. 1–28), Feldman critiques scholars such as Julius Wellhausen and Robert Alter, who have deemed these texts nonliterary because they as modern readers were not affected by these texts as one should be affected by literature. Feldman insists that literary analysis must start not with our own biases or external categories of analysis but instead with how the text presents itself. Following this methodology, Feldman asserts her thesis, “not only that the legal and ritual materials in the Priestly Narrative are thoroughly literary, but that they were composed as literature” (p. 5). Feldman proceeds with several methodological concerns and interpretive claims: (1) these texts are analyzed according to elements of plot, characterization, narrator, space, and chronology, with attention to ritual logic and cultic categories, while ignoring lexical and stylistic criteria; (2) practiced ritual and literary ritual are neither identical nor accurate representations of each other; and (3) law and ritual, although presented differently, both take the form of legal discourse and in these texts have the effect of social and literary world-building. Finally, Feldman discusses the scope of the book, the eight-day tabernacle inauguration (Exod 40–Lev 17 and Num 7:1–8:4).In chapter 2 (pp. 29–66), Feldman analyzes Exod 40–Lev 7, asserting that this section is dependent on the tabernacle instructions in Exod 25–31 and is consistent with the pentateuchal theme of new creation. Feldman connects Exod 40 to Lev 1 structurally (based on patterning of events) and thematically (transitioning from physical labor to ritual labor in the tabernacle). She asserts that the rest of the section develops the theme of new creation, slowing narrative time to construct and describe the ritual space in the story world and reorienting the Israelite community around the tent of meeting and Yahweh. This reorientation makes cultic participation obligatory for everyone: priests, Israelites, and Yahweh. Especially compelling is Feldman’s claim that, by shifting the focus to Moses, the narrative invites the audience into a perspective that an ancient Israelite did not normally experience and it “subverts the differentiation between priest and lay Israelite that is being constructed in the story world,” giving the audience a peek behind the tabernacle curtains (p. 48). While this may not affect the modern reader, one can imagine how affective it would be to the ancient Israelite audience.In chapter 3 (pp. 67–108), Feldman discusses how each event of Lev 8:1–10:7 reinforces the public nature of the cult, and she seeks to demonstrate narratologically how this narrative section is linked with the legal material that precedes it, presenting the two as interdependent elements of a single literary composition. She asserts that these functions are central to understanding Moses’s adaptation of the ritual procedure around priestly ordination and sanctification (Lev 8:1–36), Moses’s introduction of purification offerings for Aaron and his sons (Lev 9:1–24), and the cause and consequences of Nadab and Abihu’s actions (Lev 10:1–7). On the subject of the unidentified purification offerings in Lev 9, Feldman asserts that this kind of ambiguity is consistent with narrative style. Sometimes narrative requires the audience to read forward and backward to understand the plot (e.g., as with foreshadowing). I would add that it is also important to consider an audience’s repeated experience of a narrative. Throughout the book Feldman seems to consider only the audience’s first experience of the narrative. But if this narrative was a regular component of Israelite life, the audience would usually experience it with prior knowledge of the plot and its development. So, I would adjust Feldman’s characterization categories of “reader-Israelites” and “character-Israelites” by adding a third: veteran-reader-Israelites.In chapter 4 (pp. 109–52), Feldman discusses the events of Lev 10:8–15:33, which she asserts are mostly simultaneous on the eighth day of the tabernacle inauguration, despite being presented in linear narrative form. She attributes the chaotic presentation of these events to the narratives use space to demarcate different scenes, to distinguish inside from outside and ultimately to present the relationship of the community to the tabernacle. This shift in perspective, although disorienting, helps to convey concepts such as the importance of distinguishing pure from impure and sacred from holy (Lev 10:8–11), distinguishing the authority and basis of ritual interpretation (Lev 10:12–20), distinguishing the perspective of the people from the perspective of Moses and the priests (Num 7:1–8:4), and distinguishing the spaces of the tabernacle, the camp, and outside the camp (Lev 11:1–15:33). Although Num 7:1–8:4 seems out of place, I found Feldman’s argument for its inclusion convincing (121–34).In chapter 5 (pp. 153–94), Feldman considers the relationship between Leviticus 16 and 17 and the likelihood that the rest of Leviticus might be narratologically coherent with the first half of the book, rather than establishing a separately authored Holiness Code. Feldman observes that Lev 16 and 17 both address the effects and remedies of intentional sins, whether on the tent of meeting (Lev 16) or on individuals (Lev 17), both focus on reinforcing and refining the boundaries established earlier in the narrative, and both continue to reorient life around the tent of meeting, making cultic participation obligatory as a central aspect of Israelite life. Regarding the Holiness Code, Feldman asserts that, structurally, Lev 16–17 is “wholly consistent with the rest of the tabernacle inauguration episode in Exod 40–Lev 15 (and Num 7:1–8:4)” and “when this text is analyzed from a narratological perspective, there is no convincing reason to consider Lev 17 to be part of a Holiness Code” (pp. 191–92).Personally, I found Feldman’s treatment of Exod 40–Lev 17 and Num 7:1–8:4 to be a refreshing and novel turn from the usual redaction critical treatments of these texts. No doubt, this book will be received with skepticism, but hopefully two centuries of scholarly bias do not prevent it from being respected and taken seriously as a legitimate explanation for the Priestly narrative of the Pentateuch.