It’s no surprise that I like this, considering it’s N. T. Wright. I like reading or listening to him even when I disagree. (HT: Allan Bevere) While I like his comments in general, I’m particularly interested in his approach to deriving his point from scripture. He goes first to the story. What was it that…
I was reading an excellent post by Martin LaBar (Sun and Shield) today about our reading choices. He’s commenting on a study that shows that we tend to select reading that confirms our already existing views. Now I suspect there’s nothing terribly surprising about that. At least most of us assume that other people only…
I was struck by the wording of Leviticus 16:13 tody. There is a long list of instructions, followed by the clause “that he may not die.” It’s just 2 words in Hebrew. It seems to me that the Israelites approached the issue of God’s judgment against them very differently than we do. Rather than seeing…
I have had very little time to post on Leviticus over the last few weeks because of my business, in which I’ve been working on three books simultaneously. But Leviticus has not been very far from my mind. The more I read Leviticus, the more I like it. I’ve read through it with a variety…
I did the Old Testament/Psalms portion of my lectionary reading today from the Jewish Study Bible. The notes draw attention to the difficulty in separating Psalm 107 into the next book. The division between books 4 and 5 of the Psalms occurs between Psalm 106 and 107. But these divisions are later than the text…
Baker takes a series of short sections here, and I’m not grouping them into any larger passage, because I’m under some pressure and these short sections are working for me right now. Let me note also that while the electronic edition of Rahlf’s LXX that I’m using today (GnomeSword) follows the English verse divisions, the…
I’m still following the division of David W. Baker’s commentary on Leviticus in the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary on Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Today’s passage equates to Leviticus 5:14-26 in the Hebrew text, and the Hebrew text is indeed better divided than the English or the LXX. While the section is indeed properly grouped together, the…
It is not entirely helpful to include these two sections under the same heading, but there is certainly a break between 5:13 and 5:14, so the division is understandable as Baker does it. We’re moving here to sacrifices that are required, first for inadvertent acts in chapter 4, and then for acts of omission that…
I’m moving through this fairly quickly, paced by the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. (See the last entry.) The pace of reading is an interesting issue. In order to study Leviticus with Milgrom’s Anchor Bible commentary, I spent time nearly daily for more than a year. Now I’m covering about a chapter a…
There’s a bit of a change of gears in the second chapter of Leviticus, which contains only food sacrifices. (See Leviticus 1. Abbreviations at the end of the post.) These sacrifices are most commonly not offered because of some sin or impurity, but rather as sacrifices of thanksgiving or for some celebration. I think that…
