Leviticus

Leviticus. NCB. By Philip J. Budd. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996, xxiii + 395 pp., $26.00 paper. Leviticus. OTL. By Erhard S. Gerstenberger. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996, xiv + 450 pp., $42.00.

Two recent treatments of Leviticus by P. Budd and E. Gerstenberger interpret Leviticus through the grid of the Wellhausenian documentary hypothesis. Of the two works, Budd is more prone to see accurate reflections of historical events than Gerstenberger, though he, like Gerstenberger, assumes that the book reflects the life situation of Israel later than the time of Moses. The book of Leviticus, they argue, was written in the final stages of the history of Biblical Israel, from the postexilic period. Consequently, both scholars view the repetition of the divine formula, "The LORD said to Moses" (which occurs 38 times in the book) as a fictitious statement inserted solely to give the contents some authoritative credence.

Both authors reconstruct the history of Biblical events and institutions rather than accepting their historical veracity at face value. According to Budd, the priesthood officially began about the time of the beginning of the monarchy and developed over the next centuries until it was completed in its present form sometime in the postexilic period. The beginning of the monarchy would also mark the time of the recognition of Israel as a unified nation. The establishment of sin offerings on the other hand could not come from this early period, because any notion of forgiveness must derive from the Persian period when the sacrificial system was seen to be a gracious provision by God. Budd does not address texts such as Hos 4:8 or Mic 6:7, which appear to undermine his view about the role of sin offerings. Rather, without supplying supporting data or rationale, he claims that these texts are uncertain and little can be deduced from them.

A necessary concomitant to the dogma that Leviticus received its final shape in the postexilic period is the conviction that each of the sections of the book must have had a lengthy compositional history. Budd sees series of additions in many passages. This is perhaps best illustrated in his analysis of Leviticus 16, the Day of Atonement. Budd considers the original nucleus of the account to be vv. 6-10. Verses 11-22 constitute a later expansion and later still are vv. 29-34, where postexilic priestly writers have aligned the text with the concern of the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26).

Moreover, and as additional proof of the lateness of Leviticus 16, Budd reminds the reader that the prophet Ezekiel did not refer to a scapegoat nor a high priest. For Budd, this argument from silence can only mean one thing: there is no scapegoat or high priest in the time of the exile. Yet, Budd somewhat backpedals from this position when he claims that elements of the scapegoat ritual may reflect some ancient custom; but they are incorporated in Leviticus and do not reflect historical reality. The scapegoat and the high priest did not exist until the postexilic period that Leviticus describes. Moreover, proof of the lateness of Leviticus 16 is to be found in the fact that the heavy emphasis on penitence and fasting should be understood as a concern in the postexilic era (Ezra 9:6-15; Neh 9:6-37). The composition of this chapter may have taken place over centuries.

Gerstenberger is even more adamant and thoroughgoing about the length of time allotted for the compositional history of the Book of Leviticus. He makes more frequent comments than Budd in this regard. Gerstenberger claims that not one chapter of Leviticus was written at a single setting or by a single hand. The final form of Leviticus is the end result of a final process that went on for centuries, involving not only written but oral stages that would inevitably result in the continuous alteration of content. Gerstenberger dismisses the continuous refrain of Leviticus "The Lord said to Moses" as not having anything to do with authorship when he observes that it is only on rare occasions that the OT writings contain the genuine names of authors.

Not only is the writing of Leviticus a very late literary product but Gerstenberger is emphatic about the claim that the main institutions and ceremonies in the book are of Canaanite origin. The Israelites appropriated these customs dictated for the agricultural year from their Canaanite neighbors. The Israelite priesthood was also modeled after the practice and customs of the original Canaanite inhabitants. Hence, these institutions were not revealed by God to Moses. Gerstenberger candidly asserts that the revelation to Moses at Sinai is a literary fiction.

The camp and wilderness narratives are also fictitious inventions and possess only symbolic value at best in the text. In reality the camp is the sacred precinct of Jerusalem or perhaps the city of Jerusalem itself. The tent of meeting is actually the temple, read back into the early history of the nation in order to give this institution divine credence by associating it with Moses and Mount Sinai.