Sacrifice and Gender in Biblical Law 0521877245, 9780521877244

Table of contents :
Cover
Title page
Copyright page
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Nancy Jay, Gender, and Sacrifice
Sacrifice
Biblical Law
Outline
1 Womens Sacrificial Roles in Biblical Law
Women's Variable Status in Written Rituals
Women as Officiants
Women as Offerers
Communal Offerings
Personal Offerings
Women as Consumers
Women as Slaughterers
Conclusion
2 Gender, Animals, and Sacrificial Victimology
Nomenclature
Public and Private Sacrifice
Gender and Hierarchy in Priestly Offerings
lâ
lmîm
“Most Holy” Offerings
Gender and Animal Husbandry
Reproduction and the Ritual Calendar
Sacrifice and Domestication
Masculinity and Blemish
Conclusion
3 Mothers, Milk, and Meat: The Exclusion of Motherhood from Sacrifice in Cultic Food Laws
Mothers and Sacrifice
“Feminized Protein” and the Sacrificial Cult
Mothers and Meat
Deuteronomy 22:6-7
Boiling a Kid in Its Mothers Milk
Exodus 22:29-30 and Leviticus 22:27-28
Conclusion
4 Females and Death: The Sacred Impurity of the Red Cow
The Rite of the Cow
Part I: Sacrifice and the Creation of Impurity
The Red Cow and Sacrifice
The Red Cow as a at
The Elimination of Impurity
Part II: Gender Significance
at Offerings
The Red Cow as a Female Victim
Waters of Impurity
Redness and Blood
Sacred Impurity
Conclusion
5 Impurity and the Creation of Difference
Purity and Sacrifice
The Nature of Ritual Impurity
Purity and Gender Hierarchy
Skin Disease and the Function of Impurity
Corpse Contamination: Embracing the Rejected
Leviticus 15
Sexuality as Sickness
Genital Substance versus Gender Role
Menstrual Sex and the Contagion of Gender
Childbirth
The Greatest Impurity
Circumcision
Sacrifice, Purity, and the Personhood of Mothers
Conclusion: Purity, Gender, and Sacrifice
6 Fathers and Firstlings: The Gendered Rhetoric of Child Sacrifice
Introduction
Firstborn and Firstlings
Redemption and the Fictional Victim
The Female Firstborn
Fathers and Firstlings
Mothers as Offerers
Mothers and Mlek
Child Sacrifice and Fertility
Conclusion: Child Sacrifice and Animal Sacrifice
Conclusions
Bibliography
Biblical References Index
Subject Index

Citation preview

more information - www.cambridge.org/9780521877244

sacrifice and gender in biblical law The Hebrew Bible contains numerous laws for sacrificing animals, food, and children. Most of these are highly specific about the gender of participants and, especially, of victims. This book is an investigation of the significance of gender distinctions in sacrificial rituals and how the rites reflect, create, and manage social gender roles with their material prerogatives. Sacrifice and Gender in Biblical Law considers the laws of the firstborn, the ritual of the red cow, the prohibition on boiling a kid in its mother’s milk, and other laws of purity and sacrifice; it shows how gender distinctions in these rituals affect their form, their function, and their legitimacy. Nicole J. Ruane is a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire. She has previously taught at Syracuse University, Northeastern University, Union Theological Seminary, and the General Theological Seminary. She has published dictionary articles, and her work was included in A Question of Sex?, edited by Deborah Rooke.

Sacrifice and Gender in Biblical Law nicole j. ruane University of New Hampshire

32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013-2473, usa Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521877244  C Nicole J. Ruane 2013

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2013 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Ruane, Nicole J., 1970– Sacrifice and gender in biblical law / Nicole J. Ruane. – First edition. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-521-87724-4 (hardback) 1. Sacrifice – Biblical teaching. 2. Sex role – Biblical teaching. 3. Gender identity in the Bible. 4. Animal sacrifice. 5. Bible. O.T. – Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title. bs1199.s2r83 2013 296.4 92–dc23 2013010928 isbn 978-0-521-87724-4 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

For Drew and for Frank



Contents

Acknowledgments

page xi

List of Abbreviations

xiii

Introduction

1

2

1

Nancy Jay, Gender, and Sacrifice Sacrifice Biblical Law Outline

5 9 12 16

Women’s Sacrificial Roles in Biblical Law

18

Women’s Variable Status in Written Rituals Women as Officiants Women as Offerers Communal Offerings Personal Offerings Women as Consumers Women as Slaughterers Conclusion

18 22 27 27 29 33 34 37

Gender, Animals, and Sacrificial Victimology

40

Nomenclature Public and Private Sacrifice Gender and Hierarchy in Priestly Offerings ¯a ʻOlˆ ˇel¯amˆım S˘ “Most Holy” Offerings Gender and Animal Husbandry Reproduction and the Ritual Calendar Sacrifice and Domestication

43 45 47 47 49 50 56 62 65

vii

viii

3

4

5

CONTENTS

Masculinity and Blemish Conclusion

68 75

Mothers, Milk, and Meat: The Exclusion of Motherhood from Sacrifice in Cultic Food Laws

77

Mothers and Sacrifice “Feminized Protein” and the Sacrificial Cult Mothers and Meat Deuteronomy 22:6–7 Boiling a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk Exodus 22:29–30 and Leviticus 22:27–28 Conclusion

77 80 85 86 87 97 103

Females and Death: The Sacred Impurity of the Red Cow

106

The Rite of the Cow Part I: Sacrifice and the Creation of Impurity The Red Cow and Sacrifice The Red Cow as a H . at..ta¯ ʼt The Elimination of Impurity Part II: Gender Significance H . at..ta¯ ʼt Offerings The Red Cow as a Female Victim Waters of Impurity Redness and Blood Sacred Impurity Conclusion

109 111 111 117 123 130 130 132 136 142 144 145

Impurity and the Creation of Difference

148

Purity and Sacrifice The Nature of Ritual Impurity Purity and Gender Hierarchy Skin Disease and the Function of Impurity Corpse Contamination: Embracing the Rejected Leviticus 15 Sexuality as Sickness Genital Substance versus Gender Role Menstrual Sex and the Contagion of Gender Childbirth The Greatest Impurity Circumcision Sacrifice, Purity, and the Personhood of Mothers Conclusion: Purity, Gender, and Sacrifice

148 151 165 170 172 175 175 179 181 184 185 188 189 190

CONTENTS

6

ix

Fathers and Firstlings: The Gendered Rhetoric of Child Sacrifice

194

Introduction Firstborn and Firstlings Redemption and the Fictional Victim The Female Firstborn Fathers and Firstlings Mothers as Offerers Mothers and M¯olek Child Sacrifice and Fertility

194 198 203 205 210 212 215 224

Conclusion: Child Sacrifice and Animal Sacrifice

228

Conclusions

230

Bibliography

235

Biblical References Index

255

Subject Index

264

Acknowledgments

This project is a revision and expansion of my doctoral dissertation at Union Theological Seminary (NYC) titled “‘Male without Blemish’: Gender and Sacrifice in Priestly Law.” The impetus for the dissertation came during a discussion on Leviticus when I was a teaching assistant for Professor Alan M. Cooper. A student asked me why male animals were used for some sacrificial offerings, whereas females were used for others. I had no answer to give her at the time, but as I thought about her question, I began to wonder whether the criteria for victim selection might say a great deal about both the nature of biblical forms of sacrifice and biblical ideas about gender. Like the dissertation, this book is largely an attempt to answer that question and to explore its implications for concepts about both people and animals in sacrificial rites. I am extremely grateful to Professor Cooper not only for that teaching opportunity but also for his encouragement and guidance as my dissertation advisor. I am also grateful to Professor David Carr who has offered support, direction, and advice through many versions of this work and beyond. As members of the dissertation committee both he and Professor Brigitte Kahl gave thoughtful feedback and suggestions for further study. This book could not have been completed without the help of many others. I am thankful to those who provided feedback on various sections, particularly Professor James W. Watts who graciously shared his time, insight, and research on Leviticus with me – I am very grateful for all three – and Professor Susan Ackerman, whose careful reading and suggestions helped significantly improve the quality of the final chapter. The anonymous reviewers for Cambridge University Press also gave important advice for the expansion of the project. I thank Cambridge University Press for its patience and help throughout the publication process. I am very grateful for the help of Dr. Amelia Devin Freedman, who read significant portions of the book and xi

xii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

provided honest, detailed, and clear criticism. However, any errors in either fact or analysis are my own. Many thanks also go to Susan Lee, who was instrumental for information on the construction of an academic book, and to Laurel Severns Gunzel and Paul Thorson, who were vitally important in helping me obtain research materials. I am especially appreciative for the help of the late John F. Stacks, who read or edited many stages of this work and gave encouragement at each step. One of my greatest regrets is that he was unable to see this book in its final form. I also thank him and my mother, Carol Stacks, for always encouraging me to follow my interests. I am enormously grateful for the many colleagues, students, and friends who have patiently listened to my thoughts about the topic of sacrifice; I hope they know who they are. Finally, this work could not have been completed without the care and support of Andrew R. Powell and the patience of Francis J. Powell, to whom it is dedicated.

List of Abbreviations

AB ABD

Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by David Noel Freedman. 6 vols. Garden City, 1992 ASJ Acta Sumerologica (Japan) BA Biblical Archaeologist BAR Biblical Archaeology Review BDB Brown, F., S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Oxford, 1907 BibInterp Biblical Interpretation BR Bible Review BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin CAD The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Chicago, 1956– CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly DCH Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. Edited by D. J. A. Clines. Sheffield, 1993– DDD Dictionary of Demons and Deities in the Bible. Edited by K. van der Toorn. Leiden, 1997 DNWSI Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions. J. Hoftijzer and K. Jongeling, 2 vols. Leiden, 1995 EJ Encyclopaedia Judaica. 16 vols. Jerusalem, 1972 ETS Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses HALOT Koehler, L., W. Baumgartner, and J. J. Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Translated and edited under the supervision of M. E. J. Richardson. 4 vols. Leiden, 1994–99 HTR Harvard Theological Review HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual xiii

xiv

IDB JANES JAOS JBL JBQ JCS JESHO JFSR JJS JNES JQR JSOT JSS KAI KTU MT NICOT OTL OTS RB SJOT TDOT

VT ZAW ZDPV

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Edited by G. A. Buttrick. 4 vols. Nashville, 1976 Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Biblical Literature Jewish Bible Quarterly Journal of Cuneiform Studies Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of the Near Eastern Society Jewish Quarterly Review Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal of Semitic Studies Kanaan¨aische und aram¨aische Inschriften. Donner, H. – Rollig, W. Weisbaden, O. Harrassowitz, 1962 Die Keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit. Dietrich, M. – Lorets, O. – Sanmartin, J. Neukirchen Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1976. Masoretic Text New International Commentary on the Old Testament Old Testament Library Old Testament Studies Revue Biblique Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Edited by G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren. Translated by J. T. Willis, G. W. Bromiley, and D. E. Green. 11 vols. Grand Rapids, 1974– Vetus Testamentum Zeitschrift f¨ur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift des deutschen Pal¨astina-Vereins

Introduction

In the Hebrew Bible, blood sacrifice is the ultimate ritual act.1 It is the centerpiece of most religious holidays and is portrayed as the chief means of attracting and maintaining the favor of the biblical deity. Many of the biblical laws of the Pentateuch, the first five books, are very concerned with sacrificial 1

For theories of biblical sacrifice see G. A. Anderson, Sacrifices and Offerings in Ancient Israel (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987); idem., “Sacrifice and Sacrificial Offerings (OT),” ABD V: 870–86; Roger T. Beckwith and Martin J. Selman, eds., Sacrifice in the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1995); H.C. Brichto, “On Slaughter and Sacrifice, Blood and Atonement,” HUCA 47 (1976): 19–56; John J. Collins, “The Meaning of Sacrifice: A Contrast of Methods,” Biblical Research 22 (1977): 19–34; Douglas Davies, “An Interpretation of Sacrifice in Leviticus,” ZAW 89 (1976): 387–99; R. Dussaud, Les origines Canan´eenes du sacrifice Isra´elite (Paris: Leroux, 1941); Christian A. Eberhart, ed., Ritual and Metaphor: Sacrifice in the Bible (Atlanta: SBL, 2011); George Buchanan Gray, Sacrifice in the Old Testament (New York: KTAV, 1971); William W. Hallo, “The Origins of the Sacrificial Cult: New Evidence from Mesopotamia and Israel,” in Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (ed. Patrick D. Miller, Paul D. Hanson, and S. Dean McBride; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 3–13; H. J. Kurtz, Offerings, Sacrifices and Worship in the Old Testament (trans. James Martin; London: T&T Clark, 1863; repr. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998); James C. Moyer, “Hittite and Israelite Cultic Practices: A Selected Comparison,” in Scripture in Context II: More Essays on the Comparative Method (ed. William W. Hallo, James C. Moyer, and Leo G. Purdue; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 19–38; Jan Quaegebeur, ed., Ritual and Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East (Leuven: Peeters, 1993); A. F. Rainey, “The Order of Sacrifices in Old Testament Rituals,” Biblica 51 (1970): 485–98; Rolf Rendtdorff, Studien zur Geschichte des Opfers im Alten Testament (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1967); P. Rigby, “A Structural Analysis of Old Testament Sacrifice and Its Other Institutions,” Eglise et Theologie 11 (1980): 299–351; A. M. Rodriguez, Substitution in the Hebrew Cultus (Andrews University Seminary Doctoral Dissertation Series 3; Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1979); W. Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites: The Fundamental Institutions (New York: Meridian Books, 1956); Norman H. Snaith, “Sacrifices in the Old Testament,” VT 7 (1957): 308–17; Roland de Vaux, Studies in Old Testament Sacrifice (Cardiff: University of Wales, 1964); James W. Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus: From Sacrifice to Scripture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), especially chapter 8. For general theories of sacrifice see M. F. C. Bourdillon, and Meyer Fortes, Sacrifice (London: Academic Press Inc. 1980); Walter Burkert, Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth (trans. Peter Bing; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983);

1

2

SACRIFICE AND GENDER IN BIBLICAL LAW

procedure. They address several of its key features, from victim selection and the details of blood manipulation and meat division, to issues of who should perform sacrifice, bring offerings, and be excluded from participation in this important rite. Sacrificial rituals affect many elements of life, including the ability to eat various animal products, the maintenance of ritual purity, the choices of animal husbandry, and the establishment of an heir. Most sacrificial laws place a great deal of emphasis on gender.2 They often specify the sex of officiants, offerers, and consumers of sacrifice; they are highly specific about the sex of victims as well. In most biblical sacrificial rituals, the primary participants are male: an animal that is “male without blemish” is the most common sacrificial victim, sacrificial priests are male, and, in biblical texts, men bring most sacrificial offerings. The role of females in sacrificial acts is sometimes unclear; however, in many circumstances, the law specifically requires women to bring offerings or requires a particular female victim. Sacrificial laws are therefore highly concerned with the gendered roles and behaviors of both people and animals in this primary cultic event. This book examines biblical laws of sacrifice to understand the significance of gender in their rituals and the reasons that gender distinctions are so vital in this defining act. It takes as its basic premise that, fundamentally, to sacrifice is to have power. This power may take many forms. Animal and human sacrifice, of course, include the literal power over life and death. But sacrifice is also primarily about material power. To sacrifice is both to have something of one’s own – be it created, earned, given, or purchased – and the ability to destroy it. It is, in essence, a display of possession, ownership, and control. To sacrifice is also to have social status and importance: it is to be a parent, an heir, a community member, a property owner. Not to sacrifice is to be without power, without lineage, without possession. It is to be a dependent, not an owner. As a ritual phenomenon involving the destruction, distribution, and processing of material resources, sacrifice plays an integral role in explicating the social and material status of women and men.

2

Raymond Firth, “Offerings and Sacrifice: Problems of Organization,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 93 (1963): 12–24; Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function (translated by W. D. Halls; Foreword by E. E. Evans-Pritchard; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964); Ren´e Girard, Violence and the Sacred (trans. Patrick Gregory; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1977); Robert G. Hammerton-Kelly, ed., Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, Ren´e Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation. With an Introduction by Burton Mack and a Commentary by Renato Rosaldo (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987); Roy A. Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning and Religion (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1979). The term “gender” is a social one, referring to culturally specific roles and behaviors attributed to men and women, whereas the term “sex” is biological, referring to the physical characteristics that are unique to males and females.

INTRODUCTION

3

In patrilineal societies like that of ancient Israel, in which inheritance is passed from father to son, women are usually without both possessions and dependents. They do not possess their own children – the fruit of their own wombs – nor do they possess the fruit of the flocks, fields, crops, or herds. In such a system, women make few offerings because they have little to offer. However, although women are largely dependents in a patrilineal system, they also hold an ambiguous status. Women in a family have no descendants, but they are parents. They are not a part of the family line, but they are a part of the family. They do not possess their offspring, but they do have authority over them. At times they themselves are resources to be controlled, whereas at other times they have autonomy. And though not the norm, they sometimes wield primary material control in a family. Because women do not fit neatly into the system of lineage and inheritance, that system must constantly adjust to accommodate them, giving them more and less power as circumstances require. Thus, in biblical law, it is vital at times that women sacrifice, and at other times it is vital that they do not: each permutation of sacrificial procedure becomes a redefinition of gender and its status.3 Gender is also important in sacrifice for another reason: sacrificial systems are corollaries of reproductive power. This relationship is apparent in the juxtaposition of childbirth with sacrifice, as the late Nancy Jay argued, in which sacrifice is a social and patrilineal corrective to the natural birth given by women.4 Sacrifice controls and reorganizes human biological reproduction by excluding birthing women from an ideal social form. However, sacrifice is also a corollary of domestication; that is, the controlled reproduction of animals.5 In a system of domestication, in which the owner manages animal breeding, the owner also has power over, and responsibility for, what the owner has bred. Optimal animal management includes not only supporting those animals that are most useful but also culling those animals that take away from the efficiency of the herd; these are decisions made largely according to the sex of the animal. In societies where most meat is eaten in a sacrificial context, sacrifice becomes the primary means of this disposal. Therefore, sacrificial systems can become both a ritual form of managing the proper social reproduction of human beings (i.e., lineage) and a ritual form of managing 3

4 5

On different gendered constructions of sacrifice see Susan Sered, “Towards a Gendered Typology of Sacrifice: Women & Feasting, Men & Death in an Okinawan Village,” in Sacrifice in Religious Experience (ed. Albert Baumgarten; Boston: Brill, 2002), 13–38. Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion and Paternity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). Jonathan Z. Smith, “The Domestication of Sacrifice,” in Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, Ren´e Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation, 197–205.

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SACRIFICE AND GENDER IN BIBLICAL LAW

the practical reproduction of animals (domestication). Indeed, the creation of proper lineage is a form of human domestication; the roles, importance, and value of males and females are important in the selective control of both. Indeed, both forms of “husbandry” allow those in positions of control to make gender-based selections for their material advantage. That sacrifice helps to construct the ideal reproduction of both humans and animals becomes even clearer when we see, perhaps surprisingly, that in biblical sacrificial thought the ritual treatment of animals according to sex often corresponds to the ritual treatment of people according to sex. Official sacrificial rituals primarily involve males, both human and animal; they consistently exclude new mothers, both human and animal; and where they do include females, females are portrayed as hierarchically inferior or are associated with the secular or defiled. We also find that sacrifice is especially dismissive of the features of active reproduction, excluding any hint of sexual or birthing activity on the part of humans and animals of both sexes. It therefore most usually makes victims of the very young, who are not reproductively active. Finally, we find that the nature and function of each sacrificial ritual change depending on the sex of both its victims and its offerers. The sacrifice of a female cow is portrayed as a quite different offering from that of a young male lamb; a father’s offering of his firstborn son has quite different results from the sacrifice of a firstborn daughter. Although sacrifice has many purposes, outcomes, and forms, in practice, it is primarily a negotiation of possession. It especially comes into play when ownership is in doubt. So it is in a patriline, where children who would seem to naturally belong to their mothers must become the possessions of their fathers. To take possession, a father asserts ownership over the primary image of the mother’s fertility, her firstborn, by threatening its sacrifice. The negotiation of ownership also comes into play among animals. Just as a mother’s child is not naturally the possession of a man, so the offspring of a cow, for example, is not naturally the possession of its owner, and so sacrificial law outlines the rules by which a baby animal may be taken away from its mother. Sacrifice manages possession in other circumstances as well. The entire priestly system of sacrifice outlined in the book of Leviticus largely reflects the ways in which possessions of the commoner become possessions of the priests. The medium of sacrifice is the means by which this transfer of property, on which the priests depended, is collected and shared. Therefore, sacrificial laws negotiate many aspects of meat distribution, donation, and other division of resources among those in power and their dependents. The relationship between males and females is just one among many of these forms.

INTRODUCTION

5

nancy jay, gender, and sacrifice Scholars have been aware for some time that sacrifice plays a part in the creation of gender roles. In 1989, the classicist Marcel Detienne stressed that gender distinction and political hierarchy are integral aspects of sacrificing. In an examination of women in the Thesmophoria festival in honor of Demeter Thesmorphus, Detienne observes that to determine the status of women in matters of sacrifice is to enter by the back door into the system of ritual acts in which eating behaviors constantly intermingle with political practices – a system in which the proximity of the culinary and the political may lead in some cases to a fundamental issue: the division between the masculine and the feminine.6

Detienne notes that women’s social status is reflected in female exclusion from particular sacrificial acts: “Just as women are without the political rights reserved for male citizens, they are kept apart from the altars, meat and blood.”7 Even in the Thesmophoria, a women’s festival, the division and hierarchy between the sexes are maintained through a dramatic inversion of usual sexual roles. In the end, women’s secondary status is reconfirmed and along with it “the male privilege to shed blood is preserved at a time that it seems most threatened.”8 However, the most comprehensive work on gender and sacrifice is by Nancy Jay. In her monograph, Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity, Jay analyzes several different sacrificial systems, including parts of the Hebrew Bible, and concludes that sacrifice is a chief cultural means of establishing paternal descent and inheritance. It is especially prominent in patrilineal societies. Unlike maternity, which can usually be proven and is rarely called into question, paternity is never fully guaranteed. In response to this dilemma, Jay argues that patrilineal systems require an alternative “birth” that would confirm paternal descent for legal and social purposes and establish the fixed group of males belonging to the patrilineage. By providing the dramatic action of ritual killing, “an act as definite and available to the senses as birth,”9 sacrificial systems transcend the physical birth from a mother and 6

7 8 9

“The Violence of Well-Born Ladies: Women in the Thesmophoria,” in The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks (ed. Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant; trans. Paula Wissing; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 129. For critique see Robin Osborne, “Women and Sacrifice in Ancient Greece,” The Classical Quarterly 43 (1993): 392–405. “The Violence of Well-Born Ladies,” 131. Ibid., 143. Throughout Your Generations Forever, 36.

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SACRIFICE AND GENDER IN BIBLICAL LAW

offer a male birth into male society. In this process, which establishes continuity from father to son, women give birth but have no descendants. For Jay, sacrifice is a means of social organization that establishes hierarchies, marginalizes women, and establishes cultic structures in direct opposition to women’s own natural processes. It is the “remedy for having been born of a woman.”10 Jay’s theory is based in large part on the fact that many sacrificial systems exhibit an opposition between birth and sacrifice. This opposition manifests itself in the exclusion of childbearing women from sacrificial rites and especially by associating childbirth with impurity that is incompatible with the cult. The opposition is an example of sacrifice’s ability to define in-groups and out-groups by forging communion among the included while emphasizing the expiation of the excluded. In patrilineal kinship systems, Jay argues, matrilineality and childbearing women themselves must be expiated and are excluded from sacrificial rites. Like Julia Kristeva, who comes to many similar conclusions, Jay sees sacrificial practice as suppressing what Kristeva calls “the abject feminine” (i.e., the female elements of reproduction and motherhood that are threatening to patriarchal power).11 In suppressing the female element, sacrifice undoes sexuality and real reproduction in favor of an ideal male reproduction that is asexual and ultimately leads to immortality – be it socially, by the unending male line, or theologically, with the eternal life of believers.12 The new vision of reproduction banishes sexuality and death and in the process links them with the feminine and the impure. Jay’s work is extremely persuasive, and many of her insights hold up under scrutiny, but they require some correctives, particularly within the complexities of a single sacrificial tradition. As noted earlier, the material effects for women in a patrilineal society, which Jay mentions but does not examine, are of utmost importance for understanding the significance of sacrificial behavior. The ability to have access to and control over material resources is central to the status of women in any society; biblical laws of sacrifice show not only where this access is restricted but also where it is permitted. As some critics have shown, Jay does not substantively address the many instances of women who do sacrifice or the function of their offerings.13 The biblical laws address 10 11 12 13

Ibid., xxii. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). Throughout Your Generations Forever, 31. Kelley Ann Raab, for instance, points out that Jay did not address the question of women as sacrificers and what it would mean for women to sacrifice. See “Nancy Jay and a Feminist Psychology of Sacrifice,” JFSR 13 (1997), especially 82–89. Pointing out the likelihood that women priestesses probably offered to goddesses, Raab concludes that Jay’s understanding of sacrifice applies only to men and not to women. Raab shows that in patriarchal systems

INTRODUCTION

7

several situations in which women make offerings, and they clearly show that women are capable of having some control over wealth and access to social power. In addition, in Jay’s few discussions of women who sacrifice, they are portrayed only in terms of their fertility with no reference to economic factors. For instance, Jay suggests that only women in non-childbearing roles, such as older (postmenopausal) or celibate women, participate in sacrifice.14 However, we must consider that these women are likely to have been somewhat economically independent or were directly reliant on a cult for their livelihood.15 Therefore, there are important economic ramifications from their inclusion and exclusion. The gender divisions in sacrificial activity are more complicated than just the juxtaposition between childbearing and sacrifice. Jay’s work sometimes suffers from an overly simplified view of gender that does not consider wealth, class, rank, nationality, and other factors that complicate gendered roles. Similarly, although Jay asserts that childbearing women do not sacrifice in patrilineal societies, this is untrue for biblical law.16 According to Lev 12, for example, as soon as a new mother is deemed cultically fit, the first thing she must do is make an offering. Moreover, outside of the legal texts, mothers are given extra portions of sacrificial meat (1 Sam 1:4–5) and are thereby rewarded for bearing children. These laws do not so much exclude motherhood as keep it in check by circumscribing the birth element, but they also reward it through participation in sacrificial activity and a greater share of resources. We can also note that some wives, who are accused of adultery, are forced to make offerings (Num 5:11–31). Thus sacrificial laws do not systematically exclude

14 15

16

women do make offerings and she argues that women’s participation transforms the nature of sacrifice. She understands both men and women’s ability to sacrifice as a need to overcome the power of the mother; women too have hostility against their mothers. For critique see Jont´e-Pace in the same volume (pp. 68–9) who argues that women sacrificing are just a minor variation in the pattern in which women are allowed to act like men but the social structure is upheld. Throughout Your Generations Forever, xxiii. Older women are often widows who work outside the home or have some control over their husband’s estate; consecrated virgins often made earnings as part of their status and, at least in the ancient world, were known sometimes to control a great deal of wealth. For example, in Mesopotamia, the En priestesses of the second millennium b.c.e. controlled much of the wealth in the sanctuary of their deities, and the nad¯ıtu were unmarried women from wealthy families who lived in temple cloisters (Hennie Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel: Their Social and Religious Position in the Context of the Ancient Near East [Leiden: Brill, 2003], 491, 502–04). Cloistered or consecrated women were also often dependent on the cult, which took on the authoritative role of paterfamilias over them (Phyllis Bird, “The Place of Women in the Israelite Cultus,” in her Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities: Women and Gender in Ancient Israel [Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1997], 98; hereafter, Missing Persons). Throughout Your Generations Forever, xxiii. She does, however, give some exceptions; see 153–54, n.2.

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childbearing women, as Jay argues, but, through specific rules, enter into a careful negotiation of the relation of women, men, reproduction, and society. Additionally, in presenting sacrifice primarily as an opposition to female reproductive power, Jay does not sufficiently address the fact that male sexuality and reproduction are problematic for biblical sacrificial systems as well. Although women are more closely tied with reproduction, and as a result viewed more problematically, it is not just female birthing that should be undone by the social act of sacrifice, but ultimately all biological reproduction is superseded by it. For P and other biblical writers, ejaculation and intercourse are incompatible with sacrifice. Similarly, Jay’s insights need to be expanded with regard not only to the male role in procreation but also to the general image of masculinity. The priestly laws of both purity and sacrifice often portray masculinity as a highly fragile and delicate construct. It can be undone not only by women’s reproductive power but also by a number of other phenomena such as illness, injury, lust, and defeat. Although it is true, as Jay and Kristeva assert, that women’s bodies are portrayed as threatening and frightening, cultic texts portray masculinity as frightening and highly dangerous. The circumcision of male children, the preponderance of male animal sacrificial victims, the constant threat throughout the Bible of the sacrifice of male children, and even the necessity for sacrifice itself all speak to this fact. Ultimately, no human man can fully achieve the cultic masculine ideal; it is attainable only by its deity. Finally, a question that arises throughout this book is that of legitimate and illegitimate sacrifice. Jay’s theory applies to formal, public, accepted sacrificial systems. Her theory rests on data from male-authored texts and field data collected by men who usually discussed male-centered and public rituals. Yet scholars of Israelite religion have firmly established that women’s religious activity is often excluded by the male authors of the Bible either as unimportant, not “religious,” or heterodox, or, since it took place largely in the private and domestic realm, because it was unknown to them. We must ask, then, whether the form of sacrifice on which male-dominated written texts focus is indeed the only form of “sacrifice” or whether women were also making offerings separate from the recorded system. There are hints of such activity in the biblical texts. For example, in Jeremiah women officiate in the offering of cakes and libations for the Queen of Heaven (7:18; 44:15-30), which the prophet decries as heretical and causing the wrath of Yahweh. Solomon’s foreign, idolatrous wives are also portrayed as sacrificing and burning incense to their deities (1 Kgs 11: 8). The prophet Ezekiel accuses the female Jerusalem of slaying her sons and daughters and offering them to foreign gods (16:20–21). Though a metaphor, the image of the unsupervised offering by a female is

INTRODUCTION

9

intertwined with illicit and dangerous religious activity. It therefore seems likely that women were conducting all kinds of “sacrifice,” but that it was not in an officially recognized form. These examples of illegitimate offerings illustrate the power that women might have when they sacrifice and slaughter and the threat it poses to patriarchal control. The biblical writers, who largely supported official forms of sacrificial activity, would have good reason to omit or disdain certain examples of female sacrifice.

sacrifice Another difficulty in the study of biblical sacrifice regards the definition of “sacrifice.” As Kathryn McClymond has shown, we generally use the term “sacrifice” to refer to the killing of an animal, whereas in reality that action is only a small part of a much larger sphere of activity of making libations and offering grain and other foodstuffs.17 The slaughter of animals, although so important to modern theories of sacrifice, is not even mentioned in most biblical texts describing animal offerings. Far more important are the acts of burning and blood manipulation and the distribution of the offering among the offerer, the officiant, and the deity. Moreover, a particular sacrificial victim may have been intentionally bred or selected years before its actual slaughter so that the husbandry of the animal is also an intrinsic part of its offering.18 It thus becomes difficult to know where “sacrifice” begins and ends. Furthermore, James W. Watts has shown that the term “sacrifice” in modern English has many implications that have little to do with the food offerings made in biblical rituals.19 Moreover, he argues, what one person may view as a “sacrifice,” another might view as a different sort of event. For example, Christians view the crucifixion of Jesus as a sacrifice, yet the Romans merely viewed it as an execution. Therefore, “sacrifice” is, as he says, by nature an evaluative and not a descriptive claim; “sacrifice” is in the eye of the beholder. Its definition is relative and culturally dependent, and sacrificial events and their legitimacy change throughout time and place. Sacrifice, then, is part of a much larger ritual complex, it is extremely difficult to define, and it varies by perspective. Because a definition of sacrifice is elusive, for the purposes of this study we will consider “sacrifice” to mean the range of ritual activities, including oblations, expiatory acts, and ritual killings of both people and animals, 17 18 19

Kathryn McClymond, Beyond Sacred Violence: A Comparative Study of Sacrifice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008). Jonathan Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supercessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 60–61. Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus, 173–80.

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that are given specialized ritual terms associated with offerings made on an altar or otherwise given to a deity. These terms include, for example, ʻ¯olˆa (“whole burnt offering”), zebah. (“peace offering, slaughter offering”), h.at..ta¯ ʼt (“sin offering, purification offering”) and m¯olek (a specialized form of child offering). Relying on this terminology keeps us within the viewpoint of the biblical writers even when we might not consider certain unusual actions to be “sacrifices.” For example, in the scapegoat rite of Lev 16, two live goats are together called a h.at..ta¯ ʼt (sin offering). One is slaughtered and parts of its body are burned on the altar for the deity – and thus it appears to be a “sacrifice” – yet the other goat is the “scapegoat” over which the priest confesses the sins of Israel and which is then driven out into the wilderness, but is never killed. Both are given the same terminology though they are treated in very different ways. Similarly, the rite of the red cow in Num 19 is also called a h.at..ta¯ ʼt, but many scholars have been reluctant to call it a “sacrifice” because it is conducted in a highly unusual fashion, including taking place away from an altar. Prioritizing the biblical terminology allows us to avoid judging whether these particular rites are properly “sacrifices” based on modern or idiosyncratic assumptions of what that term means. Although the goal of this book is to understand biblical sacrifice on its own terms, the non-native term “sacrifice” (from Latin sacer facere) indicates a most important aspect of its function: the essence of sacrifice is of making something sacred. The victim or object of sacrifice becomes holy and thus divinely accepted; its acceptability is shown by the very fact of its consecration or destruction. Victims must be perfect or unblemished in order to be sacrificed and the fact that they are sacrificed affirms their unblemished status. Conversely, whatever is “blemished” or “imperfect” cannot be offered, and therefore what cannot be offered is imperfect. One of the functions of sacrificial acts, then, is to define and represent what is holy, and thus ideal, and what is not. The laws of sacrifice discussed throughout this book give very clear examples of the process of defining and redefining the perfect with regard to gender; in the process they define gender itself. Although the sacrificial process of defining is primary, the criteria for the definitions of consecrated and unholy are almost never explained. They are almost unilaterally attributed to mysterious divine choice and not to any clearly stated reasoning. The biblical text never explains why God wants specific victims, only that he wants them. Readers are never told, for example, why a red cow should be the proper victim for a rite that remedies death, why a priestly ʻ¯olˆa must be a male, or why in Genesis 22 God demands Isaac as a sacrificial victim. This appears to be the case because the reason for the offering is profound and multifaceted, but also because it is often

INTRODUCTION

11

objectionable and sometimes intolerable. For example, it is likely that male animals are common sacrificial victims because healthy males stand as images of perfection, but also because it is not in their owners’ interest to provide for them. An owner’s need to eliminate this image of perfection, which the owner has bred and cared for, is highly problematic. The process of sanctification allows for the simultaneous glorification and destruction of the victim so that the owner is absolved from the guilt of destroying it. The owner’s need to eliminate the victim becomes transformed into the deity’s desire to have it,20 yet with its destruction comes esteem: as George Heyman states, sacrifice is an “ironic valorization” that “can make the odious pleasant, and the meaningless meaningful.”21 Thus the sanctity acquired through consecration is not only a model for the perfect but an indication of divine approval that allows for acceptable elimination, especially where that elimination might otherwise be uncertain or illegitimate. The unexplained nature of biblical sacrificial rituals presents the interpreter with both possibility and pitfalls. Biblical scholars have often proposed the “meaning” for specific sacrificial rituals and for sacrifice overall. It is a compelling endeavor to offer “the” meaning for a specific rite given the text’s silence on its purpose. However, that each interpreter can give a meaning to the rituals indicates that they hold no single meaning at all. Therefore, this study will follow other recent studies of biblical rituals that, using the work of the ritual theorists Jonathan Z. Smith and Catherine Bell, show that there is no “meaning” to rituals of offering, just as there are no sure and finite meanings for any rituals.22 Offerings and other rituals do not make meaning so much as they are specialized ways of behaving. The importance of a ritual lies in its function and what it accomplishes. According to Bell, a main function of ritual is to create and negotiate relationships of power among different parties, usually within hierarchical situations: “[r]itualization is a strategic play of power, of domination and resistance, within the arena of the social body.”23 Rituals call attention to differences in status and so help create 20

21 22

23

Note an example from Greek mythology, in which Prometheus tricks Zeus into choosing the bones of animals – the parts that are inedible for humans – as his sacrificial portion (Hesiod, Theogony, 334–560). “Sacrifice, Social Discourse, and Power,” in Ritual and Metaphor: Sacrifice in the Bible (ed. Christian Eberhart; Atlanta: SBL, 2011), 136, 138. See especially Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. For the use of her theory on the topic of biblical sacrifice, see, e.g., William K. Gilders, Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible: Meaning and Power (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004); Saul M. Olyan, Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000); Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus. See also Smith, To Take Place: Toward a Theory of Ritual (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987), especially 108. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, 204.

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SACRIFICE AND GENDER IN BIBLICAL LAW

and enact hierarchies. Rituals are occasions on which different members of a society agree to their particular relationships; by participating in a ritual, one accepts the premises on which the ritual rests. Rituals thereby help maintain relationships of power in lieu of the violence that would be necessary to maintain them by force. However, rituals are surprisingly flexible and able to adjust these relationships according to the needs of the parties, including the weaker party. In biblical law, sacrifice mediates and maintains relationships such as those between priests and laity, between high priest and other priests, between the head of a family and his dependents, and between men and women, both in relationship to each other and to society at large. Sacrifice also cannot be divorced from its practical function within a system of meat eating and as a part of animal husbandry. As such, it negotiates the power relationships between humans and the animals they own and on which they are dependent. Therefore, although Jay’s analysis is largely correct, this is so because the gender arrangements she discusses are only one facet of the larger negotiations of social and material power that are accomplished by sacrificial rituals. The relationships between male and female are some of the primary power negotiations in which a culture must engage, especially within patrilineal and patriarchal societies. However, the ritual trope of sacrifice engages not only, at times, the juxtaposition of childbirth and patriliny but also a wider variety of gendered power arrangements and situations that necessitate ritual resolution.24 Gender is not a monolithic entity; it is constantly changing and must be adapted as needs arise. Sacrifice is one way to exacerbate, call attention to, and manage gender relations.

biblical law The intent of this work is not to understand the phenomenon of sacrifice in general, but only to investigate biblical sacrifice and, indeed, only sacrifice as portrayed in the biblical laws. The legal texts are most useful for an analysis of gender because, in contrast to narrative, they rarely focus on individual and exceptional men or women but on the more fundamental aspects of men and women, without regard for individual identity. Sacrificial purity laws address the most basic features of male and female bodies, such as menstruation, ejaculation, and childbirth. Thus the laws of sacrifice show basic gender distinctions in a clearer way than do stories of an unusual prophetess or queen. Similarly, the ritual treatment of animals according to sex allows for 24

Sered, “Towards a Gendered Typology of Sacrifice.”

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13

an even more fundamental portrayal of gender ideas. The ritual of the red cow in Num 19, for example, enacts profound and complicated ideas about the relationship among the feminine, death, and impurity in a completely impersonal way. Much scholarly discussion of biblical law has focused on dating its various sources and redactors.25 This book does not address this important topic except in the most basic of ways. However, there are some distinct differences in sacrificial laws among the various legal sources, which are important to understanding the rituals. Most of the sacrificial legislation in the Bible was written by an unknown author or group of authors that biblical scholars have termed the priestly writer (P). Priestly writing and editing appear throughout the Pentateuch, but they are prominent in the legal texts of Exod 25–40, Lev 1–16, and most of the book of Numbers. Though the dating and identity of the priestly writer are very much debated – proposals range from the late eighth to the second centuries b.c.e. – all biblical scholars would agree that P was part of a patrilineally inherited priesthood that was highly concerned with the details of ritual and that envisioned a complex ritual system.26 In these texts, the priests are supported by food offered at a cultic center, and the texts are designed to persuade the laity to follow this system of support.27 Because P is the most detailed source with regard to sacrifice, priestly laws are the subject of much of this discussion. A related source is the holiness writer (H), who also comes from the priestly circles and who is the author, at least, of chapters 17–26 of Leviticus (the 25

26

27

The material is far too extensive to list here. The classic formulation of these sources is in Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (1st English Ed. New York: Meridian, 1957). For critique and adjustments see, for example, the following: Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990), 312–32; Rolf Rendtorff, The Problem of the Process of Transmission in the Pentateuch (JSOTSupp 89; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990); and Roger N. Whybray, The Making of the Pentateuch: A Methodological Study (JSOTSupp 53; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987). Again, the material is extensive. See recently the essays in The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions (ed. Sarah Shectman and Joel S. Baden; Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 2009) and those in The Books of Leviticus and Numbers (ed. Thomas R¨omer; Leuven: Peeters, 2008). See also Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel: An Inquiry into Biblical Cult Phenomena and the Historical Setting of the Priestly School (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1985); Yehezkel Kaufman, The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (trans. Moshe Greenberg; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960); Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1995); Sean E. McEvenue, The Narrative Style of the Priestly Writer (Analecta Biblica 50; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1971); Christophe Nihan, From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007); and James W. Watts, Reading Law: The Rhetorical Shaping of the Pentateuch (JSOTSupp 235; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999). See Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus, especially chapter 4.

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Holiness Code). Some scholars ascribe to H much more biblical legislation, in Numbers especially.28 The holiness writer, being of the same general school as P, has many of the same perspectives and agendas as P, but with some important differences in focus and some variations in ritual practice. For example, the Holiness Code (HC) is concerned with the physical qualifications of priests who conduct sacrificial rituals (Lev 21:16–23), whereas P does not address this topic in any specific way. The HC also addresses different aspects of impurity than P does, focusing more on moral impurities than priestly legislation ever does. Moreover, H gives different penalties for some cultic infractions. For example, H’s penalty for sex with a menstruant is exclusion from the community (k¯ar¯et; Lev 20:18), whereas for P it is seven days of impurity (Lev 15:24). These differences are noted where they are relevant for the discussion, but they are discussed in reference to their distinct gender schemes and not in relation to their historical setting. Other legal texts concerning sacrifice include those of J, the Yahwist source, and E, the Elohist source. These are commonly considered the oldest pentateuchal sources (classically considered tenth and ninth centuries b.c.e., respectively), although there is dissension on this viewpoint.29 The laws of the Covenant Code in Exod 21–23 are thought to be primarily Elohist material, although they have been edited and probably combined with material from other sources. The similar cultic laws in Exod 34:11–26 have commonly been ascribed to the Yahwist. The relationship between J and E has at points been obscured enough that certain texts are referred to as coming from JE, a redacted body of combined material. These sources appear to reflect a rural cultic setting and do not prescribe extensive cultic rituals. In terms of sacrifice, they discuss the three main pilgrimage feasts and the offering of the firstling and first fruits. Finally, the legal material in the book of Deuteronomy (D), also mentions offerings. D is clearly the product of a distinct social group and location, 28

29

Until fairly recently it was assumed that the “Holiness Code” was earlier than P, though from a priestly circle, and was later kept by P and subsumed into his work. Israel Knohl and, with some difference, Jacob Milgrom have posed the most serious challenge to this view of H, arguing that H is later than P and that H includes not just Lev 17–26 but also various passages in the tetrateuch, many of which have traditionally been ascribed to P. For discussion of H’s reliance on and expansion of P’s sacrificial laws, see Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22 (AB 3A; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1319–64; Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School, esp. 111–23, and his “The Priestly Torah versus the Holiness School: Sabbath and the Festivals,” HUCA 58 (1987): 65–117. Most notably, John van Seters, see, e.g., his Prologue to History: The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1992).

INTRODUCTION

15

separate from the priesthood of P and H. D is especially concerned with the centralization of worship at a single sanctuary.30 Most scholars associate it with the reforms of King Josiah beginning in 622 b.c.e. As part of this centralization, D desacralizes most meat-eating activities, thus limiting the scope of a formal sacrificial system (e.g., 12:15–27). However, it too is concerned with the rites of the firstling and the pilgrimage feasts, as well as the offerings made for individual vows. D does not recognize the same group of Aaronic priests as do P and H; instead it understands Levites in general to be a priestly group that benefits from sacrificial offerings, but that appears to be significantly less wealthy and powerful than the Aaronic priests. Again, because P is most concerned with the details of offerings and includes issues of gender most often, it is the focus of this study. However, the other sources both augment and disagree with priestly legislation, giving a window into how rites changed and adapted their forms. Nevertheless, although these changes are noted and investigated, it is not the intent here to take a stand on the relative dating and authorship of the pentateuchal sources. All interpreters of biblical sacrifice encounter the difficult problem that the Bible does not really recount sacrificial rituals, but only the certain aspects of them important to its writers.31 Indeed, it is unclear whether some of the rituals presented in these texts were ever enacted at all. Most of the sacrificial activity of ancient Israel is lost to us; we have only the stylized, edited, selected portrayals of it in the text. We must be content, then, to accept that any analysis of biblical sacrifice is really only an analysis of the biblical writers’ perspective on sacrifice and that we can only focus on what was important to them. Furthermore, though it is possible that some biblical texts were authored by women, it is unlikely that any writers of biblical law were female. Therefore the view of gender in sacrifice is most likely given entirely from a male point of view and obscures female perspectives or understandings of these rites. Finally, biblical law does not give a distinct and succinct sacrificial system or ideology. Underlying biblical laws are multiple images, functions, and systems of sacrificial offering that differ according to both author and time period and even among rituals described by the same author. Therefore, we can draw general conclusions about the workings of sacrificial offerings, 30

31

For overviews of Deuteronomic thought, see Bernard Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) and Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972). On the difficulties of studying rituals portrayed through written texts, see Olyan, Rites and Rank, 13–14; Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus, 1–36; and Gilders, Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible, 1–3.

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but each text must be understood on its own and the meanings and functions of different texts may contradict each other.

outline The main project of this work is to examine certain biblical rituals that stress the gender of both people and animals. However, Chapter 1 is a brief and introductory overview of the sacrificial acts of women that are depicted in biblical law. In the interest of focusing on the legal texts, it does not offer an indepth look at the roles of women in Israelite religion, and it provides only very basic information about what the laws state about women and sacrifice. The chapter assumes men’s sacrificial actions to be normative and describes only the clear deviations from that norm. However, the roles of both women and men in sacrificial offerings are discussed in detail throughout the remainder of the book. Chapter 2 begins with a look at the main forms of animal offerings and how gender operates in each. Most of the rituals have only male participants and, especially, male victims, though there are some occasions in which victims vary based on their sex. It then examines distinct rituals to show how they use gender to indicate social hierarchy or to show distance from the sacred. This chapter also outlines a functional purpose for the slaughter of predominantly male animals. Chapter 3 examines four biblical laws that address the relationship between sacrificial animals and their mothers. In contrast to other interpretations of these laws, it argues that they have the function of excluding mothers and their symbols from sacrificial activity. Chapter 4 takes up an unusual priestly ritual that illustrates the concept of the rejection of female fertility from the sanctity of sacrifice. As mentioned, this ritual of the red cow in Num 19 is a variation of a h.at..ta¯ ʼt, a sin offering or purification offering, but it is one that acts as sacrifice in reverse. Chapter 5 discusses the concept of ritual purity, which is an integral part of sacrificial practice, and shows how it both calls attention to and negotiates gender differences. Because impurity is a primary means of determining which people can participate in sacrifice and under what circumstances, these restrictions help to define the societal position of women as both person and resource. Chapter 6 discusses biblical depictions of child sacrifice as a means of creating proper lines of descent. It describes how the characterization of the firstborn son as a rescued sacrificial victim is a means of establishing his power and privilege within a family and society. It also shows that child sacrifice creates the character of father by giving him the power to make a sacrificial victim of his child. The chapter then compares the offering of the firstborn son with the illegitimate m¯olek offerings via the gender of their offerers, victims, and

INTRODUCTION

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officiants, and argues that the place of gender contributes to the legitimacy of the first type and the denunciation of the latter. This chapter illustrates that the power to make offerings out of one’s children is another facet of the power to make offerings of one’s possessions. A conclusion summarizes the relationship between animal and human sacrifice and how gender operates in both of them.

1

 Women’s Sacrificial Roles in Biblical Law

women’s variable status in written rituals In Exod 19, as the Israelites are about to experience the theophany at Mount Sinai, Yahweh instructs them how to prepare to encounter him. After bathing and washing their clothes, Yahweh says, “Get ready for the third day; do not go near a woman” (19:15). This text illustrates three ideas implicit in much biblical ritual law: first, according to the author, the primary cultic actors – the “Israelites” who will encounter God at Sinai – are men. Second, it is unclear what role, if any, women play in this cultic event. Third, reproductive activity is antagonistic to cultic experience. Exod 19:15 has been problematic for many interpreters, including the early rabbis, because it seems to exclude women from this foundational religious experience or at least not find their participation necessary for the event.1 The verse is also problematic because any exclusion of women from this episode puts in doubt their participation in what follows, namely the giving of the law and the obligation to practice it. In addition, it illustrates a difficulty in separating women’s personhood from their reproductive activity. The passage is paradigmatic of women’s general role in biblical rituals because it shows that females are variable ritual actors whose role and purpose cannot be neatly assumed or understood.2 This uncertainty concerning the ritual role of women stems in large part from the biblical narrator’s general lack of interest or attention in describing

1

2

On the problematic nature of this passage for both ancient and modern Judaism, see Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (New York: Harper & Row, 1990), 25–8. See L´eonie Archer, “Notions of Community and the Exclusion of the Female in Jewish History and Historiography,” in Women in Ancient Societies: An Illusion of the Night (ed. L´eonie Archer, Susan Fiscler, and Maria Wyke; New York: MacMillan, 1994), 53–69.

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19

women’s ritual practice.3 In many instances the text does not discuss women’s participation if the ritual does not directly concern them as women per se, so that it is difficult to know the details of their activity or how ritual laws apply to them. Moreover, women’s religious activity in general is sometimes not recorded because it is not deemed “religious” or authoritative enough to warrant discussion. Women may participate in rites and cultic activities, but perhaps in supportive or secondary roles overlooked by those writing ritual texts. For instance, women may play a supporting role in feasting activities by singing or by cooking and preparing food, perhaps even sacrificial meat, but this work is not recorded.4 Similarly, whereas women’s religious activity often takes place in the home or in other private, local, or non-institutional space, biblical writers are most concerned with the procedures for official and public religion.5 It is also the case that women’s ritual activity is sometimes considered to be idolatrous or a form of magic because it is practiced apart from official religion, although the participants themselves might not have seen their worship as illicit.6 When biblical authors do emphasize women’s participation in ritual, it is often to clarify their unclear or complicated position in a particular ritual circumstance or to show that a rite is specifically required of women to establish important socio-cultic gender roles. For example, Num 30, which gives restrictions on women’s ability to make vows, illustrates their unclear position with the cult. Most women are under the economic and social control of a husband or father, and the passage offers these men a means to cancel women’s vows. However, the law also makes clear that women who are economically autonomous – who are widowed or divorced – may make vows without restrictions. Thus the law takes up this issue of sacrificial offerings because women’s ritual participation is complicated by their economic and 3

4 5

6

For the difficulties in ascertaining women’s religious practice in ancient Israel see, for example, Bird’s essays, “The Place of Women in the Israelite Cultus” and “Israelite Religion and the Faith of Israel’s Daughters: Reflections on Gender and Religious Definition” in her Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities: Women and Gender in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1997), esp. 82, 99, 111–12, 116, 119; see also, the work of Carol Meyers, such as her essay, “From Household to House of Yahweh: Women’s Religious Culture in Ancient Israel,” in Congress Volume Basil (ed. A. Lemaire; Boston: Brill, 2002), 277–303; Tamara C. Eskenazi, “Out from the Shadows: Women in the Postexilic Era,” JSOT 54 (1992): 25–43; and Jo Ann Hackett, “In the Days of Jael: Reclaiming the History of Women in Ancient Israel,” in Immaculate and Powerful: The Female in Sacred Image and Social Reality (ed. Clarissa Atkinson, Margaret Miles, and Constance Buchanan; Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), 15–38. See Bird, Missing Persons, 95, 99, 117. See Archer, “‘In Thy Blood Live’: Gender and Ritual in the Judeo-Christian Tradition,” in Through the Devil’s Gateway: Women, Religion and Taboo (ed. Alison Joseph; London: SPCK, 1990), 38–9. Bird, Missing Persons, 99, 100–1.

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social status. Ritual texts also emphasize those specific women’s rites that help establish gender roles. For example, the rites of purification and sacrifice prescribed for the parturient in Lev 12 are concerned with creating her social role as a mother (see Chapters 3 and 5). Women’s cultic activity frequently changes with their age and marital, reproductive, and economic status. Thus where women are discussed in relation to both sacrificial practice and other rituals, the laws are often an explicit attempt to explicate the variable role of women in both cult and society. Texts that do mention the participation or exclusion of women deserve full evaluation of their use of gender not only for their perception of women’s roles but because any gender aspects may contribute to a fuller understanding of the rite itself. For example, the inclusion of women in the nazirite rite of Num 6 illustrates the function of naziriteship. That women are said to take on the special ritual status of a nazirite (6:2) is surprising for two reasons: there are no other biblical descriptions of female nazirites,7 and according to the priestly writer, nazirites are “holy” or “set apart” (Num 6:5, 8) in ways similar to the high priest, who is never female.8 Thus, the inclusion of women here shows an integral aspect of naziriteship that makes it very different from the high priesthood: the priesthood is limited to males who inherit it through patrilineal descent, whereas a nazirite does not assume an inherited office. The ability of women to participate underscores the fundamentally different nature of a nazirite, who obtains a high ritual status but in a fairly spontaneous and personal way, instead of in an institutionalized way, and who does not pass on the position to heirs.9 Whereas the inclusion of women in a rite clarifies its meaning and purpose, their explicit exclusion from a rite, where ascertainable, can also be fundamental to its nature.10 As an example, the rite of circumcision, which by definition excludes women from engaging in the practice, is related to concepts of male 7 8

9

10

However, the mothers of the prominent nazirites Samson and Samuel took on nazirite restrictions on becoming pregnant (Judg 13:3–5, 7, 14; 1 Sam 1:11). On the comparison of nazirites to the high priest, see Saul M. Olyan, “What Do Shaving Rites Accomplish and What Do They Signal in Biblical Ritual Contexts?” JBL 117 (1998), 615 and the sources cited in n.17; also idem. Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 59, 61. The priestly view of naziriteship presented in Num 6, in which it is a voluntary and temporary status, differs from the state of Samson and Samuel, both of whom were devoted in the womb and who maintained their naziritehood for their entire lives (Judg 13:3–5, 7, 14; 16:17; 1 Sam 1:11, 22, 28), save for the period in which Samson’s hair was cut by the Philistines (Judg 16:19–30). In Num 6 as well as these other texts, however, naziriteship is understood to be a noninherited position. See Susan Sered, “Towards a Gendered Typology of Sacrifice: Women & Feasting, Men & Death in an Okinawan Village,” in Sacrifice in Religious Experience (ed. Albert Baumgarten; Boston: Brill, 2002), 20. For an excellent example of how the omission or inclusion of women

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fertility, patrilineage, and the proper masculine body.11 Circumcision enacts the proper “pruning” and tending of legitimate male sexuality and fertility.12 The most extensive biblical passage concerning circumcision, Gen 17, connects Abraham’s circumcision to his fertility, inheritance of the land, and proper line of descent. The fact that this important ritual cannot be performed on women contributes to its function: women are not circumcised, and in the Hebrew Bible they also usually do not inherit or carry a genealogical line. Likewise, rites that pertain only to women enact their purpose, in part, by not also applying to men. This is the case for the rite for a new mother in Lev 12. That there is no parallel purificatory law for a new father underscores that the rite serves not so much as a social rite of passage into general parenthood, but is instead concerned with the characterization of a mother and the specific phenomenon of childbirth itself. Therefore, in certain rituals, the sexes work together to enact the rite, even when one is excluded. The Hebrew Bible portrays sacrifice as primarily a male endeavor. The most common participants in its descriptions of sacrifice are men, the most common animal victims are male, and those in control of establishing and carrying out proper sacrificial procedure are all men. This focus indicates that biblical texts about sacrifice are largely concerned with the social and ritual status of men. Moreover, because sacrifice is a ritual involving owned material goods, the Hebrew Bible’s focus on males accentuates the fact that most possessions, and thus most offerings, are owned and controlled by males. The frequent omission of women underscores the patriarchal and patrilineal nature of the sacrificing priesthood and the larger community that follows it. However, it should be stressed that just as sacrificial rituals enact social power for males, so sacrificial laws that prescribe the active participation of women also give them power and control in various circumstances. Therefore, women’s roles as officiants, offerers, slaughterers, and consumers of sacrifice

11

12

fundamentally affects the nature of a ritual, see Marjorie Lehman, “The Gendered Rhetoric of Sukkah Observance,” JQR 96 (2006): 309–35. Although women are “circumcised” in some cultures, this genital mutilation is not prescribed for Israelite women. The phenomenon of female circumcision or female genital mutilation found in some parts of Africa and Asia entails far more invasive, dangerous, and extensive procedures. These range from removing part of the clitoris to the removal of all external genitalia as well as the infibulation or stitching of the vagina. It can lead to serious injury and death from infection or hemorrhaging. Male circumcision, the removal of the foreskin, is a less drastic and dangerous procedure, although it is by nature a form of mutilation itself. For discussion of the exclusionary nature of circumcision see Olyan, Rites and Rank, 64–79, 102; Shaye Cohen, Why Aren’t Jewish Women Circumcised?: Gender and Covenant in Judaism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, “The Fruitful Cut,” in The Savage in Judaism: An Anthropology of Israelite Religion and Ancient Judaism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 141–76.

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not only are integrally related to the construction of their social status but also provide important opportunities for them to participate in ritual power.

women as officiants The Hebrew Bible does not contain any depiction of female ritual experts conducting sacrificial rites.13 There is no portrayal of women performing blood rites, or burning devoted fat and organs on an altar, or effecting forgiveness or ritual purification through sacrificial means. In the priestly construction of sacrifice, only male priests may perform these rites, although they are barred from practicing them during times of impurity or if they suffer a deformity (Lev 21:16–23).14 There are also no priestesses in biblical religion.15 Although there are women in the priestly family of Aaron, who have special requirements on their person and behavior (Lev 21:7–9, 13–15) and who may consume some of the sacred offerings made to the sanctuary (Lev 10:14; 22:12–13; Num 18:11–13), these women are never called priests nor are they said to officiate.16 Women are also never portrayed as presiding over a ritual slaughter in any other cultic setting without a priestly mediator, as, for instance, in the prescription for the family patriarch to conduct the paschal ritual at his home (Exod 12:3–7, 21–25).17 Similarly, no biblical narrative, even in the ancestral 13

14 15

16

17

Here I follow Marsman’s distinction between religious specialists and religious worshipers. On the benefits of this method, see her Women in Ugarit and Israel (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 476, 592. For further discussion, see Chapter 2. Note, however that some postbiblical inscriptions indicate that there were Jewish priestesses in antiquity, although the term used for them may indicate that they were part of the priestly family. See Bernadette Brooten, “Female Leadership in the Ancient Synagogue,” in From Dura to Sepphoris: Studies in Jewish Art and Society (ed. Lee I. Levine and Zeev Weiss; Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2000), 221. Although there were clearly priestesses in Mesopotamia, Ugarit, and Egypt, Marsman shows that there were few priestesses in the first millennium b.c.e. and that the few women who were priestesses had limited roles and came from royal or other elite families (Women in Ugarit and Israel, 504). On the role of women in the priestly family see Sarah Schectman, “The Social Status of Priestly and Levite Women,” in Levites and Priests in Biblical History and Tradition (ed. Mark Leuchter and Jeremy M. Hutton; Atlanta: SBL, 2011), 83–99. Judith Rommey Wegner notes that the Mishna does not consider women able to slaughter the Passover sacrifice as head of the household and that a household of two made solely of women is not considered acceptable for celebrating Passover. See her discussion of M. Pes. 8:1 and 8:7 in Chattel or Person?: The Status of Women in the Mishnah (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 148–49. The Mishna (m. Qid. 1:8) essentially excludes women from all priestly sacrificial activities. It states that women are not required to impose hands on a sacrificial victim, to bring offerings to the altar, to take the memorial portion of the grain offering, to burn incense, to take the heads off of bird offerings, and to receive or sprinkle blood. (However, b. H . ag 16b allows

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stories, clearly portrays a woman conducting a sacrificial offering alone (e.g., Abraham in Gen 22).18 The ability to perform these ritual acts of sacrifice has social and economic ramifications. As William K. Gilders argues, manipulating sacrificial blood is a ritual way of indicating or “indexing” a hierarchically superior status and social power.19 The priests’ ability to perform blood rites indicates their elite cultic status with regard to the laity, and the high priest’s blood manipulation in the holy of holies on Yom Kippur is a marker of his elevated status over other priests. Similarly, Olyan argues that the elders’ blood manipulation at the paschal rite illustrates their superior status.20 That women never have these prerogatives is a clear indication of their inferior status in the official sacrificial cult(s), showing that they are removed from the highest levels of official sanctity and ritual power and authority. Moreover, the exclusion of women from the priesthood enables the patrilineal group to have exclusive control of the donations made by the congregation. Women in priestly families are entirely reliant on the male members of the lineage for access to sacred donations and sacrificial foods. Perhaps most importantly, their exclusion from the activity of the priesthood, and thus the role of priest, also prevents the males of other families from marrying or being born into the priestly lineage. Therefore, the exclusion of women allows the priestly family to strictly control its cultic resources from outsiders and from women who might allow outsiders into the family.21

18

19 20 21

women to impose hands on a victim.) They are also not to make wave offerings before the altar except in the case of the suspected adulteress and a female nazirite (see the later discussion). Olyan states that “texts describing the pre-monarchic and early monarchic periods convey the impression that it was possible for any male Israelite to perform priestly functions” (Rites and Rank, 27). Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible; see also Olyan, Rites and Rank, 30. Rites and Rank, 11. Marsman, following Mary Haytner, reviews the scholarly rationales given for women’s disqualification from the priesthood (see Women in Ugarit and Israel, 536–47): (1) women lack the strength to slaughter large animals; (2) because women were mothers, they were unable to perform duties outside the home; (3) because the work of sacrifice became professionalized, it became a viable means for men to support a family; (4) women’s secondary social status prevented them from having the necessary “authority” and “prestige” required for the priesthood; and (5) women’s frequent ritual impurity prevented them from being able to perform priestly tasks that require holiness. Marsman adds a sixth reason – that the distinctiveness of Yahweh, as a sexually inactive deity, led to the exclusion of women from his cult. She bases this reason on the fact that priestesses in the ancient Near East were thought to be in some sense sexual partners of male deities; this aspect, she says, was radically incompatible with the character of Yahweh (547, 614–15). Marsman points out that the professionalization of the priesthoods in Mesopotamia and Egypt led to the exclusion of women functionaries there as well (505–07).

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Women also do not seem to occupy any secondary nonpriestly leadership role in particular sacrificial rites, such as leading away the goat of Azazel on Yom Kippur (Lev 16:21), taking away the remains of the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering on that day for burning outside the camp (Lev 16:28), or having any involvement in the rite of the red cow (Num 19: 8, 9, 10, 18, 21).22 However, it may be that women did have official roles in sacrifice, but that these roles are unrecorded or mentioned so vaguely that their purpose is unclear. Such may be the case with the women who worked or “thronged” (has..so¯b˘eʼˆot) at the door of the Tent of Meeting (Exod 38:8; cf. 1 Sam 2:22).23 Their function is at least peripherally related to the sacrificial cult, because the door where they “throng” leads to the place where offerings are most often made.24 Moreover, the verb that describes their work (s.bʼ) also describes the work of the Levites (Num 4:3, 23, 35, 39, 43; 8:24–25),25 who, according to the priestly source, perform secondary tasks related to sacrifice, such as receiving sanctuary tithes (Num 18:26–28), carrying and caring for the materials of the Tabernacle (Num 1:47–53; 4:2–15), and generally assisting the priests (Num 3:6–9). The root has a primarily military meaning, so it is possible that the women were understood to be some kind of guards, perhaps checking offerers for

22

23 24 25

It seems most likely that the economic aspects of professionalization and consolidation are primary and that the theological ideologies of purity, “religious prestige,” and the chastity of the deity were means of supporting this system. Furthermore, women are more dangerous to an inherited priesthood than to a nonhereditary office. Thus it seems less likely that there was a fear that a priestess would be seen as a sexual partner of the deity than that she would become the partner of a nonpriest, thereby threatening the office. Leviticus 16:21 and Num 19:9, 18 specify that the people who lead away the Azazel goat, who gather up the ashes of the red cow, and who sprinkle the ashes are men (ʼˆıˇs). The other roles are not given this specification, but use the masculine singular participle, which could be used in a gender-neutral sense. Based on the fact that all the other actors in these rites are men and that the text does not specify that a man or a woman can do these roles, it seems likely that the roles were intended to be filled by men. My assumption, however, encounters difficulties when one notices that Num 19:11 does not specify the gender of the cultic participant who becomes impure via corpse contamination. Yet one assumes it must be a man or a woman, because it applies to anyone who touches a corpse and because corpse impurity can even be transmitted to inanimate objects (19:14–16, 18, 22). However, it could be the case that the entire law does not apply equally to women: v. 20 specifies that it is the man (ʼˆıˇs) who does not perform the rite of the ashes who will suffer the penalty of being cut off from the assembly. This puts in doubt women’s role in the entire ritual and the extent to which the wearing of ashes applies to her. The passage highlights the difficulty in ascertaining the role of women in biblical law and ritual. Though this phrase describing them may be an addition as it is missing in a version of the LXX and 4QSama . P. Kyle McCarter, Jr. I Samuel (AB 8; New York: Doubleday, 1980), 81. Leviticus 1:3; 3:2; 4:4; 12:6; 14:11, 23; 15:14, 29; 16:7; 17:4–5, 9; 19:21; Num 6:10, 13–14, 18; etc. Mayer I. Gruber, “Women in the Cult According to the Priestly Code,” in Judaic Perspectives on Ancient Israel (ed. Jacob Neusner, Baruch A. Levine, and Ernest S. Frerichs; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 36.

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impurities.26 The mirrors that they held may also be an indication that they were performing some kind of function with regard to demons,27 perhaps preventing them from entering the sacred place. Propp speculates that the women may be the female members of the priestly families. However, he also lists several other possible roles: they may be women doing domestic work of the temple such as baking and cleaning, they may have done more traditionally female religious jobs as singers or dancers,28 or they may have been celibate nuns. The text only states that these women donate their bronze mirrors for making the lavers and their stands (Exod 38:8). Their presence by the temple, coupled with the fact that they have mirrors and that they are depicted in 1 Samuel as having sex with the sons of Eli, has led some interpreters to infer that they were cultic prostitutes. They may also have been at the door for matchmaking, or they may merely have been lay women making their offerings.29 Unfortunately, the identity and purpose of these women cannot be clearly ascertained. Other women may also have had roles in sacrifice that are obfuscated or deemed heretical by biblical authors; these roles include the queen mother and the q˘ed¯eˇsaˆ (lit. “holy woman;” traditionally, but erroneously, “temple prostitute”). As Ackerman argues, the role of queen mother may have entailed cultic responsibilities for the cult of Asherah.30 Whether these responsibilities might have included some form of sacrifice is unknown. However, Solomon’s foreign wives are also said to “burn incense” (maqt.ˆırˆot) and “sacrifice” (m˘ezabb˘eh.oˆt) to their gods (1 Kgs 11:8), although whether they did this directly or through an officiant is unclear.31 In any event, although many royal women are portrayed as sacrificial officiants in the ancient Near East,32 to my knowledge there is no 26 27 28

29

30

31 32

The following suggestions come from Propp, Exodus 19–40 (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 666. Ibid., 665. This latter option gains some support by the fact that in some postexilic texts, women sang in the temple choir (1 Chr 25:5–6; Ezra 2:65; Neh 7:67). See Gruber, “Women in the Cult,” 39; Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel, 552–55, 565–56. Gruber, “Women in the Cult,” 37; Propp, Exodus 19–40, 666. For discussion of the women, see Romney Wegner, “‘Coming before the LORD’: The Exclusion of Women from the Public Domain of the Israelite Priestly Cult,” in The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception (ed. Rolf Rendtorff and Robert A. Kugler; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 463; for the phrase in Lev 15:29 see esp. 456–7. Ackerman, “The Queen Mother and the Cult in Ancient Israel,” JBL 112 (1993): 385–401. Repr. in Women and the Hebrew Bible: A Reader (ed. Alice Bach; New York: Routledge, 1999), 179–94. Bird also suggests that the queen may have been the head of a cult (Missing Persons, 98). But see also Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel, 545–47, 609. Note, however, that the fourth-century b.c.e. Phoenician queen mother ʼmʻˇstrt is described as “priestess of ʻaˇstrt” (KAI 14:14–15), cited in Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel, 504–5. Ibid., 519, 533, 544–45, 568–70, 587, 614, 620, 623.

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example in the Bible of such women making offerings that are approved or legitimate. The q˘ed¯eˇsaˆ too may have had some original relation to a sacrificial cult (Gen 38; Deut 23:17–18 [18–19]; Hos 4:14; cf. the male equivalent term 1 Kgs 14:24; 15:12; 22:46 [47]; 2 Kgs 23:7).33 Most intriguingly, Hos 4:14 accuses the men of Israel of conducting sacrifices with q˘ed¯eˇsoˆt (v˘eʻim-q˘ed¯eˇsoˆt y˘ezabb¯eh.uˆ ), perhaps indicating that the women served as officiants.34 The male counterpart of the q˘ed¯eˇsaˆ in Ugarit was a cantor who sang during sacrificial rituals (in KTU 1.112); the Mesopotamian female equivalent is discussed in several ways, including as a ritual purifier, as related to childbirth, and as a witch or sorcerer.35 Unfortunately, we cannot clearly ascertain the role and cultic actions of these women in Israel. Even if they were at one point legitimate sacrificial officiants in some fashion, their roles were eventually eliminated and defamed (Deut 23:17 [18]).36 Other women are shown preparing and making offerings in informal ways, although the authors understand these actions to be heretical. In Jeremiah, women officiate in the offering of cakes and libations for the Queen of Heaven (7:18; 44:15–30). The prophet Jeremiah decries this practice as causing the wrath of Yahweh. As discussed later, it is also possible that the necromancer at Endor (1 Sam 28) conducted a sacrifice. In sum, then, biblical law, as well as the rest of the Hebrew Bible, never clearly depicts a woman officiating at a legitimate sacrifice to Yahweh either at the home, at some other temporary cultic location, or at a sanctuary. This omission portrays women with secondary status in the official system or as conducting illegitimate rites outside that system. 33

34

35 36

The role of the q˘ed¯eˇsaˆ is unclear and greatly debated. For discussion see Bird, “The End of ¯ E¯ Sˇ the Male Cult Prostitute: A Literary-Historical and Sociological Analysis of Hebrew QAD ˇ ˘ E¯ SȊM,” QED in Congress Volume Cambridge (ed. J. A. Emerton; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 7–80; Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel, 497–501, 548–52, 615; Joan Goodnick Westenholz, “Tamar, Q˘ed¯eˇsaˆ , Qadiˇstu, and Sacred Prostitutes in Mesopotamia,” HTR 82 (1989): 245–65; Meyer Gruber, “The Hebrew q˘ed¯eˇsaˆ and Her Canaanite and Akkadian Cognates” UF 18 (1986): 133–48. Westenholz argues that in the story of Tamar and Judah in Genesis 38, Hirah refers to Tamar as a q˘ed¯eˇsaˆ because he is bringing her a lamb, and he uses the term to insinuate that he is bringing the woman an animal for sacrifice (“Tamar, Q˘ed¯eˇsaˆ , Qadiˇstu,” 249). See also Bird, who suggests that these women had a cultic role in sacrifice and were a regular presence at cultic sites (Missing Persons, 96–97, 233–34). Westenholz, “Tamar, Q˘ed¯eˇsaˆ , Qadiˇstu,” 249, 252–60. Marsman suggests that the main problem with the q˘ed¯eˇsaˆ , as with the prostitute, with whom she is somehow parallel (Gen 38; Deut 23:17–18; Hos 4:12–14), is that they both have autonomy over their own sexuality (Women in Ugarit and Israel, 549, 551). It is this autonomy, perhaps, that also allowed her to officiate in sacrifice.

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women as offerers Although women are not described as leading official forms of sacrifice, their participation by bringing and consuming certain offerings is important in sacrificial worship.37 However, in neither biblical law nor narrative are women portrayed as bringing a communal offering on holy days, nor are they said to make communal offerings on behalf of their families; instead they are depicted as dependents of male heads of households. Where women do offer sacrifices, they are portrayed as making personal offerings to fulfill vows and to recover from impurities, as well as in the unusual rite of the suspected adulteress.

Communal Offerings Women are never presented as the major actors in any regular calendrical occasions. These holy day feasts are opportunities to participate in the life of the community. By bringing an offering one publicly shows that one has sufficient material possessions to be a part of the community. It also indicates the ability to apportion sacrificial meat to one’s dependents and provides an opportunity to present oneself as the head of a family. It is therefore not surprising that women are never portrayed as making a holiday offering. Such an act would imply that they were not economically dependent on males, but instead were the leader in a household. The role of women at the three pilgrimage feasts of Matsot, Shevuot, and Sukkot is unclear. The discussion of the feasts in Exod 23:17 and 34:23 specifically states that “all your males” (kol-z˘ekˆur˘ek¯a) should attend; they must bring along a sacrificial offering; they may not attend “empty-handed.” This statement is usually understood as exempting women from the duty to go on pilgrimage, as it is understood in Jewish tradition (b. H . ag. 4a; Qid. 34b). However, the statement could have been intended to specifically exclude women from the pilgrimage,38 or it may have not been concerned at all with the place of women at these rites. Deuteronomy, however, specifically 37

38

Bird suggests that this is not an important aspect of sacrifice. She states, “Presenting a sacrificial offering to the priest is not a sacrificial action . . . but an act of offering to which all are bound.” She also suggests that participating in a sacrificial meal is not a sacrificial act, although she does recognize that it is “an important form of cultic participation” (Missing Persons, 93, n.34). I argue instead that these are very important ritual acts that are intricately tied with women’s social roles. Moreover, in the priestly system, lay men participated in sacrifice in many of the same ways as women. Gruber, “Women in the Cult,” 41, n.5.

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includes women and children as participants in the feasts that take place at the pilgrimage, which may be a later innovation of the ritual (Deut 12:12, 18; 16:11, 14; 29:11 [10]).39 However, Deuteronomy does not portray women as bringing the offerings themselves; instead it is up to the offerer to share them with his household and with the poor. Where Deuteronomy does mention women as participants in the feasts, it does not explicitly discuss the wife or mother; only the daughter, the female slave, and widows are mentioned (Deut 12:12, 18; 16:11, 14 cf. 29:11). This omission may imply that procreating women were not expected at the feasts,40 or it may indicate that wives are implicitly addressees in the laws.41 However, if the latter were the case, one would expect other indications that women could be the primary conveners and offerers for a household at these pilgrimages. Moreover, as Marsman argues, although the woman may be included as an addressee as her husband’s partner, the law does not clearly indicate that women could lead the ritual. She adds that the frequent mention of widows as a separate group at these feasts would appear to indicate that women would not be able to make these offerings when they are without a husband.42 The biblical text also does not portray a woman offering firstfruits. The Mishna allows women to do so; however, women are not allowed to recite the associated creed in Deut 26:3–10 because they do not own land, and the creed states that the land was given to the offerer (m. Bik. 1:5).43 In 1 Sam 1:24–25, the story of Hannah shows her making an offering in the course of a pilgrimage feast. However, it is unclear whether this feast is one of the three pentateuchal pilgrimage feasts or a clan festival.44 In either event, it is not incumbent on her to attend this feast, because she chooses to return to the sacrificial shrine after three years, and her husband offers the time-bound yearly offering (v. 21). 1 Sam 1 is a problematic passage because the MT includes a number of inconsistencies and also differs from the LXX and 4QSama . One of the inconsistencies is that Hannah is shown to be making her vow alone, yet v. 21 states that, when Elkanah next attends the pilgrimage, he offers both the yearly offering and “his vowed offering” (nidrˆo). The nature 39 40

41 42 43 44

Ibid., 36; Bird, Missing Persons, 102. Caroline M. Breyfogle, “The Religious Status of Women in the Old Testament” in The Biblical World 5 (1910), 414. Cf. Gruber, who argues that since those who assemble at Booths include “little children” in Deut 31:12, the author intended to include the mothers of young children as well (“Women in the Priestly Code,” 36, 41 n.5). Bird, Missing Persons, 63. Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel, 601. See Wegner, Chattel or Person?, 149. Menachem Haran argues that this is not a communal event, but a family feast in Temples and Temple Service in Ancient Israel (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1985), 304–06. In either case, Elkanah does the offering for this yearly slaughter.

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of this vow is unclear: it could refer to Hannah’s vow, or he could have made his own different vow.45 In any event, the text clearly distinguishes between a regular offering and a vowed offering at the feast. The same is true in the LXX expansion on vv. 24–25 in which Elkanah is said to first “slaughter the sacrifice as he regularly did to Yahweh” and then to slaughter the calf. Although Hannah does return to the shrine to donate Samuel to it and brings other sacrificial offerings as a part of her vow, she does not appear to offer the yearly offering. The fact that women are not described as making any of these public offerings indicates that women are not intended to be the primary offerers, if offerers at all, on these communal occasions. This characterization is congruent with the rabbinic understanding that women are not required to perform time-bound commandments, which are official and calendrical events (m. Qid. 1:7). It has often been suggested that the reason women are exempt from these events is because the reproductive work of bearing children would interfere with their ability to attend a public event. This may be true; however, we must consider then that the very structure of a pilgrimage is inherently antagonistic toward the mothers of very young children. A pilgrimage is, by definition, a separation from the domestic and private realm, which is that of women and mothers. Given that the centerpiece of these festivals is sacrifice (no one is to come “empty-handed” before Yahweh), the form of sacrificial pilgrimage, intentionally or not, is by nature exclusionary toward them.

Personal Offerings While women are not portrayed making the pilgrimage offerings or other communal sacrifices, women are portrayed as making private offerings to expiate their personal impurities and in fulfillment of their personal vows. Both of these circumstances are related to personal events in their lives. Women are specifically required to bring offerings for purification from childbirth (Lev 12:6–8), genital disease (Lev 15:29–30), skin disease (Lev 13:29, 38; 14:1–32), and the defilement of death if they have taken on a nazirite vow (Num 6:10–12). The purpose of these offerings, as for men, is to reintegrate the impure person into the community. Fundamentally, they give social power back to the person who has been excluded: they restore the ability to attend religious gatherings and especially to eat meat and other offerings. 45

Carol Meyers, “The Hannah Narrative in Feminist Perspective,” in Go to the Land I Will Show You: Studies in Honor of Dwight D. Young (ed. Joseph Coleson and Victor Matthews; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 123.

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Women are excluded from sacrificial participation for large parts of their lives because of their reproductive status – being deemed impure during menstruation, after intercourse, and for forty or eighty days after childbirth (see Chapter 5). However, the only unique offerings a woman must make, which differ from those of men, are offerings for the impurity of childbirth. Childbirth is the sole occasion on which a healthy woman is required to make offerings; making offerings then is an opportunity to show herself as a mother and therefore as a person of social and material consequence. The childbirth offerings might have been the only ones made in the life of an average woman. Thus the priestly sacrificial system recognizes motherhood as an important cultic and social role. At the same time, however, a mother’s offering also marks her agreement to the social structure that she is rejoining. Implicit in her offering is an acceptance that she was, indeed, unclean when bearing the child and that her relationship to her offspring is under the control of the social structure (see Chapters 5 and 6). Women also bring offerings in fulfillment of vows (see Num 30:3–16; 1 Sam 1; Prov 7:14) – the practice of making a request of a deity and offering an object or service if the request is granted.46 Biblical texts present personal vows as a primary aspect of women’s religious devotion. As Jacques Berlinerblau discusses, vows are largely egalitarian rites because they are a means of making an individual connection to the divine largely apart from the official religious structure.47 They can be made by any individual in any location, although they often must be fulfilled at an official shrine. Because vows are made independently, their content is regulated by the offerer, who can choose what to vow, what to ask for, under what circumstances the vow will be paid, and whether to delay payment as needed. Because people can vow an offering of any size or value, those with little economic means are able to make offerings of what they can afford, thereby enabling them to access divine power on their own terms. As Berlinerblau shows, it was commonly understood that all people could make vows, regardless of wealth, occupation, nationality, morality, or religious status. The independent and egalitarian nature of the vow is especially important for women. As Berlinerblau states, “[T]he vow would seem to provide women with a type of power which they were normally not granted in other departments of life. A sort of ‘economic empowerment’ can be envisioned, whereby

46 47

See Tony W. Cartledge, Vows in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (JSOTSup 147; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 16–17. Jacques Berlinerblau, The Vow and the “Popular Religious Groups” in Ancient Israel: A Philological and Sociological Inquiry (JSOTSup 210; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996).

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women could, uncharacteristically, set ‘the terms of the deal.’”48 Phyllis Bird suggests that vows could even be a means of undertaking acts of rebellion or other forbidden actions.49 Many vows requested that God grant the woman a child, such as Hannah’s vow (1 Sam 1) and that of the mother of Lemuel (Prov 31:2). As with other forms of offering, the ability to make vowed offerings, no matter how lowly they might be, is intertwined with material power: because votive offerings are made in conjunction with some social or material benefit obtained by the offerer, they express the acquisition of some social and/or economic power. However, although the practice of making vows does show this kind of power, it is limited by biblical law. As mentioned earlier, according to Num 30, if a woman utters a vow, her husband or her father – on whom she is economically dependent and who would have to support her payment for the vow – is able to nullify it (30:3–16). However, if she is economically independent, without a father or husband, no one can prevent her from establishing the vow and fulfilling it (Num 30:9). Because a primary way for women to become financially independent is to prostitute themselves, Deut 23:18 [19] clarifies that this is not an acceptable way for either women or men to obtain resources for offerings.50 Women are also able to take on a nazirite vow (Num 6:1–21). This procedure confers on the vower the temporary consecrated status of a nazirite, which, as mentioned earlier, is a nonhereditary religious role. While in this consecrated state, nazirites must abstain from all grape products, avoid any contact with corpses, and refrain from cutting their hair. At the end of the vow, they undergo a complicated ritual that involves, among other things, making a very expensive offering that includes three sheep as well as grain, bread, and drink offerings (6:14–15). Their hair is shaved, and this too is burnt as a type of offering (6:18). If nazirites do accidentally come into contact with a corpse, they must undergo a purification ritual that includes the offering of two birds and a lamb, and their consecrated time is rendered void (6:9–12). As mentioned, the nazirite vow is most likely not restricted to men because naziriteship is a nonhereditary sacred role and does not appear, at least in priestly sources, to have any power within the cultic hierarchy. It seems likely that nazirites are not prevented from incurring sexual impurities for the same reason: the overt distinction between males and females created by 48 49 50

Ibid., 148. Bird, Missing Persons, 101. See Karel van der Toorn, “Female Prostitution in Payment of Vows in Ancient Israel,” JBL 108 (1989): 193–205. The meaning of this law is in dispute. At issue is whether the woman in question actually is a prostitute and why a prostitute’s wages would be an illegitimate means of payment. See Berlinerblau, The Vow and the “Popular Religious Groups,” 103–07, 142; Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel, 597–99.

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reproductive impurities is not important for a nazirite whose privilege is nonhereditary. In contrast, since a priest has a privilege that is only passed on through males, it is very important for his office to highlight reproductive impurities because they help to differentiate males who stay in the line from females who leave it. The nazirite certainly incurs a form of social power, especially because the state resembles that of a consecrated priest. However, it is interesting that a nazirite must make offerings on leaving the consecrated state: while giving up the power of the sacred status, nazirites regain a different form of power, that is, the control over material wealth in making offerings. Although both forms of status could be beneficial for women, it is arguably the woman’s ability to make the payments due for nazirite vows that is her truest power.51 The unusual rite of the suspected adulteress in Num 5:11–31 requires a woman to bring barley as a grain offering “of jealousy” (q˘en¯aʼ¯ot) and “of remembrance” (zikk¯arˆon) as part of the ordeal to discern her impropriety (5:15, 18, 25–6).52 The husband must bring this offering to the shrine, underscoring that men are financially responsible for their wives’ offerings (v. 15). The sotah’s offering is not a vowed offering, but one made as the woman swears an oath. The priest literally forces her to make this offering; he places it in her hands as she stands in front of the altar (v. 18). The rite renegotiates the relationship between the woman and her husband, enacting an agreement between them that will overcome any suspected infidelity on her part. As part of the rite the woman drinks a potion meant to damage her reproductive system if she has been unfaithful, yet it is highly unlikely that this concoction would have actually hurt her in the ways mentioned in the ritual.53 And even though it is shaming and extremely harsh, the rite gives power to the woman because it ultimately it enables her to be protected from the jealousy of her husband and execution by mob justice.54 Concomitant with this power is the requirement to make her offering,55 during the course of which the woman 51

52

53 54 55

Wegner argues that the priests allowed women to become nazirites because nazirite offerings benefited the priests; including women allowed them to have twice as many possible offerers (“‘Coming before the LORD,’” 462–3). She states that P seems fine with women offering their services and possessions as long as it does not entail their sharing power. For studies of the passage see Victor Matthews, “Honor and Shame in Gender Related Legal Situations in the Bible,” in Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (ed. Victor H. Matthews, Bernard M. Levinson, and Tikva Frymer-Kensky; JSOTSup 262; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 97–112; and the essays collected in Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader, 461–522. Jack M. Sasson, “Numbers 5 and the ‘Waters of Judgment,’” in Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader, 483. Cf. Jacob Milgrom, “The Strange Case of the Suspected Sotah,” who cites Brichto, “The Sota”; Sasson, “Numbers 5 and the ‘Waters of Judgment,’” 479–8. And unusually, to wave it at the altar, according to m. Qid. 1:8.

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has more access to sacred space than in any other rite: only when doing so is a woman explicitly said to be in the presence of Yahweh (v. 18).56 This forced offering enables her to appear innocent, and thus to obtain some mark of social power.

women as consumers Women also participate in sacrifice by eating sacrificial meat. Indeed, having access to this meat and to the communal connections created by feasting is the most important benefit of participating in the sacrificial cult. However, women have only restricted access to sacrificial meat. As Marcel Detienne observes of Greek sacrifice, “When women have access to meat, the rules of the cult are careful to specify the precise terms and conditions.”57 Detienne emphasizes that it is almost always their husbands or other men who apportion meat to women. Thus men mediate between women and sacrificial meat, just as they also mediate between women and society.58 In the Hebrew Bible women are apportioned sacrificial meat by their husbands, owners, and fathers, such as in Deuteronomy’s portrayal of the pilgrimage feasts, in which the offerer is instructed to share with his household as well as the poor, who are materially reliant on him (14:29; 16:11, 14; 26:12). Moreover, the story of Hannah shows that husbands could allot meat from pilgrimage offerings to their wives based on their maternal or preferred status (depending on the interpretation of 1 Sam 1:5).59 This distribution of meat by the head of the household highlights the dependent material relationships of women and of other men in the household on the patriarch. In the priestly system, the consumption of meat by members of the priestly family is highly regulated. Only males of the priestly line can eat the offerings that are called “most holy” (q¯odeˇs q˘od¯aˇsˆım).60 These are the grain offering (minh.aˆ ), the “eaten” purification offering (h.at..ta¯ ʼt), and the guilt offering (ʼ¯aˇsa¯ m). Males in the priestly family can eat them even when they are deformed 56

57 58 59

60

Wegner describes the woman as being treated like a sacrificial victim in that she is “brought near” and “stood up” at the sanctuary (“Coming before the LORD,” 459–60). The fact that she is threatened with the status of a sacrificial victim in this way makes her somewhat akin to the donated but redeemed firstborn (like Isaac; see Chapter 6) who undergoes a fearsome ritual to obtain (or in this case, regain) social status. “The Violence of Wellborn Ladies: Women in the Thesmophoria,” 131. Ibid., 132. The interpretation depends on the meaning of the term m¯anˆa ʼah.at ʼapp¯ayim and whether it means a single portion or a doubled portion. Meyers argues that Hannah was given only one portion (“The Hannah Narrative,” 94); Kyle McCarter Jr. translates it as “a single portion equal to theirs” (i.e., one share that is the size of Peninah and her children’s share). See his I Samuel, 51–52, for possible meanings. On the priests’ benefits of eating holy food, see Olyan, Rites and Rank, 30–37.

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(Lev 21:22), but not when they are unclean (Lev 22:4–7). In contrast, females from the priestly line can only eat the meat of peace offerings (ˇs˘el¯amˆım), which are a less sanctified form of offering (“holy” vs. “most holy”); they can also consume the firstfruits and firstlings as well as the gift offering (t˘erȗmˆa) and wave offering (t˘enȗpˆa) that may be eaten outside the sanctuary61 (Lev 10:12– 15; 22:12–13; Num 18:11–13). When daughters from the priestly family leave their father’s house, they are no longer able to eat of the offerings because they are no longer materially supported by him. However, if they return to his house without children, becoming “as in their youth,” they can again eat from the offerings. In terms of what they can eat, women in the priestly line resemble male slaves belonging to the priests who can eat of the “holy” things, but not the “most holy.”62 In contrast, deformed priests maintain their food privileges even when they cannot do priestly work. Lay people, whether male or female, may only eat of ˇs˘el¯amˆım offerings (“peace offerings”). Women also eat from the Passover meal, in both its Deuteronomic form, where it is slaughtered at the centralized shrine (Deut 16:2), and in its priestly form, in which it is slaughtered locally (Exod 12:1–20, 43–49 but see H in Lev 23:4–8). Yet only circumcised males may eat from the Passover offerings (Exod 12:43–48), thus indicating that women’s cultic and national identity is less of a concern in this setting than that of a male.63 Like men, women may not eat consecrated food if they are ritually unclean. In the priestly system, this means that women may not eat this food if they are menstruating or have lochial discharge, which would prevent them from eating sacrificial food for extended periods of time (for a further description of impurity and gender, see Chapter 6). Like men, they also may not eat if they have had intercourse on the same day before nightfall, have come into contact with a corpse in the six previous days, have certain skin or genital diseases, or have touched an unclean animal carcass. However, their reproductive processes cause them to be more restricted than men from sacred food.

women as slaughterers It may be possible that women participated in slaughtering their offerings, though this is uncertain. Biblical laws and descriptions are generally unclear about who slaughters sacrificial animals. In some instances, the task is given to the Levites (Ezek 44:11–12; Ezra 6:20; for example, 2 Chr 35:11 implies that 61 62 63

Wegner, “Coming before the LORD,” 453; Olyan, Rites and Rank, 31–33. See Olyan, Rites and Rank, 31–32. On the inconsequential nature of women in the scheme of circumcision, see ibid., 102.

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Levites did the slaughtering and states that they did the skinning); in other passages, the offerer appears to do the slaughtering (see Lev 1:5; 3:2, 8, 13, etc.). Gruber argues that sacrificial slaughter was not a priestly task and that the use of the term nepeˇs (“person, living thing”) instead of a more masculine term for the offerer in Lev 1:5, indicates that the author of that text understood women to perform sacrificial slaughter.64 However, Judith Romney Wegner argues that P takes it for granted that women did not slaughter.65 There are no clear examples in the Hebrew Bible of females slaughtering their own offerings. The primary exception may, again, be Hannah, who brings her son Samuel, along with animal and food offerings, to Eli at Shiloh (1 Sam 1:24–25). Again, the passage in the MT differs greatly from that in the LXX (supported by 4QSama ).66 The MT shows Hannah alone bringing Samuel along with “a three year old bull,67 an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine; she brought him to the house of Yahweh at Shiloh, though the boy was very young” (1:24). It then states, “They slaughtered the bull and they brought the boy to Eli” (vayyiˇsh.a˘.tuˆ ʼet-happ¯ar vayy¯abˆıʼˆu ʼet-hannaʻar ʼel-ʻ¯elˆı; 1:25). The MT therefore portrays Hannah bringing offerings on her own, but slaughtering the bull together with Elkanah and donating Samuel together with him. In contrast, the LXX assumes that Elkanah brought the offerings with her and explicitly states in an expansion, mentioned earlier, that Elkanah slew both his yearly sacrifice and the bull: “They brought him before the Lord; and his father slew his offering which he offered from year to year to the Lord; and he brought near the child, and slew the calf; and Hannah the mother of the child brought him to Eli.” In neither case is Hannah portrayed as slaughtering animals herself, yet the MT implies that she slaughters the bull with her husband (“they slaughtered it”), whereas the LXX states that he did it alone. Also, in the MT she alone is responsible for bringing the offerings. 64

65 66 67

Gruber cites m. Zeb. 3:1, m. H . ul. 1:1, and Siphra on Lev 1:5 to show that the use of the term nepeˇs indicates that slaughter is not a priestly function and that women could slaughter for sacrifice as well as for secular food (“Women in the Priestly Code,” 39; 46, n.37). “‘Coming before the LORD,’” 455. See McCarter, I Samuel, 56–57. This reading follows the LXX and Syriac. The MT has b˘ep¯arˆım ˇs˘el¯oˇsaˆ meaning “with three bulls,” a variant that is probably due to a misreading of the mem at the end of p¯arˆım; it should go with the following word (yielding mˇslˇs; P. Kyle McCarter, I Samuel, 56–57). The difference between the two is easy to see: MT bprym ˇslˇsh (“with three bulls”) vs. bpr mˇslˇs (“with a three year old bull”). The LXX makes far more sense here because only one bull is slaughtered in the following verse and because the bull is the same age as Samuel. Carol Meyers adds that three bulls would be an extremely expensive sacrifice, especially in relation to Hannah’s other offerings (“An Ethnoarchaeological Analysis of Hannah’s Sacrifice,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom [ed. David P. Wright, David Noel Freedman and Avi Hurvitz; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995], 82).

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Carol Meyers argues that the LXX and Qumran versions are intentional changes made to reduce Hannah’s participation based on their contemporary understanding of the roles of women in sacrificial rituals.68 However, even in the MT Hannah’s exact role in the slaughter is uncertain. It is clear, though, that women did engage in slaughter that was either not considered sacrificial, was portrayed as heretical, or both. The necromancer at Endor, whom Saul consults in secret after the death of Samuel, is said to “sacrifice” or “slaughter” (vattizb¯ah.¯ehˆu) a fatted calf for Saul to consume (1 Sam 28:24). This killing is not portrayed as a cultic act, yet it is one of the very few times in the Hebrew Bible that the verb zbh. does not clearly indicate sacrificial slaughter (the others being in Deut 12:15, 21 and Ezek 34:3).69 In addition, it was common for ritual slaughter to accompany necromantic rites in the ANE.70 Because this woman is an illegitimate religious specialist, the author may not have portrayed as significant any ritual act done in the course of making a meal for Saul. In any event, because this woman has a vocation, she may be unusually able to determine and designate animals for slaughter of her own accord, whether in a religious context or not. Other sacrificial slaughter by women is done in an illicit context. The “sacrificing” of Solomon’s foreign wives is also portrayed as illegitimate: 1 Kgs 11:8 states that they “turned to smoke and slaughtered for their gods” (maqtˆırˆot uˆ m˘ezabb˘eh.oˆt l¯eʼl¯ohȇhen). Again, to what extent they did the slaughter is uncertain. Ezekiel accuses the female Jerusalem of slaying her sons and daughters as food for foreign gods (vattiqh.ˆı ʼet-b¯anayik v˘eʼet-b˘enˆotayik ʼ˘aˇser y¯aladt lˆı vattizb¯ah.ˆım l¯ahem leʼ˘ekˆol 16:20–21). Although the occasion for this statement is highly rhetorical, it does clearly show that the image of women slaughtering and sacrificing can be not only illegitimate and abhorrent but also related to illicit sexuality, financial independence, and a rejection of social norms (see Chapter 6 for further analysis).71 Other women are said to legitimately slaughter (t.bh.) meat, though this is not portrayed as a cultic act.72 Lady Wisdom is described as having “slaughtered her meat” (t.a¯ b˘eh.aˆ .tibh.a¯ h) in preparation for a meal (Prov 9:2). That this slaughtering is not sacrificial is indicated in both its context and its language. The root of the verb and its cognate accusative (t.bh.) is a term for general slaughter and is not used in a sacrificial sense in the Hebrew Bible.73 Ritual 68 69 70 71 72 73

“The Hannah Narrative,” 123. J. Bergman, “z¯abhach,” TDOT IV: 13. ˆ ,” JBL 86 (1967), esp. Harry A. Hoffner, “Second Millennium Antecedents to the Hebrew ‘Ob ¯ 394. Ezekiel 16:21 is the only occurrence of ˇsh.t with a feminine subject. Bergman, “z¯abhach,” 13. V. Hamp, “t.a¯ bah.,” TDOT V, 284. ¯

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slaughter is usually indicated by zbh.,74 though, as in the earlier example of the medium at Endor, zbh. can indicate nonsacrificial slaughter. Other women who slay animals for meat, such as, perhaps, royal cooks (inherent in their title .tabb¯ah.oˆt [1 Sam 8:13] yet they could also be male [cf. 1 Sam 9:23]), are not portrayed as slaughtering for sacrifice. In any event, as Gruber notes, slaughtering animals, at least in a secular sense, is not portrayed biblically as fundamentally contrary to female nature, yet it is also not highlighted as a proper ritual act for women.75 The vague description of the act of slaughter underscores its relatively unimportant role in biblical offerings.

conclusion In the biblical presentation, women do not serve as legitimate sacrificial ritual experts. Even in the priestly family, they do not make offerings on an altar, perform blood rites, effect atonement, or otherwise officiate in sacrificial rites. Women also do not seem to officiate in secondary roles for sacrificial acts, though this is less clear. It is possible that some women were known to perform acts such as cooking or cleaning parts of sacrificial offerings, but this is never discussed in a text. Based on Solomon’s wives in 1 Kgs 11:8 and ANE parallels, queens may have had some special role in sacrificial acts, but this too cannot be established. It is more likely that the q˘ed¯eˇsaˆ had a role in sacrificial offerings, though we cannot say clearly what it was nor who felt her involvement to be legitimate. Other offerings made by women directly to a deity, without priestly mediation, are found only in illegitimate religious rites, such as the cakes and libations for the Queen of Heaven, and possibly the necromancy of the medium at Endor. It is possible that other illegitimate offerings mentioned in biblical texts may also have been performed by women, such as the offering of children in the Tophet in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, a topic discussed in Chapter 7. The issue of legitimate versus illegitimate offerings brings into question the whole concept of women’s universal exclusion from sacrifice. Perhaps the “sacrifice” we are looking for is only one version – the official version – that has come to define it for us. In the official cult(s), women are never portrayed bringing public offerings on communal and calendrical occasions. Women’s presence at communal sacrificial rites is also secondary. According to Exod 23 and 34 women are either specifically excluded or not required at the pilgrimage feasts. Deuteronomy explicitly includes certain women in the feasts, though it does not portray them as offerers, but only as dependents upon the offerer. It is possible that 74 75

The root can also refer to the entire performance of a zebah. sacrifice or other rituals involving slaughter (Bergman, “z¯abhach,” 11, 13). “Women in the Cult According to the Priestly Code,” 46, n.37.

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wives and mothers are understood to be addressees of the pilgrimage laws, but this is doubtful. This portrayal of men as the primary sacrificial offerers on the occasions of pilgrimage further associates the male with official and public institutions intertwined with sacrificial rites and with the display of material wealth that is enacted in sacrificial rituals. In contrast, biblical texts only explicitly depict women making sacrificial offerings in the private situations of personal vows and purificatory offerings from ritual defilement, thereby further associating them with the private individual. Biblical texts also portray women’s access to sacrificial meat as restricted, compared with men, and any access they have is given through the mediation of men. All people are restricted from eating sacrificial meat when they are ritually unclean; however, because additional and more severe impurity restrictions are imposed on women, they are excluded from the prerogatives of sacrificial worship more often than men. The access of women in the priestly line to sacrificial meat is also highly restricted: they are prevented from consuming the “most holy” offerings, though they can eat from lesser sacred offerings. Once they have left the priestly family, however, they cannot eat of any sacred food. Just as their access to sacrificial food is mediated through the men in their family, ordinary women gain access to the meat of offerings in the pilgrimage feasts through the male head of the family. All of these constructions show men with control over the material wealth of the family in the form of sacrificial animals and the meat they provide. It is possible that in certain forms of sacrifice women slaughtered their own animals, because women are described as performing secular slaughter; however, there is no clear instance of this, at least not as a legitimate activity. To portray women as primary slaughterers, consumers, and apportioners of sacrificial meat would significantly elevate their status to the higher realms of privilege and power that are usually reserved for men. Women are thus either excluded from sacrificial activity or have a lesser role in it due to their secondary status in both society and in the patrilineal system highlighted in official sacrificial worship. Women’s material access to both their own offerings and to other sacrificial meat is mediated through men on whom they are dependent. Women’s exclusion is also due to their reproductive functioning. This takes various forms: the inherent opposition between the structure of pilgrimage and the domestic realm of women, especially on the occasion of childbirth, and the exclusion of women from sacrificial meat and offerings via the increased length and number of impure episodes. Although the practicalities of women’s reproduction and childrearing interfere with these ritual actions, this restriction may be an inherent part and purpose of the ritual structures themselves. This idea is clearest with regard to purity:

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purity is a social and ideological construct. Though it has a correlation with biological reality, it is ideology that drives the selection of which aspects of biology are imperfect and incompatible with the sacred. Therefore, the fact that a woman is incompatible with sacrificial activity while she is menstruating or after bearing a child is a sociological and ideological function of the system itself (see Chapters 3 and 5). Thus, although women’s reproductivity prevents them from sacrificial participation, this prevention is inherent to the form of sacrificial activity as we have it. The biblical texts show that participation in the events, material, and acts associated with sacrifice can be a means of articulating social relationships and exhibiting both social and material power. The ways in which people of both genders are capable of accessing sacrifice are not uniform: they clearly change throughout time and are dependent on a variety of social, physical, and monetary conditions. Furthermore, the structures of sacrifice itself change so that what might be a legitimate form of sacrificial worship at one point does not remain so at another. These changes in gendered access to sacrificial rites both accompany and enact relative levels of social power.

2

 Gender, Animals, and Sacrificial Victimology

Following the structural anthropologist Claude L´evi-Strauss, Howard EilbergSchwartz shows that for the people of ancient Israel, like those of other cultures who live close to nature, animals and vegetation provided “a means for thinking” about human social life and other aspects of human experience.1 Important ideas about the social world played out not only in society itself but also on the materials that intersected with it; the natural world was a mirror that “both reflected Israelite experience of life and served as a model for what Israelite communal and individual life should and could be.”2 The ritual use of animals is an example of what Eilberg-Schwartz calls “the actualization of metaphor.” As he writes, A number of rituals can be interpreted as acting out or living out the implications of those metaphors which dominate Israelite thought. This process . . . is most obvious in the correspondence that one finds between some of the rules regulating the social life of Israel and the rules governing the treatment of livestock and agricultural activity. If the flocks, herds and fields are metaphors for Israelites, then it follows that one should act towards the former in the same way that one acts towards the latter.3

As a primary means of establishing and reinforcing social values, ritual practice emphasizes those behaviors and actions that maintain cultural metaphors. Ritual acts out societal ideals on available material, including animals, so that the society’s treatment of animals becomes an extension of its cultural beliefs. For instance, in most cultures there is no understanding that cattle and donkeys should observe a day of rest (Exod 20:10, 23:12; Deut 5:14) or that a first male baby animal should be slaughtered on the eighth day of its life 1 2 3

The Savage in Judaism, 117. Ibid., 121. Ibid., 122.

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(Exod 22:29–30 [Heb 22:28–29]). However, these laws apply to the animals of the biblical Israelites, who themselves rested on the seventh day and who ritually cut their male children on the eighth day of their lives. As Eilberg-Schwartz shows, such rules undergird the socio-religious world of Israel and are related to larger ideals, such as the definition and boundaries of the community, the image of morality, and the nature of kinship.4 Images from animal life and the natural world not only reflect but also simultaneously contribute to the construction of societal and ritual ideas, affecting their form and also giving them an authority from the ordered natural world. Eilberg-Schwartz’s understanding that cultural “root metaphors” are present in the ritual treatment of animals is helpful for the consideration of societal concepts of gender. Animals are quite good material with which to “think” about gender because many species, like humans but unlike other elements of the natural world, clearly have two different sexes. Moreover, because many animals reproduce in roughly the same way as humans and because the maintenance of domesticated animals requires a close monitoring of their reproduction, the ritual treatment of animals often mirrors concerns about human reproduction and lineage. In some ways, examining the treatment of animals may give a clearer view of abstract ideas about gender than studying rituals about men and women because animals may be thought of and ritually manipulated in a more purely symbolic fashion. They can be easily controlled, and they are unencumbered with many of the complexities of human experience and relationships. In addition, laws about the ritual treatment of animals are not only means for “thinking” about animals but are also ways of being in relationship to animals. These rituals manage some of the difficult aspects of killing, eating, working, and breeding the animals that are vital to the well-being of their owners. The variation in sex selection for victims of animal sacrifice both illustrates and constructs underlying societal ideas about gender. Gender is an intrinsic aspect of victim selection; the legal texts of the Hebrew Bible almost always require or specify the sex of animals intended as victims for specific rites. The priestly writer, for example, frequently instructs that a victim should be a “blemishless male” (z¯ak¯ar t¯amˆım or t¯amˆım z¯ak¯ar; Exod 12:5; Lev 1:3, 10; 4:23; Lev 22:19 [H]) or a “blemishless female” (t˘emˆımˆa n˘eq¯ebˆa or n˘eq¯ebˆa t˘emˆımˆa; Lev 4:28, 32), or it specifically allows the victim to be of either sex (Lev 3:1, 6).5 In other texts the sex of the victim is inherent in the animal chosen, such as a ram, bull, cow, or ewe. Therefore the sex of the victim, along 4 5

See his chapter “Israel in the Mirror of Nature,” in The Savage in Judaism, 115–40. On the importance of blemish in the biblical cultic systems, see Olyan, Rites and Rank, chapter 4.

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with its species, unblemished status, and sometimes its age, is integral to the function of the rite in question as well as to the larger societal concepts that underlie it. The notion that societal gender ideologies may have affected the selection of sacrificial animals was discussed at least as early as Philo. As L´eonie J. Archer shows, in noting that only a male animal could be a whole burnt offering (ʻ¯olˆa), Philo said that the animal “is a male because the male is more complete, more dominant than the female, closer akin to causal activity, for the female is incomplete and in subjection and belongs to the category of the passive rather than the active.”6 In more recent times, Elizabeth Cady Stanton noted in her The Woman’s Bible that “there seems to have been some distinction of sex even in the offerings of male and female animals.” She observed that, although animal husbandry values the female, in the sin offering (h.at..ta¯ ʼt) a sacrifice of a female animal is an indication of the lesser social position of its offerer.7 Clarence J. Vos noted that the biblical sacrificial systems had a preponderance of male animals, and he set out “to determine whether this preference for the male reflects a real antifeminism or only an apparent one.” He concluded that “the paucity of female victims does not suggest per se anything derogatory about the female sex” and that “although the human male (according to Lev 27) was valued more highly than the female, it is not at all certain that this was the case with the male animal in ancient Israel.”8 Many commentators have assumed that the frequent specification of males as victims reflects an assumption of the superior nature of males in general.9 Others offer a more practical explanation; Levine, for example, states, It is not certain why female animals were required for certain offerings and not for others. Most animal sacrifices consisted of males for the probable reason that fewer males than females were necessary to reproduce the herds and flocks. This pattern is common to most ancient Near Eastern religions.10

Levine is probably correct that the material concerns of animal husbandry are the most important factors in victim selection. However, the practical function coincides with and reinforces some of the societal gender concepts 6 7 8 9 10

Spec. I: 200. Cited in Archer, “‘In Thy Blood Live,’” 25–26. The Woman’s Bible (New York: European Pub. Co., 1895; repr. with a foreword by Maureen Fitzgerald; Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993), 80. Clarence J. Vos, Woman in Old Testament Worship (Delft: Brinkman, 1968), 43. E.g., Erhard Gerstenberger, Leviticus (OTL; Louisville, KY: Westminster, 1993), 74; Gordon J. Wenham, Leviticus (NICOT 3; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979), 95, 100. Baruch A. Levine, Leviticus: The JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 25. See too Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (AB3; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 174.

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that we saw in the previous chapter. Males are the primary ritual actors in sacrifice, a fact that helps to correlate sanctification with masculinity. Males are also associated with regular, public, and institutionalized worship; in contrast, females generally have a secondary ritual status, are associated with private individual worship, and are often proscribed from the cultic realm by their reproductive status. Similarly, just as the inclusion or exclusion of women in certain rituals emphasizes the purpose of those rituals, so the exclusion or inclusion of female victims also often affects the function of sacrificial rituals. Yet in other rites, the role of the female is also sometimes difficult to discern because it does not hold significance for the narrator. Thus, although some very practical principles can contribute to the selection of a victim, such as how much meat an animal provides,11 which animal is best slaughtered at a particular time of year, or simply what is available or affordable, these practicalities intersect with societal values to express social concepts through ritual form.

nomenclature Although the gender of victims is meaningful in many sacrificial rites, confusion about nomenclature sometimes complicates the investigation of gender and animals in the Hebrew Bible. Terms for animals and their sex can be unclear in both Biblical Hebrew and English. For example, most Americans generally refer to any bovine as a “cow,” but the precise meaning of this term is that of a female bovine that has given birth.12 Another common English term is “ox,” which technically refers to a male bovine that has been castrated, but also has the more general meaning of “a head of cattle.”13 In English translations of the Bible, the term “ox” is frequently used to refer to one head of cattle, regardless of sex, age, or reproductive status; it is used especially in translation of the term ˇsoˆr.14 Though clearly the general meaning of the term “ox” as a head of cattle is intended in those passages, the word does subtly imply a mature male animal, which would be impossible in certain circumstances, such as in the law of Exod 22:30 [29] where an “ox” can only refer 11

12 13 14

Jameson, “Sacrifice and Animal Husbandry in Classical Greece,” in Pastoral Economies in Classical Antiquity (ed. C. R. Whittaker; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 101; Folkert T. Van Straten, Hiera Kala: Images on Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 181. George Cansdale, Animals of Bible Lands (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1970), 56. The Compact Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 1250. This is especially so for the NJPS and NRSV versions.

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to a mother or a newborn calf.15 Similarly, the use of the term “ox” for work animals in particular16 might imply that these animals were male, though it is clear from many passages that females were frequently used as work animals.17 Furthermore, the term “ox” gives the impression that the animal in question is not only male but also gelded; this is problematic because it is unclear whether gelding was practiced in Israel, even though cultic law forbade it (Lev 22:24). These arguments do not imply that the translations are faulty, but only point out the difficulties of discussing the sex of animals in English translations. In Hebrew, things are not always clearer. Though many sacrificial laws are very specific about the gender of the animal to be sacrificed, that is not always the case in other descriptions of animals. For example, Hebrew has two general terms for cattle, b¯aq¯ar and ˇsoˆr,18 that may describe any head of cattle. Although both of the terms refer to cattle in general, they are also both grammatically masculine and take masculine modifiers. When translators and lexicographers seek out the sex of the animal in question, the grammar may confuse their interpretation or simply be opaque. Some assume erroneously that certain general terms are sex-specific, such as the term ˇsoˆr, which is sometimes translated as “bull” or “bullock” or “young bull,”19 or the term ʻ¯ez, which is listed in the BDB lexicon as “she-goat” but which is most commonly used as a gender-neutral term.20 Therefore, general terms do not always give all the information we would like to know about the sex of animals in the biblical world.21 For the purposes of this study, it is assumed that an animal 15 16 17 18 19

20

21

Ren´e P´eter-Contesse, “pr et ˇswr: Note de lexicographie h´ebra¨ıque,” VT 25 (1975), 493. E.g., NJPS on Deut 22:10; Job 1:14. Num 19:2; Deut 21:3; Judg 14:18; Hos 10:11; Jer 50:11. P´eter-Contesse, “pr et ˇswr,” 486–96. See the sustained critique of KBL in P´eter-Contesse, “pr et ˇswr.” Jacob Milgrom makes the comment that “[i]n biblical Hebrew, animal names that are masculine in form and have no female counterpart denote both sexes” (“Milk and Meat: Unlikely Bedfellows,” in By Study and Also by Faith Vol. 1: Essays in Honor of Hugh W. Nibley on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday [ed. John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks; Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Co., 1990], 148). H.-J. Zobel, “ʻ¯ez” TDOT V: 578; Ren´e P´eter-Contesse, “Quels animaux Israel offrait-il en sacrifice? Etude de lexicographie h´ebra¨ıque,” in Studien zu Opfer und Kult im alten Testament (ed. Adrian Schenker; Tubingen: Mohr, 1992), 72–3. On three occasions, the term refers specifically to female animals because it takes a feminine adjective: Gen. 15:9 and 30:35 and Num 15:27. As P´eter-Contesse has demonstrated (p. 72), on two other occasions the word appears in parallelism to r¯ah.¯el (“ewe,” Gen 31:38; 32:14 [Heb 32:15]) and once in the phrase h.a˘ l¯eb ʻizzˆım (“goats’ milk”; Prov 27:27); however, in the other sixty times it appears, the word is used in a generic way and in parallel to other general terms. The parallel term in Sumerian, ud5 (= Akk. enzu), can refer to either female animals or can be used generically (Daniel C. Snell, “The Rams of Lagash,” ASJ 8 [1986], 137). Similar problems may obtain in Ugaritic ritual texts and their gendered terminology for victims. See Antonine DeGuglielmo, “Sacrifice in the Ugaritic Texts,” CBQ 17 (1988), 94.

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is male if its sex is not specified or is not inherent in any modifiers, because female animals are often specified and because they are more unusual in sacrificial systems. However, it is likely that at some points this assumption is erroneous and that the sex of the animal in question might have been clear to a native speaker of Biblical Hebrew or a practitioner of ancient Israelite sacrifice, though it may not be discernible in the text as it stands.

public and private sacrifice Just as only male humans make public and communal sacrificial offerings, in the final form of the Pentateuch, all animal offerings made at any scheduled, regular time and during a public event should be males.22 These include the “continual” offering (t¯amˆıd) in which two male lambs are offered as burnt offerings every day.23 All offerings made during festival calendars appear to be male,24 such as those made at the raising of the omer,25 Shevuot,26 the Passover offering,27 Sukkot,28 Yom Kippur,29 the New Moon,30 the sabbaths,31 Trumpets,32 and Shemini Atseret.33 Males are the preferred victims not only for observances in the ritual calendars but also for most types of offerings. These specifications are outlined mainly by P in the first seven chapters of the book of Leviticus, but are also occasionally referred to by H and other authors. According to P, only males are 22 23 24

25 26 27

28 29 30 31 32 33

This point is stated by Pesiq. Rab. Kah. 4:8; cf. m. Tem. 2:1, cited in Milgrom, “The Paradox of the Red Cow,” 65, n.9. Exod 29:38–42; Num 28:1–8; cf. Ezek 46:13–15 where only one animal per day is offered. In some of these lists, such as Lev 23:12, 18, 19, and 20, the sex of the victim is not made explicit; the species is listed in its grammatically masculine form, which could indicate a gender-neutral term. I am assuming these victims are male. Lev 23:12 – 1 lamb. Lev 23:18, 19 – 10 lambs, 1 bull, 2 rams, 1 goat buck; but compare Num 28: 27, 30–2 bulls, 1 ram, 7 lambs, 1 buck. The animal(s) slaughtered on Passover varies according to the pentateuchal source. However, all envision the sacrificing of a male animal (Exod 12:5 [P] – a male sheep or goat; Num 28: 19, 22, 24 – 4 calves, 7 rams, 49 lambs, 7 bucks). Deuteronomy 16 only indicates that it may be from either the herd or the flock (v. 2); thus it is possible that Deuteronomy does not distinguish the gender of the offering, yet it is also possible that the preceding section that discusses the mandatory offering of male firstling animals intends this male animal as the Passover offering. In Ezekiel’s vision, the prince should provide 50 bulls, 49 rams, and 7 goat bucks for the feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread and a same amount for Booths (Ezek 45:21–25). Num 29:12–34 – 70 bulls, 14 rams, 98 lambs, 7 bucks. Lev 16:3–11 – 1 bull, 2 rams, 2 bucks; Num 29:8, 11 – 1 bull, 1 ram, 7 lambs, 1 buck. Num 28:11, 15 – 2 bulls, 1 ram, 7 lambs, 1 buck; cf. Ezek (46:6–7) 1 bull, 6 lambs, 1 ram. Num 28:9 – 2 lambs; cf. Ezek 46:4–5 – 6 lambs and 1 ram. Num 29:2, 5 – 1 bull, 1 ram, 7 lambs, 1 buck. Num 29:35 – 1 bull, 1 ram, 7 lambs, 1 buck.

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required as victims of the ʻ¯olˆa (“whole burnt offering”),34 a sacrifice offered in many contexts in which the animal is almost entirely burnt. Males are also the only victims for the ʼ¯aˇsa¯ m offering (“guilt offering,” “penalty offering”)35 : an offering made for violation of cultic materials, for financial wrongdoings, or for unintentional violations of commandments (Lev 5:15–17). The victims vary by gender for the h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering (“sin offering,” “purification offering”), which is offered for a variety of reasons and occasions but commonly to counteract some impurity or wrongdoing. The offering must be male when it is offered by either the priests or a leader or the entire congregation (Lev 4:3, 14, 22–23: Num 15:23, 24). A common person, however, brings a female (Lev 4:28; Num 15:27). In general, the ˇs˘el¯amˆım (“peace offering,” “gift offering”), which is the offering from which lay people eat, is not limited to either sex (Lev 3:1, 6) though in the cultic calendar and other specifically public rituals the animal required as a ˇs˘el¯amˆım seems to be male.36 Both the ʻ¯olˆa and the “graduated” h.at..ta¯ ʼt allow birds in lieu of an animal if the offerer cannot afford one (Lev 1:14–17; 5:7–10); the graduated h.at..ta¯ ʼt also allows for a meal offering if birds are too expensive (5:11–12).37 Birds seem to be considered genderless in the sacrificial system because their sex is never mentioned or specified. In the priestly legal texts, therefore, male animals appear to be the only offerings for regular or public sacrifices,38 whereas female animals are only specifically required for the private sin offering of a commoner and are otherwise only permissible as ˇs˘el¯amˆım offerings. This distinction mirrors the gender pattern found among human participants in which males are required to attend and bring offerings to corporate and national public sacrificial rituals, whereas females are not so required (or where it is unclear). Just as women made personal offerings, so female animals are only required for the personal sacrifices of a private person, not a priest or lay leader. In this way, the male animal, like the male person, is related to the public, patrilineal, corporate body, whereas the female can at times represent the private individual. 34 35 36 37

38

Lev 1:3; 22:18–19 (H). Lev 5:15, 18; 6:6 [Heb 5:25]. E.g., Lev 9:4, 18; 23:19 (H); Num 6:14; 7:17, 23, 29, 35, 41, 47, 53, 59, 65, 71, 77, 83, 88. Lev 5:1–13 presents the rules for when the h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering should be offered and then presents substitutions for the offering if the offerer cannot afford a sheep, goat, or birds. Milgrom argues that the offering discussed in this passage is a distinct offering for a distinct set of offenses (listed in vv. 1–4), whereas other commentators understand it to be an extension of the offerings described in Lev 4 that makes accommodations for the commoner who cannot afford the offerings required in 4:27–35. For his argument and a review of others see his Leviticus 1–16, 307–18. Ibid., 176.

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gender and hierarchy in priestly offerings ¯ a ʻOlˆ Variations in the gender of sacrificial victims can also illustrate differences in relative levels of sanctity and cultic status. For example, just as only men are able to hold the leadership positions of priest and high priest, manipulate blood and burn fat on an altar, and eat of the holiest of holy offerings, so also in the priestly and holiness texts only male animals are found in the most elite realms of ritual activity. This appears most strikingly in the gender construction of the ʻ¯olˆa sacrifice, which, for P and H, has only male victims (Lev 1:3; 22:18–19). The ʻ¯olˆa is not consumed by any individuals, but is almost entirely burned for the deity (Lev 1:3; 22:19). Most of the animal is devoted to the flames except for its blood, which goes to the altar (Lev 1:5, 11, 15); its dung, which is washed off (1:9, 13, 16); and its hide, which belongs to the officiating priest (Lev 7:8). The exclusion of the female animal from the ʻ¯olˆa sacrifice, arguably the most important and prestigious offering, also reflects the exclusion of the female from the highest levels of sanctity and most prestigious aspects of cultic participation. Jacob Milgrom argues that, as the oldest and paradigmatic expiatory sacrifice, the ʻ¯olˆa offering set the precedent for the general offering of male victims for public rites.39 It may be, however, that traditions outside of P and H had a different ideology concerning females as ʻ¯olˆot. Although they are not common, female animals are mentioned as victims of the ʻ¯olˆa sacrifice. For example, in the story in 1 Sam 6 of the return of the ark from Philistia, the Philistines transport the ark to the Israelite territory of Beth-shemesh on a cart pulled by two milking cows that had been torn away from their newborn calves (1 Sam 6:7–14).40 When the Beth-shemeshites see that the ark has returned to Israelite territory, they offer up the pair of cows as ʻ¯olˆot on a fire made from the wood of the cart that they had pulled.41 In the story, the female aspect of the animals is most important: these cows were specifically chosen to carry the ark as an indication that only the divine could break the bond 39 40

41

Ibid., 176. The LXX has a varying description of the two cows in v.7. Instead of describing the animals as “two milking cows (i.e., nursing cows) who have never borne the yoke” (ˇs˘ettȇ p¯arˆot ʻ¯alˆot ʼ˘aˇser l¯oʼ-ʻ¯alˆa ʻ˘alȇhem ʻ¯ol) as the MT does, it calls them “two firstborn cows without their young (duo boas pr¯ototokousas aneu t¯on tekn¯on)”; an alternative translation of the Greek is “two cows, that have calved for the first time, without their young” (LXX). 1 Sam 6:14–15, 18 exhibit some confusion as to whether the cows were slaughtered on the rock as an altar or whether the ark was placed on the rock by the Levites. See McCarter, I Samuel, 136.

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between mothers and their children by making the cows leave their calves for a faraway place. In that story, it is unclear whether the Philistines ultimately intended for the cows to be sacrificial victims, yet the sex of the animals as ʻ¯olˆot is not problematic for either the Beth-shemeshites or the author of the text. However, even though there is no direct commentary on these female victims by the narrator, the people of Beth-shemesh ultimately suffer divine punishment for their celebration and treatment of the ark (6:19). Their specific fault is not clear, but it is related to improper worship, because the ark is then sent to Kiriath-jearim where a properly consecrated priest safely cares for it (6:21– 7:1). Thus, although it is unclear which aspects of the ritual action taken by the people of Beth-shemesh are illicit, the slaughter of these females as ʻ¯olˆot may be part of their improper behavior that earns divine wrath. Thus, it may be that the authors of 1 Sam 6 held different sacrificial gender schemes than P and H, or it may be that the ritual treatment of the cows was not deemed legitimate. Similarly, in Judg 11, Jephthah sacrifices his daughter as a vow in the form of an ʻ¯olˆa (11:31, 39).42 Although the story of the daughter of Jephthah may violate the pentateuchal bans on human sacrifice and was clearly intended to be a disturbing story, there is nothing at all in the narrative that indicates a female is an illegitimate ʻ¯olˆa for the deity that gave Jephthah his military victories. However, the authors of this work, as well as later tradition surrounding it, are ambivalent about the propriety of Jephthah’s sacrifice. On the one hand, it is efficacious and through fate seems required by the deity; on the other, the writers do not applaud it, nor is it remembered as a pious act by tradition. Like the offering of the two milk cows in 1 Sam 6, the sacrifice of the daughter of Jephthah permits a female as an ʻ¯olˆa, yet these two spontaneous rituals are not unambiguous. They may indicate that a female was an acceptable victim, or they may be comments on the illegitimacy of the rites; perhaps, they reflect both viewpoints. According to every biblical source, the ʻ¯olˆa is designated for the deity alone. Human beings do not eat any part of an ʻ¯olˆa offering; not even the priests may eat of it, though they may retain its hide for their own use (Lev 7:8). It is the only offering whose flesh is burned on an altar; all other animal flesh is either eaten or destroyed outside of sacred space. In the priestly rite of the ʻ¯olˆa, the complete devotion of the male animal’s flesh to the sacred realm correlates the male form with the sacred. The lack of female victims in the 42

See Chapter 6 for further discussion of the story and child sacrifice.

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priestly construction of the rite, and possibly in larger sacrificial ideology, also expresses the exclusion of the female form from the divine.

ˇ el¯amˆım S˘ In contrast, in the priestly and holiness schema, the ˇs˘el¯amˆım offering (“peace offering,” “gift of greeting,”43 “well-being offering,” “communal offering”; also called zebah. or zebah. ˇs˘el¯amˆım) may be either male or female (Lev 3:1, 6). The ˇs˘el¯amˆım is not completely devoted to the deity; only its fat, kidneys, and lobe of the liver are burned (3:3–5; 9–16). In the priestly and holiness systems, the ˇs˘el¯amˆım was the laity’s main form of eating the meat of domesticated animals. However, in the process of centralizing worship, Deuteronomy de-sanctifies the eating and slaughter of most ˇs˘el¯amˆım offerings. Should worshipers wish to slaughter and eat meat outside of the “holy place,” they may consider the killing of domesticated animals to be the same as wild animals. They are not required to treat the animal in any ritual way aside from disposing its blood into the ground (Deut 12:15–27). Outside of D, ˇs˘el¯amˆım sacrifice is often a private and sporadic offering made according to the needs and preferences of individuals and families. The flexibility of the victim’s gender, as well as its species, correlates with the varying options and necessities for managing herds or purchasing animals for slaughter. However, ˇs˘el¯amˆım offerings are also required on specific ritual occasions, such as on feast days or as part of a larger ritual complex. In those more public situations the animals seem to be male, although the grammar in the texts describing those occasions is opaque.44 The instructive ritual calendars seem 43 44

Baruch A. Levine, “In the Presence of the Lord”: A Study of Cult and Some Cultic Terms in Ancient Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1974), 42–3. However, in an important non-P narrative, a female animal is a prominent ˇs˘el¯amˆım victim. In 1 Sam 16 Yahweh commands Samuel to go and select one of the sons of Jesse to be the next king of Israel. When Samuel worries about the pretense under which he should go, Yahweh instructs him to “take a heifer (ʻeglat b¯aq¯ar) with you, and say, ‘I came to sacrifice to Yahweh’” (lizb¯oah. lyhwh b¯aʼtˆı; 16:2). The heifer would thus seem to be a normal victim for a sacrificial meal (i.e., ˇs˘el¯amˆım; here called zebah.) and would not cause any consternation at this momentous event, because this occasion, despite its importance, is a private sacrifice intended as a meal. Similarly, although it is unclear whether the covenant ceremony between Yahweh and Abraham in Gen 15:9–21 contains an actual offering per se, that ceremony specifically includes female victims. God instructs Abraham to bring a three-year-old heifer (ʻeglˆa m˘eˇsulleˇset), a three-year-old female goat (ʻ¯ez m˘eˇsulleˇset), a three-year-old ram (ʼayil m˘eˇsull¯aˇs) a turtledove, and a pigeon for the ceremony (15:9). It is difficult to know the significance of these particular animals, but clearly the females are important to the ceremony. This fact is especially pronounced in comparison with the covenant ceremony in Exod 24, where the offerings and the blood of the covenant seem to be from male cattle. The term used there is p¯arˆım (24:5). The covenant

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to prescribe males as ˇs˘el¯amˆım victims (Lev 23:19; Num 7:17, 23ff.). Similarly, the ˇs˘el¯amˆım offered by the nazirite at his or her decommissioning seem to be male (Num 6:14, 17). Therefore, P and H never prescribe an explicitly female ˇs˘el¯amˆım offering in any specific ritual setting. Interestingly, H avoids mentioning female animals in its law on ˇs˘el¯amˆım, but a careful reading shows that they are permitted: Leviticus 22:19 specifies that any ʻ¯olˆa offering must be a male without blemish, yet 22:21 states only that a ˇs˘el¯amˆım must be blemishless, not that it must be male. In any case, for the private individual, both P and H are less restrictive in both the species and sex of the ˇs˘el¯amˆım victim than they are for any other offering. In the private setting, gender restrictions for both humans and animals are eased. Unlike other offerings in the priestly configuration, the ˇs˘el¯amˆım is shared among priests, the deity, and the laity. The priests have portions of the breast and right thigh (Exod 29:26–28; Lev 7:30–34; 10:14), whereas, as with all other priestly sacrifices, the fat, kidneys, and liver lobe of the ˇs˘el¯amˆım are offered on the altar to the deity. The offerer retains the rest of the meat to share with every clean person of the household. Females of both the priestly line and the laity may eat of the ˇs˘el¯amˆım as long as they, like everyone else, are ritually pure (Lev 7:19–21). Females of the priestly line eat from the priests’ share of the breast and shoulder, but do not eat other sacrificial meat aside from this portion and the firstborn animals tithed to the priests (Num 18:11–19). The less gender-restricted nature of the ˇs˘el¯amˆım victim mirrors the more genderinclusive nature of those who consume it: female animals may be victims and female humans may eat them.

“Most Holy” Offerings In contrast to the less restrictive ˇs˘el¯amˆım, three other kinds of offerings may only be consumed by priestly males: the holiest offerings (q¯odeˇs q˘od¯aˇsˆım) of the grain offering (minh.aˆ ), the guilt offering (ʼ¯aˇsa¯ m), and the “eaten” purification offering (h.at..ta¯ ʼt).45 These three offerings either convey holiness to all who touch them or require all who touch them to already be holy (k¯ol ʼ˘aˇser-yiggaʻ b¯ahem yiqd¯aˇs; Lev 6:18 [Heb 11]). Because only the priests may eat them, the act of consuming these offerings sets the priests and their

45

with Abraham, though it results in a community, is in the end a private and personal rite for an individual with the deity. It should also be noted that Jer 34:18–20, which alludes to the ceremony in Gen 15, or one similar to it, refers to the animal cut in half as an ʻegel, the masculine form of “calf,” not ʻeglˆa, and thereby either redefines the animal involved, envisions a different one, or is unconcerned with its sex. Lev 2:3, 10; 6:17–18 [6:10–11], 25 [6:18], 29 [22]; 7:1, 6; 10:17; 14:13; Num 18:8–10; Ezek 42:13; cf. Ezra 2:63; Neh 7:65. For further discussion of h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings see Chapter 4.

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lineage apart from the laity; yet because only priestly males may eat them, these offerings separate the males of the priestly family from the females. Whereas the grain offering, obviously, is not a sexed offering, the ʼ¯aˇsa¯ m and h.at..ta¯ ʼt sacrifices have sex-specific victims. These two offerings are commonly understood to be later forms of sacrifice instituted by the priestly school. Rams are the proper victims for ʼ¯aˇsa¯ m sacrifices, which are offered as penalties for infringement on sancta (maʻal), for breaking other commandments without realizing it (biˇsg¯agˆa), or for certain economic misdeeds (Lev 5:15–6:7 [5:15– 26]). The ʼ¯aˇsa¯ m ram, however, can be converted into currency (5:15, 18; 6:6 [25]). It is difficult to know the significance of the gender of the ʼ¯aˇsa¯ m or the reason that a ram is the proper victim for such penalties. It may be that the association with sancta would require a male, or it is possible that male animals could be understood to be themselves a type of currency, as in some parts of present-day Asia and Africa.46 The specific association of this gendered offering with money may be the reason for its selection, though this is far from certain. The h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings have the most complicated schema of victims and construe the sex of victims in a more explicitly symbolic fashion. Whereas in the ʻ¯olˆa sacrifice and the graduated h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering (Lev 5:1–13) the victim may vary based on the economic means of the offerer, and the ʼ¯aˇsa¯ m allows currency to be offered instead of the beast as a matter of convenience, the law of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt in Lev 4 (and Num 15:22–3147 ) is unique in that the choice of victim depends on the character and social status (not the wealth) of the offerer. When a priest must bring a h.at..ta¯ ʼt on his own behalf, he brings a male head of cattle (Lev 4:3).48 If the offering is the responsibility of the entire 46 47

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Cansdale, Animals of Bible Lands, 51. For an overview of the relationship between Lev 4 and Num 15:22–31, see Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 264–69; Jonathan P. Burnside, The Signs of Sin: Seriousness of Offense in Biblical Law (JSOTSupp 364; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003), 158–59; Israel Knohl, “The SinOffering Law in the ‘Holiness School’ (Numbers 15:22–31),” in Priesthood and Cult in Ancient Israel (ed. G. A. Anderson and S. Olyan; JSOTSup 125; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 192–203. It is unclear whether the priest referred to here is any priest or the high priest alone. The term here is “the anointed priest” (hakk¯oh¯en hamm¯aˇsˆıah.), a term that could refer to either because both are anointed with oil (Lev 8:30), though the high priest has this oil poured over his head (Lev 8:12; 21:10). The priests are called the “anointed priests” in Num 3:3, but the fact of the definite article in Lev 4 (i.e., “the anointed priest”) may indicate that only the high priest is intended, as is the case in Lev 6:22 [15] (cf. 16:32). In other descriptions the high priest is also referred to as hakk¯oh¯en hagg¯adˆol (“the great priest”; Lev 21:10; Num 35:25). See Burnside, The Signs of Sin, 166, and Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 231 for discussion. For our purposes, the difference is not significant unless priests that are not the high priest are included among the “people of the land,” that is, as commoners who offer female animals. It seems unlikely that a passage concerned with cultic and social status would treat priests like commoners; it is more likely that the title refers to any priest. An alternative, suggested by Burnside, is that if

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congregation, they bring the same kind of animal (Lev 4:14) or, according to Num 15, a male goat as a h.at..ta¯ ʼt, with a bull as an ʻ¯olˆa offering (Num 15:24). If the offerer is a political leader of the people (n¯a´sˆıʼ), he must bring a male goat (Lev 4:22–23). An ordinary person (nepeˇs ʼah.at m¯eʻam h¯aʼ¯ares.) brings a female sheep (Lev 4:32) or female goat (Lev 4:28; Num 15:27).49 The law of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt thus uses the gender and species of its victims to make explicit the social status of its offerers. The correspondence of species to the offerer may have something to do with different social groups being associated with particular animals,50 or with the prestige of each kind of animal corresponding to the prestige of the offerer,51 or with the relative cost of the animals. With regard to gender, the female animal corresponds to the common person, whereas the male animal is offered by more socially prominent individuals. Therefore in the sacrificial system in Lev 4 and Num 15, the female must be regarded as the inferior animal. Archer’s quotation from Philo on this topic outlines this scheme clearly: [F]or the sins of the commoner, one still more inferior in kind, a female offering instead of a male, that is, a she-goat. For it was proper that in matters of sacrifice the ruler should fare better than the commoner and the nation than the ruler, since the whole should always be superior to the part.52

Regardless of any metaphysical way a victim may have been thought to substitute for, atone for, or otherwise affect the well-being of its offerer, the h.at..ta¯ ʼt victim also enacts social identity. The victimology of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt indicates in a most concrete way that the female is cultically and socially inferior. Conversely, inferiority can be symbolized by femininity. This symbolism also constructs the definition of maleness for a man who is not a priest or a leader.

49 50 51 52

this passage does refer only to the high priest, the other priests are excluded from the schema presented in Lev. 4. The victim for this offering may be either a male calf or a bull. The meaning of the term par ben-b¯aq¯ar is disputed. Most scholars agree that the term par specifically refers to an adult bull. The more problematic phrase ben b¯aq¯ar may be either a simple determinative denoting the species of the animal (P´eter-Contesse, “pr et ˇswr,” 492), a qualifier indicating a domesticated animal (Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 232), or a term meaning a young animal (B. Beck, “b¯aq¯ar” in TDOT II: 214). In Lev 9:2, the phrase is parallel to the word ʻegel, which is usually translated “calf.” Because the female form ʻeglˆa can clearly denote an animal up to at least three years old, as in Gen 15:9, it is unclear that the term actually means “calf.” It is possible that P most often uses ben-b¯aq¯ar as a circumlocution for that term, associating ʻegel with the illicit shrines at Dan and Bethel (Beck, “b¯aq¯ar,” 216). Num 15:27 adds “in its first year” ʻ¯ez bat-ˇs˘en¯at¯ah. See Patrick Miller, “Animal Names as Designations in Ugaritic and Hebrew,” UF 2 (1970): 177–86. Burnside, The Signs of Sin, 160, 176. Spec. I:226, cited in Archer, “‘In Thy Blood Live,’” 25.

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Having a female victim as one’s symbol reveals that a common man is not only socially inferior but also that he is less “male” than the man represented by a male animal. The h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering enacts gender hierarchy in other ways. Despite the fourfold distinction among offerers and their victims, there are two basic kinds of h.at..ta¯ ʼt outlined in Lev 4. One kind is the “burnt” h.at..ta¯ ʼt, which is offered by the priest or the congregation as a whole and which has a bull as its victim (4:3–21). The blood from this offering is taken into the outer room of the tent of meeting, sprinkled seven times on the curtain in front of the adytum (the holy of holies), and applied to the incense altar there. The remaining blood is taken outside to the entrance of the tent and poured out at the base of the altar of burnt offerings. The body of this victim is burned: the fat (along with the kidneys and lobe of the liver) is burned on the altar of burnt offerings in the forecourt, and the rest of the body is taken outside the entire camp, to a clean place where it is completely burned (Lev 4:5–12, 16–21). No one may eat its flesh.53 The second kind of h.at..ta¯ ʼt is the “eaten” h.at..ta¯ ʼt, which is offered by the secular leader, whose victim is a male goat, or by a member of the laity, whose victim is a female goat or sheep. The blood of these offerings does not enter into the tent to be applied to the incense altar, nor is it sprinkled on the curtain of the adytum. Instead it remains outside the tent of meeting where it is applied to the altar of burnt offerings in the forecourt. As with the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt, the fat, the fat lobe of the liver, and the kidneys of this offering are burned on the altar of burnt offerings, and the remainder of the blood is poured out at the altar’s base. However, instead of being burned outside the camp, the flesh of these victims is eaten by the male priests. The eating of the meat is an important element of the rite; the priests eat the meat “to bear iniquity for the congregation, to make atonement for them” (l¯a´s¯eʼt ʼet-ʻ˘av¯on h¯aʻ¯edˆa l˘ekapp¯er ʻ˘alȇhem; Lev 10:17). The manner in which this eating makes atonement is a matter of debate.54 However, the priests’ differentiated status is shown in that they eat the flesh of the lay h.at..ta¯ ʼt, whereas their own h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings may not be eaten. Jacob Milgrom argues that the purpose of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt sacrifice is to purge the sanctuary of impurities and sins that have adhered there and thus offended its deity.55 He further claims that the areas in which the blood from the various 53 54 55

Like the h.at..ta¯ ʼt offered by a priest, so a grain offering (minh.aˆ ) offered by a priest cannot be consumed by any humans and must be burned (Lev 6:23 [16]). See Chapter 4. Leviticus, 1–16, 254–61; “Israel’s Sanctuary: The Priestly ‘Picture of Dorian Gray,’” RB 83 (1976): 390–99. Repr. Studies in Cultic Theology and Terminology, 75–84.

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h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings is taken correspond to the places where the respective sins or impurities have adhered.56 The “eaten” h.at..ta¯ ʼt thus cleanses impurities that have remained in the outer part of the sacred precincts; the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt cleanses those that have penetrated into the tent of meeting. In addition, special h.at..ta¯ ʼt rites are performed on Yom Kippur to counteract intentional sins that penetrate all the way into the adytum or holy of holies. Two male goats, who together are called a h.at..ta¯ ʼt, have lots cast over them so that one is sent away from the camp and one is slaughtered (Lev 16:5). A bull is also offered as another h.at..ta¯ ʼt for Aaron and his family (16:3, 6, 11). Once a year the high priest alone enters the holy of holies and daubs the blood of the bull and the slaughtered goat on the cover or “mercy seat” of the ark. Thus once yearly, blood from a burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt cleanses the innermost, holiest part of the sanctuary. Other scholars have offered contrasting explanations for the h.at..ta¯ ʼt sacrifice or modified Milgrom’s conception of the mechanism of cleansing. They debate whether the blood purifies the offerer instead of the sanctuary or whether it purifies both.57 The question of how h.at..ta¯ ʼt blood was thought to enact atonement and purification seems unanswerable.58 However, following the argument of Gilders, it seems clear that the blood rites of these offerings help demarcate various areas of ritual space and create hierarchy by limiting access to these spaces.59 Regardless of the meaning of each offering, the blood correlates holy space with the socio-cultic status of the offerer.60 Therefore, in this scheme, the blood of the commoner’s and lay leader’s h.at..ta¯ ʼt marks a less holy space because the blood remains only in the forecourt and does not enter either the adytum or the tent. In contrast, the blood from the animals offered by the priest and the whole congregation is brought closer to the holy by coming into the tent of meeting and being applied on the altar there. The blood that marks the more sacred space inside the tent is that from the male offerings of the priest and the whole congregation, whereas the blood from animals of both sexes marks off the less holy space. Additionally, the blood that enters the adytum on Yom Kippur is the blood of a male animal. Thus, 56 57

58 59 60

Leviticus 1–16, 261–64; “The Two Kinds of h.at..ta¯ ʼt,” VT 26 (1976): 333–37. Repr. Studies in Cultic Theology and Terminology, 70–74. Zohar (“Repentance and Purification: The Significance and Semantics of h.at..ta¯ ʼt in the Pentateuch,” JBL 107 [1988]: 609–18) argues that h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings cleanse the offerer and not the sanctuary; Gane (Cult and Character: Purification Offerings, Day of Atonement, and Theodicy; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005) argues that the h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings that occur year-round, such as those described in Lev 4 and Num 15, only cleanse the offerer, in contrast to the h.at..ta¯ ʼˆot offered on Yom Kippur that cleanse the sanctuary. See now Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus, 80–81. Gilders, Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible, 117. Ibid., 111.

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maleness alone correlates with the upper realms of sanctity and proximity to the deity, but the presence of the female creates a less sacred space.61 Nonetheless, despite the fact that the female contributes to the enactment of a lesser cultic status and demarcates a less holy space, the female animal victim is still the proper victim for an offering considered to be of the holiest sort: the q¯odeˇs q˘od¯aˇsˆım. Moreover, the female animal in question is called t˘emˆımˆa, the feminine form of t¯amˆım, meaning “without blemish,” “whole,” or “perfect.” Though it is generally hierarchically inferior to male victims, in some way the female can still be understood to be perfect and appropriate cultic material in certain situations. A person must bring a h.at..ta¯ ʼt sacrifice in some specific situations of impurity described by P, such as after childbirth or recovery from skin or genital disease. However, in these cases the person is not described as bringing a female animal, but only a bird. Whereas the person recovering from skin disease may substitute birds for the ʻ¯olˆa of a male lamb and for the ewe of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt, the person recovering from genital illness is never obliged to bring a ewe or she-goat as a h.at..ta¯ ʼt, but only birds (15:14–15, 29–30). Neither is the parturient, who must only bring a bird as a h.at..ta¯ ʼt, with a male lamb as an ʻ¯olˆa. If she cannot afford a lamb, she can bring two birds, one as an ʻ¯olˆa and one as a h.at..ta¯ ʼt.62 Thus, interestingly, a person who has a sexual or reproductive impurity is never specifically said to bring a female animal as a h.at..ta¯ ʼt victim, but instead brings a less prominent and less expensive offering. Moreover, the only required offerings for healthy women are for reproductive impurities, for which they offer only birds as h.at..ta¯ ʼt victims. The offering of birds for sexual and reproductive impurities may enact a lower status for that type of impure person than for the person who brings a h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering for another reason.

 to summarize this section, the schemes of sacrificial victims envisioned by P and H prioritize maleness by correlating it visually, spatially, and socially with higher realms of authority and sanctity, as well as with the public and communal. In the ʻ¯olˆa sacrifice, which is devoted almost entirely 61

62

This restriction of the female to the outer areas of ritual space works similarly to that of the second temple, in which women could only remain in the “court of women” and could not enter into the inner two courts, which were restricted to men, with the innermost court restricted to the priests. For discussion, see Archer, “Notions of Community,” 59. As mentioned earlier, the expense of an animal as a h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering can in some situations be reduced by offering less expensive birds or grain (Lev 5:7–13). These latter offerings are no less efficacious than the more expensive quadrupeds, but it is unclear whether they can substitute for the goat or sheep in all cases or only in those outlined in Lev 5:2–4.

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to the deity, the victim must be a male, thus correlating male flesh with the sacred. This correlation may not be the case in nonpriestly systems. The ˇs˘el¯amˆım offering, which is primarily food for the laity, is far less restrictive with regard to the gender and species of animals, thus mirroring its function as food for any clean person, male or female. However, the victims of ˇs˘el¯amˆım offered in public calendrical occasions appear to be male. The h.at..ta¯ ʼt sacrifice has a highly gendered scheme, with male animals correlating with the most sacred holy space, the public community, and hierarchically prominent characters. Female victims correlate with lesser sacred space, private offerings, and lesser social status. The h.at..ta¯ ʼt rite also distinguishes the priests from the laity, as do the grain offering and the guilt offering, by being permitted as food to only male priests. In addition, a h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering by priests may not be eaten at all, whereas the offering from the laity is eaten by the priests, indicating their superior status. It should be noted that, as with the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt of the high priest, any offerings made by priests are required to be male, as must all animals offered in consecration rites for the investitures of the priests (Exod 29:1ff.; Lev 8:2ff.; Lev 9:2–4 ff.) and the Levites (Num 8:8). The exclusive use of male animals for sacrificial activities on their behalf further correlates them with privilege and holiness.

gender and animal husbandry Although female animals play an important symbolic role in the h.at..ta¯ ʼt sacrifice, and are permissible for sacrifices for eating meat (that is, the ˇs˘el¯amˆım offerings), female animals are not common offerings. As with women, who are often excluded from public ritual due to their reproductive and childrearing responsibilities, the general reproductive work of female animals precludes them from being ideal ritual material. An explanation of this statement requires a brief excursus on the basics of animal husbandry and the ways in which animals are generally raised. Cross-culturally, animals regularly offered in sacrifice are usually from domesticated species, not wild animals.63 This fact is eminently clear in biblical law: only animals raised by Israelites are used in sacrificial rites. Wild animals are treated differently; the only ritual observance of wild animals is that some are forbidden (Lev 11; Deut 14:3–19) and those that are acceptable must have their blood removed (Lev 17:3; Deut 12:16, 23–25). As mentioned earlier, when Deuteronomy secularizes sacrifice, it states that domesticated animals are now to be treated like wild ones: they are no longer subject to sacrificial rituals and 63

Jonathan Z. Smith, “The Domestication of Sacrifice.”

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restrictions of purity, but must merely have their blood poured out on the ground as a wild but clean animal would (12:15–16, 20–25). The Bible presents the Israelites regularly domesticating four main species of mammal: cattle, sheep, goats, and equids, usually donkeys. Of these, only the first three are presented as raised for meat; they are also the main sacrificial animals. Donkeys appear to be used only for work. Though biblical laws sometimes discuss them in relationship to sacrifice, equids are not considered proper sacrificial victims. For instance, laws on firstborn animals state that a firstborn male donkey is not to be offered like other livestock, but must be redeemed, like a person (Exod 13:13; 34:20; cf. Num 18:16). Cattle, although they were eaten and milked, were probably kept much more rarely than goats and sheep and were used primarily for work.64 Cattle can be extremely expensive and difficult to maintain, especially because they require large amounts of water,65 a scarce commodity in many parts of Syria-Palestine. Throughout history, the goat seems to have been the main milk-producing animal in the Levant;66 sheep were bred for their wool especially, but for their meat and milk as well. Birds too were kept, but the biblical text considers only the turtledove and the pigeon to be proper sacrificial victims.67 The reason for this selection is not clear. In the ancient world, as now, flocks and herds are kept for three main purposes: to provide meat, milk, and wool or hair. The gender, age ratios, and numbers in a herd vary depending on which of these three products is most desired. In a milk-producing strategy, very young males are culled and females are encouraged to reproduce often. To raise the most meat, young males are also killed, but only after they reach a suitable weight as juveniles. In a wool/hair-producing strategy, females reproduce less often and males are allowed to survive to adulthood, though most are castrated.68 Subsistence farming emphasizes milk as its primary product, though wool/hair/skins and meat are important commodities as well. This focus on milk production occurs because a female animal produces in milk up to six times the amount of calories of her edible body weight, providing far more food for her owners in milk than meat.69 Furthermore, these calories do not have to be eaten 64 65 66 67 68 69

Edwin Firmage, “Zoology,” ABD VI: 1129; so it was in Mesopotamia, I. J. Gelb, “The Growth of a Herd of Cattle in Ten Years,” JCS 21 (1967), 68. Michael H. Jameson, “Sacrifice and Animal Husbandry in Classical Greece,” 24. Firmage, “Zoology,” 1128. See, though, Watts, who argues that the birds used in sacrifice were a form of chicken (Leviticus, forthcoming). Sebastian Payne, “Kill-Off Patterns in Sheep and Goats: The Mandibles from As¸van Kale,” Anatolian Studies 23 (1973), 281. Jameson, “Sacrifice and Animal Husbandry in Classical Greece,” 103.

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on a single occasion, as does meat, a feature that is important for societies without refrigeration.70 Offspring can be slaughtered for meat, sold for other commodities, or kept for the replenishment of the herd. For subsistence farming, then, female animals are of greater use and economic gain to their owners than males, at least while they are alive. Because female animals produce offspring and what Carol J. Adams calls the “feminized protein”71 of eggs and milk, it does not make good economic sense to slaughter them until they are past their reproductive peak, at around seven or eight years of age.72 However, females who prove to be infertile, usually after two unsuccessful mating seasons, are slaughtered. It is therefore likely that the female h.at..ta¯ ʼt victim for the commoner was a sterile, aged, or very young animal. The female is then a less valuable victim, both symbolically according to social gender schemes and materially, because it would be smaller than a male.73 However, the text does not clearly indicate the reproductive status of

70

71 72 73

E. L. Ochsenschlager notes the complex web of social relations created by the sharing of excess meat in twentieth-century Iraq (“Sheep: Ethnoarchaeology at Al-Hiba,” Bulletin of Sumerian Agriculture 7 [1993], 38; see too Paul Halstead, “Banking on Livestock: Indirect Storage in Greek Agriculture,” 66, in the same volume). Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (New York: Continuum, 1990), 21. Oded Borowski, Every Living Thing: Daily Use of Animals in Ancient Israel (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 1998), 57 and the literature cited there. In contrast, Jacob Milgrom suggests that the reason a commoner would be required to offer a female victim is that the commoner would be most likely to have female animals in his possession. In his commentary on Leviticus, Milgrom asks the question: “Why is the female, the more valuable animal, required of the commoner, whereas the male, of less worth, is required of the chieftain?” (Leviticus 1–16, 252). His answer is that “a commoner, particularly a poor one, is likely to keep only female animals, which provide sustenance, and only if he could afford it would he retain a single male for breeding. The chieftain, by contrast, could well afford to keep several males in his flock.” On the surface, this argument makes a great deal of sense. An average person, such as the fictional ewe owner in Nathan’s parable (2 Sam 12 1–18), might not own any male animals and would therefore only give what he had. This may offer a better explanation for the allowable use of females as ˇs˘el¯amˆım offerings, where one might offer whatever one had on hand. However, this solution does not seem applicable for a h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering that requires a female. It seems to preclude any possibility that one might be able to barter a female for a male or purchase a male by some other means. Indeed, earlier in the same volume Milgrom argues that the temple kept flocks from which sacrificial animals could be purchased because of the innovation of the private h.at..ta¯ ʼt with its female victim (177). The worshiper might not know that females were now required for expiation, and so the priests had to provide a means for exchanging a male for a female. Thus Milgrom’s rationale for the female victim is unlikely. In some Neo-Babylonian contracts there appears to be a distinct group of female animals that were sold for meat once they were too old for breeding (van Driel, “Neo-Babylonian Sheep and Goats,” 232). At various points in ancient Greece, pregnant animals were considered to be the most expensive, whereas nonpregnant females were most inexpensive (Van Straten Hiera Kala, 182–85). Milgrom, (“Sacrifices and Offerings,” 156), reports that the Hittites believed any female used for sacrifice must be a virgin.

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this victim, and if it were fertile, it might be a more valuable animal. Females were rarely sterilized, though there is some evidence that some ancient peoples occasionally spayed female pigs, camels, and equids.74 In subsistence-level farming, because of their ability to produce milk and reproduce, female animals receive better care, shelter, and food and enjoy a substantially longer life-span than male animals. In contrast to the patrilocal social organization of ancient Israel, domesticated flocks and herds are organized into fairly permanent gatherings of females, with males regularly entering and leaving the group. Some owners have long and caring relationships with their female animals, as represented, for example, in Nathan’s parable of the poor shepherd who bought a beloved ewe lamb that “grew up with him, together with his sons; it ate from his portion and drank from his cup and lay in his bosom – it was, for him, like a daughter” (2 Sam 12:3).75 The role of female animals as mothers is also part of their persona. Common images depicted on protection charms and other ancient Near Eastern art are the mother cow with its calf, usually with the calf suckling, but sometimes being deprived of its milk while the cow cries.76 The place of mother animals in the laws of sacrifice is the topic of the next chapter. In subsistence-level farming especially, very few male animals are allowed to survive to adulthood. In some herds there is only one fully grown male, a stud of choice stock, along with many female animals.77 Retaining nonproductive animals in a flock or herd is costly because they will consume the resources of grass and water needed for pregnant and lactating females. Therefore, in ancient Syria-Palestine, except for the few adults kept for replenishment of the herd, male animals were usually slaughtered either as soon as they were weaned or, more frequently, when they (goats and sheep) were approximately

74

75

76

77

It would therefore probably be a young animal, and so would be small, but its fertility would be untested. Similarly, in Mesopotamia virgin she-goats were frequent sacrificial offerings (Scurlock, “Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Mesopotamian Religion,” 397). See Maekawa, “Animal and Human Castration at Sumer: Part I: Cattle (gu4 ) and Equids ˇ ˇ BARxAN) in Pre-Sargonic Lagash,” 110–14 where he cites Aristotle (ANSE.DUN.GI, ANSE. (Historia Animalium Book IX 50, 632) on the spaying of pigs and camels and argues that the Sumerians spayed some female equids. See also the story of the beloved cow “Maid of Sˆın” recounted in JoAnn Scurlock, “Animals in Ancient Mesopotamian Religion,” in A History of the Animal World in the Ancient Near East (ed. Billie Jean Collins; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 388. See the extensive imagery collected in Othmar Keel, Das B¨ocklein in der Milch Seiner Mutter und Verwandtes: Im Lichte eines altorientalischen Bildmotivs (G¨ottingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1980). The practice in Mandate Palestine was to keep one ram for every 35 ewes (Firmage, “Zoology,” 1123) and among the flocks of modern rural Turks, one ram mates with 50–60 ewes (Payne, “Kill-Off Patterns in Sheep and Goats: The Mandibles from As¸van Kale,” 301).

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a year old.78 Slaughtering male animals at weaning makes the most economic sense because they have not yet required any investment on the part of the owner in terms of grass or fodder. Also, the mother is then producing the most milk, which can be taken for human use.79 Slaughtering a yearling is also an economically sound practice because at that age the animal would be close to its full weight and thereby have reached nearly its maximum meat weight with minimum investment.80 These practicalities may explain the frequent biblical requirement for a sacrificial animal that is a yearling (ben ˇsa¯ nˆa).81 One might also slaughter a female at weaning for the same reasons as the male, but a female could be sold or traded for her future reproductive potential, as could the few choice male animals used for breeding. Therefore, most male animals were destined for early slaughter; they were more useful in death – that is, as meat, skin, and sinew – than in life. Many biblical passages reflect the lack of usefulness of males in a flock or herd. For example, on his return from Haran, Jacob’s grand gift to Esau includes ten times as many female goats and sheep as males, and four times more cows than bulls (Gen 32:14–15 [Heb 15–16]). Similarly, that male animals were the primary victims of slaughter is apparent in numerous nonlegal texts (e.g., Deut 32:14; Isa 1:11; 34:6; Jer 51:40; Mic 6:7; Ps 66:15; Ezra 6:9; 7:17). In Gen 31:38, for example, Jacob explicitly contrasts the slaughter of males with the reproduction of females: “These twenty years I have been with you, your ewes and your goats have not miscarried, and the rams of your flock I have not eaten.” Yet, though mature male animals have limited usefulness, their strength, aggressiveness, virility, and beauty contribute to their symbolic value (e.g., Deut 33:17; Prov 30:29–31). For example, bulls and rams are prevalent throughout the imagery of the religions and literature of the ancient Near East. This symbolic value of mature male animals then extends to a material value, in which they are sometimes kept as indications of wealth or as a form of currency.82 This practice may explain the meaning of Prov 27:26: “Lambs will be for your clothing, and billy goats the price of a field.” It may be that the 78

79 80 81 82

Borowski, Every Living Thing, 57. In their archaeozoological analysis of the Bronze Age city at Tell Jemmeh, Wapnish and Hesse found that 50–75% of all sheep and goat remains were from animals slaughtered “in the months just before and after their first birthday” (Paula Wapnish and Brian Hesse, “Urbanization and the Organization of Animal Production at Tell Jemmeh in the Middle Bronze Age Levant,” JNES 47 [1988], 91). Borowski, Every Living Thing, 57. Ibid., 57. For options on the meaning of the phrase see Roland de Vaux, Studies in Old Testament Sacrifice, 4–5. Cansdale, Animals of Bible Lands, 51.

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highly symbolic nature of these adult male animals led to their increased usage as sacrificial victims and that, like the Iberian bulls used for bullfighting in Spain, Portugal, and Latin America, these mature males became the luxury goods of the elite, who could raise and maintain them as indications of wealth and power, not to serve the basic needs of a family. In contrast to subsistence farming, where the flock serves the needs of a family or other small group, more economically complex communities require different norms of animal husbandry to accommodate specialized needs or industries. For instance, in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean, many elite groups, such as temple leaders, political rulers, or other aristocrats, owned specialized wool industries whose animals could number in the tens of thousands.83 Such owners might keep nearly equal amounts of male and female animals, because males provide more and better wool than females, whereas females would be needed to maintain the flock. These enterprises required a great many resources, especially land, often to the detriment of the poorer families living near them. They also required the work of numerous shepherds, shearers, spinners, and weavers. Royal and Temple complexes often maintained herds that were made up of mostly young males and some females. These animals were fattened on barley and other grains in preparation for their slaughter as sacrificial victims at religious celebrations and for their use as food for the royal court.84 Eating meat was a luxury that was often available to the elite; in contrast, ordinary people almost never ate meat and largely survived on grain. Maintaining 83

84

In Mesopotamia, see for example, Marc van de Mieroop, “Sheep and Goat Herding According to the Old Babylonian Texts from Ur,” Bulletin of Sumerian Agriculture 7 (1993): 161–82; Thorkild Jacobsen, “On the Textile Industry at Ur under Ibb¯ı-Sˆın,” in Studia Orientalia Ioanni Pedersen dedicta (Copenhagen: Einar Munksgaard, 1953), 172–87; Daniel C. Snell, “The Rams of Lagash”; and Wolfram von Soden, The Ancient Orient: An Introduction to the Study of the Ancient Near East (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985), 95. In Greece, see John F. Cherry, “Pastoralism and the Role of Animals in the Pre-and Protohistoric Economies of the Aegean,” in Pastoral Economies in Classical Antiquity (ed. C. R. Whittaker; The Cambridge Philological Society, 1988), esp. 16–17, 25–26 and Paul Halstead, “Banking on Livestock,” 68–69. In Mesopotamia, see for example, M. W. Green, “Animal Husbandry at Uruk in the Archaic Period” JNES 39 (1980): 1–36; Kuzuko Maekawa, “The Management of Fatted Sheep (uduniga) in Ur III Girsu/Lagash” ASJ 5 (1983): 81–111; idem, “The Management of Fatted Sheep (udu-niga) in Ur III Girsu/Lagash: Supplement (BM 17742 and BM 22807),” ASJ 6 (1984): 55–65; G. van Driel and K. R. Nemet-Nejat, “Bookkeeping Practices from an Institutional Herd at Eanna,” JCS 46 (1994), 55; G. van Driel, “Neo-Babylonian Sheep and Goats,” Bulletin of Sumerian Agriculture 7 (1993), 242; Jacobsen, “On the Textile Industry at Ur under Ibb¯ıSˆın,” 177; and Daniel C. Snell, “The Rams of Lagash,” 180. Unfortunately, almost all texts that document herding and husbandry practices in the ancient Near East are from temple and government records or shepherding contracts with wealthy individuals or institutions so that the herding practices of smaller family groups must be ascertained from brief descriptions and by analogy with pre-industrial peoples.

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these animals required considerable wealth not only to purchase surplus grain for animal fodder but also to control the herds. It was particularly expensive if the animals were not castrated; herds of adult males were usually castrated, which caused them to have superior meat and wool and be more easily controlled. In any event, the large herds of males kept by these palace/temple groups could not have been used for breeding, but may have been the source of the large number of male animals prescribed in the sacrificial laws for certain public festivals or ceremonies, such as those envisioned in Num 28 and Ezek 45:15–17. If so, the animals were probably acquired through taxation of the people, as described in Exod 30:11–16, 2 Kgs 12:4 [5], Ezek 45:13–17, and Neh 10:32–33 [33–34]. 2 Kings 12:16 [17] seems to imply that the victims for the h.at..ta¯ ʼt and ʻ¯aˇsa¯ m sacrifices were purchased from the temple.85 To summarize: by their very nature, sacrificial systems require the death of their victims, and because of material concerns relating to the husbandry of domesticated animals, male animals make better and therefore more commonly used sacrificial victims. Similarly, females are not often victims in sacrificial practice because of their reproductive value. This is the case in most sacrificial systems and is the reasoning behind Levine’s explanation quoted at the beginning of this chapter for why the majority of victims are male. Sacrificial systems are examples of what the anthropologist Roy A. Rappaport calls a “ritually regulated ecosystem”86 in which ritual practices fulfill the practical needs of agriculture and husbandry, especially in subsistence economies. Thus while being symbolic systems, as well as means of organizing kinship relations and methods of eating meat, ancient sacrificial systems are also systems for culling animals that are no longer useful for the flock or herd.

reproduction and the ritual calendar In an article about the use of animals in Greek sacrifice, Michael Jameson, following Rappaport, shows that both ancient and modern Greek festival calendars correspond to the seasonal availability of young animals. He suggests that feasts occur at these times not only because young animals are available then but also because they are crucial times for culling the herd or flock. Spring feasts especially provide the means and opportunity for disposing of excess animals not intended to survive the hard summer, when there is less water and grazing materials are less plentiful.87 85 86 87

Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 177; Baruch Levine, In The Presence of the LORD, 98. Ecology, Meaning, & Religion (Richmond, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1979), 41. Cited in Jameson, “Sacrifice and Animal Husbandry in Classical Greece,” 107. Jameson, “Sacrifice and Animal Husbandry in Classical Greece,” 100, 103.

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As in Greece, some of the Israelite festivals also coordinate with the seasonal needs of animal husbandry. The rite of Passover may be a similar example of ritual regulating an “ecosystem,” given its prescription that every family (or pair of families; Exod 12:3–4) should slaughter in the springtime a male kid or lamb that is either a year old or within its first year (Exod 12:5; ben-ˇsa¯ nˆa). One presumes that, for Israel as well as Greece, animals were often slaughtered in the spring so that all available resources would go to the mothers and young who were intended to survive the summer.88 The requirement that the Passover victim be a young male corresponds to the need to remove young males from the flock. Many biblical scholars have noted the relationship of the Passover offering with the spring birthing season or with the possible migration from winter to summer pasturage beginning after the birthing season.89 These scholars have interpreted the significance of the rite, in its pre-Israelite stages, as creating protection for the fertility and well-being of the flocks and herds, especially from demons, or as thanksgiving for the flock’s fertility. However, it makes little material sense that killing one of its members, and then eating it, somehow provides “protection” for the herd from predators; the killing and eating itself is a kind of predation. The only practical way in which killing and consuming an animal provides a benefit to the herd is if removing that particular victim would increase the herd’s productivity and thus its well-being. The idea of killing large numbers of male offspring is an important one throughout the texts about Passover. The narrative of the mass slaughter of Egyptian sons, the threat of the slaughter of Israelite sons, and the prescribed slaughter of male sheep and goats for the Passover offerings has such a strong thematic basis in the slaughter of young males that the ideology of the festival may be intricately tied to a culling procedure.90 88

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Ibid., 100, 103. See also Carol Meyers, who uses Rappaport’s functionalism to explain Hannah’s offering in 1 Sam 1. She states that “ritual behavior stands in sensitive relationship to environmental factors and is instrumental in sanctioning subsistence patterns that maximized the productivity of the various ecosystems that constitute the Palestinian highlands” (“An Ethnoarchaeological Analysis of Hannah’s Sacrifice,” 79). Leonhard Rost has made the most thorough argument. See his “Weidewechsel und altisraelitischer Festkalender,” ZDPV 66 (1943): 205–15. Repr. Das Kleine Credo und andere Studien zum Alten Testament (Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1965), 101–11. Ewald (Zeitschrift f¨ur die Kunde des Morgenlandes 3 [1840]: 410–41), followed by Wellhausen, Robertson Smith, and others, understood the Pesach sacrifice by analogy with the ancient Arab sacrifice in the spring month of Rajab, which corresponds to the Hebrew month of Abib/Nisan. For review and criticisms of reasons that Passover/Matsot take place in the spring, see Propp, Exodus 1–18 (AB2; New York: Doubleday, 1998), 441–44. A similar argument has been made by Abravanel and H. L. Ginsberg for the practice of slaughtering male animals at the feast of Sukkot (The Israelian Heritage of Judaism

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The sacrifice of the firstborn male of clean animals may be another example of ritual abetting animal husbandry, because it too serves the purpose of regularly eliminating young males from the herds and flocks.91 The requirements of Passover and the law of the firstborn are two of the most ancient biblical laws.92 In their textual presentations the victims seem to be the possessions of the common person, and the laws are incumbent on all who raise domestic animals. These rites serve the practical purpose of eliminating the extraneous animals of a small flock. However, the practice of slaughtering these animals also contributes to the “thinking” about humans and extends to the practice of offering the firstborn son and, indeed, to the foundational story of national identity of the deliverance of the firstborn son Israel at Passover. As God says in Exod 4:22-23, “Israel is my firstborn son. I told you, ‘Let my son go to worship me.’ But you refused to let him go; now I will kill your firstborn son.” These rites contribute to larger ideas about election, selection, and survival, in addition to their functional purpose (see Chapter 7). In addition to the Passover and the firstborn offering, as noted earlier, most animals offered on the calendrical occasions are male. The destruction of large quantities of male animals, especially young animals, at regular intervals, is an important part of the Israelite ritual calendar(s) and a main part of its cultic practice. Although it is likely that some public sacrifices may have come from a temple herd, especially in later texts, these offerings still coordinate with the basic elements of subsistence farming in three ways: the most common victims are young males, regular offerings never require female animals, and an individual is never required to sacrifice a fully grown animal.

91 92

[New York: JTSA Press, 1982], 53). These references are cited in Jacob Milgrom, “Milk and Meat: Unlikely Bedfellows,” 154, n.21. Van Seters argues that the Passover story was created by J to transform the unacceptable practice of the sacrifice of the firstborn child (“The Law on Child Sacrifice in Exodus 22,28b-29.” ETL 74 [1998]: 364–372). Exod 13:2,12–15; 22:29–30 [28–29] 34:19; Lev 27:26; Num 8:16–17; 18:15–18; Deut 15:19–20, Neh 10:35–37 [36–38]. For discussion of the firstborn see also the discussion in Chapter 6. Most every commentator concedes the antiquity of both these practices, though scholarship has centered on the relationship between the two. Wellhausen originally saw the Passover sacrifice as originating in the slaughter of the firstborn (Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel, 88). Some scholars reject this concept (e.g., Childs, The Book of Exodus [OTL; Louisville, KY: Westminster, 1974], 190–95 and de Vaux, Studies in Old Testament Sacrifice, 6). For review of both opinions see Propp, Exodus 1–18, 454–58. Propp argues that in the Exodus story, the firstborn of animals is still alive in the morning (Exod 13:16) and that if firstlings were offered as Passover offerings, there would be no need to have a separate ritual for their slaughter (Exodus 1–18, 454–55). Regardless of their origins, at many points the biblical texts do conflate the Passover and the firstborn (Exod 13:2, 11–16; 34:18–20; Num 3:12–13; Deut 15:19–23), and the rites have the same effect of eliminating young males on a regular basis.

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sacrifice and domestication More than being a means of culling animals, however, sacrificial practice may also be an integral aspect of the domestication of animals itself. In an important essay, “The Domestication of Sacrifice,” Jonathan Z. Smith argues that sacrifice originated in the context of the domestication of animals and not, as others have argued, in primitive hunting practices of wild animals.93 He writes, “Sacrifice is, in part, a meditation on domestication.”94 As Smith explains, the definition of domestication is “the process of human interference in or alteration of the genetics of plants and animals (i.e., selective breeding)” that significantly affects and interacts with the community and its environment.95 This process is intertwined with other developments, such as the making of sedentary communities and a shift toward planning for the future rather than relying on the vagaries of nature to meet one’s needs. Part of this future orientation involves not only the selective breeding of domestication but also the “selective killing” of those animals that decrease productivity. The two go together. As Smith writes, Some animals must be held separated out for several years until they reach sexual maturity. The bulk of the herd must be slaughtered while immature. In the domesticated situation . . . immature animals will be killed more frequently than mature ones, males more frequently than females. . . . For the domesticator, killing is an act of precise discrimination with an eye to the future. It is dependent on the social acceptance of a “delayed payoff,” as well as on the social acquisition of the intricate technology of sexuality and the concomitant pattern of settled dwelling.96

For Smith, “sacrifice is an elaboration of the selective kill in contradistinction to the fortuitous kill” (his italics).97 It is an “exaggeration of domestication;” it is “the artificial (i.e., ritualized) killing of an artificial (i.e., domesticated) animal” (his italics).98 By owning animals and selectively breeding them, one is essentially responsible for creating them; in the selective killing of sacrificial ritual, one also assumes responsibility for managing them for the best possible outcome. Implicit in Smith’s argument is that what one has the power to give life to (i.e., create), one also has the power to kill. Smith’s argument explains why 93 94 95 96 97 98

Especially Walther Burkert, Homo Necans. In biblical studies he is followed by William Hallo, “The Origins of the Sacrificial Cult: New Evidence from Mesopotamia and Israel.” “The Domestication of Sacrifice,” 199. Ibid., 199. Ibid., 199–200. Ibid., 200. Ibid., 201.

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sacrifice is a prime means for meditating not only on domestication but also on lineage and reproduction. When one breeds and tends animals, one is managing their reproduction and, thus, their families and their lineage. The care and tending of lineage are inherent parts of sacrifice; indeed, they are arguably the most regulated and time-consuming of all aspects of sacrifice because they may require considerable breeding efforts and the maintenance of the intended victim.99 Paradoxically, given the emphasis on lineage, the animals that are most likely to be culled are those that are not reproductively active, such as immature animals, barren female animals, or older animals past their reproductive stage. This general focus on reproductively inactive animals contributes to the overall exclusion of reproduction from sacrificial worship and thus from the image of the sacred created by sacrifice. In biblical sacrificial systems this exclusion is reflected in other ways, such as the requirement to abstain from sex before eating the meat of an offering or when going into holy war. The incompatibility between sex and sacrifice or sacred food is found not only in P but in older sources as well (Exod 19:15; 1 Sam 21:3–6 [4–7]), making it integral to biblical sacrificial thought. Indeed, throughout biblical thought, God himself, the ultimate in holiness, refrains from sex and reproduction. The notion that male animals are often materially extraneous seems difficult to reconcile with a patrilineal, patriarchal ideology. It does not seem to correlate with the “metaphor” of either patriarchy or the monotheism of a male-gendered deity. However, as Smith shows, sacrifice is a phenomenon constructed in part as a counterpoint to biological reproduction. By necessity, female animals are more fully associated with reproduction and the other material benefits of breeding (i.e., milk production). The animals that are not part of this breeding are defined over and against it and take on a consecrated or ritually elevated status. Like the people and animals consecrated through the destruction of the “ban” (h.erem) in holy war, what must be destroyed becomes devoted to the divine. The lives of inefficient animals are of little use in the material world, but they take on a high status in the ritual and sacrificial worlds. Indeed, the theorist Ren´e Girard asserts that, despite what appear to be rigid stipulations on the qualities of sacrificial victims, there is really only “one essential characteristic” for distinguishing sacrificable from non-sacrificable beings: “between these victims and the community a crucial social link is missing, so they can be exposed to violence without fear of 99

On this point, as well as the application of Smith’s theory for biblical sacrifice see Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice and the Temple, 58–66. Klawans understands the process of choosing and offering sacrificial victims as analogous to God’s action with regard to humans.

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reprisal.”100 In other words, any animal or person who is to be sacrificed must be expendable. Victims have no social role and are not a vital part of the community. They have no one who will feel vengeful over their death. For animals to be a living part of the community they must perform some useful function: plowing, threshing, or producing milk or wool. Because of his expendability, his symbolic value, and his material value as meat, the male without blemish is the perfect victim. The sacrificial system enables the healthy but reproductively uninvolved animal to be affirmed by an elevated ritual status defined in opposition to the material needs of reproduction and breeding. However, although the main victims for sacrifice are animals that do not contribute to reproduction, at other points sacrificial systems occasionally use animals in a manner that does not accord with the needs of animal husbandry. Costly, fertile, and other highly symbolic victims may be used to express certain ideas or may be required in times of extreme duress. This point is made again by Jameson in his article on Greek sacrifice: There are, however, sacrifices prescribed which are strictly “impractical” in that they have powerful religious functions but if widespread throughout the community would weaken the strength of the herd for survival and for fulfilling the other goals of the owners. These are the slaughter of pregnant victims. . . . So too the occasional prescription of a ram or male buck . . . requires the keeping of a more troublesome, uncastrated male of less value for meat and wool. . . . It is inescapable that, while sacrificial practice seems generally consistent with the other reasons for maintaining animals, the primarily expressive character of certain rules has purposes of its own. . . . Ritual at times seems perverse and even harmful economically.101

In the biblical text, such animals do appear in unusual and extreme circumstances. Often these animals are female. For example, the rite of the red cow, described in Num 19, and discussed in Chapter 4, requires a highly specialized and thus very expensive animal for the extreme situation of creating an antidote for death impurity. The ritual requires “a blemishless red cow, which has no defect and upon which no yoke has been lifted” (p¯arˆa ʼ˘adummˆa t˘emˆımˆa ʼ˘aˇser ʼȇn-b¯ah mˆum ʼ˘aˇser l¯oʼ-ʻ¯alˆa ʻ¯alȇh¯a ʻ¯ol; 19:2). In Jewish tradition, this animal may only have two hairs on its body that are not red (or possibly brown; the term ʼ˘adummˆa may mean both). The unusual nature of the animal is also evident in the Mishna’s assertion that the rite of the red cow had only ever been performed seven times in all of history (m. Par. 3:5). Indeed, even the most advanced breeding methods by modern Texas cattle ranchers have 100 101

Girard, Violence and the Sacred, 13. Jameson, “Sacrifice and Animal Husbandry in Classical Greece,” 106.

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not been able to produce a perfectly red cow (commissioned by fundamentalist Jews and Christians to bring about the reinstitution of the temple and the beginning of the messianic age).102 Similarly, the rite of the decapitated heifer (ʻeglˆa ʻarˆupˆa) in Deut 21 requires an unworked female animal (21:3) to be killed in an untilled valley with a flowing stream to compensate for an unsolved murder between two territories. These animals are extreme victims for extreme events. Their unusual utilization underscores the unusual circumstances they remediate.

masculinity and blemish Despite the fact that primarily male and gender-neutral animals have cultic roles, not all male animals are fit for sacrifice. The holiness author prohibits castrated animals as victims; no male animal that has a deformity, or has been castrated, or has otherwise suffered mutilation of the testicles is acceptable as an offering (Lev 22:20–25): Anything that has a blemish in it you will not offer, for it will not be acceptable for you. For any man who offers a sacrifice of well-being to Yahweh, to fulfill a vow or for a freewill offering, from the herd or from the flock, it must be blemishless to be acceptable; it shall not have a defect. Anything blind, or injured, or cut, or oozing, or with a scab or eruption, you shall not offer to Yahweh and you will not put them on the altar as a fire offering for Yahweh. An ox or a lamb that is overgrown or stunted you can use as a freewill offering, but for a vow it will not be accepted. Any one that has been pressed or crushed or torn or cut, you shall not offer to Yahweh; within your land you will not do so. You will not offer from the hand of a foreigner any of these as the food of your god; because they are mutilated, with a defect in them, they shall not be acceptable for you.

Throughout the priestly sacrificial texts, animals offered for sacrifice must be “perfect” (t¯amˆım, t˘emˆımˆa), although P does not explain the criteria for perfection.103 However, Lev 22:20–25 shows that for the holiness writer an animal cannot be perfect if it has physical ailments that, as Milgrom argues, affect the appearance of an animal more than its functioning.104 The extent to which this text allows any castrated animals at all in the land of Israel is 102 103

104

See Lawrence Wright, “Letter from Jerusalem, ‘Forcing the End,’” The New Yorker, July 20, 1998: 42–53. P and H also never use the term t¯amˆım to refer to priests; in other priestly texts t¯amˆım refers to moral and religious perfection, not physical perfection (Gen 6:9, 17:1; Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, 1874). Leviticus 17–22, 1876.

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debated. The phrasing of the second half of v. 24, restricting animals that are “pressed or crushed or torn or cut,” seems to imply that no animals in Israel, sacrificial or profane, should be castrated, though this is subject to interpretation.105 Milgrom is probably correct that it is nearly impossible for castration to have been forbidden.106 However, because there are no depictions of castrated animals in the Bible, the extent to which Israelite animals were castrated is unascertainable. We can only be sure that H was aware of the practice and characterized it as an illicit and foreign custom (v. 25). This text is especially concerned with the form and appearance of male victims. Four of the twelve blemishes that it enumerates are concerned with male genitalia. In contrast, neither H nor any other author disqualifies female animals for any particularly female function (i.e., lactating, being in estrus, being pregnant) or for being deformed in a specifically female way (being infertile, miscarrying, having some genital disfigurement or malformation of the udders).107 Even though this law refers in part to ˇs˘el¯amˆım offerings (starting in v. 20), which P states may be either male or female (Lev 3:1), it omits any discussion of female animals altogether. The absence points to a concern about male genitalia and its relation to the sacred that does not exist for females. A male animal suffering a genital blemish loses his sacred status. Indeed, he becomes something different from either a whole male or a female; in a sense, he loses his cultic gender altogether. The law on animals parallels a holiness restriction on blemished male priests (Lev 21:17–23): Speak to Aaron and say: Any man from your seed, throughout their generations, who has a defect, will not come near to offer the food of his god. For any man who has a defect will not come near: A man who is blind or lame, or mutilated or overgrown; or a man with an injured foot or injured hand; or a hunchback, or a dwarf, or one whose eyes are crossed or is oozing or has a scab or an enlarged testicle. Any man from the seed of Aaron the priest who has a defect shall not approach to offer Yahweh’s fire offerings; he has a blemish, he will not approach to offer the food of his god. He may eat the food of his god – from the most holy offerings and from the holy offerings – however, he shall not come to the curtain and he shall not 105

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The Rabbis interpreted the law as condemning all gelding in the land (b. H . ag. 14b). For discussion see Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, 1880–82; Wenham, Leviticus, 295; Gerstenberger, Leviticus, 329–30. Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, 1880. But see b. ʻAvod. Zar. 5b where infertile animals are considered unclean. Philo (Virt. 26: 137) and the Temple Scroll (11QT52:5–7) both state that pregnant animals are forbidden as sacrificial victims, the latter because they are considered to be blemished (Joseph M. Baumgarten, “A Fragment on Fetal Life and Pregnancy in 4Q270,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells, 445).

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approach the altar because he has a blemish, so that he will not profane my sanctuaries. For I am Yahweh. I make them holy.

Both priests and sacrificial victims are disqualified from sacrifice based on twelve disfiguring criteria. Some criteria, such as blindness, lameness, a limb that is too long, and skin diseases, are the same for both. However, priests are disqualified for having only one genital disfigurement – “enlarged” or “crushed” testicles (m˘erˆoah. ʼ¯aˇsek) – whereas animals are disqualified based on four genital deformities. H is especially concerned with the conduct of priests and does not address the genital soundness of ordinary men in the congregation. In contrast, the state of the laity is a concern for Deuteronomy, which bans from the assembly all men with a genital deformity of either the testicles or penis (Deut 23:1 [2]).108 Deuteronomy also prohibits deformed animals – lame and blind – as sacrificial victims (15:21; 17:1). For H, deformed priests may eat of sacred food, but they may not officiate at offerings or approach the altar. In his commentary, Milgrom suggests two alternative reasons for the exclusion of genitally blemished priests. The first is the parallelism of sacred priests with sacred animals: the animals must be intact and so the priests should also be. The prohibition on genitally blemished animals would then seem to have been primary. Milgrom’s second alternative, which is the argument of Kalisch, is that the priests had an “aversion to their castrated counterparts in the pagan world,” especially the eunuch priests of goddesses.109 This argument might imply that the prohibition on blemished priests came first and the law for animals subsequently mirrored it. Because there is no sure way of ascertaining which law came first, and because the two laws together seem to propound a larger idea, perhaps it is possible to understand Milgrom’s two reasons together: the castration or genital disfigurement of either a sacred animal or a priest is a violation of the same principle, and this principle is violated in the goddess worship of some other religions. Our knowledge of castrated animals in the ancient world is limited. The Mesopotamian herding contracts make some reference to gelded males. The same Sumerian term is used to describe both castrated men and animals (amar-KUD).110 In postclassical Greek texts there is an explicit condemnation 108 109 110

It may also be that 2 Sam 5:8b prohibits either deformed priests or lay people from entering the temple. See the discussion in Olyan, Rites and Rank, 106–11. Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, 1828. See the extensive works on the subject by K. Maekawa, “Animal and Human Castration at ˇ ˇ BARxAN) in Pre-Sargonic Sumer: Part I: Cattle (gu4 ) and Equids (ANSE.DUN.GI, ANSE. Lagash,” 95–137; “Animal and Human Castration at Sumer: Part II: Human Castration in

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of sacrificing castrated animals. In classical and preclassical Greek texts, however, castrated animals are regular sacrificial offerings.111 In lists of sacrificial animals for festive occasions they are differentiated from unneutered males and have a slightly higher value than a female animal. The rabbis denounced the castration of any animals in Israel, but they certainly knew of the practice (e.g., b. Shab. 152a). We know more about castrated men in the ancient world. Many men in Mesopotamia, Persia, Asia Minor, and Israel were forcibly castrated when they were captured, enslaved (e.g., 2 Kgs 20:18 = Isa 39:7), or punished for criminal behavior, especially sex offenses.112 In Mesopotamia, sons of women weavers working for the state were castrated in childhood and treated as slaves for the rest of their lives.113 They were regarded as some of the lowest members of society. In Persia, Israel, and Mesopotamia (as well as in later China and Byzantium) men who were either forcibly castrated or born with a genital deformity served rulers as guards, chamberlains, keepers of harems, and military leaders. In Akkadian these men were called ˇsa r¯eˇsi or ˇsu¯ t r¯eˇsu ´ (Sum. LU.SAG); the Hebrew cognate and counterpart is the biblical s¯arˆıs. The nature and role of these men in both societies have been debated; some say that the terms refer only to men of a certain rank in the military or royal service or in the royal hierarchy, regardless of their genital condition,114 whereas others conclude that both the ˇsa r¯eˇsi and the s¯arˆıs suffered genital

111 112

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the Ur III Period,” Zinbun 16 (1980): 1–55; “Female Weavers and Their Children in Lagash – Pre-Sargonic and Ur III,” ASJ 2 (1980): 81–125; and “Animal and Human Castration at Sumer: Part III: More Texts of Ur III Lagash on the Term amar-KUD,” Zinbun 18 (1982): 95–121. Landsberger suggests that the Akk. verb g/katsatsu meant to castrate (cited in Maekawa, “Animal and Human Castration at Sumer: Part II: Human Castration in the Ur III Period,” 110). Hawkins suggests the same meaning for the Akk. verb marruru. He seems to imply that it applies only to humans, however (J. D. Hawkins, “Eunuchs among the Hittites,” in Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 47th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale. Part I [ed. S. Parpola and R. M. Whiting; Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2002], 219–20). For a critique see Stephanie Dalley, Review of R. Matilla, The King’s Magnates, Bibliotheca Orientalis 58 (2001), 199. Van Straten, Hiera Kala, 182–85. Julia M. Asher-Greve, “The Essential Body: Mesopotamian Conceptions of the Gendered Body” in Gender and the Body in the Ancient Mediterranean (ed. Maria Wyke; London: Blackwell, 1998), 34 n.43; Hawkins, “Eunuchs among the Hittites,” 219. Maekawa, “Animal and Human Castration at Sumer: Part II: Human Castration in the Ur III Period,” 1–55; see also his “Female Weavers and Their Children in Lagash – Pre-Sargonic and Ur III,” 81–125; and “Animal and Human Castration at Sumer: Part III: More Texts of Ur III Lagash on the Term amar-KUD,” 118. For Mesopotamia, especially S. Dalley, Review of R. Matilla, 197–206; Yamauchi, “Was Nehemiah the Cupbearer a Eunuch?” ZAW 92 (1980), 135–36.

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disfigurement.115 In the Bible eunuchs serve mostly as keepers of women or harems,116 as well as court or military workers.117 Xenophon cites Cyrus as saying that eunuchs are loyal and excellent workers for any benefactor because they are ostracized by the rest of society. Their lack of a family adds to their loyalty: they focus on their own material needs,118 and because eunuchs could not establish a dynasty through their children they are more loyal to the leader.119 On the basis of Jer 41:16, where the people taken to Egypt are “men, soldiers, women, children, and s¯ar¯ısˆım,” Tadmor suggests that “eunuchs” constituted a category of people distinct from men, women, and children.120 Some men were castrated voluntarily in the service of a divine being (Matt 19:12). Usually the deity who preferred castrated priests was a goddess, most notably Cybele from Phrygia, who was sometimes known in Greece as Meter or Mater and in Rome as the Magna Mater. It is possible that various Mesopotamian clergy members may have subjected themselves to castration in the service of a goddess; however, there is no direct proof of ´ and the Akkadian such activity.121 These men, the Sumerian gala (G¯IS.DUR) kurgarrˆu, assinˆu, and kalˆu, were priests of the goddess Inanna/Iˇstar.122 They were generally effeminate and dressed in some version of women’s clothes and other accoutrements. The gala sang laments in a falsetto voice alongside or in place of female mourners and wailers.123 Though these men may not have been castrated, they functioned in the same way as the eunuch priests of goddesses in other religions, not in the least by transgressing the gender norms of their society.124 115

116 117 118 119 120 121 122

123 124

See Hayim Tadmor, “The Role of the Chief Eunuch and the Place of Eunuchs in the Assyrian Empire,” in Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East. Part II, 603–11 as well as his “Was the Biblical s¯arˆıs a Eunuch?” in Solving Riddles and Untying Knots: Biblical, Epigraphic, and Semitic Studies in Honor of Jonas C. Greenfield (ed. Ziony Zevit, Seymour Gitin, and Michael Sokoloff; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 317–25; also, Hawkins, “Eunuchs among the Hittites,” agrees and believes that the same meaning holds in the Hittite language. E.g., 2 Kgs 9:32; Est 1:12, 15; 2:3, 14, 15; 4:4, 5; Jud 12:11. E.g., 1 Sam 8:15, 2 Kgs 8:6, 20:18; 23:11; Isa 39:7; Jer 38:7; 52:25. Xenophon, Cyr. VII: 60–65. Cited in Yamauchi, “Was Nehemiah the Cupbearer a Eunuch?,” 138. Asher-Greve, “The Essential Body,” 34, n.43. However, it is clear that in Mesopotamia, at least, eunuchs could marry and adopt children (Tadmor, “Was the Biblical s¯arˆıs a Eunuch?” 321). “Was the Biblical s¯arˆıs a Eunuch?” 319–20. See the discussion in Will Roscoe, “Priests of the Goddess: Gender Transgression in Ancient Religion,” History of Religions 35 (1996), 213–30. The gala were supposedly fashioned by the god Enki to soothe the raging heart of Inana who was causing problems in heaven and earth (Samuel Noah Kramer, “BM 29616: The Fashioning of the gala,” ASJ 3 [1981], 1). Tikva Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1992), 43. See the extensive analysis in Roscoe, “Priests of the Goddess.”

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In her article on the castrated priests of the goddess in Greece and Rome, Lynn E. Roller articulates two ideas underlying the negative view of them: The first is the automatic assumption of male superiority, in particular the superiority of masculine appearance. The second is the firm conception that it was necessary to have gender and to play the biological and social role assigned to one’s gender in order to be fully human.125

In Rome especially, the eunuch priest was not eligible to participate in those institutions that “define the masculine place in society.”126 To be castrated, however, was not to become a female, but to be without gender altogether, and to be without gender was ultimately not to be fully human.127 Voluntary castration was a rejection of the male role in society and thus a rejection of society itself.128 Certainly it is a long reach from Rome to the sacrificial animals of Israel. However, much of the gender ideology underlying the understanding of these priests may be helpful to an analysis of castrated or deformed Israelite priests and sacrificial victims. The first of Roller’s two assumptions is clear in biblical law: evidence for the superiority of the human male is ubiquitous. As for animals, in Lev 22 the fact that only a male could be an ʻ¯olˆa indicates the deity’s preference for the male. That the masculine form is superior is apparent from the text’s emphasis on the intact nature of the masculine parts of both sacred humans and animals.129 Whether female parts are intact is not even discussed. The mere existence of female parts, in fact, disqualifies an animal from the most complete sacrifice of the ʻ¯olˆa. Roller’s second point, that having a place in society is dependent on fulfilling one’s gender role, also has a parallel in the treatment of castrated animals. If we consider the cult to be reflective of societal values, only male animals that fulfill their ideal gender role, by not being emasculated, can have a place in that society. Castration of the male animal not only mars its perfect appearance but also disqualifies the animal completely as any kind of sacrificial victim. Not only is the animal no longer eligible as an ʻ¯olˆa, like a female, but its status is even lower than a female because she can be a sacred victim as a ˇs˘el¯amˆım (or, in Lev 4–5 and Num 15, a h.at..ta¯ ʼt). Castration disqualifies an animal entirely 125 126 127 128 129

Roller, “The Ideology of the Eunuch Priest,” in Gender and the Body in the Ancient Mediterranean (ed. Maria Wyke; London: Blackwell, 1998), 119. Ibid., 128. Ibid., 131. Ibid., 130. As Gerstenberger says, “Everything suggests an intensified estimation of the male sexual organs” (Leviticus, 329).

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from sacrifice; femininity only makes for an inferior sacrifice. Like Roller’s eunuch priests, the castrated male can no longer act in his gender role as sublime sacrificial victim, yet he also cannot switch gender roles to that of a female. He is something else altogether. Similarly, the restriction on genital deformity for priests disallows such a man from fulfilling his inherited profession of divine service. Though his maleness allows him, from among the offspring of Aaron, to be a priest, his imperfection keeps him from performing his role.130 The deformed priest becomes like his unmarried sisters who are unable to make offerings. We might note that because women were not priests, all of the human blemishes in 21:17–20 are gender-specific. The imperfections of women in the priestly family concern their behavior, not their form (21:7, 9, 13, 14). However, because there is no extra emphasis on the genital disfigurement of priests, as there is with male animals, and because the priest’s crushed testicles appear to be of similar gravity to all the other blemishes, it does not seem likely that the deformity here referred to is castration, but rather congenital or accidental defects. Unlike castrated animals, the deformed priest’s role is limited, but he is not completely excluded from sacrifice. The priest’s restriction is much kinder than that for the layman in Deut 23:1 [2] who, like the bastard (23:2 [3]), is a cultic outcast. The layman more resembles the castrated animal that has no share in the system, whereas the deformed priest maintains a role in cultic worship. It should be mentioned that because the castration of priests is not the primary concern of Lev 21:20, the law does not appear to be a direct polemic against the effeminate eunuchs of goddess worship. The prohibition on castrated animals runs counter to norms of efficiency in animal husbandry. As sacrificial victims, the law only allows grown male animals that are more difficult to control, more costly to raise, and that provide inferior meat. The symbolism of the intact male is therefore more important to the system than any economic or practical benefit of gelding. This symbolism lies partially in the whole and complete nature of sacred objects, but because this completeness does not pertain equally to the female it is also a comment on gender. In her article Roller suggests that the voluntary self-castration of priests to the goddess was threatening and despicable to the people of Rome because this act “challenged the unspoken implication of

130

The commandment in Deut 23:1 [2] accomplishes the same effect as that in Leviticus, but for the layman instead of the priest. The man whose genitals are disfigured or removed is no longer a man with the rights and privileges associated with being a part of the congregation. Like the bastard (23:2[3]) emasculated by his lack of proper paternity, the eunuch or other genitally deformed man is an outcast.

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masculine superiority.”131 It would seem that, on the cultic level, the gelded animal posed the same challenge.132

conclusion The preponderance of male animals as sacrificial victims mirrors the prevalence of male humans as sacrificial actors. Moreover, male animals symbolize and demarcate the highest levels of sanctity, just as only male human beings act as priests. The preponderance of male animals can be explained in part by the material needs of animal husbandry. However, in sacrifice the material benefit of destroying mostly male animals combines with larger socio-religious concepts of gender and reproduction that value masculinity. The male becomes sanctified, and victimhood comes to reflect prestige. The ritual hierarchy of people becomes reenacted by treating sacrificial victims in ways that support it symbolically, such as excluding females as some types of victims, associating people of varying rank with animals of different gender, and placing the blood of only male animals in the most sacred space. In sacrifice, the sex distinctions in the natural world of animals enact human distinctions of gender and other hierarchies. In some other sacrificial traditions, an offering reflects the gender of the deity to which it is given. This is the case in many ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern religions in which there seems to have been a general principle, but one not strictly observed, that female animals were the proper victims for goddesses and male animals were appropriate victims for gods. This principle was explicitly uttered by the fourth-century Christian apologist Arnobius the Elder to describe the activities of pagan sacrificers: they were “sacrificing female victims to female deities, males to male deities” (diis feminis feminas, mares maribus hostias immolari).133 The principle was often operative in Greece,134 among the Hittites,135 in Mesopotamia,136 and in the record of 131 132

133 134 135

136

Roler, “The Ideology of the Eunuch Priest,” 131. Rashi partially articulates the fear when he asserts that the word z¯ak¯ar (“male”) is explicitly used in the law of the ʻ¯olˆa in Lev 1:3 so that there will be no possibility that a hermaphrodite animal or one of indeterminate sex is permitted. Adversus nationes 7, 19; cited in Van Straten, Hiera Kala: Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece, 182. Jameson, “Sacrifice and Animal Husbandry in Classical Greece,” 89; Van Straten, Hiera Kala, 182. In the “Ritual of Pulisa,” where it is unclear which deity is causing a plague, a man and a woman, along with a bull and a ewe, are offered as substitutionary victims so that the ritual will be effective for either a god or a goddess. Discussed in David P. Wright, The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature (SBL Dissertation Series 101; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 45–48. JoAnn Scurlock, “Animal Sacrifices in Ancient Mesopotamian Religion,” in A History of the Animal World in the Ancient Near East (ed. Billie Jean Collins; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 397. See

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the inauguration of Baal’s temple at Ugarit.137 However, this principle cannot be the biblical reason for selection by sex because there is no legitimate goddess in the religions codified in biblical law. Even if there were originally variations in the gender of offerings based on polytheistic practices, the system eventually conforms the offerings to the monotheistic worship of one male deity and the variations take on different functions. In some biblical rituals it does appear that certain male victims should resemble the biblical deity according to gender. In priestly law, the male ʻ¯olˆa, for example, corresponds to the deity in its nearly complete consecration, and it resembles the deity by being male. However, at other times, the victim expresses something about the offerer, such as the male lambs offered in the paschal sacrifice who substitute for the male Israelite children. In the end, victim selection enacts many ideas simultaneously, such as in the h.at..ta¯ ʼt sacrifice where gender selection seems to express something about the offerer, such as social status, yet the variation in gender also expresses the hierarchy of sacred space. At other points, the selection seems based only on material qualities, such as what is available or affordable, as in the ˇs˘el¯amˆım sacrifice or in the ʻ¯olˆot depicted in 1 Sam 6. In others, the selection coordinates with qualities associated with a specific gender (such as motherhood or impurity), to be explored in the following chapters. In short, a single criterion for victim selection cannot stand. The function of gender in sacrificial offerings is as multivalent as sacrifice itself, yet it is also integral to the nature and purpose of the offering at hand.

137

also the human offerings that would be made to Adad-Milki and Belet-s.eri of a son and daughter, respectively (discussed in K. Deller, review of R. de Vaux, Les sacrifices de l’ancien Testament. Orientalia 34 [1965], 382–86). Mentioned in M. Weinfeld, “The Worship of Molech and of the Queen of Heaven and Its Background,” UF 4 [1972], 144). KTU 1.4 lines 47–54. Cited and discussed in Borowski, “Animals in the Religions of SyriaPalestine,” in A History of the Animal World in the Ancient Near East (ed. Billie Jean Collins; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 415.

3

 Mothers, Milk, and Meat: The Exclusion of Motherhood from Sacrifice in Cultic Food Laws

Nancy Jay argued that blood sacrifice is always juxtaposed to childbirth, that the ritual male “birth” in sacrifice is socially constructed to supersede the natural birth given by women. The purpose of this juxtaposition is to forge bonds constructed socially through males and thus to minimize those created biologically through maternity. As part of this process, she argued, the fertile female is generally excluded from sacrificial worship. According to Jay’s theory, therefore, sacrifice is in part concerned with the ritual separation of motherhood from sacrificial acts. Although this exclusion is not necessarily the case for all sacrificial rites, especially illegitimate rites, it does appear in the codified sacrificial practices of biblical law. Indeed, the need to exclude both animal and human mothers from sacrifice explains a number of official sacrificial laws and especially three enigmatic laws about animals and their mothers.

mothers and sacrifice The sacrificial systems portrayed in the Hebrew Bible ritually separate maternity and motherhood from sacrifice in several ways. The most prominent way is the priestly writer’s characterization of the parturient, or new mother, as impure immediately after giving birth. Leviticus 12 states that for forty or eighty days after parturition, depending on the sex of the baby, a new mother is impure (t.a¯ m¯e’) and is unable to participate in sacrificial worship. Other biblical depictions of sacrifice show different forms of relationship between motherhood and sacrifice. For example, Hannah refrains from participating in sacrifice for three years after giving birth to Samuel until she has finished nursing him. 1 Samuel 1:20–25 reads, When the days were completed, Hannah conceived and bore a son and she named him Samuel, for: “I asked him of Yahweh.” Then the man Elkanah 77

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went up, with all of his house, to sacrifice to Yahweh the yearly sacrifice as well as his votive offering. But Hannah did not go up, for she said to her husband, “When the boy is weaned, I will bring him so that he will appear before Yahweh and stay there forever.” Elkanah her husband said to her, “Do what seems good to you. Stay until you wean him, but let Yahweh fulfill his word.” So the woman stayed and nursed her son until she weaned him. When she weaned him, she took him up with her, along with a three-year old bull,1 an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine and she brought him to the house of Yahweh at Shiloh, though the boy was very young. They slaughtered the bull and they brought the boy to Eli.

Although in this instance Hannah’s exclusion from sacrifice is self-imposed and not an official requirement of a cultic system, the passage exhibits a structural separation of a woman from sacrifice related to her maternal act of nursing.2 Hannah is not required at the yearly offering while she takes on this maternal work.3 Thus, whereas the parturient of Lev 12 is explicitly barred from sacrificial activity by her impurity, Hannah’s work of nursing and her role as new mother also intervene in her sacrificial worship, though in a much less formal way. In both cases, activities related to motherhood stand in opposition to sacrificial practice.4 In the case of Hannah, the exemption of a nursing mother may be solely a matter of convenience; as discussed in Chapter 1, scholarship on the biblical text, as well as Jewish tradition, has emphasized that women are not required to participate in some ritual activities, especially sacrificial pilgrimages, because their motherly work prevents them from attending at set times.5 This rationale is often given for the deemphasis on women in the three pilgrimage feasts of Matsot, Shevuot, and Sukkot depicted in Exod 23 and 34.6 However, if reproductive activity is the reason that women are not required at, or are possibly barred from, these rites, the structure of pilgrimage is one that is also inherently opposed to mothers of very young children and their domestic work. 1 2

3

4 5 6

See Chapter 1, n.101. Mayer Gruber also notes that it may be Hannah’s breastfeeding that prevents her from worshiping until Samuel is weaned; Gruber, “Breastfeeding Practices in Biblical Israel and in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia,” JANES 19 (1989), 67. It is unclear whether the yearly sacrifice discussed in 1 Sam 1 is one of the three official pilgrimage feasts, a different pilgrimage ceremony, or a private family sacrifice that is not necessarily required on a set day each year. See the discussion in Chapter 1. Gen 21:8 shows a similar situation in which Abraham makes a feast for Isaac on the day he is weaned; here as well, public communal meat eating is juxtaposed to nursing. See the discussion in Chapter 1. In contrast, Deuteronomy specifically includes women, at least at the feasts that accompany the sacrificial offerings (Deut 12:12, 18; 16:11, 14), although these women are not said to be mothers (cf. 29:11 [10]). Breyfogle, “The Religious Status of Women in the Old Testament,” 414.

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As new mothers, both the parturient and Hannah also produce physical substances that are juxtaposed to sacrificial worship. In the purity system outlined by the priestly writer in Leviticus, the blood of birth is an indication of the new mother’s impurity, which prevents her from touching the sanctuary or its precincts (Lev 12:4). This lochial blood is the tangible element barring the parturient from sacrificial activity: for the first seven or fourteen days it is considered impure like menses (Lev 12:2, 5; cf. Lev 15:19-24), and after that the blood is called “purifying blood” (d˘emȇ .toh˘orˆa; 12:4, 5).7 At the end of the period of impurity, the new mother offers sacrifices so that “she becomes clean from the fountain of her blood” (v˘e.ta¯ h˘arˆa mimm˘eq¯or d¯amȇh¯a; 12:7). For Hannah it is not blood but milk that, in part, prevents her from going to the pilgrimage sacrifice: she does not go until the boy is weaned and she has stopped nursing. Hannah is never deemed impure, but her production of milk keeps her from ritual activity and thus, in a sense, secularizes her. In both Lev 12 and 1 Sam 1, the state that renders mothers unfit for sacrificial worship does not last forever. Mothers are not barred from sacrifice for the rest of their lives, but only for a specific period of time. Thus Jay’s observation regarding the exclusion of fertile women from sacrificial practice requires some qualification; indeed, in biblical thought, the only occasion on which women are consistently required to participate in sacrifice is after becoming mothers: Leviticus 12 requires that a woman sacrifice a lamb as an ʻ¯olˆa and a bird as a h.at..ta¯ ʼt either forty or eighty days after birth, depending on whether the child is a boy or a girl. In Hannah’s case, after refraining from the sacrificial pilgrimage for three years, she rejoins the worshiping community by bringing offerings (1 Sam 1:24–25).8 In these situations, women bring sacrifices as a prerogative and a duty of motherhood. Women become far more active participants in sacrifice after becoming mothers than at any other point in their lives, which reflects their elevated social status on becoming a mother. At the same time, the mother’s sacrifice calls attention to the special status of birth and early motherhood by demarcating the end of that status, which is specifically characterized by an inability to sacrifice. The sacrifices act on the one hand to reintegrate the mother into society, even lifting her up within it; yet at the same time the preceding exclusion from sacrifice draws negative attention to new motherhood and birth by characterizing these events as contrary to ritual purposes. Sacrifice limits and defines the particularly threatening time around childbirth and shows it to be a powerful, polarizing force in relation to the cult. 7 8

See, however, Chapter 6, which shows that the substance is merely a tangible indicator of impurity and not necessarily the cause of the impurity. See Chapter 1, n.101.

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A final shared feature of Hannah’s sacrifice and the law of the parturient is that in both cases the end of the special ritual status after new motherhood coincides not only with sacrifice but also with the religious donation, either literal or ritual, of male children. In Hannah’s case, the donation is not just symbolic: after making her sacrifices Hannah literally gives away her son to the shrine so that, in practice, she is no longer his mother. She sees Samuel only once a year after that; her only motherly duty is to bring him a little coat of her own making (1 Sam 2:19). The parturient is also separated from her son though in the more symbolic way of his circumcision on the eighth day of his life (Lev 12:3). This action, though not as extreme as donation to a shrine, nevertheless indicates that he now has a connection to the divine and is given over to it as a male member of the covenant community. After his circumcision on the eighth day the mother’s impurity is considerably lessened, though she remains impure for another thirty-three days. She cannot touch sancta but she is not contagiously impure. In both of these cases then, the mother reenters, or begins to reenter, the sacrificial community when she gives her child to the ritual realm. During the time that she does not participate in sacrifice, the child is aligned with her: Samuel remains with Hannah during this time, and the newborn son in Lev 12 stays with his mother during the period of severe impurity. Yet as part of her return the son becomes part of the sacrificial community. Thus the act of sacrifice in part separates the child from his mother. These elements of the relationship between motherhood and sacrifice are also found in laws about baby animals and their mothers that mandate the exclusion of maternity and its symbols from the ritual realm of sacrifice. Moreover, along with the shunning of new mothers themselves, the sacrificial systems in biblical law also omit the most motherly of foods, namely milk, which is nowhere listed as a sacrificial offering and is only mentioned with regard to sacrifice in how it must be excluded. In fact, milk and mother animals are barred as legitimate sacrificial material or victims in a variety of laws from all the major pentateuchal sources. Thus, like the laws of the parturient and menstruant, laws concerning animal mothers control and limit the ways in which motherhood and its symbols may play a role in the socio-cultic bonds and the image of the sacred created by sacrifice. As with the new human mother, these laws also have the primary function of negotiating how the mother animal’s offspring can be separated from her.

“feminized protein” and the sacrificial cult The previous chapter discussed how sacrifice was the main form of meat eating in the biblical world. The killing and eating of domesticated animals is

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thus a central concern of sacrifice; even in Deuteronomy, where most eating of domesticated meat is secularized, eating meat is nonetheless discussed in relation to sacrificial practice by explicitly rejecting its sacrificial features (Deut 12:13–28). Yet although animals are the focus of biblical texts on sacrifice, other foodstuffs are also vital and important offerings. According to Num 15:1–16, for example, every sacrificial animal must be accompanied by offerings of grain, oil, and wine. Additionally, one of the “most holy” priestly offerings is not an animal at all but the minh.aˆ , the cereal offering mixed with incense that is burnt on the altar (Lev 2:1ff.). Grain can also be offered in place of an animal for the h.at..ta¯ ʼt sacrifice if the offerer cannot afford an animal (Lev 5:11–12). Moreover, according to various traditions the firstfruits of the harvest must either be handed over to the priests or Levites in the form of an offering or must be consumed in the ritual manner of Sukkot (Exod 23:16, 19; 34:22, 26; Lev 2:14–16; 23:10–14, 17, 20; Num 18:13; 28:26; Deut 18:4–5). As only domesticated animals are offered in sacrifice, so too only the main produce that has been “domesticated” by planting and harvesting is regularly offered, namely that of grains, wine, and oil. The produce of uncultivated trees and plants, like wild animals, is not donated to the sanctuary.9 The concepts inherent in sacrificial ideology and victimology thus extend beyond the carcasses of animals, and are played out in other aspects of food and eating. That many different kinds of food are offered makes more pronounced the fact that nowhere in the Bible are milk products presented as offerings or included as part of any sacrificial system. This omission is especially significant because the only proper sacrificial animals – cows, goats, and sheep – produce milk fit for human consumption and indeed were likely raised in large part for their milk. As F. S. Bodenheimer writes in his survey, Animal and Man in Bible Lands, Milk – mainly goat’s milk – was, together with bread, the main food of the patriarchal age. Milk includes a number of milk products, such as cheese, leben (sour milk), butter, and butter milk. It is therefore surprising not to find any of these milk products to be included among the sacrificial offerings.10

Similarly, W. Robertson Smith noted, “Milk . . . though one of the commonest articles of food among the Israelites, has no place in Hebrew sacrifice.”11 Meat, being the primary sacrificial material for all of the Semitic peoples 9

10 11

Where more “wild” plants are involved in ritual activity, as in the building of booths at Sukkot (Lev 23:40), their distinction from the normal ritual plants is clearly part of the unique nature of the rite; they are used to emphasize the wilderness. Bodenheimer, Animal and Man in Bible Lands (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 209. The Religion of the Semites, 220.

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he was aware of, ritually displaced the more common secular food of milk: “If . . . the sole principle that governed the choice of the material of sacrifices had been that they must consist of human food, milk and not flesh would have had the leading place in nomad ritual, whereas its real place is exceedingly subordinate.”12 Indeed, it is surprising that in biblical ritual law there are no offerings of milk, or curds, cheese, yogurt, butter, or any other dairy items. They do not accompany meat offerings, nor are they ever mentioned as tithes to priests,13 nor as any kind of firstfruit. Milk is never even discussed in the legal texts except for the prohibition against boiling a kid in its mother’s milk (Exod 23:19b; 34:26b; Deut 14:21b) where it is excluded from a cultic context. A number of interpretations have been offered for milk’s exclusion from the sacrificial system. Robertson Smith, with some reservations, suggested that it was excluded on the basis of Exod 23:18 and Lev 2:11; that is, because milk ferments quickly in hot climates and is generally not eaten fresh there, it violates the prohibitions on leavening.14 However, as Bodenheimer rightly stated, wine, which appears in numerous sacrificial texts, would have had to be excluded for the same reason.15 Bodenheimer found some basis for the biblical omission of milk in the observation that some present-day nomads consider milk to be too lowly and common a substance to sell and therefore an inadequate gift for deities.16 However, this economic rationale cannot hold for the Israelites because they offered grain and bread – surely lowly foodstuffs themselves. Moreover, it seems clear from 1 Sam 17:17–18, in which foot soldiers are given bread but captains are given cheese, that cheese was more valuable than bread and was food for a person with a higher status.17 Additionally, Isa 55:1 implies that milk, like wine, was not always affordable. David Daube suggests that milk was originally part of the sacrificial system but was excluded following the prohibition on boiling a kid in its mother’s milk.18 This law, he says, is in essence an intentional exclusion of milk products from sacrifice; it is “the rejection of a class of offerings.”19 Similarly, Caquot refers to milk as “a purely secular foodstuff.”20 However, numerous biblical passages, especially the repeated characterization of the land of Israel as a “land 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Ibid., 223. Propp, points out that Luzzatto believed it would have been customary to give the priest the first milk along with wool (Exodus 19–40, 285). There is no biblical evidence for this, however. The Religion of the Semites, 220–21. See also Caquot’s citation of M. J. Lagrange and F. Blome, who hold the same perspective (Andr´e Caquot, “ch¯al¯abh,” TDOT IV, 386). Bodenheimer, Animal and Man in Bible Lands, 209. Ibid., 209. Cansdale, Animals of Bible Lands, 60. Daube, “A Note on a Jewish Dietary Law,” Journal of Theological Studies 37 (1936): 289–91. Ibid., 290. Caquot, “ch¯al¯abh,” 386.

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flowing with milk and honey,” indicate that, in general, milk is a primary, important, and desired substance. Isaiah 7:21–22 implies that a person can ideally exist solely on the milk from a cow and two sheep (or goats –s.o¯ʼn). In the story of Jael and Sisera, the fact that she gives him milk or milk products is portrayed as extravagant (Judg 4:19; 5:25). Thus, the omission of milk from sacrificial offerings must bespeak a certain understanding of it that is unique to the Israelite sacrifice portrayed in the Bible, because other Semitic peoples, including nomads, made milk offerings.21 There is one obvious fact about milk that makes it different from all other offerings mentioned in the Bible: it only comes from mother animals.22 Whereas meat may come from animals of either sex, milk is a specifically female product and, even more, is one that comes only from animals that have recently given birth. The objection might be raised that there are all kinds of foodstuffs that never appear as biblical offerings. However, because all the primary sacrificial animals are milk producers, and because milk is repeatedly mentioned as an ideal food in the Bible, milk’s omission must be meaningful.23 21

22

23

Bodenheimer, Animal and Man in Bible Lands, 209; Smith, The Religion of the Semites, 220; Jacob Milgrom, “Sacrifices and Offerings, OT,” IDB 4, 156; Marten Stol, “Milk, Butter and Cheese,” Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 7 (1993), 100; Caquot, “ch¯al¯abh,” 386. Thus Carol J. Adams states, “Female animals become oppressed by their femaleness, and become essentially surrogate wet-nurses. These . . . animals are oppressed as Mother animals” (her italics; The Sexual Politics of Meat, 91). Other foodstuffs are problematic for the Israelite cult. Leaven is strictly forbidden from the Passover sacrifice, the feast of Matsot, the cereal offering (Lev 2:11), and bread that accompanies sacrificial meat (Lev 6:17 [Heb 6:10]). However, P requires that loaves made with leaven be brought to the priests along with ˇs˘el¯amˆım offerings (Lev 7:13) and H requires leaven in cakes offered as wave offerings that revert to priests during the feast of Weeks in Lev 23:17. Similarly, libations of wine must accompany some offerings (e.g., Exod 29:40–41; Lev 23:13; Num 15:5, 7, 10; 28:14), though it must be avoided by nazirites (Num 6:3–4, 20) and also by priests when they are performing cultic service (Lev 10:9). Although these products are restricted in some ways by cultic practice, they still have a place there, whereas dairy products never do. The only other animal product legislated by biblical law is honey (d˘ebaˇs), if in fact actual bee’s honey is meant by this term. It may be a part of the date or a substance made from dates (Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 189–90). According to P, honey, like leaven, must never be burned on an altar (Lev 2:11). Thus honey was considered by some biblical traditions to be an unacceptable ritual food. Clearly, milk and honey are closely associated in the phrase characterizing the land of Israel as well as in their omission from offerings. Both are also characterized as children’s food (Isa 7:15–16 or antithetically in Job 20:16–17); see Propp, “Milk and Honey: Biblical Comfort Food,” BR 15 (1999), 16. Propp also suggests that honey might be related to maternal imagery because some peoples encourage nursing by putting honey on a mother’s breasts (ibid., 54, n.2). It may be that honey’s ability to induce fermentation (like leaven and wine), which would be symbolic of decay and death, is its cultically objectionable aspect (Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 190; Propp, Exodus 1–18, 433). Yet if bee’s honey is in fact what is meant, it might be objectionable because of its ambiguous quality as a nonmeat secondary animal product that can be domesticated but is produced by animals without intense human labor, like milk and eggs (Caquot, “ch¯al¯abh,” 386 makes this point regarding milk). Adams

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A number of interpreters have recognized that cross-culturally milk can stand for relationships formed through mothers. The anthropologist Victor Turner argued that milk can be a “natural symbol” for the relationship between a mother and child.24 Robertson Smith reported that among some Semitic peoples sharing milk can be a way of fostering ties with adopted or foster children when bringing them into the family. In these situations, the drinking of milk creates socially constructed consanguinity.25 Though this idea is apparent in some biblical ideology, such as in Song of Songs 8:1, which states, “O that you were like a brother to me, who nursed at my mother’s breast!” (NRSV), biblical law’s restrictions on sacrifice do not utilize this means of constructing familial bonds through the mother or maternal symbolism. Furthermore, milk is obviously related to children and immaturity. Both human and animal milk are portrayed biblically as children’s food (Isa 28:9 [as curds, Isa 7:15]; 1 Cor 3:2). Thus milk is aligned not with mature masculinity, but with femininity and immaturity. For these reasons it may be that milk is an appropriate symbol for creating private familial bonds, but not the social public bonds with which sacrifice is often concerned. Similarly, eggs are never mentioned as a sacrificial food or offering: there are no egg offerings in the Bible nor any sort of egg tithe, yet the only permissible non-milk-producing sacrificial victims are doves and pigeons, both of which lay eggs fit for human consumption. Like milk, eggs come only from female animals and are intrinsically related to birthing; laying eggs is a means of giving birth, and eggs themselves are an embodiment of gestation and birth. Whether the substances of milk and eggs are not offered because they come from mother animals or because they have some other significance, the effect is the same of excluding these particularly female substances from the cult and the omission matches the omission of human mothers from cultic activity. Moreover, excluding these examples of what Adams terms “feminized protein”26 from the other animal product of meat prioritizes meat as the cultically preferred foodstuff. This valorization is also clear in a group of laws that not only explicitly prioritize meat over the foods produced by mothers but also go further by excluding actual animal mothers themselves from the sacrificial system.

24 25 26

points out that only honey, milk, and eggs are food products that animals make while they are alive (The Sexual Politics of Meat, 91). The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967), 19–47, cited in Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism. 132. Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, 284. The Sexual Politics of Meat, 91.

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mothers and meat The principle of separating mothers from sacrifice is the guiding feature of a number of laws regarding mother animals and their offspring. Four biblical laws mention female animals as mothers: (1) Deut 22:6–7, which is a prohibition on consuming a mother bird along with her eggs or newborn offspring; (2) the thrice-repeated prohibition on boiling a kid in its mother’s milk (Exod 23:19b; 34:26b; Deut 14:21b); (3) Exod 22:28–29, which states that firstborn males must be sacrificed after spending seven days with their mother; and (4) Lev 22:27–28, which includes two statutes, the first being that a baby animal must remain with its mother for seven days before being sacrificed, and then a ban on slaughtering a parent animal and its offspring on the same day. These stipulations have often been interpreted together as different manifestations of one phenomenon, although interpreters vary on what exactly that phenomenon is. Menahem Haran, for example, following lines of interpretation that go at least as far back as Philo, understands them to exemplify a certain humanitarian disgust at harming an infant and its parent together.27 Jacob Milgrom, along with other interpreters, finds the basis for these laws to lay less in humanitarian concerns per se than as a violation of the principle of confusing life and death. Harming a child in or along with the source of its life destroys the separation between life and death that is foundational to cultic thought.28 These interpretations are not mutually exclusive; surely to kill a mother along with her child could be problematic on many ethical or ideological grounds. But all of these interpretations fail to emphasize that each of the laws focuses on the child as the proper eventual victim for slaughter, or the proper foodstuff, while dismissing the mother as such. Each law constructs a situation that characterizes an animal in relation to its mother and then prescribes how it may properly be taken from her. Each law also clarifies that the offspring is the proper cultic food, and thus the sacred object, while cultically proscribing the mother or her milk. Motherhood is the problematic element in these stipulations, not humanitarianism. Only in this context of the relationship of the animal to its mother do the biblical laws address any “ethical” slaughtering of animals. There are no laws on humane methods of cutting or burning animals in the Bible as there are in the Talmud and Mishna or in Greek descriptions of sacrifice. However, although the prevention of 27 28

“Seething a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,” JJS 30 (1979), 23–35. See especially Milgrom’s “Milk and Meat: Unlikely Bedfellows,” in By Study and Also by Faith; Vol. 1: Essays in Honor of Hugh W. Nibley on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday (ed. John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks; Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Co., 1990), 144–54.

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cruelty to animals does not seem to be the primary purpose of these laws, it may be a consequence of them.

Deuteronomy 22:6–7 Deuteronomy 22:6–7 is not a sacrificial law. It does not describe any sacrificial or festal action and unlike sacrificial laws, it concerns wild animals, not domesticated animals under human control. Nevertheless, it merits discussion here not only because interpreters have grouped it together with sacrificial laws but also because it parallels some of the ideas and structures concerning the relationship of animals used for food and their mothers. It is also the only mention of eggs in biblical law. The passage reads, If a bird’s nest should appear before you on the road, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and with the mother sitting on the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother who is on her infants. You will send the mother away but the infants you can take for yourself, so that it will go well for you and you can have a long life.

Like the other laws concerning animal mothers, this mother bird is not to be taken as food herself. One would assume that if she were found alone she could be captured,29 but when she is characterized as a mother, by sitting over her offspring, she is off-limits. Similarly, the eggs cannot be exchanged for the mother: one does not choose between mother and child, but must always take the offspring. Though the prescription may have other symbolic meanings, there is no “humanitarian” reason that it is better to kill or capture multiple infant birds instead of one adult bird.30 It can be, however, a wise choice if one wants to secure eggs in the future because the mother is a proven nubile source of food.31 The fledglings or eggs are not protected at all: they may be rather unmercifully plucked away from their mother, their lives ended without compunction. This passage does not distinguish between the treatment of eggs and the treatment of fledglings; they are characterized as essentially the same. The 29 30

31

Ibid., 148. This reason has been proposed by a number of interpreters, including Gerhard von Rad, Deuteronomy: A Commentary (OTL; trans. Dorothea Barton; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966), 141. Peter C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy (NICOT; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1976), 288–89; Jack Sasson, “Ritual Wisdom?: On ‘Seething a Kid in its Mother’s Milk,’” in Kein Land f¨ur sich allein: Studien zum Kulturkontakt in Kanaan, Israel/Pal¨astina und Ebirnˆari f¨ur Manfred Weippert zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. Ulrich H¨ubner and Ernst Axel Knauf; Freiburg: Universit¨atsverlag, 2002), 305.

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passage clarifies how eggs, which might be an ambiguous ritual substance, are to be understood: they are to be treated like offspring and, thus, like meat and therefore may be taken. Although in this instance the “feminized protein” of eggs is undifferentiated from the meat of fledglings, it is possible that this is not always the case with domesticated birds. Talmudic discussions of this law question whether one should treat domesticated birds in the same manner as wild ones (b. H . ul. 78b). Perhaps a distinction between live offspring and eggs is not made in Deut because they are wild and because this is not a strictly sacrificial law. In any event, this law accords with others by making the offspring, as either infants or eggs, the proper foodstuff in opposition to the mother. It is also likely that the general omission of eggs, like milk, as offerings indicates some resistance to nonmeat animal products and thereby characterizes this “feminized protein” as an improper sacrificial substance.

Boiling a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk The statement “you shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” (l¯oʼ t˘ebaˇsˇs¯el g˘edˆı bah.a˘ l¯eb ʼimmˆo) occurs three times in the Pentateuch: twice in Exodus, in 23:19b and 34:26b, and a third time in Deut 14:21b. This sole legalistic mention of milk is a restriction on its use in the cult, not a prescription for it. Both passages in Exodus appear as part of a larger body of instructions relating to the three pilgrimage festivals of Matsot, Shevuot, and Sukkot, when all Israelite males (kol-z˘ekˆur˘ek¯a; Exod 23:17; 34:23) must attend the sanctuary with offerings. In Deuteronomy the phrase does not appear in connection with a specific cultic event, but in the context of other general restrictions on eating animals. It follows the list of animals forbidden as food (14:3–20) and a prohibition on eating carcasses of animals that have died from natural causes (14:21a). This enigmatic statement has merited a great deal of discussion in part because its purpose is unclear but more so because it is the foundation of the Jewish practice of separating the consumption of meat products from milk products. Early Judaism expanded the prohibition to apply to the commingling of most meat from the milk of any animal, not just its own mother.32 It is possible that the law inherently applied to multiple species. The Septuagint translated the term “kid” (g˘edˆı) as arnos, a term that applies mainly to sheep but may also include goats. The Hebrew term for “kid” (g˘edˆı) may refer to 32

M. H . ul. 8:4; b. H . ul. 113a–16a; b. Qidd. 57b (as cited in Propp, Exodus 19–40, 285). See also Philo Virt. 144 and Targ. Onq. on the verse.

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lambs as well.33 However, it is likely that a goat is the intended subject of the Hebrew term because goats were the main source of milk in ancient Israel.34 Interpretations of the biblical law have varied. One of the most traditional, propounded especially by Maimonides, is that it was a Canaanite cultic practice to boil a baby goat in its mother’s milk.35 To engage in that practice, then, would be to enact a pagan rite. The law’s location in Deut 14:21 associates banned food with foreigners; the text reads: “You will not eat any carcass; give it to the stranger in your gate so that he will eat it, or sell it to a foreigner, for you are a holy people for Yahweh your god. You will not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” Surely, it is not difficult to draw from this association the implication that foreigners might boil a kid in its mother’s milk. Indeed, as Propp notes, this stipulation, like dietary restrictions in general, acts as an ethnic marker that distinguishes social groups.36 However, there is no evidence that intentionally boiling a kid in its own mother’s milk was a specific ritual practice in foreign cults, a point that Maimonides himself conceded. Some modern scholars have argued that the Ugaritic text “The Gods Fair and Beautiful” (KTU 1.23) prescribed the practice of boiling a kid in milk, but that interpretation of the text has been shown to be faulty.37 Even if boiling a kid in its mother’s milk were a Canaanite rite, there must be some other underlying aspect of this practice that is more meaningful within the ideology of biblical religion than its association with pagan practice. There are many rituals, such as sacrifice itself, that are performed in non-Yahwistic religions but that are also important and legitimate aspects of biblical religion. Boiling a kid in mother’s milk must therefore have its own problematic significance. Another interpretation with a long history is that cooking a baby animal in its mother’s milk is an inhumane and morally abhorrent practice.38 Although such an act can certainly be perceived as inhumane, cruelty cannot be the sole 33 34 35 36 37

38

B. H . ul. 113a–b, cited, along with other sources, by Propp, Exodus 19–40, 284. Firmage, “Zoology,” 1128. The Guide for the Perplexed 48. See also, Martin Noth, Exodus: A Commentary (OTL; trans. J. S. Bowden; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 192; Childs, The Book of Exodus, 486. Exodus 19–40, 286. This position was especially championed by Charles Virolleaud in his translation, “La Naissance des Dieux Gracieux et Beaux,” Syria: Revue d’Art Oriental et d’Arch´eologie 14 (1933), 40. However, the most current translations and interpretations assume that the proper reading concerns an herb and not a milk product. See discussion and critiques in Haran, “Seething a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,” 25–27; R. Ratner and B. Zuckerman, “ ‘A Kid in Milk?’ New Photographs of KTU 1.23, Line 14,” HUCA 57 (1986), 15–60. See especially, Haran, “Seething a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk.” Note also Sarna who, following Rashbam, suggests that to boil a kid in its mother’s milk would show “insensitivity to the animal’s feelings” (Exodus; The JPS Torah Commentary [Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1991], 147) a concern that is not iterated anywhere else in the Torah save in the possible context of the slaughter of animals with their mothers.

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reason for this proscription. There are all kinds of abhorrent practices that could be enumerated with regard to the killing of animals but that are not prohibited in the Bible and that do not have the cultic importance of this law, which is repeated three times, with two of these instances being in specifically cultic contexts. Additionally, if humanitarian concerns were at issue, one would expect that the ban would be on slaughtering the offspring, not on boiling it, and that the text would focus on the details of the killing rather than the cooking.39 Thus, although there may be humanitarian sentiment entwined in such a ban, there again must be some larger idea that the practice would violate. As mentioned earlier, Milgrom suggests that this practice does reflect a larger theological concept: the problem with boiling a kid in its mother’s milk, he says, is that the practice is contrary to the ideology of biblical religion, which separates life from death and promotes life. Thus, to kill an animal in the very substance meant to feed it and promote its life is contrary to the worship of the living God, which makes clear divisions between life and death. If he is correct, it is difficult to understand why in this instance the substance symbolic of life (milk) is problematic for the worship of life while the substance symbolic of death (meat) is its primary material.40 The objectionable aspect of this ritual act is not the cooking of the kid or even necessarily its boiling, but the boiling in its mother’s milk; the milk remains the problematic element. By Milgrom’s reasoning, life is excluded from the worship of life in this circumstance. The notion of removing life from meat is certainly a biblical one: numerous texts emphasize that blood, as life, must be drained from meat (Gen 9:4; Lev 17:11–14: Deut 12:23–27). However, in these circumstances blood must always be treated in a special way and is portrayed as an important and valued ritual substance.41 Unlike sacrificial blood, milk is never presented as a part of the 39

40

41

Labuschange, “You Shall Not Boil a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk: A New Proposal for the Origin of the Prohibition,” in The Scriptures and the Scrolls: Studies in Honor of A. S. van der Woude on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday (ed. F. Garc´ıa Mart´ınez, A. Hilhorst, and C. J. Labuschagne; Leiden: Brill, 1992), 8. Similarly to Milgrom, Calum Carmichael suggests that this and similar laws separate God’s life-giving from God’s life-taking roles (“On Separating Life and Death: An Explanation of Some Biblical Laws” HTR 69 [1976], 1–7). If this is the case, we must conclude that sacrifice is thus theologically promoting God as life-taker in these contexts. Labuschagne (‘You Shall Not Boil a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk’) bases his interpretation of the prohibition on blood: he suggests that the law refers to the feast of Sukkot, and especially to the slaughter of firstlings, so that they would be slaughtered on the eighth day of life, as in Exod 22:30 [29]. Because a mother animal creates colostrum as the first milk, which contains an intense amount of proteins that turn the color of the milk a deep yellow color, Labuschagne conjectures that it was thought that colostrum includes blood, which would be forbidden to consume. Eating meat with this first milk at Sukkot is thus a violation of the eating of blood. There are a number of problems with this interpretation. It is not clear

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“life” promoted by sacrifice; it is instead contrary to it. Milk is treated less like the blood of sacrifice than like female reproductive blood, which is also excluded from sacrificial practice and which, like milk, is connected to female reproduction. In the rabbinic era, as well as in other Mediterranean and Semitic cultures, there was a belief that milk was derived from blood or was a form of it.42 Whether the biblical writers also held such a view is unknown; if milk were thought to be a form of blood we might expect it to be completely excluded from the Israelite diet. However, the treatment of milk in the context of this prohibition and its overall omission in sacrificial practice suggest that milk is somehow related to menstrual blood and the blood of parturition. This phenomenon matches both the juxtaposition between sacrificial practice and nursing, as found in the story of Hannah, and that between sacrifice and female bleeding, as found in Lev 12. Therefore, although one can observe that milk is objectively related to life and its creation, as Milgrom does, his interpretation is in error because the sacrificial system does not connect milk to the “life” promoted by the deity, but instead portrays it as contrary to it. The “life” thus promoted by sacrifice is not the natural and observable one but a constructed one. Jean Soler and Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, suggest that the concept underlying this and (Eilberg-Schwartz argues) similar prohibitions is a ban on incest, which is also found in biblical law (Lev 18, 20; Deut 27:20–23).43 According to Soler, the law essentially shows that “you shall not put a mother and her son into the same pot, any more than into the same bed.”44 These interpretations have the benefit of emphasizing the contribution of human social relations to such a law and illustrating that the consanguineous relationship between mother and child is the problematic element reflected in the prohibition.

42 43

44

that the law applies only to Booths or only to the eating of firstlings. Moreover, although he seems to think this timing is unknowable, most animals have ceased to produce beestings after five days, and thus the presence of colostrum would not be a concern on the eighth day after birth when an animal can be slaughtered. Sasson also points out that according to Labuschagne’s reasoning, colostrum would need to be banned on every occasion, not just when it is commingled with the child for which it was made (Sasson, “Ritual Wisdom,” 298). However, Labuschagne’s interpretation is helpful by highlighting the problematic nature of the milk itself in the prohibition. Gruber, “Breast-Feeding Practices in Biblical Israel and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia,” 68; Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, 221, n.7. Jean Soler, “The Semiotics of Food in the Bible,” in Food and Drink in History: Selections from the Annales, Economies, Societes, Economies, Societies, Civilisations Vol. 5 (ed. Robert Forster and Orest A. Ranum; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), 126–38; EilbergSchwartz, The Savage in Judaism, 129. Soler only refers to the milk law and its relationship to Lev 18, whereas Eilberg-Schwartz discusses all three laws and their relationships to rules about incest in Lev 18:7, 12 and 20:14 and in Deut 27:20. Soler, “The Semiotics of Food in the Bible,” 136.

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They suggest that the relationship between mothers and their children, which could become dangerously close, is in need of regulation. There is little evidence for such an extreme interpretation, however. Although it is true that incest is a concern in biblical law, the sources that address it, namely H and the source underlying the twelve curses in Deut 27, do not cite this text; likewise, those that do cite this text do not also address incest. Moreover, it is hard to understand why, of all the forms of incest enumerated in Lev 18 and 20 and Deut 27, only mother-son incest would be of interest in the ritual and quasi-ritual textual contexts of Exod 23, Exod 34, and Deut 14. Furthermore, as Milgrom remarks, the term for “kid” in the law, though in masculine form, does not necessarily mean that only male offspring are intended,45 and biblical law is nowhere concerned with mother-daughter incest. Instead of a prohibition on the mother-child relationship because of incest, it seems more likely that the kid law discourages the natural affiliation of children with their mothers in order to reinforce the paternal bonds constructed by the sacrificial cult. A far less titillating explanation of the law is that it is a symbolic prohibition on the close connection between mother and son genealogically and socially instead of sexually, a suggestion that Eilberg-Schwartz mentions but does not pursue.46 Rather than banning isolated instances of perverted sexuality, it bans a symbol of matrilineality, which is a more consistent and pervasive threat to the construction of family and society. As is shown later, the context in which the first two instances of the law appear has the purpose of bringing and binding together males of the community; banning the practice of boiling a kid in its mother’s milk is a means of emphasizing the masculine nature of the proceedings and the bonds among men. To boil a kid in its mother’s milk intentionally in a ritual setting would be to embrace and even sanctify the relationship between mother and child; not to do so discourages it. If the purpose of the law were to ban mother-son incest, it seems difficult to understand why this matter would be so important in this ritual context. Soler’s other perception – that the law, like other biblical restrictions, is a “matter of upholding the separation between two classes or two types of relationships”47 – may be correct. As with the law prohibiting the mixing of two kinds of crops or of yoking an ox and an ass together (Deut 22:9–10), the law against boiling a kid in its mother’s milk separates two similar but substantially different items. Soler argues that what may be confused are the various roles of a particular female: one’s mother cannot also be one’s lover. 45 46 47

“Milk and Meat: Unlikely Bedfellows,” 148. The Savage in Judaism, 132. Soler, “The Semiotics of Food in the Bible,” 136–37.

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It seems more likely that the separation keeps mothers and their symbols away from more masculine sacrificial flesh and sacrificial practice. The prohibition separates the mother-child relationship, symbolized by milk, from the father-child relationship espoused by sacrifice and symbolized by meat. The prohibition also distinguishes between the two foods created by a mother animal: her milk and her offspring (i.e., meat). Because the mother would be producing milk at the very time that she has a kid, the possibility of eating both the mother’s milk and her offspring at the same time is very real.48 In contrast to Deut 22:6–7, in which eggs are essentially considered to be offspring and treated accordingly, the milk prohibition treats this “feminized protein” as a substance quite different from the offspring. It is fitting that this law was written with the kid as its focus and main concern, because the meat is the important cultic material prioritized in the passage. As mentioned earlier, David Daube suggested that this law is an attempt to do away with an old nomadic milk offering in favor of a sedentary living sacrifice.49 Though that historical reconstruction has not been proven, the result that he attributes to the rule holds true: the law has the effect of abolishing milk from ritual, at least in this context, and clarifies that in this ritual arena meat eating is a sacred activity from which milk detracts. Thus milk, at least the boiling milk of a goat’s own mother, becomes aligned with other elements rejected from sacrifice while meat and offspring become more related to sacrificial worship. The law’s function of separating maternity and its symbols from sacrificial worship appears more clearly in its literary and ritual contexts. Although interpretations often divorce it from those contexts, its two appearances in the book of Exodus demonstrate that it is a sacrificial law or is related to sacrificial worship. The law’s placement as the concluding remarks of two parallel pericopes on pilgrimage festivals is integral to its meaning. It appears first in Exod 23:14–19: Three times a year you will make a pilgrimage for me. You will keep the pilgrimage of Matsot; seven days you will eat unleavened bread just as I commanded you – at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you went out from Egypt. No one will appear before me empty-handed. At the pilgrimage of Qatsir (Shevuot), the firstfruits of your work, which you sow in the field; and the pilgrimage of Asiph (Sukkot), at the end of the 48

49

Daube, “A Note on a Jewish Dietary Law,” 290. Haran offers his version of the humanitarian theory of the law based on this reasoning. He believes the law is meant to prohibit the practice during the feast of Sukkot, when baby animals and their mother’s milk would be available. The law is meant to be “a deliberate reminder of humane behavior even in the midst of general jollity” when one might be tempted to eat such a mixture (“Seething a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,” 35). Daube, “A Note on a Jewish Dietary Law,” 289–91.

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year, when you gather your work from the field. Three times a year all your males will appear before the lord Yahweh. You will not sacrifice the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; and you will not leave overnight the fat of my pilgrimage offering until morning. The best firstfruits of your ground you will bring to the house of Yahweh your god. You will not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

As the last of the four restrictions on animals used as offerings, boiling the kid with its mother’s milk is parallel to offering blood with leaven, to misusing fat, and to not offering the best food. Like leaven, milk is a perfectly fine food, just not when it is combined with certain sacrificial material; both have a certain ritual potency. Like leftover fat, kid cooked in its mother’s milk is also not scrupulously tended as a ritual substance. Moreover, when a kid is cooked with its mother’s milk it is like a choice firstfruit that has not been separated from inferior fruits. If we consider that firstborn male animals were routinely offered to Yahweh as a kind of firstfruit, the distinction becomes clear: the meat, and not the milk, is the firstfruit of the mother; it is the choice, ritually desired part. This passage is closely related to its appearance in Exod 34, where the milk prohibition appears as the last of four sacrificial laws (vv. 25–26); however, in this latter case it is the flesh of the paschal lamb that may not remain overnight, whereas in Exod 23 it is the fat of an unspecified sacrifice that may not remain overnight. In both passages, the way in which the boiling milk command is related to the context of the pilgrimage festivals is unclear and a matter of dispute: the law has been variously interpreted to apply only to offerings made at Sukkot,50 or to firstlings offered at both Sukkot and Shevuot,51 or to the Passover offering,52 or to offerings for all three pilgrimage festivals, or to all sacrifice in general,53 or only to firstling offerings,54 or not to sacrifice at all but to secular feasts that accompany all three festivals.55 It is not possible to say definitively whether it pertains only to one specific festival. The law 50 51 52

53 54 55

Haran, “Seething a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,” 34–35; Sarna, following Rashbam (Exodus; The JPS Torah Commentary, 147). Suggested by Labuchange, “‘You Shall Not Boil a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,’” 14. Bernard R. Goldstein and Alan M. Cooper, “The Festivals of Israel and Judah and the Literary History of the Pentateuch,” JAOS 110 (1990), 29. However, they suggest that it was originally a northern requirement for general sacrifice that RJE combined with other Passover legislation in this context. The general law for festal sacrifices, in their opinion, leads to the later priestly restriction against boiling the Passover sacrifice in Exod 12:8. Milgrom suggests that either all three pilgrimages or all sacrifice in general is a possibility; “Milk and Meat: Unlikely Bedfellows,” 148. Labuschange, “‘You Shall Not Boil a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,’” 15. Axel Knauf, “Zur Herkunft und Sozialgeschichte Israels: ‘Das B¨ockchen in der Milch seiner Mutter,’” Biblica 69 (1988): 153–69.

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immediately follows and parallels other cultic food restrictions that could appear as especially important to one particular ceremony, or apply to all sacrifice, or both. The prohibition on leavening, for example, is integrally important to the feast of Matsot, yet priestly sacrificial thought bars leaven from the altar as part of most general altar offerings (Lev 2:11 but cf. 7:13; 23:17). Therefore this prohibition has both a highly specific function at one time and acts as a more general rule. Regardless of whether the stipulation regarding milk applies only to one pilgrimage or to all sacrificial circumstances, it expresses an important ritual idea that is especially pertinent to the nature and purpose of pilgrimage offerings. The three pilgrimage feasts specify that “all your males” (kol-z˘ekˆur˘ek¯a) must attend. The pilgrimages are thus occasions for defining and establishing the community of males. The exclusion of milk, a symbol of mothers and motherhood, in one or all of these contexts reinforces the masculine character of these rites that create patrilineal genealogical bonds. The law prohibiting boiling a kid in its mother’s milk, in this situation, acknowledges and yet intentionally excludes the relationship between the animal and its mother. Although the prohibition does not necessarily entail such a restriction at all times, and perhaps is only meant to apply once a year, its appearance in the ritual context of one or all sacrificial pilgrimage feasts adds to these occasions’ focus on masculine relationships. This function is highlighted even more in Exod 34 than in the earlier passage because Exod 34 also includes the law of firstborn males in the pericope. The laws in vv. 19–20 prioritize the male by emphatically setting apart masculine animals as ritual material. Thus by combining the laws of the firstborn in this passage, Exodus 34 further juxtaposes the male animal as ritual object with the milk from the mother. In Deuteronomy the injunction against boiling a kid in milk appears at the end of ch. 14, which begins with restrictions against the foreign mourning practices of gashing the body or shaving a bald patch on the head (vv. 1–2), and then recites a list of animals forbidden as food (vv. 3–20; cf. Lev 11). The injunction immediately follows a ban on eating the meat of an animal that has died of natural causes. Deuteronomy 14:21 states, “You will not eat a carcass; give it to the resident alien in your gates so that he will eat it, or sell it to a foreigner. For you are a holy people to Yahweh your god. You will not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” Although the phrase appears to be something of a non sequitor in this context, here too the literary setting of the prohibition speaks to the ideology. The chapter relates illicit practices for the dead to illicit food practices regarding animals. The verse itself equates a certain type of dead animal with foreignness. Placed in this context, the stipulation suggests that eating a kid boiled in its mother’s milk is like eating

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something that is diseased or impure and non-Israelite.56 Thus here the idea of milk, which again might more objectively be associated with life, becomes related to death and impurity. In this context, boiling meat with milk also associates it with foreignness so that the symbol of the maternal bond is distinctly outside the lineage and identity of Israel. However, it is unclear whether the restriction should be read in terms of the passage before it or with the law on tithing that follows it (14:22–26). According to that law, a cultic portion, including firstling animals, must be set apart for ritual use and the tithed portion must either be consumed at the central sanctuary or converted into money with which to buy other food for consumption there. Reading the prohibition on boiling a kid in milk in relation to the law on tithing and firstlings suggests that it is related to separating out ritually specialized food from secular food. Indeed, in Deuteronomy the firstling is the only specific animal that must be sacrificed at the centralized shrine (or otherwise converted into currency to travel there); it alone among domesticated animals cannot be slaughtered in a secular way unless it contains a blemish that disqualifies it from sacrifice (15:19–23). Therefore, the boiling kid law may similarly be read in terms of the theme of separating the consecrated from the secular. Moreover, the connection with firstling animals also suggests a separating of gendered materials; according to Deut 15:19 (as well as Exod 13:12, 15; 34:19) the ritually appropriate firstling is a male, a feature that intricately binds masculinity with consecration. Therefore, placing the kid law here with firstlings emphasizes the contrast of sacred male offspring with the secular female mother. Because tithing and eating firstlings are some of the main sacrificial acts required by Deuteronomy, the placement of the milk law here speaks to the same purpose of eliminating a secular maternal element from the sacrificial practice of forming societal bonds. We might also note that the proper food for tithing, as well as for accompanying the meat of the firstling, is “grain, wine, and oil” (14:23), not dairy products. In Deuteronomy the law against boiling a kid in milk is detached from the sacrificial context of the three pilgrimage feasts. These feasts are mentioned elsewhere – in 16:16, which includes the same phrase regarding the requirement that all males (kol-z˘ekˆur˘ek¯a) must attend. In Exodus these two aspects of pilgrimage feasts, the gathering of males and the exclusion of boiling milk, appear together, but in Deuteronomy they are separated and speak to different contexts. Although males are still required to attend the feasts, the prohibition on boiling in mother’s milk in Deuteronomy applies to every context in 56

Note that the codex Freer Manuscript of Deuteronomy 14:21b adds, “whoever does so, is doing as if offering a mole, an impurity (evoking the wrath) of the God of Jacob.” Cited in Sasson, “Ritual Wisdom,” 296.

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which young goats are eaten. It is not just a sacrificial law but a general food law. The restriction, which in Exodus binds together the male members of the sacrificing community in the pilgrimage feast(s), here helps form the community of all people in Israel in every part of the land. Deuteronomy secularizes most meat eating, moving it away from the centralized shrine, yet it retains this sacrificial law for more common secular food to help create a more unified national community of practitioners on a larger ideological kinship level. The law encourages the communal/kinship connection of all Israelites, including women (Deut 12:12, 18; 16:11, 14), though it does so by using this patrilineal imagery. Although this injunction limits the use of milk in specific cultic contexts and forms (it is only boiling with milk that is proscribed, and only the milk of the animal’s own mother), this law, coupled with the general cultic avoidance of milk, indicates that milk is a problematic and in some ways objectionable ritual substance. Of course, milk is not objectively related to death and impurity, but in this cultic instance it combines with them to show that maternity and matrilineality, are, like impurity and death, opposed to the construction of bonds through men. The prohibition against boiling a kid in its mother’s milk is an explicit instance of the rejection of the maternal from the material of the cult and from the activity of meat eating. Implicitly, this law, like the others discussed in this chapter, excludes not only a symbol of the mother but also the mother herself as a ritual substance. Though the stipulation does not explicitly mention the mother goat, the formulation seems not to see her as a source of meat herself because she must be alive to be able to produce milk.57 If the mother has milk to feed the baby, it would make little sense to slaughter her then, because this milk could also be 57

Sasson (“Ritual Wisdom”) offers the interpretation that it is not the mother’s milk (h.a¯ l¯ab) that is the problem, but the mother’s fat (h.¯eleb); these words have the same consonants and appear the same in unpointed Hebrew texts. In that case, the law would ban the killing and cooking of the mother along with the child, as in Deut 22 and Lev 22. Sasson’s argument is doubtful for many reasons. First, there is already a parallel law about the cultic use of fat in both Exod 23 and 34; an additional one seems awkward. Moreover, other passages forbid the consumption of fat in any sense (e.g., Lev 3:17; 7:23–25), which would preclude the need for a far more specific law, though those laws do come from other sources. Additionally, there is no textual witness that supports the reading of “fat” instead of “milk,” nor does tradition support it. Most importantly, although the purpose of the law is uncertain, the wording of it is perfectly clear and does not require emendation. Sasson suggests that the law is not organic to its literary and ritual contexts (295), but as argued here, there is some connection to its context in the pilgrimage feasts. There is what appears to have been a Karaite interpretation that the law meant that one should not delay the offering of a firstling so that it ripens (bˇsl) on its mother’s milk. This is based on Exod 22:28–29 [29–30] in which the firstling should be offered on the eighth day. See Haran, “Seething a Kid,” 28; Propp, Exodus 1–18, 432.

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used for human food. Thus, as in the bird law of Deuteronomy, the mother is treated as a source of potential food and is therefore left alone and not treated as a victim herself. As in the bird law, there is also no problem with viewing the child as food; the only issue is in how it may be cooked. Again, this is not a humanitarian concern, but one related to the practicalities of animal husbandry and the ideology of motherhood.

Exodus 22:29–30 and Leviticus 22:27–28 Both the prohibition on boiling a kid in its mother’s milk and the law of wild birds imply that a mother should not be consumed, at least not in a ritual way, and that the offspring is the ritually appropriate object. The same assumption underlies another law: Exodus 22:29–30 [Heb 28–29] also discusses a sacrificial animal in relation to its mother: You will not be late with your produce and what you have pressed. The firstborn of your sons you will give to me. So you will do with your oxen and your flock: seven days it will be with its mother; on the eighth day you will give it to me.

Whether this text prescribes the sacrifice of male children as well as infant animals is a topic of debate. It is possible that the verses refer to the dedication of animals and humans for consecration to ritual service, rather than actual sacrifice, on the seventh day. Parallel laws, such as Exod 13:12–15 and 34:19–20, prescribe the redemption of the child with an animal or money in lieu of his dedication or sacrifice; later priestly texts describe the dedication of the Levites as taking the place of all the firstborn sons of Israel (Num 3:12–13, 41–51). This decree also does not specify the sex of the child or offspring, although the parallels stipulate that it must be male (but cf. Exod 13:2). The question of the sacrifice of children is taken up in Chapter 6; for the purposes of this chapter, we can note that this and parallel passages treat human beings in a similar way as animals (and plants). The firstborn of both humans and animals belong to the deity. In its treatment of animals, this law is similar to another passage. Leviticus 22:27 reads, “Any ox or sheep or goat that is born shall stay seven days with its mother, but from the eighth day onwards it will be acceptable as an offering by fire to Yahweh.” This verse, like Exod 22:29–30, understands the infant as the primary commodity to be taken as an offering. There is no question that baby animals are proper sources of meat or that they can be killed, but only that there must be some qualification of this use. Although the law is written with the child as its subject, it also portrays the mother as living, and thus not as a

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victim, at least during the seven days that her child is alive. However, whereas Exodus demands donation on the eighth day of the animal’s life, the holiness law in Leviticus mentions only the animal’s acceptability for sacrifice from the eighth day forward. In addition, the law in Exodus discusses firstlings, whereas Lev 22:27 concerns any domesticated animal used for sacrifice. Nevertheless, in the latter verse the mother is also contrasted with the sacred: for the first week of its life the infant stays with her and is decidedly not acceptable as a sacrifice, but then afterward it can become holy and may be taken from her. As in Exod 22:30 [29], the seven-day period in Lev 22:27 effects a ritual time and space around the mother and her child that mark their relationship. The same relationship is marked for human sons who are offered on the eighth day of their lives or are circumcised on the eighth day (Gen 17:12; 21:4; Lev 12:3), but their cultic acceptability after their first week of life also differentiates them from their mothers and shows that they no longer “stay with” her. Therefore, taken together, all of these stipulations create a dynamic in which there is an opposition between the mother and the sacred and the competing realms to which offspring belong. The mother-son relationship is strongest at the time of birth and the week thereafter, but can then be undone. The week-long waiting period for the sacrifice of the infant animal also may have a functional purpose. Many interpretations of the length of this period in both laws are based on some quality of the child; for instance, that any blemishes it may have will become apparent in seven days or that it is impure during this time.58 However, a more practical possibility may apply to the mother as a nubile food source. If an infant animal, especially if it is a firstling and is not a twin, were to be killed right after birth, its mother would not become an optimal milk producer. A new mother animal needs to feed

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In his commentary on Leviticus, Milgrom gives the five usual rationales for this law: (1) It is modeled on circumcision; (2) after seven days the infant is considered “born”; (3) after seven days any disqualifying blemishes appear and one can tell if it was an aborted fetus; (4) the seven days is a purificatory period for the infant from its mother’s impurity; and (5) the law is humanitarian in nature (Leviticus 17–22, 1883). Each of these interpretations does have some merit: clearly the sacrifice of an infant animal on its eighth day of life has something in common with the circumcision of an infant child at the same time. It is impossible to say which came first and which became applied to the other. The notion that the animal is considered truly “born” after a week with its mother speaks to the idea that during the time one is exclusively with one’s mother and outside the cultus, one is not a true member of the community. Though there is no indication in either these laws or in Lev 12 that an infant child or animal is ever considered impure, the text implies that the infant is with its mother in a state contrary to the sacred; impurity may merely be another name for it. Alternatively, Francis Gorman suggests that the seven days act as a buffer zone between the infant’s life and its death, thus keeping these two forces separate (Leviticus: Divine Presence and Community, 126).

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her baby for up to five days to establish a substantial supply of milk.59 For the first two to three days after birth, for example, cows and goats only produce colostrum (or “beestings”), which is vital to their infants’ health, but is not fit for human consumption.60 The supply of colostrum must be depleted before regular milk is produced. In addition, the mother must become accustomed to the processes of lactating and milking. Animals with udders will not “drop” their milk (i.e., experience the reflex that makes it available for milking) unless they are at ease. The simplest way to get a mother to drop her milk is to let her see her offspring while she is being milked; this is especially so for new mothers that are not used to the process.61 The mother animal thus needs its offspring to properly establish the milk supply. However, once the supply is established, the infant’s milk intake must be limited soon after, or else it will consume too much and leave little for humans.62 Because mother animals produce milk only for a matter of months, it is important to limit the length of time the offspring will nurse so that the mother can soon reach her peak milk production and then become pregnant again quickly after it begins to drop off. If her infant suckles for too long, it will lengthen the amount of time before her next pregnancy. Keeping an infant animal with its mother for seven days, then, might have as its primary purpose not a respect for the life of the infant, the mother’s feelings, or the bond of their relationship, but the insurance that the infant will be used to fully and properly generate the mother’s milk production.63 The infant’s disposal from the eighth day suits the needs of a milk-consuming society. Having done its job, the infant may be done away with in sacrifice so that humans may take the milk. 59 60 61 62

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Gerstenberger, Leviticus, 331, Cf. Labuschagne, “‘You Shall Not Boil a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk’”. See Firmage (“Zoology,” 1129) for some of the ways milkers have found to make animals accustomed to milking. Apparently this is not so for modern western milking cows which actually produce far too much milk for their calves and whose calves can become ill or die from overconsumption. Ancient Near Eastern cows produced very little milk by modern standards (Gelb, “Growth of a Herd of Cattle in Ten Years,” 67). Hans Goedicke suggests a similar interpretation – that the law was meant to provide relief for the mother whose udders would be painful at this early stage (review of O. Keel, Das B¨ocklein in der Milch Seiner Mutter und Verwandtes, in JNES 42 [1983], 302–03). He cites Philo’s (Virt. 128–29) similar interpretation: “Leave the mother with her young when not forever, then at least for the first seven days, so that she nourishes it with her milk, and the sources are not made superfluous. At this point in time the udders are a true fountain, but it has no young ones to suck when one removes them. Since the milk finds no exit the teats become hard and heavy, by the weight of the milk inside they begin to hurt the mother” (Goedicke, 303). Goedicke argues that the prohibition, like those in Exod 22:29–30 [28–29] and Lev 22:27–28, is against killing an infant who is solely dependent on its mother’s milk. He provides no evidence, however, that an animal is solely dependent on its mother’s milk for seven days, which these other stipulations would require for this interpretation.

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A similar, though less straightforward, situation may obtain with the restriction on boiling a kid in its mother’s milk: it was extensively documented by Frazer, and supported by other scholars, that numerous cultures have similar milk prohibitions meant to ensure the mother’s lactation and fertility, which might be halted metaphysically should her offspring be killed in the substance meant to feed it.64 All of these passages would, then, support the mother’s ability to produce food for humans (and not, as traditionally argued, to protect “life” as a theological principle). Nevertheless, even if these more practical functions lie behind the seven-day waiting period for the sacrifice of animals, the law still becomes a means of ritually expressing the ideological contrast between the maternal and the sacred as a part of the sacrificial system. This is especially clear in the contrast with human offspring, because a waiting period would not serve the same practical functions. Immediately following the holiness writer’s seven-day restriction on sacrificing infants is a restriction relating the death of an animal to that of its parents. Leviticus 22:27–28 states, “Any ox or sheep or goat that is born shall stay seven days with its mother, but from the eighth day onwards it will be acceptable as fire offering to Yahweh. However, you will not slaughter an ox or sheep on the same day together with its child.” This second restriction regarding animals in relation to their parents resembles the law on birds in Deut 22 by prohibiting the killing of child and mother at the same time.65 Perhaps the reason Leviticus contains this prescription, whereas Exodus does not have a parallel one, is that Leviticus discusses any animal at any age along with its parent. In contrast, Exod 22 is concerned only with the firstling on the eighth day, when it is highly unlikely that one would want to slaughter the mother because she would be making a great deal of milk. Because the prescription in Leviticus could extend for years, the possibility of offering a 64

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J. G. Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament III (London: MacMillan & Co., 1919), 111–64; so too T. H. Gaster, Myth, Legend and Custom in the Old Testament Vol. I (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 250–63. Labuschagne, who cites these sources, dismisses the idea completely: “However, our prohibition was certainly not meant to safeguard milk production, and any aim of that kind is completely irrelevant in the context, as should be obvious to anyone” (“‘You Shall Not Boil a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,’” 7–8). With an understanding that the passage refers to a mother and child, Howard Eilberg-Schwartz interprets this law, like those of the boiling milk and the mother bird, as a metaphoric prohibition against incest (The Savage in Judaism, 128–34). He believes that Lev 22:27–28 mirrors the laws in Leviticus against having sexual relations with a mother and daughter (Lev 18:17). The killing of the two animals mirrors the taking of the two women. This interpretation seems unlikely, especially given that there is no indication in the commandment that the child is female, and, as shown earlier, the pronouns that refer to the parent are masculine. However, Eilberg-Schwartz may be correct in seeing the commandment as a larger “metaphor” for a social dynamic.

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mother with her child is more likely; she could, for example, be slaughtered together with the offspring after she is no longer fertile. Thus although these stipulations may reflect some immediate practical purpose, ultimately they extend far beyond practicality to exhibit a more symbolic function. They imply that the relationship between mother and child that appears so strongly in the first week after birth would also be found in their simultaneous death. Their slaughter, and thus their simultaneous consecration as sacrificial victims, would emphasize that same closeness and connection as birth. According to these stipulations, either the child or the parent may be sacrificed at any time after the eighth day. After that point, killing either alone would be fine because then their relationship would not be recognized.66 The law of the birds in Deuteronomy similarly expresses the idea that it is the death or the possession of both at the same time that is the forbidden state. The eggs or fledglings can be taken at any point, and the female bird may be taken if she is found on her own, but when she is sitting over her eggs or infants, and thus acting in a motherly way, taking her is forbidden. Restricting the simultaneous killing of mother and child at any time calls attention to their relationship, yet does not glorify it. Offering them intentionally at the same time would have the ritual effect of highlighting their bond and consecrating it, just as intentionally boiling a kid in its mother’s milk might do. Instead, these laws highlight the bonds between children and their mothers, but explicitly forbid the sanctification of that relationship by ritual. It is possible that the stipulation in Lev 22:28 proscribes the killing of an animal simultaneously not only with its mother but also with its father. Although the law is generally understood to apply to the child and its mother, especially because it follows and is connected to a law concerning the mother, the grammar of the verse in Hebrew indicates that it could be either parent.67 It literally states, “and a cattle or sheep/goat, he/it and his/its son you shall not slaughter in one day” (v˘eˇsoˆr ʼˆo-´seh ʼ¯otˆo v˘eʼet-b˘enˆo l¯oʼ tiˇsh.a˘.tuˆ b˘eyˆom ʼeh.a¯ d). The entire verse contains only masculine nouns and pronouns. Although the grammatically masculine formsˇsoˆr (cattle) and´seh (sheep/goat) have a generic 66 67

Milgrom, “Milk and Meat: Unlikely Bedfellows,” 148. Scholarship and the versions are divided as to which parent the prescription intends. Milgrom, b. H . ul. 79b (in the argument of Hananiah), the Ramban, and 11QT 52:5–7 suggest that it refers to both the mother and the father (see Milgrom, Leviticus 17–23, 1884). Levine also hints at this interpretation (Leviticus, 152). However, the targumim (Targ. Onq., Targ. Neof.) the LXX, the Rabbis in b. H . ul. 78b, and Gerstenberger (Leviticus, 331) suggest that this prescription pertains only to the mother (for others holding this position see Milgrom, Leviticus 17–23, 1884). Milgrom argues that the textual ambiguity is due to a continuation of the style found in v. 27.

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meaning, had the author wanted to indicate only female animals, this could have been made clear by using a feminine pronoun (i.e., ʼ¯otˆa v˘eʼet-b˘en¯ah, “she and her son”), if not the feminine names of the animals (p¯arˆa, ki´sbˆa). It is possible that one might indeed be tempted to sacrifice a father animal and his offspring on the same day, given that large numbers of male animals, both young and old, were often slaughtered during important cultic events. For example, the returnees from exile during the time of Ezra offered as burnt offerings “twelve bulls on behalf of all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs and twelve he-goats as a purification offering; the whole thing was a burnt offering to Yahweh” (Ezra 8:35). This tremendous group appears to be made up of males of varying ages. Thus there is a real possibility of slaughtering the father and its son on the same day; the law then would address a practical concern.68 If this is the meaning of the law, it would be the only sacrificial stipulation regarding animals and their fathers. It would also be an interesting variation on those that exclude the relationship between mother and offspring from sacred activity.69 Such a law would cause the person who bred the animals, as well as its seller and its slaughterer, to be aware of the animal’s lineage.70 Yet, just as with its mother, it would place the animal’s biological paternity at odds with its cultic purpose by discouraging the biological relationship between males and their offspring. This reading of the stipulation supports Jay’s thought that sacrificial activity, although intimately related to concepts of lineage, supersedes biological reproduction. The biological relationship between parents and their offspring cannot be highlighted in sacrifice; instead, sacrificial activity forms bonds over against biology, though they may coincide. Moreover, if the intent of Lev 22:28 is to portray male physical reproduction in a cultically negative light, the stipulation then fulfills a function similar to Lev 15:16–18 (and parallels in Lev 22:4; Deut 23:10–11 [Heb 11–12]; 1 Sam 21:3–6 [4–7]; cf. Exod 19:15), which characterizes male biological reproduction (i.e., ejaculation and intercourse) as impure and thereby also excluded from sacral 68

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In Talmudic discussions of the law there is a great deal of consternation about the father of the animal and to what extent the father contributes to the animal’s nature. This discussion especially concerns the koy and whether it is considered a sacrificial animal based on its paternity, and therefore to what extent this law is applicable to it (b. H . ul. 79b). The issue of paternity is inherent in the implementation of the law. We might speculate that there is no parallel for this stipulation regarding the father of the birds in Deuteronomy because that law concerns wild animals, whose reproduction is not controlled, unlike the domesticated farm animals in Lev 22. Unlike a domesticated stud animal, no one would know the identity of the birds’ father or have any control over him, and thus no reason to make legislation for him. Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple, 60, 63.

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activity. Thus, the human impurities of childbirth and ejaculation distance human reproduction from the sacred, whereas the proscriptions against the slaughter of animal parents distance their biological reproduction from it. Sacrificial bonds supersede physical bonds in both the human and animal worlds.

conclusion In his iconographical study of the restriction on boiling a kid in its mother’s milk, Othmar Keel offers an opposing interpretation to that argued here.71 Based on ancient Near Eastern images of suckling animals, Keel suggests that the origin of the milk law, as well as those on parent/child slaughter, lies in a common belief that the bond between mother and child is an indication of the divine/numinous sanctity of life that is sustained by the divine order of the universe. The suckling mother with her child is understood as the symbol of that power of life; the cultic taboo shows that the Israelite deity has the love and tenderness of a mother. Keel’s interpretation has much to commend it, especially its focus on the particularly feminine nature of the laws and the significance of the mother herself, a feature that is left out of many interpretations. But these passages do not embrace this divine/numinous power, but instead specifically reject the power of the mother and separate it from the numinous by de-sacralizing it. Milk, eggs, and mother animals are not a part of the official sacrificial worship of the God of Israel, and as such they are not sanctified entities. If the point of these laws was to emphasize the mother-like features of the deity, these substances might be included in the cult and ritually harnessed for their power. Such might be the case in Gen 18:8, where Abraham offers a meal of a calf and milk products to his divine visitors, who then announce Sarah’s pregnancy; the meal possibly invokes maternal fertility. The symbolic highlighting of the motherly care for offspring in sacrifice may also appear in the story of the two milk cows who carry the ark back to Israelite territory in 1 Sam 6. The slaughter of these mother animals, who cried for their newborns as they left them, highlights their maternal love. But this is not the case in the official and codified versions of ritual practice where the cult is instead defined in opposition to maternal power. There mother animals are decidedly not slaughtered and thus not characterized as sacred. 71

Keel, Das B¨ocklein in der Milch Seiner Mutter und Verwandtes: Im Lichte eines altorientalischen Bildmotivs (G¨ottingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1980).

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The function of the rites addressed in this chapter is to break the bond between mother and child so that the offspring can be taken from her. These passages assume that killing offspring is always acceptable, just not when it includes anything having to do with the mother: one should slaughter a firstborn animal on the eighth day (just not the mother as well); one should cook a kid at pilgrimage feasts (just not in milk); it will go well for you if you take wild fledglings (but not if you take the mother too). The ritual negotiation of this separation from the mother is paralleled in laws for humans, where offspring are taken over from the mother as the genealogical possessions of the father. Circumcision and the devotion of the firstborn son also negotiate means by which male children become differentiated from their mothers (see further in Chapter 6). This separation between child and mother must be understood as one of the functions of the official sacrificial cult, both symbolically and practically. The biblical laws addressed in this chapter also have in common the very practical element of protecting the mother as a source of food. They never prescribe the slaughter of a fertile female (baby female animals and birds are not yet fecund), and the mother’s life always takes precedence over those of her offspring. The principle of protecting a food source from sacrifice is also found in a Deuteronomic law regarding the chopping down of fruit trees. Deuteronomy 20:19–20 prohibits cutting down fruit trees during war to make siege works (m¯a.soˆr); the trees can be destroyed and used for sanctioned violence only when it is clear that they no longer make fruit. However, in this process of differentiating a fertile source from its products, the offspring become characterized as sacred, but the mother, or fertile tree, is not associated with the quality of consecration created by sacrifice (or holy war, in the case of trees). Only once their bond to their fruits is broken, and their reproductive exploitation is complete, are they no longer excluded. In addition to the practical function of protecting mother animals from slaughter, the laws discussed in this chapter also negotiate the ambiguous substances of eggs and milk. These foods are difficult for the sacrificial system because they are indicative of motherhood and are involved in the complexities of separating mothers from their young. Eggs and milk are never considered unclean foods, but they are also never sacred foods. This secularization of mothers and their milk does not entail a rejection of either mothers or milk from larger biblical thought, in which the most important aspect of a woman’s life is becoming a mother, and Israel’s utopian moniker is a “land flowing with milk and honey.” Milk is a religiously valued food; however, milk, and honey as well, are incompatible with the sacrificial cult with its construction of kinship ties and its negotiation of property. With different variations, every major

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pentateuchal source in some way addresses the exclusion of mothers. The laws discussed in this chapter come from JE (Exod 22:29–30; 23:19; 34:26), P (Lev 12), D (Deut 14:21; 22:6–7), and H (Lev 22:27–28). This ritual exclusion of the mother is in some fashion a concern for every legal source that considered sacrifice. It is fundamental to every official form of sacrificial thought.

4

 Females and Death: The Sacred Impurity of the Red Cow

“A voluntary embrace of the symbols of death is a kind of prophylactic against the effects of death.” Mary Douglas1

The previous chapter showed that several sacrificial laws limit the ways in which mothers and materials associated with them can be a part of official sacrificial ritual. The present chapter analyzes a different presentation of the feminine within biblical sacrificial practice, one in which ritual power from females is not avoided, but created and controlled. The rite of the red cow, or red heifer (p¯arˆa ʼ˘adummˆa),2 in the priestly text of Num 19, casts the ritual 1 2

Purity and Danger, 178. The animal referred to in the passage (p¯arˆa) is usually translated into English as a “heifer,” meaning a female bovine that has not given birth (and therefore does not produce milk). The assumption that the animal is one that has not given birth is often made because the animal was not to have been worked and was therefore relatively young (for example, Budd, Leviticus [New Century Bible; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996, 212). Hyam Maccoby takes the fact that the animal was not to be yoked to mean that it was not mated (Ritual & Morality: The Ritual Purity System and its Place in Judaism [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999], 109–10). Furthermore, the Greek translation of the term in both the LXX and the New Testament (Heb 9:13) is damalis, which refers to a young animal that has not given birth. However, the Hebrew word p¯arˆa most often clearly refers to animals that have been bred. (Compare the Vulgate: vaccam rufam aetatis integrae, “a red cow of full age.”) In Isa 11:7 it is the offspring of the p¯arˆa that will lie down with those of the bear. In Job 21:10, the p¯arˆot of the wicked give birth successfully. The p¯arˆot that carry the ark in 1 Sam 6 have recently given birth. In the Mishna, the sexuality of the p¯arˆa ʼ˘adummˆa was debated. According to Eliezer, if the animal had offspring it was valid, but the sages disagree (m. Par. 2:1). Rabbi Judah believed that the animal was valid as long as any mating was not orchestrated by humans (m. Par. 2:4). Because the word p¯arˆa most often refers to a cow, and because there is no explicit stipulation on the animal’s reproductive behavior, as there is on its work, it may have been free to conceive. In any event, because the text is silent on this matter of its reproductive status, it seems most appropriate to here translate the word p¯arˆa as “cow”

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slaughter of a valuable female animal as extremely important – it effects ritual cleansing from the impurity of death, creating a purificatory solution to remedy the ritual contamination of exposure to human corpses.3 The rite of the red cow is an unusual ritual that is not conducted like most offerings. However, it is called a h.at..ta¯ ʼt, a “purification offering” or “sin offering,” which classifies it among a group of expiatory sacrifices that undo impurities of various kinds. As a priestly purificatory offering, the rite of the red cow is best understood in the context of the priestly sacrificial system, as well as in the larger overall priestly system of sacrifice and purity.4 In this nexus, the ritual of the cow does not exclude the female from sacrificial practice, but associates it with impurity and juxtaposes it to more usual sacrificial offerings and their associated holiness. The rite of the red cow belongs in a category of sacrifice that Susan Starr Sered describes as “gendering death itself.” As she states, Cross-culturally, we find in the ethnographic, literary and historical literature a rather widespread conceptual or symbolic association between women and death. According to psychologist of religion Diana Jonte-Pace, in patriarchal cultures “death, the unrepresentable, the ultimate absence, is

3

4

instead of “heifer” – not only because in other instances the term implies the technical English meaning of a cow but also because in English we rarely use the term “cow” in its technical sense but more often to refer generally to female bovines or sometimes to cattle of any sort. However, P may avoid the more proper term for a “heifer,” ʻeglˆa (“cow, heifer”) and its male counterpart ʻegel because of the latter’s associations with the shrines at Dan and Bethel and with the golden calf (Beck “ʻegel,” TDOT II: 216). The term ʻegel occurs in P only in Lev 9:2, 3, and 8, where it refers to the male calf of the sin offering for inauguration of the priesthood. The cow was probably a very expensive victim because of its specialized nature, and thus offered infrequently. Indeed, in Jewish tradition the rite of the cow is thought to have been performed only seven or nine times in history (m. Par. 3:5). The Talmud asserts that it was extremely expensive (e.g., b. Kid. 31a; b. Shab. 52a). For studies of the passage see Albert I. Baumgarten, “The Paradox of the Red Heifer,” VT 43 (1993): 442–51; Roy Gane, Cult and Character, 163–197; Mayer I. Gruber, “Red Heifer,” Encyclopedia Judaica 14, Columns 9–11; Rachel T. Harris, “The Ritual of the Red Heifer,” JBQ 26 (1998): 198–200; N. Kiuchi, The Purification Offering in the Priestly Literature: Its Meaning and Function (JSOTSupp 56; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 137–41; Maccoby, Ritual & Morality, 94–117; Jacob Milgrom, “The Paradox of the Red Cow (Num XIX),” VT 31 (1981): 62–72. Repr. Studies in Cultic Theology and Terminology, 85–95; idem., “Confusing the Sacred and the Impure: A Rejoinder,” VT 44 (1994): 554–59; L. E. Toombs, “Red Heifer,” IDB 4:18–19; Sabina Wefing, “Beobachtungen zum Ritual mit der roten Kuh (Num. 19 1–10a),” ZAW 93 (1981): 341–64; David P. Wright, “Heifer, Red,” ABD III: 115–16; and idem., “Water for Impurity,” ABD VI: 882. The Mishna has an entire tractate (Parah) devoted to the law. On sacrifice and purity as one system, see the next chapter and Jonathan Klawans, “Pure Violence: Sacrifice and Defilement in Ancient Israel,” HTR 94 (2001): 133–55; idem. Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple.

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symbolized as woman; woman becomes, through metonymy, death.” . . . In this kind of discourse, patriarchal religion is presented as the only means for conquering female-embodied death. In sacrifice – a controlled and ritualized form of death-causing, men are symbolically cast as able to control death, and by extension, death’s embodiment – that is, women.5

This rite, however, does not portray women as embodying death; rather, it portrays the feminine, in the form of a female cow, as able to represent and seemingly become a form of death itself. This form of death embodies what, for the priestly writer, is death’s most difficult aspect: its impure and contaminating nature. However, in the hands of male ritual specialists, control over this impure female material leads to control over death and its defiling effects. The portrayal of women in the priestly sacrificial and purity system is taken up in the next chapter; however, both the rite of the red cow and the larger purity system combine elements of death, femininity, and impurity, resulting in a conceptualization in which each of these elements constructs the others. In the larger purity and sacrificial system, impurity may take male and female forms and affect both male and female people. But the red cow rite’s association of a female animal with the specific impurity of death bonds these two concepts together more concretely. The ritual further relates the concept of death to specifically female reproductive impurities by the name of the solution that the cow’s ashes create. The solution is called the mȇ niddˆa – the “water of impurity”; the impurity of death is called by the same uncommon term “niddˆa” as the impurity of menstrual blood. This chapter provides a brief introduction to the text in Num 19 and then argues two main ideas. Part I claims that, for the priestly writer, the rite of the cow does in fact create a form of impurity. This argument requires a detailed analysis of the text in light of the priestly sacrificial system, but does not describe the gendered aspects of the rite. Part II shows that the form of impurity created by the rite is related to and constructs the concept of female reproduction. This interpretation builds on Jay’s work not only by illustrating the general juxtaposition between sacrifice and female reproduction but also by following, with some modification, her own thoughts on this ritual. As Jay states in her brief discussion of the passage, 5

Sered, “Towards a Gendered Typology of Sacrifice,” in Sacrifice in Religious Experience, 23– 24. Citation from Jonte-Pace, “Situating Kristeva Differently: Psychoanalytic Readings of Women and Religion,” in Body/Text in Julia Kristeva: Religion, Woman, Psychoanalysis (ed. David Crowfield; Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 21.

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I suspect that the “scarlet cloth” which must be burnt with the red heifer (note that the victim is both female and red) is a euphemism for what the Hebrew Bible calls a “menstrous rag.” By the intensifications of uncleanness, this sacrifice creates a pole of absolute otherness from cleanness that works like a magnet to draw away uncleanness. This is like the Ashanti kunluma . . . an unclean ritual object which takes away all kinds of evil, and which does contain menstrual blood at its polluted but powerfully expiated core.6

the rite of the cow The ritual in Num 19 consists of two parts. The first (vv. 1–10) describes the creation of the ashes of the cow to be used for the purifying solution. Moses and Aaron are commanded to Tell the sons of Israel that they should take for you a blemishless red cow, which has no defect and upon which no yoke has been lifted. Give her to Eleazar the priest. Let her be brought outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence. Eleazar the priest will take some of her blood with his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting. The cow will be burned in his presence: her hide, her flesh, and her blood will be burned, along with her dung. The priest will take cedar wood, hyssop, and crimson and cast them into the midst of the burning cow. The priest will wash his clothes and bathe his body in water; then he will come into the camp and the priest will be unclean until evening. The one who burned her will also wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water and will be unclean until evening. A clean man will gather up the ashes of the cow and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place; the congregation of the sons of Israel will keep them for the niddˆa waters. The person who gathered up the ashes of the cow will wash his clothes and be unclean until evening.

The second part of the chapter (vv. 11–22) describes how the ashes are to be used. When a person becomes unclean through contact with a corpse, either from being in the same house with it or by touching it or a bone or a grave, the person is unclean for seven days. A clean man must mix the ashes with some running water in a vessel and sprinkle the ashes on the contaminated person on the third and seventh days after contact. On the seventh day the contaminated person bathes, launders clothes, and becomes clean at nightfall. If the contaminated person is not sprinkled with the waters, the person remains unclean and must be cut off (k¯ar¯et) from the congregation because the uncleanness defiles the tabernacle. Like the people involved in making the 6

Throughout Your Generations Forever, 29, see also 26.

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ashes, the man who sprinkles them becomes unclean and must bathe, launder, and remain unclean until evening. His impurity is contagious until then. The rite of the red heifer is a conundrum. The rabbinic text Qohelet Rabbah asserts that even Solomon could not understand the ritual and that its meaning was not revealed to Moses (7:23, 8:1). The rabbinic explanation of the ritual – that it is a quintessential h.uqqˆa (regulation) – essentially states that its meaning is unintelligible and its purpose is to bring about compliance with divine decree despite the human inability to understand it.7 Scholars throughout the ages have struggled to understand its nature as a priestly rite and how it fits with the priestly sacrificial system. Part of the confusion is that the rite is called a specific type of offering – a “sin offering” or “purification offering” (h.at..ta¯ ʼt, vv. 17, 19) – and yet it is conducted differently from almost every other sacrifice. The most curious aspect of the rite of the red cow, and the element most discussed by commentators, is its paradox: although the cow and its ashes effect ritual purity, they also cause impurity. The ashes “purify the defiled and defile the pure”8 by cleansing people contaminated by death but making unclean the clean people who are involved in preparing and applying the ashes. This paradox has intrigued students of the Bible for millennia. For the rabbis, the cow was “a perennial puzzle” because they were “fascinated by the logical problem of how that which was in itself unclean could purify.”9 Because the ritual of the cow is unique, many scholars have identified it as an anomalous vestige of pre-Israelite superstition that was only later brought into line with priestly thought and structure.10 Jacob Milgrom, for instance, who also interprets the rite in terms of other priestly ritual, argues that it was originally not Israelite and was, in essence, a pagan procedure. He asserts that it has a complicated history in which it was originally not a strictly sacrificial act but was incorporated into the priestly system of offerings because of its lasting popularity.11 Indeed, the rite resembles other priestly purgation rituals, such as the scapegoat (Lev 16) and the bird rite for the contamination of skin disease (Lev 14:2–9), which are also often thought to be of pre-Israelite origin or influenced by non-Yahwistic elements. The origin of the scapegoat ritual 7 8 9 10

11

Pesiq. Rab. Kah. 4:7; Num. Rab. 19:8. Pesiq. Rab. Kah. 4:6; Num. Rab. 19:1, 5 cited in Milgrom, “The Paradox of the Red Cow,” 63, n.1. Joseph L. Blau, “The Red Heifer: A Biblical Purification Rite in Rabbinic Literature,” Numen 14 (1967), 76–77. E.g., Milgrom, “The Paradox of the Red Cow (Num XIX)”; Wefing, “Beobachtungen zum Ritual mit der roten Kuh (Num. 19 1–10a)”; Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (trans. John McHugh; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), 461–62; trans. of Les Institutions de L’Ancien Testament (2 Vols; Paris: Les Editions du Serf, 1958, 1960). “The Paradox of the Red Cow (Num XIX),” 68–72.

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from Lev 16 is especially questionable because the scapegoat is “for Azazel” in the wilderness while another goat in the same ritual is given “for Yahweh.” Because it is possible that Azazel is a deity, the rite may have originated in a polytheistic cult.12 Another element of the cow rite that has caused some commentators to see its origin in polytheism is the ritual use of a cow, a female animal, as its main victim. It resembles another unusual ceremony, this one from Deut 21, of the ʻeglˆa ʻ˘arˆupˆa, the decapitated heifer,13 which also undoes the harmful effects of a certain type of death. These two rites, with their use of female animals, have caused some interpreters to consider them fundamentally non-Israelite because they may invoke some sort of unnamed fertility goddess or otherwise female principle that is contradictory to official theology.14 However, there is no clear textual evidence of any goddess in either the rite of the cow or the heifer. The use of females in these rare rituals may stem from underlying concepts of gender and reproduction, features that have added to the discomfort of interpreters in accepting them as truly Israelite. Yet the rite of the red cow as it stands is a priestly rite, written and endorsed by priestly authors who used their own cultic terminology to describe it; whatever its origins, it cannot be discounted or dismissed as fundamentally foreign. Therefore, we must understand it as expressing ideas integral to priestly thought and examine it in light of other priestly rituals.

part i: sacrifice and the creation of impurity The Red Cow and Sacrifice The relationship of the red cow rite to other forms of priestly ritual is ambiguous. Though the rite certainly acts broadly as a ritual of purification, scholars have been divided on the narrower question of whether it can actually be called a sacrificial offering. On the one hand, it resembles a priestly offering. Not only are the ashes of the cow called a h.at..ta¯ ʼt (19:9, 17) but the procedure also involves the same material and kinds of actions as any priestly sacrifice: the animal is a clean and unblemished quadruped (19:2), it is slaughtered in front of a priest (19:3), it is burned (19:5), and some of its blood is manipulated by the priest (19:4). Indeed, the fact that the animal has never been worked 12 13

14

For explanations of the term, see David P. Wright, “Azazel,” ABD I, 536–37. The meaning of the verb ‘rp is uncertain. It is related to the term “neck” (ʻ¯orep). It may mean cutting or twisting the neck. It is considered a profane and not sacrificial means of slaughter (e.g., Exod 13:13; for discussion, see Propp, Exodus 1–18, 426). E.g., Maccoby, Ritual and Morality, 105, 109 ff.

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makes it seem particularly sacred in the natural way of many cultic people, objects, and animals such as the firstborn animal that may not be worked (Deut 15:19), the stones of the altar that must be unhewn (Deut 27:6; Josh 8:31), the unleavened bread for Passover and for minh.aˆ offerings (e.g., Exod 12:15–20; Lev 2:4–5), and the uncut hair of nazirites (Num 6:5). The priest’s sprinkling of the animal’s blood toward the front of the tent of meeting (19:4) is much like that done in other rites.15 On the other hand, the ritual has several features that do not conform to standard sacrificial procedure, causing some scholars to state unequivocally that it is not an offering.16 Others understand it to be a sacrifice in its effect but struggle with many of these uncommon elements.17 Indeed, because none of the animal’s body is given to the deity, it does not appear to be an offering. Other unusual features of the rite include its performance outside the camp and away from an altar (instead of in the sanctuary) and the burning of the animal’s entire body, including its blood. The divergence in scholarly characterization of the rite highlights the problem of how to define “sacrifice” and of imposing modern conceptual frameworks on ancient rituals. However, because the animal is termed a form of offering, it should be understood as a sacrifice, and its unusual form should be considered a part of its function. The most unusual feature of the rite of the red cow is its performance away from the sanctuary or any other altar. The biblical understanding of sacrifice usually requires some sort of altar, where the blood is poured out, the fat is burned, or the slaughter takes place.18 For example, in 1 Sam 14:33–35 killing the animal on the altar-like rock and draining its blood there makes the difference for Saul between sacrifice and illegitimate slaughtering. Moreover, Lev 17:6–9 indicates that all proper sacrifice must be brought to the sanctuary. As mentioned earlier, the slaughter and burning of the red cow do not happen in the tabernacle or sanctuary; the whole rite takes place entirely 15 16

17

18

E.g., Exod 29:21; Lev 4:17; 5:9; 14:7, 51; 16:14, 19. E.g., Martin Noth, Numbers: A Commentary (OTL; James D. Martin, trans.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), 141; Raphael Patai, “The ‘Eglah ‘Arufa or the Expiation of Polluted Land,” JQR 30 (1939), 64; Wefing, “Beobachtungen zum Ritual mit der roten Kuh,” 354. E.g., George Buchanan Gray, Sacrifice in the Old Testament: Its Theory and Practice (New York: KTAV, 1971), 31; Baruch A. Levine, Numbers 1–20 (AB 4; New York: Doubleday, 1993), 274, 468. Alternately, blood manipulation may occur at another special place, such as the doorposts and lintels of the Israelites’ houses for the Passover sacrifice (Exod 12:7, 22). On the meaning, or non-meaning, of blood rites see Gilders, Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible.

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outside the camp, away from any holy site or altar (19:3, 9). Though the priest sprinkles a bit of the blood in the direction of the tent of meeting (19:4), and thus toward the altar, the blood does not actually touch it. Though the purpose of the sprinkling remains unclear,19 it indicates some connection to the tabernacle and the operational priestly system that handles blood,20 but paradoxically, it also brings attention to the very distance of the ritual from the sanctuary. Because anything that touches a consecrated altar is considered holy (Exod 29:37; 30:29), the cow’s distance from an altar indicates a separation and difference from the sanctity of most sacrificial animals. In addition, the location “outside the camp,” where the cow is burned, is where sacrificial waste is deposited. The ash heap outside of the camp is the place for disposal of ashes from a whole burnt offering or from the burnt fat of any offering. It is also the place for burning the discarded parts of the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt.21 Indeed, the very location of “outside the camp,” where “lepers” reside (Lev 13:46; 14:3, 8) and stonings take place (Lev 24:14, 23; Num 15:35–36), is antithetical to the tent itself.22 Similarly, burning a victim is an important part of sacrifice and indeed may be the definitive sacrificial action when it is performed on an altar.23 Most offerings have an altar burning of some part of the animal, even if it is just the fat with the liver and kidneys (as in a ˇs˘el¯amˆım or h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering). Even a grain offering usually has a burnt part: a “memorial portion” (ʼazk¯arˆa) is removed and burned on the altar.24 P refers to this altar burning as “turning to 19

20 21 22

23

24

T. Vriezen argues that the sprinkling toward the tabernacle consecrates the blood (“The Term Hizza: Lustration and Consecration,” OTS 7 [1950], 201–35). Milgrom agrees with this view (Leviticus 1–16, 233). N. Kiuchi offers the opposite view, namely that perhaps the blood purifies the altar from afar (The Purification Offering, 123–24). Levine, Numbers 1–20, 458. Lev 6:11 [4]; 4:12. In Deuteronomic thought, it is also where latrines are dug (Deut 23:12–14 [13–15]). There are both clean and unclean places outside the camp. From the MT it is unclear whether the cow is burned in a clean, neutral, or unclean place (Num 19:3), though the LXX specifies that the place is clean. According to both versions, its ashes are stored in a “clean” place outside the camp (19:9). Christian Eberhart, “A Neglected Feature of Sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible: Remarks on the Burning Rite on the Altar,” HTR 97 (2004): 485–93. Gary A. Anderson similarly defines biblical sacrifices as “oblations which are burned (wholly or partially) at the altar” (“Sacrifices and Sacrificial Offerings [OT]” ABD V, 873). Lev 2:2, 9, 16; 5:12; 6:15 [6:8]; Num 5:26. If it is offered by a priest there is no memorial portion and it is entirely burned on the altar (Lev 6:20–23 [13–16]). A whole burnt offering (ʻ¯olˆa) is almost completely burned on the altar, though its blood is removed, as is its hide, and the flesh is cut into pieces and arranged on the fire (Lev 1:5–17; 7:8). The priests offer one loaf of unleavened bread from the basket at their ordination (Exod 29:23–25; Lev 8:26–27); for the showbread, incense acts as a memorial portion (Lev 24:7).

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smoke” (hiqt.ˆır). In contrast, the red cow is burned entirely outside the camp, away from an altar. Its burning is called not by the sacrificial term “turn to smoke” (hiqt.ˆır), but by the more general and profane term ´sa¯ rap. This latter term is used for the burning of the discarded parts of other offerings, including sacrificial meat that is no longer usable (Exod 12:10; 29:34), and for the burning of the expulsed parts of the “burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt;” that is, a h.at..ta¯ ʼt offered by the priests or the entire congregation whose hide, meat, head, legs, dung, and most organs are burned outside the camp (Lev 4:12; 6:30 [23]).25 Thus this profane burning away from the altar is the means of destroying ritual refuse.26 Therefore, although the red cow is burned, is burned not in the normal sacrificial way but as refuse. In addition, the treatment of the blood and body of the red cow differentiates this rite from most offerings. In a standard sacrifice, the remaining blood that is not aspersed or daubed is completely removed from the victim and discarded at an altar.27 In priestly offerings, the blood of clean herded animals must always be deposited in the sanctuary in the middle of the camp, where it is applied to sancta and poured out in a consecrated area.28 However, in the rite of the cow the blood is not let out or drained, but is burned with the rest of its body, including its flesh, hide, and dung (19:15). This is the only text in the Bible that commands the burning of blood.29 Similarly, both priestly sacrifice and most other cross-cultural forms of sacrifice involve the division of the animal into distinct parts for different purposes.30 In priestly sacrifice the animal is divided into these parts: (1) blood, which belongs in the sanctuary; (2) fat, which is removed from the animal and burned separately on the altar along with the liver and kidneys;31 (3) skin, which for some offerings is kept by the priest but for others is burned

25 26 27 28

29 30

31

Exod 29:14; Lev 4:11; 8:17; 16:27. Wright, “Heifer, Red,” 115. Exod 29:12, 16, 20; Lev 1:5, 15; 3:2, 8, 13; 4:7, 18, 25, 30, 34; 5:9; 7:2, 14; 8:15, 19, 24; 9:9, 12, 18; 17:6; Num 18:17; Deut 12:27; 1 Sam 14:32–35; 2 Kgs 16:15; Ezek 43:18; 2 Chr 29:22, 24; 35:11. E.g., Lev 1:5, 11, 15; 3:2, 8, 13; 4:5–7, 16–18, 25, 30, 34; 5:9; 7:2; 8:15, 19, etc. Unusually, in the ordination sacrifice of the priests and the ʼ¯aˇsa¯ m sacrifice of the “leper,” blood is applied to human beings (Exod 29:20; Lev 8:23, 24; 14:14, 25). Gordon Wenham, Numbers: An Introduction and Commentary (TOTC; London: InterVarsity Press, 1981), 146. In his study of Greek sacrifice, Stanley Stowers understands this physical reorganization as a process of turning the natural body into an ideal ritual form (“Greeks Who Sacrifice and Those Who Do Not: Towards an Anthropology of Greek Religion,” in The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne Meeks [ed. L. Michael White and O.L. Yarbrough; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1995], 306, 329, 332). Exod 29:13, 22; Lev 3:3–5, 9–11, 14–17; 4:8–10, 19–20, 26, 31, 35; 7:3–5, 30–31; 8:16, 25–26; 9:10, 19–20, 24; 16:25; 17:6; Num 18:17.

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outside the camp;32 (4) meat, which can variously be eaten by priests or by clean people, or be burned outside the camp;33 and (5) dung , which is washed off or removed outside the camp and burned.34 The rite of the red cow, however, does not separate out the parts of the cow, but specifically treats them together and all the same way. Verse 5 states, “The cow will be burned in his presence: her hide, her flesh, and her blood shall be burned, along with her dung.” Despite these differences between the rite of the red cow and other forms of both priestly and nonpriestly offerings, the red cow rite is not divorced from the sacrificial system. All of the elements of priestly offerings are there: burning, blood rites, the clear spatial relationship to the sanctuary, and a detailed procedure for the carcass. The rite of the cow uses these sacrificial features, but inverts them: sacrificial animals are slaughtered and their blood rites conducted at the sanctuary in the middle of the camp, whereas the cow is slaughtered outside the camp with its blood rites performed there. The body parts of sacrificial offerings are separated out for distinct purposes, but the cow’s body is kept together, so that its blood is not separated from even its dung. Other offerings involve burning some if not most of a victim’s parts on an altar, but none of the cow undergoes sacrificial burning at the sanctuary. Instead, it is burned in a distinctly nonsacrificial fashion, away from an altar. Perhaps most importantly, ashes of other sacrifices are byproducts to be disposed of, whereas the purpose of the rite of the cow is to intentionally create ashes. In the red cow rite, the same kinds of actions are performed with the same kinds of materials, but they are done in an opposite place and in an opposite way. The rite is thus related to the sacrificial system, but stands as an inversion to it (for a full list of the differences, see Table 1). The rite of the red cow also has a different function from many offerings. Usually sacrifice creates or displays a positive state, such as, for people, purity – one must be pure to participate in sacrifice, and yet sacrifice can be the means of establishing purity. The sacrificial system usually makes an object or victim holy through its consecration, such as the holiest (q¯odeˇs qod¯aˇsˆım) offerings that may only be eaten by the holy priests. However, the sacrificial system can also create states of impurity. Indeed, h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings, which remedy impurities, usually create an impurity that can then be eliminated in

32

33 34

In the h.at..ta¯ ʼt sacrifice for a priest or the whole community it is burned outside the camp (Exod 29:14; Lev 4:11; 8:17; 9:11). The skin of an ʻ¯olˆa offering may be kept by the officiating priest (Lev 7:8). For details on the consumption of the various priestly offerings, see Chapter 2. Exod 29:14, 17; Lev 1:9, 13; 4:11; 8:17, 21; 9:14; 16:27.

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Table 1. Oppositions between Priestly Sacrifices and the Red Cow Rite Sacrifice

Red Cow Rite

Slaughter in tabernacle Blood poured out at base of altar Ashes are byproducts, waste Skin and dung removed, treated as waste Burned (hiqt.ˆır) on an altar Body parts separated Fat burned separately for deity Blood is put on sancta (altar, veil)

Slaughter outside the camp Blood remains inside of animal Ashes are intended product Skin and dung burned with rest of animal Burned (´sa¯ rap) without an altar Body parts left together Fat not separated, not burned on altar Blood, in the ashes, is put on impure people, things; blood is sprinkled toward the holy (the entrance to the tent of meeting), but does not touch it Blood burned Victim is unclean, makes those who touch it unclean Female victim required Cow required

Blood never burned Victim is clean, one must be clean to eat it Male victim preferred Cow never required

some way.35 The cow is called a h.at..ta¯ ʼt sacrifice and it too creates an impure part. However, the cow rite is unique in that its entirety is impure and that its impurity is not immediately expulsed or disposed of; it is retained as a useful ritual material. The cow rite uses the means and material of the priestly system to create something solely ritually impure, rather than something consecrated. The actions in the rite of the cow are opposite to most purposes of sacrifice and inverse to standard sacrificial procedure because they create the flipside of sanctity, which is impurity. However, the rite can create impurity because of the kind of sacrifice it is: a h.at..ta¯ ʼt, a purification offering, which stands at the nexus between holiness and impurity. 35

For theories on h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings see Albert I. Baumgarten, “HATTA`T Sacrifices,” RB 103 (1996): 337–42; J. Dennis, “The Function of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt Sacrifice in the Priestly Literature: An Evaluation of the View of Jacob Milgrom,” ETL 78 (2002): 108–29; N. Kiuchi, The Purification Offering; Levine, In the Presence of the LORD, 101–14; Alfred Marx, “Sacrifice pour les p´ech´es ou rites de passages?: Quelques r´eflexions sur la fonction du hatta`t,” RB 96 (1989): 27–48; Jacob Milgrom, “Sin Offering or Purification Offering?” VT 21 (1971): 237–39; Milgrom, “Israel’s Sanctuary: The Priestly ‘Picture of Dorian Gray’”; A. Schenker, “Interpr´etations r´ecentes et dimensions sp´ecifique du sacrifice h.at..ta¯ ʼt,” Biblica 75 (1994): 59–70; Norman H. Snaith, “The Sin Offering and the Guilt Offering,” VT 15 (1965): 73–80; Zohar, “Repentance and Purification: The Significance and Semantics of h.at..ta¯ ʼt in the Pentateuch,” 609–18; Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus, 79–96, 130–141; Gane, Cult and Character; Jay Sklar, Sin, Impurity, Sacrifice, Atonement: The Priestly Conceptions (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2005); Gilders, Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible, 109–41.

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The Red Cow as a H . at.t.a¯ ʼt As Jacob Milgrom argues, the key to understanding the cow rite is to recognize that it is a h.at..ta¯ ʼt.36 In the sacrificial legislation laid out in Lev 4, 5:1–14, and 6:25–30 [18–23] and in Num 15:23–31, there are two main kinds of h.at..ta¯ ʼt.37 The first is the “burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt” that is offered on behalf of either the priest or the entire congregation. According to Leviticus, the victim must be a bull (Lev 4:3, 14); in contrast, Num 15:24 prescribes a male goat for the congregation. The second is the “eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt” that is offered by a secular leader (n¯a´sˆıʼ) or an individual lay person. The victim for the n¯a´sˆıʼ is a male goat (Lev 4:23), whereas the victim for the common person is a female goat or sheep (Lev 4:28, 32; 5:6; Num 15:27). In the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt, the blood from the animal is taken inside the tent of meeting where it is sprinkled seven times on the curtain of the sanctuary and then daubed on the horns of the altar of incense, which is inside the tent of meeting. The rest of the blood is poured out at the base of the altar of burnt offerings, which is in the forecourt outside of the tent of meeting. With the eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt, the blood is daubed on the horns of the altar of burnt offering, in the forecourt, and then poured out at the base. That the blood of the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt is carried into the tent of meeting, and thus becomes closer to the holy of holies, indicates that it has a higher degree of sanctity than the blood of the eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt, which remains in the forecourt outside the tent. Another very important difference between the burnt and eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt is the treatment of the animal’s carcass. The fat, kidneys, and long lobe of the liver of both kinds of offerings are burned on the altar of burnt offerings, just as with a “peace offering” (ˇs˘el¯amˆım), but the rest of the body is treated differently. The body of the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt is carried to “a clean place outside the camp, to the ash heap” and burned up “in a wood fire; it will be burned on the ash heap” (Lev 4:12). In contrast, the priest who offers the h.at..ta¯ ʼt of the common person or leader keeps the meat and eats it in the forecourt. It can be eaten by any male among the priests, and it is considered a “most holy” offering, like the grain offering (minh.aˆ ) and “guilt” (ʼ¯aˇsa¯ m) offerings.

36

37

Milgrom originally offered his interpretation in “The Paradox of the Red Cow (Num XIX),” but expanded it in his “Confusing the Sacred and the Impure: A Rejoinder,” and his commentaries on Numbers (Numbers: The JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990, 158–63, 438–43) and Leviticus 1–16, 270–78. Milgrom, “Two Kinds of h.at..ta¯ ʼt”; idem., Leviticus 1–16, 261–64. Cf. Levine, “In the Presence of the LORD,” 103–08, who suggests that the two rites have different origins: that of the priest and the congregation is a “rite of riddance” and that of the leader or commoner is a “gift of expiation.”

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Scholars have debated the functions of these two types of h.at..ta¯ ʼt, raising some difficult questions about the priestly concepts underlying these rituals.38 These concern, for instance, whether the carcass of the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt is burned outside of the camp because it is impure and if so how sins and impurities enter the victim. Is it when offerers put their hands on the victim’s head, as Zohar argues, or whether, as Milgrom argues, the carcass absorbs the impurity that the blood has cleansed.39 Moreover, if the carcass absorbs the impurity it is unclear whether this happens because, as Milgrom suggests, the blood, which is part of the body, has absorbed the impurity from the sanctuary and in a pars pro toto manner also infects the carcass. In addition, Zohar questions whether it doesn’t actually bring impurity into the sanctuary instead of removing it from there. Moreover, it is unclear whether the meat of the eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt is impure, as Milgrom suggests, or whether it is holy, as Kiuchi suggests, because that is what it is called and the priests, who may not consume impure food, are allowed to eat it. Perhaps it is, as Wright suggests, both holy and impure. It is also unclear whether the priest’s eating of it somehow disposes of the impurity in a similar way as burning outside the camp, as Gane argues, or whether it is merely a prebend, a payment, for the priest and not an intrinsic aspect of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt rite.40 These are only some preliminary questions regarding the functioning of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt. Others concern the relationship of atonement to purification, of the offerer’s impurity to the sanctuary, and of the everyday h.at..ta¯ ʼt to those on Yom Kippur and other holy days. Further complicating the matter of h.at..ta¯ ʼt sacrifices is that other priestly texts mention h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings that do not adhere strictly to the schema in Lev 4–5. The h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering can take a variety of forms. Leviticus 5 describes a “graduated h.at..ta¯ ʼt” for the common person who is too poor to offer a ewe or a female goat (vv. 7–13). The person may bring two doves or pigeons, one as a h.at..ta¯ ʼt and one as a whole burnt offering. If the offerer cannot afford birds, he or she may bring flour, a handful of which is put on the altar as a “memorial portion” (ʼazk¯arˆa); the rest is given to the priest. In other purity laws, a h.at..ta¯ ʼt 38

39

40

See Milgrom, “The Modus Operandi of the Hatta’t: A Rejoinder,” JBL 109 [1990], 112– 13; Wright, The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature (SBL Dissertation Series 101, Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 129–35; Gane, Cult and Character, passim; Zohar, “Repentance and Purification,” 609–18; Baumgarten, “The Paradox of the Red Heifer,” 442–51; Kiuchi, The Purification Offering, passim. The biblical text is not concerned with the means by which the h.at..ta¯ ʼt carcass becomes impure; it never gives a clear explanation. Watts suggests that the disposal of the animal outside the camp is not an issue of purity, but rather of a conflict of interest. The parts cannot be eaten by the priests lest they profit from their own sins. They must therefore be disposed of in another way (Leviticus HCOT [Leuven: Peeters, forthcoming]). Cult and Conscience, 91–105; so also Wright and Kiuchi.

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offering is prescribed for an individual suffering an impurity, but it is not said to be a female sheep or goat. A woman sacrificing after childbirth, for instance, must only offer a bird as a h.at..ta¯ ʼt (Lev 12:6), as must a z¯ab recovering from genital illness (Lev 15:14–15). In the story of the inauguration of the priesthood, as well as on Yom Kippur, the people are to offer collectively a male goat (Lev 9:3) instead of a bull, and it is to be treated as an eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt (Lev 10:17–8; 16:15, 27) instead of a burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt. A final difficulty is that the scapegoat rite performed on Yom Kippur is also called a h.at..ta¯ ʼt. Two live goats, who together are called a h.at..ta¯ ʼt (ˇs˘enȇ-´s˘eʻˆırȇ ʻizzˆım l˘eh.at..ta¯ ʼt, Lev 16:5), are brought before the tent of meeting where the high priest casts lots over them. One becomes the aforementioned burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt offered to Yahweh on behalf of the people; the other is “for Azazel.” This animal is the “scapegoat,” who is sent into the wilderness alive after the high priest has performed the other h.at..ta¯ ʼt rites and confessed all of Israel’s sins over it. The question of how h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings were thought to work is of course important to understanding priestly thought. However, in many places the text is silent or so vague about the priestly understanding of the metaphysical functioning of these offerings that these questions cannot be resolved. It may then be fruitful to take another tack for interpreting them. Instead of focusing on any unseen metaphysical mechanisms, it is possible to step back to the more basic level of what can be observed in the physical actions of the rituals. By doing so, a few aspects of h.at..ta¯ ʼt rites may become clear. The first and most obvious feature is that h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings should usually be made in response to something negative, be it a physical impurity, an irresponsible action, or another offense (e.g., Lev 4; 5:1-13). Other offerings are made in these negative contexts as well, especially the ʼ¯aˇsa¯ m sacrifice, which is offered for cultic infractions involving the misuse of sancta, and ʻ¯olˆa offerings, which can be made in many different contexts (including during purification rites). Although h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings can be made in a number of positive and joyous contexts, they are presented primarily as “expiatory” offerings whose main purpose is to remedy impurities and sins. Second, a very important aspect of h.at..ta¯ ʼt sacrifices is that in the course of the ritual they create something negative, usually by portraying a certain part of the offering as dangerous and contagious if not impure. This dangerous and impure part can then be disposed of and eliminated. These rites thus enact the elimination of impurity by isolating a particular part, portraying it as impure and then destroying it. In the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt, for example, although the animal’s fat, liver, and kidneys are burned on the altar, its carcass is removed outside the camp, to a place where other sacrificial refuse is discarded. The

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carcass is also burned in a distinctly nonsacrificial way (´sa¯ rap), as is this other cultic refuse. Therefore, by taking the body out of the sacred realm of the sanctuary and discarding it in a distinctively negative way, the carcass comes to seem dangerous, dirty, and expelled. The carcass is not inherently negative, but it becomes characterized as such by its juxtaposition with the fat and organs burned on the altar. Its profane burning outside the camp destroys the impurity. The need for the man who burns the carcass to bathe also shows that the carcass is contaminating in some way. Yet as he washes, he also destroys any impurity caused by it. Thus, regardless of any metaphysical act (e.g., the absorption of impurity through the blood or the transfer of impurity by the imposition of hands), the body becomes impure because it is treated as impure. The impurity is then physically destroyed and eliminated. The scapegoat ritual of Yom Kippur also clearly shows the creation of a negative, rejected, and disposed portion of a h.at..ta¯ ʼt. Through the casting of lots, the priest is able to create two distinct parts from the h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering of two goats. One goat is for Yahweh, to be brought into the sanctuary and offered as a burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt. The other is “for Azazel”; it takes on the negativity of the sins and impurities of Israel and carries them away to the wilderness. The two goats, one in the sanctuary and one outside the camp, resemble the two parts of the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt’s body, one in the sanctuary and one outside the camp. The ritual in Lev 14 to restore the purity of people and houses contaminated with disease operates similarly. This rite is not termed a h.at..ta¯ ʼt, but has a great deal in common with both the scapegoat and the red cow h.at..ta¯ ʼt rites; indeed, it is said to fulfill the h.at..ta¯ ʼt’s function of “making atonement” (kipp¯er; 14:53). On behalf of both the people and houses that recover, the priest orders that two live birds be brought to him (for a person, this ritual takes place outside the camp). The priest orders one of the birds to be slaughtered; then he mixes its blood with many elements found in the red cow rite: cedar wood, hyssop, crimson yarn, and running water. The priest dips the living bird into the blood mixture and sprinkles the recovered person seven times with the mixture. Then he releases the bird to fly away into the countryside (Lev 14:4–7, 53). Here again two parts are created: the first has its blood exposed for ritual use, whereas the other, which would take on negativity, is expelled. The dynamic of creating a negative part also appears in the rite of the “eaten” h.at..ta¯ ʼt, although the nature of the expelled element is less clear. In the eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt, the victim’s body is also divided into two distinct elements. The first element encompasses the parts that are burned on the altar and the blood that is poured out at its base. But the second and negative element, the rest of the carcass, is not sent outside the camp; it is eaten by priests. Because it

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is not removed, the nature of the flesh is uncertain. On the one hand, it seems to be impure because its blood and flesh are subject to special regulations regarding contagion: if any of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt blood spatters on a garment, it must be cleaned, and the pot in which the h.at..ta¯ ʼt flesh is cooked must be scoured, if it is metal, or broken if it is clay (Lev 6:27–28 [20–21]). Moreover, although eating the h.at..ta¯ ʼt meat is a prerogative of priestly service, it is also a requirement, which seems like eating it is a form of disposal. According to the story of Nadab and Abihu (Lev 10), priests must eat the h.at..ta¯ ʼt meat “to bear the guilt of the community to atone for them before Yahweh” (l¯a´s¯eʼt ʼet-ʻ˘av¯on h¯aʻ¯edˆa l˘ekapp¯er ʻ˘alȇhem lipnȇ yhwh, 10:17). No other sacrificial meat is subject to these specific restrictions of contagion.41 Therefore, some interpreters have understood these requirements to mean that the flesh of the eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt is indeed impure, like the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt.42 On the other hand, the flesh of the eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt is explicitly called “holy” not “impure” (t.a¯ m¯eʼ); indeed it is called “most holy” (q¯odeˇs qod¯aˇsˆım, Lev 6:17 [10], 25 [18], 29 [22]; 10:17; Num 18:9).43 According to Lev 6:18 [11] and 27–28 [20–21], anyone who touches the meat either is or becomes holy (yiqd¯aˇs).44 The meat can only be eaten by male priests (6:18 [11]), and they must eat it at a “holy place” in the court of the tent of meeting (6:26 [19]). Thus the meat of the eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt seems to be contagious, like an impurity, but what it is transmitting is opposite to impurity. This is indeed the paradox of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt: on the one hand it is “holy;” on the other hand, it contaminates. Although the meat of the eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt is never deemed impure, it is nonetheless dangerous and contagious in a way that other sacrificial meat is not. Like the minh.aˆ and the ʼ¯aˇsa¯ m it is called “most holy,” but these other offerings are not said to require the same laundering and scouring after contact. The h.at..ta¯ ʼt always has an inherent danger and negativity, but the ritual status of this danger can change based in part on location. When the dangerous parts of the eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt are brought to a holy place in the tent of meeting and eaten by holy people, they become extremely holy. If those same parts of the animal are brought outside the camp, then they are no longer called holy, are treated in a nonsacrificial manner, and appear more like an impurity. Although the cultic status of the meat correlates with how its blood is treated 41 42 43 44

Except for piggȗl meat, which has become spoiled (Lev 7:18; 19:7). E.g., Gane, Cult and Character, 91–105; Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 263. Kiuchi, The Purification Offering, 130. Whether it induces a state of holiness (Milgrom) or requires a state of holiness (Levine) is in dispute; see Levine, Numbers 1–20, 418–19; idem., “In the Presence of the LORD,” 246; Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 443–56. For a summary of the problem see Watts, Leviticus.

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(i.e., whether it is brought into the inner altar or remains at the outer one), we cannot say definitively how or even that the blood rites were thought to affect the carcass. All we can say that its status as holy or impure is created by the priest depending on location. The Mishna proposes something similar to what is suggested here: when the carcass of the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt is taken outside of the temple precincts it pollutes, but when it remains inside it does not (m. Yoma 6:7).45 This feature of h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings shows that, unlike other offerings, they have a variable status and that this changeable nature makes their flesh dangerous in a way that other offerings are not. Like the goats at Yom Kippur, they may be taken into the sanctuary as a holy offering or be driven out, laden with sins and impurities. They can be used to create a contagious holiness or a contagious impurity. This ability to change ritual status gives h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings their power to morph into vehicles for expiation, but it also makes them dangerous and in need of regulation. In the case of the red cow, this h.at..ta¯ ʼt is able to become a negative form of impurity, similar to the flesh of the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt. Like the carcass, the cow is taken outside of the camp to be burned. The Septuagint adds that it is to be taken “to a clean place” outside the camp, but this stipulation is missing in the MT. The description of the parts of the bull’s carcass to be burned resembles the description of the red cow’s burning: Leviticus 4:11–12: But as for the hide of the bull and all its flesh, as well as its head and its legs and its innards and its dung, he will bring out all of the bull outside the camp to a clean place, to the ash heap, and burn it upon wood in the fire. It will be burned on the ash heap. Numbers 19:5: The cow will be burned in his presence: her hide, her flesh, and her blood shall be burned, along with her dung.

The treatment of the cow’s body is similar – in its location, its style of burning, and the contagion that it spreads to those who touch it – to that given the discarded parts of the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt. However, the cow is even more defiling because, unlike the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt, no part of it is ever brought into the sanctuary. Furthermore, though the person who burns the carcass of the burned h.at..ta¯ ʼt must bathe and launder, he is not called unclean. In the cow rite, however, the priest and everyone involved in the production and 45

Cited in Wright, The Disposal of Impurity, 132, n.19. For a similar interpretation see Maccoby, Ritual and Impurity, 84. In contrast, Milgrom argues that the victim is always polluting, because it has absorbed the impurity of the offerer; however, the holiness of the temple counteracts the impurity while it is inside and prevents it from contaminating there (Leviticus 1–16, 262–63).

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application of the ashes are specifically called unclean and must wait until the evening to be clean, in addition to bathing and laundering. The red cow, therefore, is like the discarded parts of the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt. It is a ritually constructed form of defilement. Unlike other kinds of h.at..ta¯ ʼt, however, little or no sacred portion of the cow is separated from its contagious part. Unlike these other dangerous and contagious parts of a h.at..ta¯ ʼt, the defiling cow is also not eliminated by burning, eating, or shunning; its ashes will ultimately be destroyed in the relatively common way of ritual bathing, which also washes off the residue of the dangerous.

The Elimination of Impurity The text of Num 19 makes very clear that all of those involved in the creation and application of the cow’s ashes become unclean. In fact, it is likely that Eleazar, and not Aaron, is told to make the ashes because doing so requires the defiling of the priest, and according to H in Lev 21:10–12, the high priest should avoid becoming unclean.46 The paradox then arises: how does something that is impure enable the impure to become clean? Jacob Milgrom believes that the ashes defile and cleanse because they are a h.at..ta¯ ʼt, which cleanses impurity. He interprets the entire ritual in terms of the standard h.at..ta¯ ʼt procedure listed in Lev 4, 5:1–14, and 6:25–30 [Heb 18–23] and in Num 15:23–31. According to Milgrom, the h.at..ta¯ ʼt removes impurity from what it contacts and as a result contains that impurity, becoming itself unclean. Milgrom sees the cow rite in line with other h.a˘.t.ta¯ ʼˆot, especially the h.at..ta¯ ʼt of the Yom Kippur ritual, in which the man who burns the remains of the sacrificed goat must bathe and launder his clothes (Lev 16:28), and with Lev 6:27 [20], in which anyone or thing that touches the flesh or blood of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt must be cleaned with water.47 As he writes, It is the very mechanism of the purgation that helps clarify the paradox. In effect, the h.at..ta¯ ʼt absorbs the impurity it has purged and for that reason, it must be eliminated by incineration. However, this means anyone involved in the incineration of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt is infected by it and must undergo purification.48 The defiling nature of the ashes, however, poses a particular problem for this interpretation, because unlike the scapegoat and the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt, they have not yet absorbed any impurity because they have not yet been used by 46 47 48

Mayer Gruber, “Red Heifer,” EJ 14: column 10. Milgrom, “The Paradox of the Red Cow,” 64. Ibid., 64.

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a contaminated person.49 As Albert I. Baumgarten50 states, “the mechanism by which its ashes defile cannot be the residual impurity left behind in ritual detergents, since the ashes defile before they are brought into contact with impurity.”51 David Wright, who supports Milgrom’s argument, suggests that the ashes absorb the impurity “prospectively”; that is, in anticipation of the use to which they will be put.52 However, this explanation reduces the power inherent in the ashes and, moreover, undermines the theory of sin absorption. Rejecting Milgrom’s argument, Baumgarten instead offers a different theory of impurity, holiness, and h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings. He suggests that defilement results not only when sanctity is missing but also when there is too high a degree of sanctity: h.at..ta¯ ʼt sacrifices in general do not so much purify as “raise status, by means of adding vital sacred power.”53 “Impurity” for Baumgarten, then, is the result of either too little or too great sacred power. Baumgarten bases his arguments on the same two passages that Milgrom does: Lev 6:27–28 [Heb 20–21] and 16:28. He argues that these are two instances of the priests having too high a degree of sacred power and thus being “defiled” by their hypersacred state. The red cow thus defiles the clean people involved in producing the rite by giving them too much sacred power and yet cleanses the impure by adding a proper amount of sacred power. Milgrom, however, rejects Baumgarten’s idea of too much holiness, arguing that there is no such thing as too much holiness and asking how one would 49

50

51 52

53

However, he notes in a footnote the fact “that the h.at..ta¯ ʼt system was artificially imposed upon this ritual is betrayed by the fact that those who prepare the ashes become unclean even though the ashes have not yet been used” (72, n.26). This statement in effect undermines his entire argument, as per the argument of Baumgarten (“The Paradox of the Red Heifer,” VT 43 [1993]: 442–51). “The Paradox of the Red Heifer,” 442–51. Milgrom responded to his criticisms in “Confusing the Sacred and the Impure: A Rejoinder,” VT 44 (1994): 554–59. Another brief interpretation of the “paradox” of the rite is offered by Mayer Gruber (“Red Heifer,” EJ 14: column 11]) who thinks that the ashes are a defiling substance because the blood was never atoned for: the ashes defile not only the pure but also the impure so there is no “paradox.” The impurity caused by death is a different impurity from that caused by the cow. Both the clean and the unclean must bathe and launder their clothes because both are made unclean by the cow’s ashes. Though I disagree with the atonement factor, his interpretation is much more like the one presented here. Baumgarten, “The Paradox of the Red Heifer.” “Heifer, Red,” ABD III: 116. Milgrom agrees with Wright (“Confusing the Sacred and the Impure,” 558). So similarly Gane: “When the contact occurs and the ash water absorbs the impurity, it is as though this pollution is transmitted back through time and space to the burning of the cow so that those involved in the process, including the officiating and supervising priest, become impure” (Cult and Character, 183). L. E. Toombs suggests that the cow is unclean in advance of its use, like a coffin or gallows, “because of the associations of the use to which it will be put” (“Red Heifer,” IDB 4: 18–19). Baumgarten, “The Paradox of the Red Heifer,” 449.

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even be able to define that state. He also rightly criticizes Baumgarten for ignoring some of the more technical terminology in the purity and sacrificial system. As he argues, the problem with Baumgarten’s argument is that he has confused holiness and impurity. Holiness and impurity are parallel; they are not the same thing. This is, as Milgrom says, “P’s iron-clad rule: .ta¯ m¯e’ is 54 .ta¯ m¯e’, and q¯ad¯oˇs is q¯ad¯oˇs, and never the twain shall meet.” Baumgarten’s argument, however, does assume that the h.at..ta¯ ʼt can convey a power that is dangerous, but that is not necessarily the power of uncleanness. As shown earlier, the ritual status of h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings can vary; the offerings may become impure, or holy, or both, depending on how they are treated. Their environment affects their status. The h.at..ta¯ ʼt is also distinct from other offerings not in that it creates too much power, but that its power is contagious, though it may be defined either as impurity or holiness. Thus contacting any h.at..ta¯ ʼt meat requires bathing, laundering, burning, shunning, and other methods to stop its contagion in both the cases of holiness and impurity. Whether the form of contagion in question is from holiness or impurity depends on where it is located, whom it is said to contact, and how it is destroyed. Just as these variables have the power to define the contagion of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt as one of holiness or impurity, so the contagion of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt has the power to define the people, objects, and locations it contacts. That is to say, because contagion attaches to what comes near it, the concept of contagion is a means of conferring or articulating a ritual state, of marking people and objects as impure or as holy. Thus the ritual status of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt meat is not only defined by its location and those who touch it but it also confers status on those individuals. For instance, the ability of the male priests to eat it enacts their own holiness. Yet the carcass of the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt shows the man who brings it outside the camp to be unclean. Similarly, the main function of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt in general is to show the change in the ritual status of the offerer from impure to pure so that when he or she has it s/he is impure, but is pure once s/he offers it. This ability to illustrate status makes the h.at..ta¯ ʼt extremely powerful; it must be carefully guarded lest it mark the status of people and things in an unapproved way. Part of the fear of contagion is that any status so conferred can be so variable. The h.at..ta¯ ʼt may confer holiness or impurity or even a ritually charged state that is in between; for example, that of the man who has the job of sending away the Azazel goat and who must bathe, but is not called unclean. He has a vaguely defined ritual power. 54

“Confusing the Sacred and the Impure,” 557. See also the remarks on p. 556.

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The ashes of the cow are therefore impure because they were made impure by being taken to a location of relative impurity and by being shown to defile the clean men who touch them. They appear to be an unclean substance themselves, but they function in part to express the state of what they touch. As such, the ashes also illustrate the ritual state of people who are unclean from contact with death, for whom they are made.55 When the ashes are characterized as unclean, they also show what they touch to be unclean. Whether or not they “absorb” impurity, they definitely show it. The ashes provide a clear expression of the abstract impurity of death; they also have the practical visual effect of making the sprinkled person soiled in appearance. This tangible uncleanness can then be washed off at the end of seven days, thereby releasing the contaminated person from the limbo of corpse impurity and restoring the person to a normal appearance and ritually clean state. Ashes have the effect of showing an altered state brought about by contact with the dead outside of priestly writings.56 Although Num 19 addresses death only in terms of purity and not in terms of the emotions felt when in the presence of the dead, the people who are most likely to come in contact with the dead are mourners. In other parts of the Bible, mourners put ashes on themselves (e.g., Isa 61:3; Jer 6:26; Ezek 27:30; Est 4:1, 3; Lam 2:10). Ashes are also associated with degradation (2 Sam 13:19), humility (Job 42:6; Isa 58:5), repentance (Jon 3:6; Dan 9:3; Job 42:6), and worthlessness (Gen 18:27; Job 13:12). In these examples, wearing ashes or sitting in them enables a person to visibly communicate and concretize his or her experience.57 Ashes mark the person’s inward state and show others that something important has happened to him or her. Wearing ashes, especially in mourning, may also mark a potential change in a person’s social status. Entering a state of mourning may end with serious changes in economic and societal roles, such as when becoming a widow, an orphan, a new head of a household, or a 55

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Thus Levine asserts that the ashes cleanse the defiled person because they symbolize death (Numbers 1–20, 471). Baumgarten argues that in touching the ashes one is touching both life and death, and purity and impurity, simultaneously (“The Paradox of the Red Heifer,” 448). Philo stated that the mȇ niddˆa effect purification by giving us knowledge of what we are made of, namely, water and ashes (Spec. I, XLIX: 262–65). Two similar words denote “ashes” or “dust” in Hebrew: ʼ¯eper and ʻ¯ap¯ar. The ashes of the cow are referred to as both (ʼ¯eper – 19:9, 10 and ʻ¯ap¯ar – 19:17). The semantic range of ʻ¯ap¯ar is wider than that of ʼ¯eper as it includes plaster, soil, and rubble. On the occurrences and usages see L. W¨achter, “ʻ¯ap¯ar,” TDOT XI: 257–65. Saul Olyan argues similarly when noting that the period of ritual impurity overlaps with the traditional seven days of mourning. He writes, “[T]hat the seven-day period of corpse impurity coincides with the seven-day mourning period is hardly surprising, since such pollution contributes to the realization and communication of the mourner’s ritual separation” (Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions, 39).

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landowner. Wearing ashes thus has the function of marking a changed ritual, social, or emotional state. Although they have a similar function, the ashes of the cow are discussed in a purely ritual sense. Their unique ritual function of creating a specific appearance is indicated by the specialized term for their use. What one does with the cow’s ashes is “purify one’s self” (NRSV) or “cleanse one’s self” (NJPS). The verb in question here is the verb h..tʼ in the hitpaʻel stem: hith.at..ta¯ ʼ. It is from the same root as the sacrificial term h.at..ta¯ ʼt. In the basic qal stem, the root h..tʼ has the meaning “sin,” “do wrong,” “make a mistake,” or “miss the mark.” Similarly, the causative hipʻil stem has a negative connotation of the root: “cause to sin,” “lead into sin,” or “miss the target.” In the piʻel stem, it can have a negative connotation: “be liable” or “bear the loss” (Gen 31:39). However, in priestly usage the piʻel stem takes on technical meanings, which are usually understood to be the positive opposites of the qal meaning: “de-sin,” “purge,” or “purify” and “make a h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering.”58 The verb only occurs in the hitpaʻel stem nine times in the Hebrew Bible. Four of these occurrences are in Num 19 (vv. 12 [2x], 13, and 20). On one occasion it occurs in the book of Job (41:25 [Heb 17]) with an unclear and noncultic meaning that has to do with fear, retreat, or self-humbling.59 The remaining occurrences are in Num 8 (v. 21) and 31 (vv. 19, 20, and 23) – the only other passages that mention the mȇ niddˆa or, in Num 8:7, a substance that is either its alias or of a similar nature, the mȇ h.at..ta¯ ʼt.60 In general, hitpaʻel forms offer a reflexive or reciprocal meaning to the piʻel forms of verbs – thus, the usual translation of the verb forms in Num 19 as “purify one’s self” or “cleanse one’s self.” However, these translations imply that what one does with the mȇ niddˆa is 58 59

60

See the later discussion. In the third person plural, the verb is variously translated as “they are beside themselves” (JPS, RSV, NRSV, BDB), “they cringe” (NJPS), “(they) fall back” (NAB), “they retreat” (NIV, NJB cf. DCH), and “they purify themselves” (KJV). It appears in parallelism with the verb y¯agȗrȗ “they are afraid.” Marvin H. Pope understands the root in light of its Ethiopic cognate meaning “withdraw” and the Aramaic cognate “cast down” to mean “they prostrate” (themselves). This notion of humbling one’s self concurs with the notion of making one’s self physically appear to be defiled by death (Pope, Job [AB 15; Garden City: Doubleday, 1965], 281, 287). Scholars debate whether these two substances refer to the same thing. For example, Rashi argued that they were in fact the waters containing the ashes of the red cow (cited in N. H. Snaith, Leviticus and Numbers [The Century Bible; London: Thomas Nelson, 1967], 215). Milgrom argues the same (Numbers: The JPS Torah Commentary, 61) and is supported by Wright (“Purification from Corpse Decontamination in Numbers XXXI 19–24,” VT 35[1985], 214–15, n.6). Levine argues that they are different substances because h.at..ta¯ ʼt and niddˆa do not mean the same thing (Numbers 1–20, 274, 464). Noth believes that the name of the waters relates to its function and not its preparation and does not seem to relate it with the mȇ niddˆa (Numbers: A Commentary, 68).

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put them on one’s self, though we know from the description of the procedure that one cannot sprinkle them on one’s self – someone else must do it to them. It may be that the common hitpaʻel sense of doing something on one’s own behalf, which is not technically reflexive, is at work here.61 Because the hitpaʻel form of the root only occurs in priestly texts in conjunction with ritual waters, it seems that this form has a specialized, technical sense. The sprinkling action has the practical function of visibly covering a person with a dirt-like substance: it marks them. The verb and the waters appear primarily in the context of death in Num 19 and 31, where the waters are used for anyone or thing that comes in contact with it. However, in Num 8:21, the Levites, who become consecrated, are also said to “purify themselves” or, as I translate it, “mark themselves” with the mȇ h.at..ta¯ ʼt. The Levites and the people and things in contact with human death are unique in the purity laws because they are impure entities whose impurity is not visible. In contrast, a person with a skin disease or one with a pathological or normal genital flux, as well as a new mother, have impurities that are or have been visible. Indeed, the decisive definition of .sa¯ raʻat, the ritually impure skin disease afflicting both people and houses, is that it has a particular appearance (Lev 13:3, 4, 10, 13, 14, 17, 19, 20, etc.).62 People who come into contact with the dead have no physical manifestations that show their impurity – no blood, scabs, semen, or fluid. The specific impurity of the Levites is similarly abstract and unclear; thus it also requires a physical manifestation to wash away. To prepare for divine service, the Levites must mark/purify themselves with the waters (as well as shave their entire bodies). In contrast, the “leper” who undergoes cleansing is never said to “mark/purify himself” (hith.at..ta¯ ʼ) with any substance, but rather is referred to as a mit..tah¯er, “one cleansing himself” (Lev 14:4, 7, 8, 11, 14, 17, 18, 19, 25, 28, 29, 31). He does not have to “mark/purify himself” (hith.at..ta¯ ʼ) with the ash solution because he has already been visibly unclean. Thus it seems that those who have come into contact with human death, more than “cleansing” themselves with the mȇ niddˆa, become marked by it or perhaps “shows themselves liable” with it. “To mark/purify one’s self” (hith.at..ta¯ ʼ), then, means less “to make one’s self clean” (hit..tah¯er) than “to make one’s self impure” (hit..tamm¯aʼ). Indeed to “make one’s self impure” (hit..tamm¯aʼ) is exactly what a priest is said to do when he mourns his dead (Lev 21:1–4). Therefore, the technical meaning of the hitpaʻel form hith.at..ta¯ ʼ found in the rites of ritual waters does not seem to have the primary meaning of “purify one’s self.” It seems instead to serve another function of the hitpaʻel 61 62

Bruce K. Waltke and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 430 § 26.2e. Cf. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 46, 817.

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stem – the “estimative-declarative” sense – in which one esteems or presents one’s self in a specific state.63 The word hith.at..ta¯ ʼ here thus means something more like “to show one’s self liable,” “to show one’s self sinful,” or “to present one’s self as impure.” Again, the practical effect of this ritual act is to give the person a soiled appearance, which is then washed off at the end of the impure period. As mentioned earlier, the piʻel forms of the root h..tʼ have highly technical meanings, but they also include a visual component. One meaning is “to offer a h.at..ta¯ ʼt sacrifice” (e.g., Exod 29:36; Lev 6:26 [19]; 9:15).64 Another meaning is “purge,” “decontaminate,” or “de-sin” (Lev 8:15; 14:49, 52; Num 19:19; Ezek 43:20, 22, 23; 45:18; Ps 51:7 [9]).65 However, in these latter occurrences, h.it..t¯eʼ entails the highly visual act of marking with blood. To h.it..t¯eʼ with blood is an important part of most h.at..ta¯ ʼt rites. Priests h.it..t¯eʼ a leprous house (Lev 14:52) with blood and scarlet and then “make atonement” (kipp¯er) for it. Priests h.it..t¯eʼ the altar with blood (Lev 8:15; Ezek 43:20, 22 [2x], 23; 45:18) before pouring out the blood or offering up a different kind of offering. Outside of priestly thought, an unclean person asks to be “purified/marked” (t˘eh.at..t˘eʼ¯enˆı) with hyssop to become clean (Ps 51:7 [9]). Thus it seems that h.it..t¯eʼ has a visual component that is manifest in its action of blood manipulation and that this action literally puts something onto its object rather than takes something away (e.g., sin or contamination) from it. If we consider that the basic meaning of “atone” (kipp¯er) is “wipe” or “wipe away”66 and that this verb often follows h.it..t¯eʼ as its resolution, it may be that the act of h.it..t¯eʼ is the marking with blood, which is then understood to be wiped away, either literally or metaphorically, in the act of kipp¯er. In any event, the visual component in the pi‘el verb h.it..t¯eʼ also pertains in the hitpaʻel use unique to the mȇ niddˆa/ mȇ h.at..ta¯ ʼt. “Lepers” and others who are clearly unclean do not undergo these water rituals because they do not 63 64 65

66

See Waltke and O’Connor, Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 430–31 §26.2f. Cited in Sklar, Sin, Impurity, Sacrifice, Atonement, 109. For discussion of the meaning of h.it..t¯eʼ see 109–12. Milgrom argues that in these cases it is a “privative” pi‘el meaning “decontaminate,” “purify.” He has thus argued that the offering should be called a “purification offering” rather than the older term “sin offering” (see most notably, “Sin Offering or Purification Offering?”). See also Levine, “In the Presence of the LORD,” 101–02. Levine, “In the Presence of the LORD,” 56–63. Levine saw two origins of the verbal forms of kipp¯er. The first is related to Akkadian kuppuru, which means “wipe” or “smear.” Because this meaning is related to the concept of purification, as in wiping away impurities, he states that it can also mean “purify.” The second verbal form of kipp¯er is a derivative of the noun k¯oper, meaning “ransom.” For a review of theories on the meaning of kipp¯er, see Sklar, Sin, Impurity, Sacrifice, Atonement, 1–8; Sklar understands the term to hold both of Levine’s meanings of “purify” and “ransom.”

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require an expression or declaration of their uncleanness: it already exists. The mȇ niddˆa is a part of the purification process, but it is not an actual cleansing: the cleansing of the impure person occurs in the bathing and the laundering that can only happen if a person’s impurity has been made concrete.

part ii: gender significance Part I showed that the rite of the red cow creates a ritual form of impurity through its use of the space, materials, and procedures of the priestly sacrificial system. This impurity then can be undone by the ritual acts of bathing and washing, which are the most common forms of ritual cleansing from impurity. Although it is unusual, the rite of the red cow is termed a h.at..ta¯ ʼt (sin or purification) offering, which, in scholarly parlance, is an expiatory sacrifice; that is, it gets rid of some unwanted entity or power. Nancy Jay discusses expiatory sacrifices at length in her monograph where she shows that this form of sacrifice creates distinctions and divisions within a community. In contrast, communion sacrifices – alimentary (eaten) offerings – generally bring communities together (the two forms of offering, however, are two sides of the same phenomenon). Though expiatory sacrifices may, at times, be eaten, their eating is highly regulated (as with the eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt). These regulations make social distinctions by marking the differences between those who may eat it (e.g., men of the priestly line) and those who may not (e.g., women and lay men). Jay asserts that in all sacrificing cultures, expiatory sacrifices have “an association of femaleness with what must be expiated.”67 The rite in Num 19, which expiates the impurity of death, associates death with the female by using a female animal to create a tangible form of the impurity of death. Although many h.at..ta¯ ʼt victims are male, the cow rite creates a pronounced association between females and impurity in at least four ways: the relation of spatiality to the gender of h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings overall, the choice of a cow for the victim, the terminology of the solution created by the cow’s ashes, and an emphasis on the cow’s blood.

H . at.t.a¯ ʼt Offerings Chapter 2 showed that the gender of h.at..ta¯ ʼt victims is highly specific. These offerings are the only priestly sacrifices that in certain circumstances require female animals as victims; all other forms of priestly sacrifice require a male or 67

Throughout Your Generations Forever, 28.

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are indifferent to the sex of the victim. In addition to the red cow, in Leviticus and Numbers a female animal is required as the h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering of a common person, whereas the priests, secular leader, and the entire congregation are required to offer male animals. The variation in gender indicates the social status of these entities with femininity corresponding to the lowest social and cultic rank. The victimology of the gendered h.at..ta¯ ʼt also spatially correlates gender with degrees of sanctity. The body and blood of the priests’ offerings, which are always male, are brought into the innermost parts of the sanctuary. However, the offerings given by secular leaders and commoners remain outside, in the forecourt. The overall schema of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt contributes to the general sacrificial understanding that the most sacred people and animals are always male, whereas lesser people and animals may be male or female. The red cow rite also contributes to the gendered use of space in the h.at..ta¯ ʼt schema because its ritual is conducted far away from the sanctuary and indeed outside the camp altogether. Although other masculine h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings or parts of them, such as the scapegoat and the carcass of the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt, are sent away from the camp and treated as defiling, these animals have also at some point entered into the most sacred parts of the sanctuary. The red cow, which is particularly defiling, never enters holy space. The priest’s aspersion of the cow’s blood toward the sanctuary would show it to be a part of the cultic system of the sanctuary and thus also a part of the spatial layout of the h.at..ta¯ ʼt. But the cow’s distance from the sanctuary adds to the creation of its impurity. Because of the text’s precise description of the red cow we must assume that the ritual does not allow variation of the gender of the victim, just as there is no deviation from the gender of the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt, who is male and whose blood is brought into the most sacred parts of the sanctuary. The fact that the red cow is the only victim who is completely separate from the sanctuary leads to an association of the discarded and expulsed parts of other h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings with the female; when they become impure they are treated like the red cow, who must be female. The h.at..ta¯ ʼt schema and the red cow rite reinforce the pattern in which the female is removed spatially from the higher levels of holiness and is also associated with impurity. Although the cow rite creates an explicit association with impurity, and the male bulls, rams, and goats of the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt are related to the holy, in between there are gradations of gender that are meaningful but less rigid. Female sheep and goats are required for the eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt of commoners, but other eaten h.a˘.t.ta¯ ʼˆot are males, such as the male goat or sheep for the h.at..ta¯ ʼt of the leader or the male goat for the offering of the congregation.

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The body and blood of the eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt remain in the forecourt, so that this would be the boundary of space that contains anything female. The fact that the commoner’s offering of a female is easily substituted by birds or a grain offering indicates that the gender and species of the commoner’s h.at..ta¯ ʼt are less strictly regulated than other offerings. This kind of variation is not permitted in the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt where the species may vary but the victims must absolutely be males. It thus seems that, from the perspective of what the priest consumes, whether the eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering is male or female, sheep, goat, bird, or grain, has little effect. The ritual space between the holy of holies and “outside the camp” is largely unmarked by gender distinctions – it is a space where male and female overlap. The overall effect of h.at..ta¯ ʼt rites then is to create a gendered spatial schema in which the holiest space is only inhabited by males, whereas the outer area, which corresponds to impurities, contains a combination of male and female with the most impure marked especially by the female. The lesser sanctity and neutrality of the forecourt and the camp are also marked by a combination of male and female; within these spaces, these gender distinctions are meaningful socially, but they are largely unimportant to the construction of ritual space aside from the creation of its boundaries.68

The Red Cow as a Female Victim Another obvious aspect of the association between impurity and the feminine is the choice of a cow as a victim. No other priestly ritual requires a cow. Priestly law does not even mention cows except to say, in a roundabout way, that they are acceptable for ˇs˘el¯amˆım offerings (Lev 3:1). Because cows do not otherwise play a specific role in priestly sacrifice, the red cow’s nature as both a female and a bovine must be significant for this ritual. Interpreters have offered varying explanations for why the victim in this rite must be a female and why it must be a head of cattle. B¨ahr argued that the female represents life in the rite’s antithesis between life and death.69 Similarly, 68

69

This construction of holy space resembles that of the second temple, in which impure females were excluded from the precincts altogether, males and pure females could enter the court of women, only males could enter the court of Israelites, and only male priests could enter the court of priests. For discussion, see Archer, “Notions of Community and the Exclusion of Women in Jewish History and Historiography,” 59. For a more thorough discussion of the general gradations of sacred space in the desert tabernacle, Solomon’s Temple, and Ezekiel’s visionary temple, see Olyan, Rites and Rank, 18–25. Cited in Grey, Numbers, 247 and in J. H. Kurtz, Offerings, Sacrifices and Worship in the Old Testament (trans. James Martin; London: T&T Clark, 1863; repr. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998), 427–28.

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Edersheim proposed that the cow’s femininity suggests the fullness of life and the “imperishable existence” that undoes death.70 In contrast, Augustine claimed that the cow’s femininity is symbolic of the weakness of the flesh.71 However, these intriguing explanations do not fully explain the rite in terms of the priestly sacrificial/purity system. The most comprehensive argument comes again from Jacob Milgrom, on his own and also with David Wright. His explanation derives from the rite’s nature as a h.at..ta¯ ʼt. He suggests that the ashes of the cow act as a “continuing” h.at..ta¯ ʼt offered on behalf of a common person because the ashes would be applied to common individuals.72 Thus the animal must be female like the ewe or she-goat victims of the commoner’s h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering. Milgrom suggests that the animal is a cow and not a sheep or goat because the procedure requires a large amount of ashes and a cow, being the largest female animal appropriate for sacrifice, would provide the most ashes.73 According to Milgrom, a bull cannot be chosen because it represents the priest or the community in the h.at..ta¯ ʼt system.74 However, there are several problems with this interpretation. First, the cow is not strictly the sacrifice of a common individual. The text states the cow is brought to the priest by the congregation (b˘enȇ yi´sr¯aʼ¯el, Num 19:2), and the ashes are kept for the use of “the congregation of the sons of Israel” (laʻ˘adat b˘enȇ-yi´sr¯aʼ¯el, Num 19:9), thereby making the cow a communal offering and thus a burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt, which requires a male victim. Milgrom himself points out that the rabbis considered the cow’s femininity to be anomalous because all other communal sacrifices are male animals and the cow was said to be purchased from public funds.75 In addition, although the ashes are applied to individuals, the congregation also consists of the leader (n¯a´sˆıʼ), who brings a male animal as his h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering, and it might include the priest as well, who also brings a male h.at..ta¯ ʼt victim.76 Indeed, the Qumran material and 70

71 72 73 74 75 76

Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services: Updated Edition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 281. So similarly, Gruber, suggests that it may either represent blood’s power to overcome death, or the redness may represent the sin that caused the death and that is banished from the camp (“Red Heifer,” column 11). Cited in Grey, Numbers, 247. David P. Wright, “Heifer, Red,” ABD III: 115; Milgrom, “The Paradox of the Red Cow,” 63. Leviticus 1–16, 272; “The Paradox of the Red Cow,” 63. “The Paradox of the Red Cow,” 63. Ibid., 65, n.9. However, he dismisses these arguments, saying that the cow is really an individual’s offering. Indeed, many postbiblical discussions of the rite are most concerned with priests having access to the ashes, especially for a future reinstatement of the priesthood. M. Par. 3.1, states that the priests were sprinkled with the ashes of the (previous) cow on the third and seventh days before conducting the rite itself and were also sprinkled before the Yom Kippur rites.

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rabbinic discussions of the cow primarily mention the ashes in terms of their application to priests, not commoners.77 Second, if the quantity of ashes were the issue, more than one ewe or she-goat could have been burned, or the rite could be done more frequently instead of requiring a cow. There is no indication in the text that the volume of ashes is ever a concern. Perhaps most importantly, Milgrom interprets the whole rite in terms of the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt; for him, this is the reason that the cow is burned outside the camp,78 yet a burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt is always male. If the cow is a h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering for a common individual and thus a female, it would have to be an eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt. The significance of the specific victim of a cow, then, does not rest in its role as a commoner’s h.at..ta¯ ʼt. It seems more likely that its importance lies in the cow’s relationship to the most prevalent animal in the h.at..ta¯ ʼt schema, namely, the bull, and in its ability to embody the concept of impurity in contrast to the holiness of the sacrificial bull. Because the rite of the red cow creates a form of impurity through its inversion of the holiness created in other sacrificial rituals, so an impure cow inverts what appears to be the most holy animal in the h.at..ta¯ ʼt system, at least as described in Lev 4–6 and Num 15. Whereas priestly law never requires a cow as a sacrifice, in the law of the regular h.at..ta¯ ʼt a bull must be the victim for both the priests and the entire congregation, where its blood contacts the curtain to the adytum (Lev 4:5–7) and thus the most extreme holiness. Moreover, a bull is the victim for priests in their ordination in Exod 29 and Lev 8; it also represents the priests as their h.at..ta¯ ʼt victim in general and in the Yom Kippur ceremony (Lev 16:3), and it plays a role in the investiture of the Levites (Num 8:8). The bull is associated with the most holy people, yet its female equivalent is not assigned to anyone as a representative animal. The cow thus remains a referent-less symbol, unlike the female sheep or goat that stands for the commoner. Therefore, instead of representing a type of person it can embody the larger concept of impurity in relation to the holiness of a bull. Perhaps its social non-status also stands in contrast to the highly marked status of the bull, making it a fitting representative for death, which makes no social distinctions. In any event, a cow is unique in that it is like a bull, because it is a bovine animal, but it also is not a bull, because it is a female. A cow is an inverted bull for an inverted sacrifice.

77

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Even modern apocalyptic-minded people, such as the controversial Vendyl Jones, are searching for the ashes of the cow so that the priesthood may be cleansed and thus reinstituted. For an overview and critique, see Daniel C. Browning Jr., “The Strange Search for the Ashes of the Red Heifer,” Biblical Archaeologist 59 (1996): 74–89; see too Lawrence Wright, “Letter from Jerusalem, ‘Forcing the End,’” The New Yorker, July 20, 1998, 42–53. “The Paradox of the Red Cow,” 63.

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The two bovine h.a˘.t.ta¯ ʼˆot mirror each other not only by their sex and species but also in the whole process of their sacrificial acts. They are juxtaposed spatially: the blood of the burned bull is brought into the innermost parts of the sanctuary, whereas the blood of the cow is brought outside the camp. The fat, liver, and kidneys of the bull are sacrificially burned in the sanctuary, whereas those of the cow are burned in a profane way outside. Moreover, the burning of the red cow is juxtaposed to all sacrifice, particularly the ʻ¯olˆa offering, in which the animal, which must be male, is completely burned on the altar.79 Indeed it is only in this priestly rite that a female animal’s flesh is burned; in the commoner’s h.at..ta¯ ʼt and ˇs˘el¯amˆım offerings the meat from female animals is eaten. The rite of the cow is related to that of the female calf (ʻeglˆa ʻ˘arˆupˆa) in Deut 21:1–9.80 That passage describes a ritual to be conducted when a murdered corpse is found between two territories. Because the murder is unsolved, the guilt of the crime cannot be assigned to the murderer and must be cleansed. The elders of the closest town must bring a young heifer, which has not been worked, to a valley with flowing water where they kill it (either by breaking its neck or decapitating it, depending on the interpretation of the verb ‘rp).81 The elders then wash their hands over the heifer, saying, “Our hands did not shed this blood, and our eyes did not see” (v. 7). They ask that God atone for the people and not hold the “innocent” blood against them. Like a h.at..ta¯ ʼt, the blood is then said to atone (kapp¯er) for them. Although this rite is not a priestly one and therefore is not part of the priestly sacrificial system, it is comparable to the rite of the cow in several ways. First, the victim must be an unworked female bovine offered on behalf of a community. Second, the rite is conducted in response to a death and to the physical presence of a corpse. Third, both rites are conducted in a special location away from an altar and the camp or city. Fourth, both rites end with participants washing off the animal’s blood or a substance that contains blood, and by this act the death and its liability are destroyed. Both rites reflect an association between female bovines and death in which the animal can be made to represent death and its effects, which can then be 79 80

81

Thus Wefing suggests that originally the rite was a form of ʻ¯olˆa (“Beobachtungen zum Ritual der roten Kuh,” 341–64). For the pre-textual history of the rite as a ritual of elimination, akin to a purification ritual, see David P. Wright “Deuteronomy 21:1–9 as a Rite of Elimination,” CBQ 49 (1987): 387–403. For other interpretations see Raphael Patai, “The ‘Eglah ‘Arufa or the Expiation of the Polluted Land”; Ziony Zevit, “The ‘eglah Ritual of Deuteronomy 21:19,” JBL 95 (1976): 377–90; Calum Carmichael, “A Common Element in Five Supposedly Disparate Laws,” VT 29 (1979): 129–42; and the commentaries. See n.13.

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washed away. In both, the animal’s blood is especially important because it is used away from an altar. Interestingly, by the logic of blood-guilt in Deuteronomy, the heifer would seem to stand in not for the corpse, but for the murderer who should be killed to atone for the death.82 By this killing the guilt is removed from the elders who would be responsible for turning over the murderer from their town. Thus, the heifer takes on an association not only with death but also with guilt; in contrast, in Numbers the cow is associated not only with death but impurity, which is not a concern for the Deuteronomist. Although the two rites seem to carry many of the same associations, the rite of the red cow has a unique form that not only fits within the priestly system but also adds to it and constructs it. The ʻeglˆa ʻ˘arˆupˆa, in contrast, is not a formal part of the priestly sacrificial system in terminology, form, or practice: it does not include burning, the animal is not unblemished, and it is never referred to as any specific kind of offering. This does not mean that it is not a sacrifice, but it does not appear to be a priestly sacrifice; it may not have been a legitimate practice in priestly eyes. In contrast, the rite of the red cow, which does have these priestly features and terminology, is a legitimate, though unusual, rite. Because cows have no other specific role or status in the priestly sacrificial system, a cow can have a unique function in Num 19 that stands in opposition to the usual sacrificial procedure. Its species calls attention to the highest levels of religious status in the sacrificial system. However, its gender inverts this privileged status and causes it to stand for its opposite: the ultimate nonstatus that comes with death. In the priestly system, which uses gender as one means of indicating relative levels of sanctity, status and impurity, this female animal can represent a controlled, ritualized, and superior version of impurity itself.

Waters of Impurity The cow’s relationship to impurity is also constructed by the very name of the substance it creates for later use. After the cow is burnt together with cedar wood, hyssop, and crimson, its ashes are kept in a place outside the camp. As impurity arises, they can be mixed with running water to create a solution called the mȇ niddˆa, literally, the “water of impurity.” The term for impurity used here, niddˆa, is not the most commonly used priestly term with that meaning; the usual term for impurity is .tumʼˆa, which is from the 82

Maccoby, Ritual and Morality, 93.

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same root as the word “impure” (t.a¯ m¯eʼ). But in priestly writings outside of Num 19, the term niddˆa has a highly specific meaning: it refers exclusively to the impurity of menstruation.83 In priestly use it does not mean menstruation itself, but the ritual state associated with it.84 For example, in Lev 12:2, the state of a woman during menstruation is called “the impurity of her sickness” (niddat d˘ev¯ot¯ah), and in Lev 12:5, the menstruant’s state is simply referred to as “her impurity” (nidd¯at¯ah), as it is in 15:19, 20, 24, 25, and 26. The rite of the cow, then, creates waters of an impurity that, in priestly writings, otherwise only refers to menstruation or, by association, to the impurity of lochial blood (Lev 12:5) and the blood of irregular vaginal discharge (Lev 15:25).85 Despite this primary priestly meaning, however, the association of the term with menstruation does not appear in most translations or interpretations of the phrase mȇ niddˆa. Among the most common translations are “water for cleansing” (NRSV), “water of sprinkling” (JPS), “water of separation” (KJV), “water for impurity” (RSV), “water for (the removal of) impurity” (Wright),86 and “water of lustration” (NJPS). This proliferation of terms is partly due to conflicting etymological arguments. Some translators take the term ndh to be from an original n-z-h root meaning to “sprinkle,” as found in Num 19:4, 18, and 19 and related to the Aramaic root n-d-y, also meaning “sprinkle.”87 According to this argument, the term niddˆa later came to have the different and specialized meaning of the impurity of menstruation, but the primary meaning of sprinkling persists in the archaic and specialized term mȇ niddˆa. The term thus describes the sprinkling action used to asperse the solution.

83 84

85

86 87

For a review of interpretations of the term see Philip, Menstruation and Childbirth in the Bible: Fertility and Impurity (New York: Peter Lang, 2006), 28–37, 59, 61–67. See, however, the later arguments as well as HALOT, which gives the first meaning of the term as “bleeding” or “menstruation.” More explicit terminology for the physical process seems to be “sickness, sick” (dvh); “flow,” “font” (m¯aqˆor) as in Lev 20:18: “she has laid bare the flow of her blood” (m˘eqˆor d¯amȇh¯a); and ʻiddˆım as in Isa 64:6 [5] in which the term beged ʻiddˆım may mean “a menstrual cloth”; see Phillip, Menstruation and Childbirth, 30. See too Emily E. Culpepper, “Zoroastrian Menstruation Taboos: A Women’s Studies Perspective,” in Women and Religion: Papers of the Working Group on Women and Religion (ed. Judith Plaskow and Joan Arnold Romero; Missoula, MO: Scholars Press, 1974), 199–210. Culpepper notes how the strong relationship in Zoroastrianism between menstruants and corpses, what she calls a “woman-menses-corpse association,” contributes to the negative view of women’s bodies and functions. David P. Wright, “Water for Impurity,” ABD VI: 882. Such an understanding of the verb lies behind the LXX, Vulgate, and Targumic translations. In the LXX of Num 19, the mȇ niddˆa is translated as hyd¯or pantismou, whereas both Targ. Onq. and Targ. Jon. translate the term as mˆe ‘addayuta. The Latin translation is aqua aspersionis.

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Other scholars take the root to be from an ndd root meaning to “flee,” “depart,” or “wander.”88 Moshe Greenberg, who takes this position, argues that in both Hebrew and Syriac the root ndd indicates distancing one’s self “with negative connotation, as in flight or from disgust or abhorrence.”89 He writes that the term niddˆa has a specific abstract reference to menstrual impurity (as abhorrent and entailing separation of the sexes). It has a generic abstract reference to the state of ‘impurity’ and a generic concrete reference to an ‘impure thing/act’ (what is to be kept apart, abhorred). . . . [T]he specific abstract sense of ‘menstrual impurity’ prevails in priestly legal texts.90

Baruch Levine suggests that the term is a nipʻal construction from an n-d-h root, especially related to the Akkadian nadˆu, meaning “to hurl, cast off,” and that it refers to a menstruant in the sense that she is forced out of the community or in the sense that blood leaves her body.91 He ultimately believes that in Num 19 the term refers to a physical process, not impurity, and that, again, the root is related to nzh, “sprinkle.” A menstruant is thus “one who is spilling” or sprinkling, blood.92 Tarja Philip also suggests that it is related to nadˆu, especially because that Akkadian verb can refer to many bodily substances.93 Wright and Milgrom94 understand the noun as a form of either ndd or ndh, with the basic meaning of “expulsion” or “exclusion.” They argue that the term originally referred to the discharge or elimination of menstrual blood; it then came to refer to a menstruant and finally to impurity in general.95 They contend that, in the phrase mȇ niddˆa, the word retains its basic meaning of “expulsion,” with the resulting translation being “water of expulsion (of impurity)” or, therefore, “water of purification.” They believe it to be synonymous with the word h.at..taʼt in Zech 13:1, where the two terms appear parallel. 88 89

90 91 92 93 94 95

E.g., BDB. Moshe Greenberg, “The Etymology of niddˆa ‘(Menstrual) Impurity,’” in Solving Riddles and Untying Knots: Biblical, Epigraphic, and Semitic Studies in Honor of Jonas C. Greenfield (ed. Ziony Zevit, Seymour Gitin, and Michael Sokoloff; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 76. Greenberg, “The Etymology of niddˆa ‘(Menstrual) Impurity,’” 176. Levine, Numbers 1–20, 463–64. Ibid., 464. Philip, Menstruation and Childbirth, 33. Milgrom and Wright, “niddˆa,” (TDOT V: 233); Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 745. Cf. Wright and Milgrom (“niddˆa,”) who say it has three semantic domains: “impurity in connection with menstruation,” “impurity in general, abomination,” and “purification.” This last grouping is based solely on Num 19, Num 31, and Zech 13:1. Neither BDB, nor HALOT or DCH offers “purification” as a possible interpretation of the word niddˆa. Strangely, HALOT lists mȇ niddˆa as “water (for purification) used during menstrual periods” and cites as evidence its occurrences in Num 19 and 31.

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Elsewhere, Milgrom argues that P uses niddˆa exclusively to refer to menstrual impurity and that H and others employ a metaphorical sense of P’s original meaning.96 Indeed, the term does take on a later metaphorical meaning, but it is unclear why he thinks P would use this term in a very different sense here, since he considers P to be the author of Num 19. Outside of P, the word niddˆa also refers primarily to the impurity of menstruation, such as in the Holiness Code: “Do not come near a woman during the impurity of her uncleanness (b˘eniddat .tumʼ¯at¯ah) to uncover her nakedness” (Lev 18:19). In Ezek 18:6 the term acts as an adjective describing the kind of woman who is not to be touched sexually; a righteous man is one who, among other things, “does not approach a niddˆa woman” (v˘eʼel-ʼiˇsˇsaˆ niddˆa l¯oʼ yiqr¯ab). In Ezek 22:10 as well, niddˆa seems to refer to a menstruant (t.˘em¯eʼat hanniddˆa). In 36:17 the term may refer to the state of a menstruant, although most translations understand it to refer directly to a menstruant herself: Israel’s way of behaving was “like the uncleanness of the impure woman/menstruant” (k˘e.tumʼat hanniddˆa). In Lam 1:8 the term refers to a disgraced or defiled woman: because Jerusalem, as a metaphorical woman, has grievously sinned (h..tʼ), she has become a niddˆa (ʻal-k¯en l˘enˆıdˆa97 h¯ay¯atˆa) whose nakedness has been seen. In the next verse, her uncleanness (t.umʼ¯at¯ah) clings to her skirts. Similarly, in Lam 1:17, the woman Jerusalem has become a niddˆa in the eyes of her neighbors (h¯ay˘etˆa y˘erˆuˇsa¯ layim l˘eniddˆa bȇnȇhem) after her ruin. In other contexts, the term niddˆa refers to impurity or abhorrence more generally. In one instance the term refers to illicit sex, other than with a menstruant. In the Holiness Code, intercourse with a brother’s wife is called niddˆa (Lev 20:21). Outside of priestly material, especially in late texts, niddˆa has the meaning of something impure or abhorrent due to idolatry. In 2 Chr 29:5 Hezekiah tells the priests to remove the niddˆa, the idols, which most translations call the “filth,” from the temple. In Ezek 7:19, the gold of Jerusalem will be treated as niddˆa – it will be impure because the people used it for idolatry. Yahweh will also make their finery into niddˆa because they used it for idolatry (7:20); it will be handed over to their enemies (7:21). In these examples, objects that had been treated as sancta are sent away and termed abominable, so that niddˆa here refers to something contrary to the holy and that cannot be used. Ezra also employs the term niddˆa to describe the land 96 97

Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 38; Leviticus 17–22, 1758. This form has been taken as a plene form of ndh, as with BDB, but others, such as Wright and Milgrom and HALOT, argue it is from the root nwd, with the meaning “object of scorn” (Wright and Milgrom, “niddˆa,” TDOT, 234). See also the review of scholarship in Philip, Menstruation and Childbirth, 30–31.

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of Israel. Paraphrasing Lev 18:24–30 (as well as Deut 7:3–4 and 23:3–8 [Heb 4–9]), Ezra describes the land as a polluted one (ʼeres. niddˆa) because of the niddˆa of its Canaanite inhabitants (9:11). Ezra uses this rhetoric, in which he substitutes Leviticus’ term .tumʼˆa with niddˆa, in the context of mixed marriages with non-Jewish women. The use of the term niddˆa in these three contexts is highly rhetorical. It is clear that the term has taken on a more general sense in these texts; however it seems likely that its association with menstruation contributes to the severity of that term and adds to the rhetoric of disgrace. Only once does the term niddˆa not have a specific meaning of the impurity resulting from idolatry or reproduction: in Zech 13:1 the term is parallel to h.at..taʼt: a fountain will be set up for h.at..taʼt and for niddˆa. Milgrom and Wright argue that this clearly shows that niddˆa means “cleansing,” as a synonym for “purging” as with the piʻel of h..tʼ.98 However, there is no reason that the term here cannot just mean “impurity” (as it is translated by KJV and NRSV), as parallel to the primary meaning of the noun h.at..ta¯ ʼt, “sin.”99 That the alias of the mȇ niddˆa, or perhaps a similar substance to it, is called the mȇ h.at..taʼt also shows that the two words are parallel. The question is whether they mean “impurity” or “purification.” Although the etymology of the term niddˆa is important to its meaning,100 the attestations in the biblical text, especially other priestly writings, better illustrate its use. From them, we can ascertain three main attributes of the term that are relevant for this study. First, except for the unlikely possibility of Zech 13:1, niddˆa never means the opposite of impurity. It never connotes “the removal of impurity” or “lustration” or “sprinkling.”101 Second, the term never refers to men. It refers to objects (idols, land), to actions (forbidden sex), to women, or to men as metaphorical women, but a male is never 98 99 100

101

Wright and Milgrom, “niddˆa,” 232. See too Maccoby, Ritual and Morality, 107–08. It is possible that, as Levine suggests, the root is related to the Akkadian nadˆu, though perhaps less in its sense of “cast off” and more in the sense of “leave fallow,” “leave alone,” or “abandon” (CAD 11/1 68ff). This meaning of the root, found especially with regard to fields left uncultivated, is the foundation of the word nad¯ıtu (i.e., the celibate women devoted to certain gods in Mesopotamia). Like uncultivated fields, these women were “fallow” – their reproductivity was unused. It is also the root of the adjective nadˆu meaning “abandoned,” “uncultivated,” “placed,” “spit out,” or “fallen” (CAD 11/1 66–68). Such an original meaning might better explain why the term is used in Hebrew for women who are clearly not reproducing (i.e., are menstruating) or who are not to be touched sexually, and for illicit intercourse that results in childlessness (Lev 20:21). Furthermore, such a connotation may explain how the term is used with regard to objects that are said to be niddˆa, such as in Ezek 7:19–20, where the gold and the finery of the inhabitants will be taken and made into niddˆa so they will no longer be of any use for idolatry. Maccoby, Ritual and Morality, 107–08.

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directly called niddˆa, nor is any bodily impurity he has called niddˆa. Third, the term has a sexual connotation: it most commonly refers to a state induced by the reproductive organs of the female body or to illicit sex, as in Lev 20:21. Although the term does later take on a more general sense, the overtone of menstruation and sexuality contributes to its rhetorical meaning as a particularly virulent form of impurity. The more likely meaning of the term niddˆa when applied to the waters is one of an impurity most similar to that of menstruation, and thus post-partum and other reproductive blood, and then, by extension, to idolatry, and illicit reproduction.102 Though the impurity’s relation to menstruation is somewhat obvious, this relationship has often been either avoided by interpreters or explicitly rejected.103 Notably, Greenberg directly states he is unwilling to argue that the word appearing in the phrase mȇ niddˆa is the same word referring to menstrual and other impurity.104 However, this more plain understanding of the phrase exhibits an association between the impurity of female reproduction and the impurity of death as seen in other texts and in other aspects of the cow rite. Moreover, some specific features of the rite are also found only in menstrual impurity: the waters are used for seven days, the length of time that the impurity of a menstruant lasts; they also contaminate in the same way as menstruation by causing a one-day impurity for those who come in contact with it.105 The menstruant and the person cleansed by the mȇ niddˆa are also the only people in the priestly system who suffer a severe impurity (of more than one day), but who are not required to bring an offering.106 Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, in fact, goes so far as to describe the mȇ niddˆa as a controlled “men’s ‘menstrual fluid’” in contrast to the natural female impurity.107 However, this description is overly specific because niddˆa

102

103 104 105

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Note the very short article by Rachel T. Harris (“The Ritual of the Red Heifer”), who equates the Red Cow to a menstruant. The point of the rite, she suggests, is that the large death of corpse contamination is cleansed by a smaller death, akin to that of menstruation, where death is the absence of conception. Maccoby also cites and criticizes Rashi’s attempt to dissociate the waters from menstruation (Ritual and Morality, 108). “The Etymology of niddˆa,” 70, n.5. He cites Z. Ben-Hayyim (“‘Erke Milim,” Tarbiz 50 [1981], 199–200), who also argues against identifying the two elements. Harris, “The Ritual of the Red Heifer.” Jay shows that the man who touches the red heifer acts as though he had touched a menstruating woman (Throughout Your Generations Forever, 26). According to Lev 15:24 a man who has sex with a menstruant also becomes unclean like a menstruant for seven days and does not bring a sacrifice at the end of the impurity. He, in effect, becomes a menstruant himself. See the discussion in Chapter 6. The Savage in Judaism, 188. He notes that the name of the waters is the same for that of a menstruant and that it is made with red, female, and contaminating material.

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does not mean the fluid itself and has a different semantic range than that description would imply; yet Eilberg-Schwartz is correct that the term niddˆa in Num 19 should be understood in its plain sense within the framework of its other attestations in Biblical Hebrew and especially in the context of the priestly writings. The waters of niddˆa, therefore, are waters that remedy an impurity associated with females and their reproduction.108

Redness and Blood A final aspect of the rite of the red cow that associates femininity with the impurity of death is in the cow’s redness. The color of the cow is surely meaningful, though the text does not clearly state how. Most interpreters agree that the redness has something to do with blood, as do the crimson stuff and cedar that are mixed with the cow’s body and blood (Num 19:6).109 If the red color of the cow is intended to underscore the concept of blood, then in the priestly system, we have at least two possibilities for what that symbolism may mean.110 In priestly thought, blood can mean life itself, which 108

109

110

Note, however, the Rabbinic explanation of the term mȇ niddˆa as an amount of “water fit for a menstruant” to immerse in, as in Targ. Jon., m. ʻAbod. Zar., etc. For citations see D. Wright, “Purification from Corpse-Contamination in Num. XXXI 19–24,” 220, n.21. Though this is most likely not the origin of the term, it engages the plain sense of the term niddˆa. E.g., Milgrom, “The Paradox of the Red Cow,” 63, 65; Leviticus 1–16, 46, 1003; Norman H. Snaith, Leviticus and Numbers, 271; Gordon Wenham, Numbers: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale OT Commentaries; London: InterVarsity Press, 1981), 146–47; John Sturdy, Numbers (The Cambridge Bible Commentary; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 134; B. Maarsingh, Numbers: A Practical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), 67. Gruber (“Red Heifer,” EJ 14: Column 11) relates that the redness of the cow refers either to the redemptive power of blood or is symbolic of sin. Dennis Olson suggests that the redness symbolizes blood, but that blood holds the connection between death and life and is the means of bringing death to life (Numbers [Interpretation Series; Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1996], 121). Redness, which is not otherwise required of a sacrificial animal, has an ambiguous status with regard to holiness or purity. In priestly material, the color red is associated with impure skin disease (Lev 13:19, 24, 42, 43, 49; 14:37) and the means of its purification is partially the cedar and crimson stuff, as it is in this rite (Lev 14:4–6, 49–53). It is also the color of skins used in the construction of the tabernacle (Exod 25:5, 26:14; 35:7, 23, 36:19, 39:34). Elsewhere in the Bible the color red is associated with the blood of war (2 Kgs 3:22; Isa 63:2; Neh 2:4) and with sin (Isa 1:18). In Zechariah’s visions, men on red horses are sent from God (1:8–11), and a horseman on a red horse represents one of the four winds (6:2). On the multivalency of blood in the cult, see Gilders, Blood Manipulation in the Hebrew Bible, 2–5. For other meanings see Dennis J. McCarthy, “The Symbolism of Blood and Sacrifice,” JBL 88 (1969): 166–76 and “Further Notes on the Symbolism of Blood and Sacrifice,” JBL 92 (1973): 205–10. McCarthy’s findings were discredited, however, by Stanley Stowers in his “On the Comparison of Blood in Greek and Israelite Ritual,” in Hesed ve-Emet: Studies in Honor of Ernest S. Frerichs (ed. Jodi Magness and Seymour Gitin; Brown Judaic Studies 320; Atlanta: Scholars Press/Brown University Press, 1998), 179–91.

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is sacred, belongs to God, and has the ability to atone for sin or impurity.111 Sacrificial practice, especially of h.at..ta¯ ʼt sacrifices, acquires and isolates this substance for use in the sanctuary. This concept of blood underlies the work of interpreters who see the redness and blood of the cow as redemptive and life-giving. B¨ahr, and others, argue that the cow is the necessary animal for the rite because the cow’s redness and femininity emphasize the power of lifegiving that is female and that, together with blood’s atoning power, conquers death.112 However, this interpretation confuses sacrificial blood with the blood of female reproduction in a way that is not true to priestly thought. The other main meaning of blood for P is as a substance that defiles. This is the female reproductive blood of menstruation, genital illness, and childbirth, which are called niddˆa or like niddˆa (Lev 12:2, 5; 15:19, 20, 24–26, 33). These substances do not fight death, but rather are like death because they are highly polluting, and they are kept away from the sanctuary. They are arguably the most defiling substances in priestly thought. So blood can be like holiness itself or be the antithesis of holiness, depending on its source and its location.113 That the rite of the cow is the ritual creation of a form of impure blood is apparent in its treatment of the actual blood of the cow. As stated earlier, the blood of the cow is unlike sacrificial blood, even most h.at..ta¯ ʼt blood, because it is not poured out at an altar. Indeed, it is juxtaposed to the blood of any clean slaughtered animal because it is not even poured out into the ground. The blood of the cow is the only blood in the Bible that is intentionally burned; yet it is not even burned on an altar but outside the camp where it is mixed in with the dung, hide, and all other parts of the cow. Unlike the blood of other h.at..ta¯ ʼˆot, this blood is not applied to holy objects but to impure things. By this treatment, the blood of the cow itself is made into an impurity and thus is like the only other impure blood of menstruation and childbirth. (The female nature of the mȇ niddˆa is underscored by the additional female material required for the ritual: the red stuff added to the cow when it is burning, the ˇs˘enˆı tˆolaʻat, is made from the red eggs of female snails.) The name of the substance that the cow produces seems to solidify its impurity – only female bodily impurities are called niddˆa, and for P, blood is the primary physical referent of niddˆa impurity.114 In contrast, male genital impurities are not called niddˆa nor are they identified with blood, but rather 111 112 113 114

Gen 9:4; Lev 17:11, 14. B¨ahr suggested that the cow, like every element in the mȇ niddˆa, symbolizes life because as a female a cow is the source of life (cited in Gray, Numbers, 247). On the gendered understanding of blood in P and a similar understanding of this rite, see Archer, “‘In Thy Blood Live’,” especially 25. See Chapter 5. Harris, “The Ritual of the Red Heifer.”

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with semen.115 Although male pathological genital impurity might include blood, this connection is never clearly made in Lev 15 or in any other text. In the priestly system, only blood that comes from females is explicitly defiling, whereas no male blood of any kind is ever ritually defiling. For P, the stuff of female reproduction, and for that matter, the stuff of male reproduction, are not symbolic of life, but they are deathlike; they are impure. Although the blood of the cow is not reproductive blood nor is it human blood, it is potent but yet defiling, which is unlike that of a sacrificial animal but is like the genital blood of a woman.

Sacred Impurity Like many h.at..ta¯ ʼˆot, the rite of the cow ritually creates an impurity that can be disposed. Because the impurity of the cow is ritually created, it is a controllable form of impurity, a superior form of impurity – a sacred impurity.116 As Eilberg-Schwartz points out, it is not like the impurity of skin disease or menstruation, which is natural and chaotic and must be shunned. The impurity created with the cow can be contained and manipulated to use as needed, and thus it can be a part of the ritual purification process, in which it is able to concretize corpse contamination and lead to its cleansing. Although the blood and the body of the cow are impure, they are controllable by ritual, just like the blood and bodies of other sacrificial animals. It is this ability of the cow to take on a contagious form that can be washed away that makes it a h.at..ta¯ ʼt offering. Because the cow is an animal of a type permitted for sacrifice, it can be subjected to the sacrificial system and its control. However, because the animal is also not a type commonly used for sacrifice – as a cow instead of a bull – its female nature emphasizes the concept of femininity, which is in some respects neutral and in others, especially in relation to the niddˆa blood of female reproduction, is impure. Although there are male sacrificial animals that are also associated with impurity, it is the cow alone whose blood is treated as an impurity, which is burned like refuse and contaminates those who touch it. Like the blood of other h.at..ta¯ ʼˆot, this blood leads to cleansing and can be controlled, but it acts like reproductive blood in that it is kept away from holy objects, instead of being applied to them, and it defiles. It is also, like all defiling blood, from a female source. The blood of male animals holds only the symbolism of sanctity. Thus for a male animal 115 116

See Chapter 5. On controllability as a key element of ritual see Jonathan Z. Smith, “The Bare Facts of Ritual,” History of Religions 20 (1980): 112–27.

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to accomplish this feat of symbolizing both sanctity and impurity, the animal must be split into parts (as in the burnt h.at..ta¯ ʼt) so that the impurity does not include the blood, or it cannot be killed, such as the scapegoat who, though driven away, is not ritually killed. In contrast, the blood of a female animal can represent impurity and niddˆa while simultaneously being an unblemished sacrificial victim. It makes a great deal of sense that both the rite of the cow and the regulations for the standard h.at..ta¯ ʼt offerings use gender as overt cultic expressions in ways that other priestly sacrifices do not. The h.at..ta¯ ʼˆot are the sacrificial remedies for impurity, and impurity, for P, is a highly somatic phenomenon that is often manifested from reproductive organs, which are the most basic sites of gender differentiation. P’s emphasis on reproduction and sexual difference in purity legislation indicates that they are inherently and deeply important to priestly ideology and must be controlled by the elaborate rituals of the purity and sacrificial system. Thus the sacrifices that specifically address impurity exhibit an awareness of sex and gender issues inherent in the priestly idea of impurity itself. P’s unusual use of the term niddˆa in Num 19 to describe the impurity of death, as well as its unusual choice of a female animal, relates death impurity to the objectively unrelated impurity of reproduction. This relation of two independent and arbitrary things expands the conceptual set of impurity so that reproductive impurity and death impurity overlap and thus construct one another.117 Death impurity becomes like female blood, and female blood becomes like death. The red cow and its rite are at the center of this nexus. This ritual thus offers us a uniquely visual and tactile image of impurity: it is like uncontrollable death, it is like ashes and waste, it is red, it is blood filled, it is like menstruation and childbirth, and it is often female.

conclusion The purpose of the rite of the red cow is to express concretely the impurity of contact with death so that it may be cleansed through normal ritual means. In its plain sense, the mȇ niddˆa relates the impurity of death with that of menstruation, childbirth, idolatry, and illicit sex. Therefore, the sacrifice of a female animal is required to make a solution for such impurity. The cow, in essence, becomes a manifestation of the invisible and intangible impurity of death that can then be undone. The unusual nature of the rite, in which most every feature is a reversal of a sacrificial norm, employs a female animal 117

See Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism, 177–94, especially 189.

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as an inversion of the usual male sacrificial animal. The procedure is not like a common offering but it is also not unlike one. Instead it is a flip-side of sacrifice or, to use a term from Mieke Bal, a “negative sacrifice”118 in the priestly system of sacrifice and purity. The procedure remains well within the system, in part by retaining some of its common aspects and by employing its ideas and vocabulary but also in part by inverting its vital features. The most obtuse element of the rite, the “paradox” of the ritual in which the pure are defiled and the defiled are made pure, is due to the fact that the ashes of the cow are portrayed as an impure substance, but a ritually constructed impure substance that is used to mark the corpse-contaminated person as impure. This action is the first step in cleansing, a process ultimately effected by the normal means of bathing and laundering clothes (Num 19:19). Hyam Maccoby offers an interpretation of the cow ritual along some similar lines. He understands the name of the purifying solution to indicate the impurity of menstruation. He suggests that the phrase and the rite itself reflect a pre-Israelite notion that menstruation and the female powers of reproduction that it exhibits were awe-inspiring and thought to have the power either for good or for evil, depending on their use.119 Rather than seeing the mȇ niddˆa and the rite as reflecting an integral part of the priestly system, Maccoby interprets the rite as a vestige of the worship of an ancient virgin earth goddess.120 Indeed, he describes the rite “as if it belongs to a different cult.”121 He associates it with primitive Greek sacrifices to chthonic deities that took place away from temples – as well as the rite of Chthonia, in which a cow was sacrificed to Demeter – and that neutralize some of the power of the dead. As he writes, The Red Cow is the last vestige in the religion of the Israelite Sky-God of the earth-goddess. She is retained to cope with the impurity of death, which the Sky-God himself disdains to handle or approach. In the person of the Red Cow, the goddess gives herself over to death, and overcomes it by being transmuted into a substance, the mei niddah, that is sovereign against death-impurity.122

Maccoby further suggests that the rite of the cow includes impurity because of its “pagan origins” that were co-opted by the Sky-God, “who sought to dominate her magic and reduce it to rules.” 118 119 120 121 122

Death and Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 118; see also 106–13. Maccoby, Ritual and Morality, 109. Ibid., 109. Ibid., 111. Ibid., 112.

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Maccoby’s perception that the rite of the cow juxtaposes the sacrificial cult with a female principle is largely the concept that I have been arguing here. His association of the red cow with various goddesses is an intriguing possibility. Maccoby is not alone in understanding the rite as a vestige of pre-Israelite thought. Milgrom too argues that it was initially a pagan rite that was only later, and not fully, assimilated into the priestly sacrificial system. It is indeed a possibility that this rite was a part of some goddess worship or other religious system, but there is no evidence that the priestly writer felt this rite was pagan or otherwise non-Yahwistic. Indeed, the priestly writer, as well as later Jewish tradition, found the rite to be a vital aspect of cultic practice. Regardless of its history, the unusual features of the rite have their own integrity in the priestly system. Disregarding them deprives the rite of the power and meaning that the priestly writer ascribed to it. For instance, understanding the term niddˆa here as dissociated from other priestly forms of niddˆa belittles the power of both kinds of blood that P believed it held. Moreover, this dissociation obscures the apparent comfort of the priestly writer in speaking of female reproduction and in attributing significant cultic power to female bodily functions – even if negatively characterized – a comfort that interpreters of subsequent ages have sometimes lacked. Most of all, it obscures the priestly concept that the female is an integral part of cult and religion, not only on its own but also in relation to its inverse that it helps construct and define. In priestly thought, female reproduction is not ignored by the cult and its deity, but stands in significant relationship to it.

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purity and sacrifice The previous chapter examined how a priestly ritual transforms an animal into a controlled form of an impure substance. This substance has the ability, paradoxically, to cleanse the naturally occurring impurity of death. The rite of the red cow illustrates a most important aspect of sacrifice: especially in its priestly form, sacrifice is intricately bound up with the system of ritual impurity and cleanness. Although it is likely that there were multiple purity systems in ancient Israel that are reflected in various biblical texts, and that the origins of priestly concepts about pollution are quite ancient and preexist P, priestly texts discuss impurity most clearly and prominently.1 For P (and assumed by D – Deut 12:15, 22; 15:22; 26:14; cf. 23:10–11 [11–12]), the basic requirement of any human being who is to offer a sacrifice or eat of one is ritual purity. Anyone who is ritually impure must stay away from all sacred things and 1

Concepts of impurity appear in, at least, 1 Sam 21:3–6 [4–7]; 2 Sam 3:29; 11:2–4; 2 Kgs 7; Hos 9:4. For discussion of the antiquity of purity concepts, see Gruber, “Women in the Cult According to the Priestly Code,” 47, n.40. For discussions of the biblical portrayals of impurity, see Olyan, Rites and Rank, 38–61; Jonathan Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Jay Sklar, Sin, Impurity, Sacrifice, Atonement; David P. Wright, “The Spectrum of Priestly Impurity,” in Priesthood and Cult in Ancient Israel (ed. Gary A. Anderson and Saul M. Olyan; Sheffield: JSOT, 1991), 150–81; idem., The Disposal of Impurity; idem., “Clean and Unclean (OT)” ABD VI, 739; Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “Pollution, Purification, and Purgation in Biblical Israel,” in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman (ed. Carol Meyers and M. O’Connor; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 399–414; Ilana Be’er, “Blood Discharge: On Female Im/Purity in the Priestly Code and in Biblical Narrative,” in A Feminist Companion to Exodus to Deuteronomy (ed. Athalya Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 152–64; the collected essays in Wholly Woman, Holy Blood: A Feminist Critique of Purity and Impurity (ed. Kristin De Troyer, Judith A. Herbert, Ann Johnson, and Anne-Marie Korte; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press, 2003); Jacob Neusner, The Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 1973); Maccoby, Ritual and Morality.

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cannot enter the temple/tabernacle precincts to worship.2 Because sacrificial worship is the centerpiece of much communal activity, this requirement for purity restricts access to national events (such as the pilgrimage feasts), the general social ties that are formed by community events, the ability to eat meat, and access to the divine presence.3 In addition, many impurities must be remedied by sacrifice, which enables both offerers and the sanctuary itself to be restored to a pure state.4 Therefore, for P, sacrifice and purity are really two facets of one larger system. This point is discussed by Jonathan Klawans who argues that the sacrificial and purity systems should be studied as one and in the same fashion.5 He shows that the concepts of sacrifice and purity have been split off from each other, partially due to the history of Judaism and Christianity and partially due to modern scholarship’s use of differing methodologies to study them. In Judaism, sacrifice ceased with the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. Prayer and other nonsacrificial forms of worship came to replace sacrificial practice, but purity restrictions were maintained, although in changed form. Christianity came to understand Jesus’ death and resurrection as the replacement for all other forms of sacrifice, but it largely abolished purity restrictions. Klawans argues that scholarship too has split off sacrifice and purity artificially from each other by approaching each with differing methodologies. As he writes, The ritual structures of sacrifice and defilement are rarely studied in tandem. The two sets of systems, moreover, are studied differently. Purity regulations are generally recognized to consist of complex symbolic systems. Sacrificial rituals are generally understood as empty vestiges, being either metaphorized feedings of God or the fallout from the violent crisis that caused the origin of culture.6

Klawans states that, in general, biblical purity systems are approached more judiciously than are sacrificial systems. Studies of impurity in both biblical and other cross-cultural forms attempt to illustrate how impurity systems manifest important thought patterns that underlie the worldviews of a given culture. 2 3 4 5

6

Lev 7:19–21; 22:3–7. See also Num 9:6–10; Deut 26:14; 2 Chr 23:19; cf. Deut 12:15, 22; 15:22; 1 Sam 20:25–7. For a more thorough discussion of the benefits of cleanness and access to the cult see Olyan, Rites and Rank, chapter 2, especially 38, 55–62. Scholars debate whether sacrifice purifies the individual or the sanctuary or both and how this purification is accomplished. See the discussion of purification offerings in Chapter 4. Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism, especially Chapter 1; idem., “Pure Violence: Sacrifice and Defilement in Ancient Israel,” HTR 94 (2001): 133–55. “Pure Violence: Sacrifice and Defilement in Ancient Israel,” 139.

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In contrast, studies of sacrifice focus especially on its origins, particularly on the role of violence in sacrifice and its effect on society. The focus on killing at the expense of other elements of sacrifice, such as the breeding and selection of victims, sacred donations of nonanimal substances, or other parts of the rituals that accompany slaughter, narrows the broad range of meanings and functions inherent in sacrificial thought. In its quest for origins, scholarship has seen the biblical forms of sacrifice as leftover remnants of some earlier, more primitive ritual system, thereby devaluing not only the act of sacrifice but also its larger function both in the actual texts and for ancient Israel. Klawans instead calls for a study of sacrifice and impurity together as a symbolic system; in his own study he finds symbolic “organizing principles” that are manifest in both aspects of the system and that also overlap with other biblical ideologies. Klawans’ method of viewing sacrifice and purity together as an overarching system is helpful for understanding concepts of reproduction and gender. Many of the concerns underlying the gender selection of sacrificial victims are also found in purity laws because purity is the primary means of identifying who can and cannot participate in sacrifice. Like the laws of sacrificial animals, purity laws generally minimize female participation and symbolism in the cultic realm, though at other times they explicitly require it. On some occasions, purity laws also relate the impure expressly to the female and conflate both with death. Purity laws construct a polarization between sacrifice and biological reproduction, especially through the characters of mothers. Most importantly, purity laws are a means of ensuring that participants are “domesticated,” that is to say, purity laws are a means of ensuring the properly controlled lineage of their participants by monitoring their reproduction. This chapter focuses on laws from Leviticus and Numbers because these are the primary texts on impurity. Both the priestly and holiness writers describe various kinds of impurity, though the holiness writer focuses more on sinful and immoral impurity, which is not contagious and does not usually entail a ban from sancta but may result in the death or exile of the sinner. The priestly writer focuses more on ritual impurities that require a separation from sancta and can be contagious but are impermanent (or potentially impermanent).7 Ritual impurities, which come mostly from bodily functions, are directly related to sacrificial practice and are the main concern of this chapter. Legislation concerning ritual impurity is found mainly in the priestly 7

The line between the two types, if in fact it strictly exists, has been variously interpreted. See most succinctly Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), who articulates the differences in the ways I have described. See also Sklar, Sin, Impurity, Sacrifice, Atonement (especially 139–59), who sees the two forms of impurity overlapping, especially in the case of inadvertent sins, which require purificatory sacrifices. For other perspectives, see the sources cited in n.1.

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texts of Lev 11–15 and Num 19, though other more scattered texts also present alternate or additional purity laws (such as in Num 5:2–4). As discussed in the previous chapter, some sacrificial and other rites create impurities, such as the ashes of the red cow or the Azazel goat (Num 19:7–10, 21; Lev 16:20– 22). However, ritual impurities are mostly thought to come from six basic bodily sources: childbirth (Lev 12), the skin diseases of .sa¯ raʻat that are usually translated (erroneously) as “leprosy” (Lev 13–14),8 ejaculation (Lev 15:16–18), menstruation (Lev 15:19–24), abnormal genital discharge (Lev 15:2–15, 25–28), and death, in the form of contact with corpses (Num 19; 31:21–24) and some animal carcasses (Lev 11:39–40).9 These conditions bring about impurities that are unavoidable and can be resolved with combinations of sacrifice, bathing, laundering, the passage of time, and other rituals of disposal.

the nature of ritual impurity The ideology behind the purity systems of the Bible has been intriguing to scholars of many fields. In the priestly system, the range of impurities is enigmatic and seemingly arbitrary. What, for example, do birth and skin disease have in common? How is the impurity of semen like the impurity of a carcass? Why should ritual treat all of these phenomena similarly? Within biblical studies, many scholars have looked for an underlying system or idea to explain the general nature of impurity.10 The most prevalent explanation argues that all ritual pollution is indicative of death (cf. m. Kel. 1:4). Although numerous scholars have argued for this idea,11 two who have most fully explicated the concept are Emanuel Feldman and Jacob Milgrom. Feldman, in his book Biblical and Post-Biblical Defilement and Mourning: Law as Theology,12 argues that in both biblical and rabbinic thought all ritual 8

9

10 11

12

For a review of the nature and interpretations of .sa¯ raʻat see Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 816–24; S. G. Browne, Leprosy in the Bible (London: Christian Medical Fellowship, 1970); Wright and Jones, “Leprosy,” ABD IV: 278; and E. V. Hulse, “The Nature of Biblical ‘Leprosy’ and the Use of Alternative Medical Terms in Modern Translations of the Bible,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 107 (1975): 87–105. Leviticus 11 also distinguishes between forbidden unclean animals and the clean animals that the Israelites may eat on a general basis. However, because these laws do not directly affect the sacrificial system I do not address them here. For a more complete list of theories for impurity see David P. Wright, “Unclean and Clean (OT),” ABD VI, 739 as well as Philips, Menstruation and Childbirth, 4–5. E.g., Andrew Bonar, A Commentary on the Book of Leviticus (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1852; repr. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1978); Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services. Updated Edition (Peabody, MA: Hendricksons, 1994), 279; Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “Pollution, Purification and Purgation,” 399–414; and the scholars discussed later. The idea of corpse contamination as “the father of the father of uncleanness” is a rabbinic idea (David. P. Wright, “Unclean and Clean [OT],” ABD VI, 730). New York: KTAV, 1977.

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impurity represents death. Thus, for example, postpartum blood is evidence of death because life has stopped growing in the mother’s body, and ejaculation indicates death because the ejaculator does not know whether his seed will result in life or if it will die.13 Conversely, that which is not impure represents life. Ultimately, the Living God, the embodiment of life, is the opposite of impurity. The impure is desacralized and estranged from God. Feldman writes, Death is the utmost desacralization and, in the biblical/rabbinic scheme, defilement represents estrangement from the Divine. We . . . support this idea by attempting to show how God is synonymous with life, and how absence of life – as seen from within the tum’ah legislation – is a key element in defilement.14

At the same time, he argues, there was no Israelite fear or horror of the dead; thus the only harsh legislation against contact with the dead applies to the priest.15 Both concretely and in its more metaphoric appearance in the other forms of impurity, death separates people from God. Although death remains “the ultimate tum’ah”16 it is not shunned because of fear, but from the desire not to be separated from the divine. Jacob Milgrom largely follows Feldman in claiming that impurity is symbolic of death.17 He extends the concept to the forbidden animals of Lev 11 and Deut 14:3–20, explaining that the disallowed birds are carrion eaters and that the pig was used in chthonic worship by Israel’s neighbors.18 His view differs from Feldman’s in that he sees some manifestations of impurity as not simply representing death but a forbidden mixture of life and death at the same time, such as in the skin diseases of .sa¯ raʻat in which death infiltrates the living body.19 Following Douglas, Meigs, and other scholars, he also argues that death can take the form of a loss of vital force.20 Thus for him, ejaculation is indicative of death not because the seed may or may not continue the life process, but because in the release of semen a man has lost some of his own life 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Biblical and Post-Biblical Defilement, 35–37. Ibid., xix. Ibid., 14–15. Ibid., 15, 34. E.g., Leviticus 1–16, 45–47, 733, 767–68, 1002–03; “The Rationale for Biblical Impurity,” JANES 22 (1993): 107–11; “Rationale for Cultic Law: The Case of Impurity,” Semeia 45 (1989): 103–09. Leviticus 1–16, 650–51, 733. E.g., Leviticus 1–16, 766–68, 818–20. Here he follows the work of Carmichael, “A Common Element in Five Supposedly Disparate Laws,” 129–42. A. S. Meigs, “A Papuan Perspective on Pollution,” Man 13 (1978): 304–18; Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 766–68.

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force.21 Similarly, menstruation is symbolic of death not only because there is a loss of conception but also because the menstruant loses some of her life force and her bodily integrity. However, the impurity-as-death theory presents some difficulties. First, whether the priestly texts actually present death impurity as the greatest of all impurities is not clear, and thus it seems less sure to be the basis for the system. One would expect that if death were the “ultimate category” of impurity that the impurity of death would be most severe. But this is not the case: genital disease, skin disease, and birth all have much more severe restrictions and more elaborate rituals than does death. As we have seen, the main priestly text on death impurity is Num 19, the pericope of the red cow. Although the rite of the red cow is indeed an unusually elaborate ritual, the impurity that results from touching a corpse, according to the passage, is seven days. One need only apply the mȇ niddˆa, wait seven days, and then wash at the end of the week. A person suffering from corpse contamination is not required to bring his or her own offering, unlike the individual undergoing almost every other form of severe impurity. Moreover, although according to Num 31:19 a person contaminated by the death of battle must wait outside the camp during the time of impurity, and Num 5:2–4 requires that the “leper,” the man or woman with genital disease (z¯ab and z¯abˆa, respectively), and a corpse-contaminated person remain outside the camp, the priestly text of Num 19 does not indicate that the contaminated must leave the community. Therefore, corpse impurity is not the greatest impurity, at least in terms of its ritual remedy. Even according to Num 5, its severity is on par with skin and genital disease. In addition, one of the primary ways that scholars have consistently graded impurities is by the amount of time that the impure state lasts, usually a day or a week or for more time.22 By this criterion, death is not any more impure than these other conditions and is less impure than childbirth, especially the birth of a female, which imposes a severe contamination for fourteen days and a lesser impurity for an additional sixty-six days (Lev 12:5). It thus seems that death itself cannot be the foundational idea of the system. Death is only one facet of impurity. Similarly, the explanations of Milgrom and Feldman for Num 19 do not provide convincing support for the death-as-impurity theory. Although both 21 22

Leviticus 1–16, 934. See also Gordon Wenham, “Why Does Sexual Intercourse Defile? (Lev 15:18),” ZAW 95 (1983): 433–35. See, e.g., Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 269; Wright “Unclean,” 729–30. Olyan presents time as an important component of the severity of impurity, but also lists “the content and time investment of the rites required to achieve purification, and the expense of purification in terms of the offerings required” (Rites and Rank, 39).

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scholars consider death to be the foundational aspect of the impurity system, as well as the greatest of impurities, they each leave their somewhat structuralist approach to impurity when explaining the actual features of death impurity presented by this text. Despite the fact that Feldman claims “death itself is the ‘ultimate category’ of tum’ah . . . it is the epitome and prototype – the ultimate nadir – of tum’ah,”23 in his full-length work Feldman only briefly discusses the details of death impurity itself.24 One would think that Numbers 19 would be the centerpiece of his work; instead Feldman only briefly mentions the rabbinic interpretation that the red cow atones for the golden calf of Exodus. He does not substantively address the extent of impurity caused by actual death or the means of relieving it. Milgrom does address Num 19 in great detail, but he does so mostly in terms of its relation to sacrifice, not its relationship to impurity.25 Additionally, and surprisingly, both authors assert that corpse impurity is not really very severe in priestly writings, and both suggest historical explanations for why this is so. Both say that the final forms of the system minimize death impurity as an anti-pagan polemic against a cult of the dead. Milgrom also understands the red cow rite to be, in essence, not an Israelite ritual, but a pagan one that was adapted and tolerated because it was so popular. He argues that the relatively benign nature of corpse contamination indicates that the writers wanted to downgrade that impurity so as to make it less pagan.26 His evidence that death impurity was originally much more severe is scant since he bases his claim mostly on Num 5:2–4, which still would not make it the most severe of impurities but similar to skin and genital disease. In fact, his analysis of Num 19 shows that corpse impurity as it appears in the Torah is fairly mild; to fit in the impurity-as-death schema it should be more severe, but its severity has been mediated by religious polemic. Though Milgrom might be correct in his historical reconstruction, the text does not describe an intact system in which death is the most severe of impurities and all other impurities clearly stem from it. A second objection to the impurity-as-death theory is that it does not adequately explain why sexuality and reproduction are such prominent features of the purity system. The theory seems to work when explaining those phenomena that are clearly like death or illness, such as skin disease, which is frequently 23

24 25 26

Feldman spends less than one full page on Num 19, and that page does not truly engage the only extensive biblical passage on the impurity of death (Biblical and Post-Biblical Defilement, 34). Ibid., 41–42. “The Paradox of the Red Cow.” Leviticus 1–16, 277, 693 et passim; “The Paradox of the Red Cow,” 68–72.

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characterized biblically as death-like (e.g., Num 12:12), or pathological genital emission, because that condition is a sickness and could potentially lead to death. It is harder to understand the criteria by which the other reproductive phenomena are unclean. Why, of all things, is menstrual blood “death-like” but, for example, vomited blood is not? The latter would seem more to be evidence of sickness and the possibility of death, whereas the former is evidence of a human body functioning normally. Like Feldman, Milgrom does not fully answer the question of why only these particular bodily functions defile and why only they are representative of death. Furthermore, arguments for the presence of death as an explanation for the impurity of childbirth seem unclear. Milgrom’s suggestion that a woman giving birth is on the line between life and death by having a “transfer of vital force” or Frymer-Kensky’s explanation that “the person who has experienced birth has been at the boundaries of life/non-life”27 are inexact. They certainly highlight the drama and danger of birth – the threat of death in childbirth was very real for ancient women.28 However, the potential for death does not seem to be the main concern because other dangerous situations do not warrant the same sort of ritual attention as birth, and again, if coming close to death were the main problem, the laws for touching actual death would be more severe than for possibly approaching it in birth. Therefore, the theory does not fully account for the sexual and reproductive nature of the other purity laws. The prominence of sexuality and birth in the purity system has led many interpreters to adjust the impurity-as-death theory and to see death as one aspect of a larger ideological complex. Tikva Frymer-Kensky, for instance, concludes that sexuality is impure because it is incompatible with the God of Israel, who has no consort and does not have sex.29 For Klawans, the purity system espouses the rules for and means to being God-like; at the root of purity is the desire for and image of freedom from death and sex.30 According to him, this desire to imitate God is one of the two main “organizing principles” behind both sacrifice and the purity system. The second is the “concern with

27

28 29

30

“Pollution, Purification and Purgation,” 401. So too Gorman, Leviticus: Divine Presence and Community, 78; Levine, Leviticus, 249–50; Rachel Adler, “Tumah and Taharah: Ends and Beginnings,” in The Jewish Woman, New Perspectives (ed. E. Koltun; New York: Schocken, 1976), 63–71. Proposed by A. Noordtzij, Leviticus, 131. Frymer-Kensky, “Law as Philosophy: The Case of Sex in the Bible,” Semeia 45 (1989): especially 89–91; In the Wake of the Goddesses, 188–90. See too David P. Wright, “Holiness, Sex and Death in the Garden of Eden,” Biblica 77 (1996): 305–29. Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple, 56–58; “Pure Violence: Sacrifice and Defilement in Ancient Israel,” 142–43.

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attracting and maintaining the presence of God within the community.”31 Being ritually pure, being like God, allows nearness to God in the sanctuary. (Being morally pure ensures that God will remain in the sanctuary: when human immorality becomes too much, God flees from the land.) Such a theory describes purity in highly theological terms. Although it is helpful for integrating the seemingly separate elements of death and sexuality inherent in the biblical concept of purity, it is ultimately a circular argument: purity is important for being near God because God is like purity; to avoid sex and death is like the divine because the divine does not reproduce or die. It does not answer the question of why the deity, and thus the ideal image, was thought to be free from sex and death. Answers to the question become less circular if they bracket a concept of God as absolute and see both the deity and its cult as societal constructs. Some of the most important academic understandings of impurity, both in the Bible and cross-culturally, come from the anthropologist Mary Douglas.32 Using biblical passages and ethnographic data from various cultures, she explains that purity systems are means of establishing social relationships and worldviews. Purity systems can only be understood in the context of a particular culture because the elements of impurity are objectively arbitrary. Impurity does not exist without a cultural context; it is always a judgment made by a societal system. As Douglas writes, “Where there is dirt there is system. Dirt is the by-product of a systematic ordering and classification of matter, in so far as ordering involves rejecting inappropriate elements.”33 What is impure are those rejected “inappropriate elements” that the society views as problematic. 31 32

33

Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple, 53–73; “Pure Violence: Sacrifice and Defilement in Ancient Israel,” 139. See the essays in her collections Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1966); Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (London: Barrie & Rockliff, 1970); and Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology (London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1975). Douglas later changed her mind about the coercive nature of purity regulations, especially in the biblical context. In her later work she argues that the laws of impurity and forbidden animals have the effect of protecting the forbidden or impure creature. Although this is a theologically appealing concept, it does not seem true to priestly thought. It is unclear, for example, what a menstruant is protected from by being excluded from sancta. This turn in Douglas’s thinking is interesting but ultimately apologetic and does not seem to account for the biblical data as well as her earlier theories. These later works include “The Forbidden Animals of Leviticus,” JSOT 59 (1993): 3–23; “Sacred Contagion,” in Reading Leviticus: A Conversation with Mary Douglas (ed. J. F. A. Sawyer; JSOTSup 227; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 86–106; Leviticus as Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); and In the Wilderness: The Doctrine of Defilement in the Book of Numbers (JSOTSupp 158; Sheffield: JSOT, 1993). For a sustained critique of Douglas’s later work see Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus, 15–27. Purity and Danger, 36.

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In Douglas’s view, purity systems construct and impose particular worldviews on the societies from which they come in two main ways. First, they are a means of social pressure in which “the ideal order of society is guarded by dangers which threaten transgressors.”34 The belief in and threat of supernatural forces are an explicit attempt to control the behavior of others within the society. Purity restrictions subtly uphold the moral code and general values of a society, although they usually function separately from explicitly moral rules. According to Douglas, ritual impurity systems often operate in circumstances where infractions against certain moral ideologies would, in actuality, rarely be punished.35 Thus purity regulations implicitly condemn behaviors and actions that cannot practically be regulated, for example, because punishment would be too risky (e.g., if to do so would cause conflict within a group), cannot be proven (e.g., in cases of adultery), or is too pervasive for society to intervene (e.g., when a general moral principle, such as respect for in-laws, is not observed). They operate in lieu of the power required to enforce them. Second, she argues, pollution beliefs are often “used as analogies for expressing a general view of the social order”36 so that the impurity of a single body can model the impurity of the society as a whole and relative impurities among individuals can reflect the hierarchy between different societal groups. Ultimately, a purity system reveals its worldview and exerts control over its society by defining, compartmentalizing, and ranking its members. As she writes, “rituals enact the form of social relations and in giving these relations visual expression, they enable people to know their own society. The rituals work upon the body politic through the symbolic medium of the physical body.”37 Douglas’s work covers a variety of aspects of purity that are beyond the scope of this study. However, three of her conclusions are especially important here. The first is her finding that impurity can indicate a lack of wholeness or integrity. Although the topics and the images of impurity remain arbitrary, those things that a society deems impure do not fit the criteria for a certain idea of normalcy; they have something imperfect about them. For example, in the Hebrew Bible shellfish are considered impure because, according to Douglas, they do not conform to the ideal picture of a sea creature that should have fins and scales instead of legs and claws. The impure may be anomalous for its class, or it may be of an ambiguous nature, or both. Douglas has been criticized for not adequately describing the nature of the ambiguous and anomalous and 34 35 36 37

Ibid., 3. Ibid., 130–40. Ibid., 3. Ibid., 129.

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for focusing too much on one underlying principle to govern the definition of the impure.38 But her understanding that the impure shows something to be problematic, rejected, and less than ideal helps in understanding the essential nature of defilement. Douglas emphasizes that impurity systems are constructs; they are ways of understanding the natural world through a subjective lens that characterizes and values objective phenomena. There is nothing objectively and intrinsically “wrong” with shellfish, but they are problematic within the symbolic structure of the impurity system. Although this point may seem clear, it is one that has posed a stumbling block for various interpreters as they apply Douglas’s work to the laws of ritual purity in Lev 12 and 15. Many interpreters argue that because childbirth, ejaculation, and menstruation are completely natural and necessary, there can be no negativity attached to them. For this reason Gordon Wenham argues that Douglas’s schema “breaks down as an explanation of the uncleanness associated with childbirth, menstruation and sexual intercourse, all of which the Israelites must have regarded as natural and normal.”39 Similarly, Klawans argues that these and all ritual impurities, as opposed to moral impurities, cannot indicate social value or negativity and are morally neutral because they are natural, often unavoidable, and transient.40 However, even though something is natural, it may not necessarily be valued as positive. The fact that the phenomena of childbirth and ejaculation are deemed impure shows that they indicate a lack of perfection and completeness within the ideology of the system. Impurity displays a disparity between the natural and the ideal. It necessarily involves a negative valuation, at least in relation to other aspects of the system. As Douglas writes, A polluting person is always in the wrong. He [sic] has developed some wrong condition or simply crossed some line which should not have been crossed and this displacement unleashes danger for someone. . . . Pollution can be committed intentionally, but intention is irrelevant to its effect – it is more likely to happen inadvertently.41 38

39 40 41

Ibid., 52–58. Douglas’ early work has been criticized, rightly, for a number of reasons. Some of the most relevant for biblical studies are her confusion of holiness with purity, her lack of clarity on which aspects of human impurity are defiling in the Bible, her inexact concept of the anomalous, and her adherence to one particular schema for understanding why particular elements are classified as “inappropriate.” For a sustained critique see Seth Kunin, We Think What We Eat: Neo-Structuralist Analysis of Israelite Food Rules and Other Cultural and Textual Practices (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 29–97. See Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 720–21 for errors in her presentation of Lev 11. “Why Does Sexual Intercourse Defile? (Lev 15:18),” ZAW 95 (1983), 433. Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism, 21–41. Purity and Danger, 114.

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Just as there is nothing ontologically “wrong” with shellfish, so too there is not necessarily anything objectively “wrong” with a polluted person. But the system creates the negative characterization of impurity in part to exhibit what it considers dangerous or difficult. A second conclusion made by Douglas is most helpful for understanding why pollution often adheres around sexuality and reproduction; namely, that they have the potential to cause highly problematic situations for many social systems.42 As she writes, “[It] may be that no other social pressures are potentially so explosive as those which constrain sexual relations.”43 This is especially so for societal systems whose economic structures rest heavily on sexual and genealogical relationships. Therefore, she argues that because of the serious consequences of sexual behavior a great deal of fear and anxiety is centered on sexual relations and made manifest in purity restrictions. To be sure, uncontrolled sexuality has a multitude of potentially problematic aspects, especially with regard to lineage in a patrilineal social structure. It can intermingle lineages that should not come together and can commingle parts of the same lineage too closely. It can lead to the birth of human beings whose genealogical position is unclear or problematic. Therefore it seems likely that the biblical emphasis on sexual impurities reflects the worldview that sexuality and human reproduction are problematic, dangerous, and in need of regulation. Sexuality and birth, although clearly personal, also affect society as a whole by their ability to create complicated and difficult social and genealogical scenarios. Although Douglas does not say so, it is also the case that the biblical impurity/sacrificial system brings the private realm of sexuality into the public realm of the cult44 by monitoring the sexuality and reproductive status of its members. According to the priestly system, if a man has sex with a menstruating woman, this fact should become publicly exhibited through his exclusion from sacrificial worship for seven days (Lev 15:24). Similarly, the impurity of a menstruant has the public effect of excluding her from communal worship (15:19). The same is the case for the new mother (Lev 12). Therefore, the system keeps watch over the private realms of sexuality and birth and makes them an explicit concern for the sacrificing community. If the purity laws were to be followed perfectly, most sexual activity would be made known to society at large. Characterizing sexuality as impure puts a societal check on it and keeps it from becoming unbridled.45 42 43 44 45

Ibid., 153–59. Ibid., 159. Bird, Missing Persons, 101. See also Olyan, Rites and Rank, 59–60.

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A final point of Douglas’s work informs the relationship between gender and impurity. Douglas finds that purity restrictions do not often exist either in cultures where the male domination of women is accomplished thoroughly through uncompromising violence or in social systems where women have little ability to negotiate their position by using their connection with one man over against another.46 In other words, she argues that purity restrictions are more apt to appear in cultures where male control over women is the ideological norm, but is not strictly enforced. Because women have some room in which to move socially against total domination, the result is an anxiety for men over their control of women. Purity restrictions help support the ideology of male domination by their supernatural threat. Further, Douglas argues that purity restrictions exist in cultures that hold contradictory positions about women. She cites as an example the Lele, among whom she did fieldwork, who attempt to treat women in two contradictory ways. First, they consider women basically to be a form of currency that is exchanged as the primary means of forging social and economic relationships among men. But second, they also do not attempt to reduce women to slavery. On the one hand, women are property; on the other, they are people. The Lele resolve this contradiction by allowing men in their society to maintain control over women economically and socially without the brutality of complete dominance, and the impurity of sexuality enables them to address the anxiety, distrust, and negativity in their perception of women caused by the lack of this dominance. This contradictory view of women resembles that addressed by Sherri Ortner in her classic essay, “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?”47 Ortner argues that, cross-culturally, societies characterize men as a part of culture and so align them with its social, public, abstract, and creative elements. Women are aligned with nature and thereby related to the biological, domestic realm that does not transcend the repetitive, mundane work of child care and birthing.48 However, Ortner clearly shows that women are never thought to exist solely within the natural realm. As she writes, At the same time, however, woman cannot be consigned fully to the category of nature, for it is perfectly obvious that she is a full-fledged human being, endowed with human consciousness just as a man is; she is half of the human race, without whose cooperation the whole enterprise would collapse.49 46 47 48

49

Purity and Danger, 141–59. Feminist Studies 1 (1972): 5–31. See n.68 for David Biale’s criticisms of scholars who use Ortner’s work in Judaism. See his “Does Blood Have a Gender in Jewish Culture?” in Gendering the Jewish Past (ed. Marc Lee Raphael; Williamsburg, VA: College of William and Mary, 2002), 7–24. Cf. Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism, 189–96; Archer, “‘In Thy Blood Live’”; Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 166–72. Ortner, “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?” 15.

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Women, she argues, see themselves as a part of culture and participate in its production; therefore they uphold the cultural system. Because they participate in these two realms of nature and culture, women hold a middle status between them that either leads to a lower hierarchical ranking from men, fills a mediating position for transforming nature into culture, and/or causes women to appear in an ambiguous and potentially dangerous peripheral position between nature and culture.50 This phenomenon presents a dilemma similar to that Douglas describes: women are like nature, but they are also a part of culture. They are of generally lower status but their status is also ambiguous. We can add, based on the work of Catherine Bell, that through ritual women agree to cultural structures, even if they do not consider them ideal. The structures therefore must afford women some ritual power and status; otherwise women would not participate in them. Judith Romney Wegner addresses the ambiguousness of women in the biblical tradition in her book, Chattel or Person: The Status of Women in the Mishnah.51 Wegner finds that in both the Bible and the Mishna women have a twofold legal status. Women are largely treated legally like men when it comes to their person or their property, as long as the situation has no bearing on their sexuality or reproduction. However, women are legally viewed as property in situations regarding their sexuality, which comes under the control of men: “The Mishnah treats woman as chattel only when her biological function belongs to a specified man and the case poses a threat to his control of that function.”52 Further, “a woman’s sexuality lies at the root of limitations on her personhood in both the private and public spheres.”53 According to Wegner, this division is already established in the biblical text: “Biblical laws that govern women suggest that conflicting perceptions of woman as person and woman as chattel already existed in biblical Israel.”54 Although Wegner’s distinction is somewhat overdrawn (women’s property rights, for example, are not equal to men’s), she is right that biblical laws do not deprive women of all their human rights. In fact, although they do restrict women’s autonomy, biblical laws about women usually intend to protect women from abuse. It therefore seems possible to apply Douglas’s insights concerning the Lele to those of the Hebrew Bible.55 In at least some forms of biblical thought, women have a contradictory status resembling that held by Lele women: their sexuality and reproduction cause them to be treated differently and with 50 51 52 53 54 55

Ibid., 24–28. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Chattel or Person?, vi. Ibid., 19. Ibid., 13. See the similar conclusion in Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 46–47.

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less power than men, and yet outside of the reproductive realm the basic personhood of women is fundamental. Nancy Jay notices the contradictory status of women in patrilineal systems such as the Hebrew Bible and describes it in different terms: in a patrilineal system, she says, though they give birth, “women have no descendants.” They are a part of the patrilineal line because they maintain it and, as Douglas says, are the entrances into it that must be carefully guarded; yet they are also not a part of it. They are parents but not ancestors; they are family but they are strangers. Jay maintains that the lack of full control over women and their reproduction and the resulting uncertainty of paternity cause social anxiety, which is then remedied by sacrifice. Both Douglas and Ortner argue that impurity helps define societal roles and rank in general and that sexual impurities in particular create gender roles and gender hierarchies.56 For Douglas, sexual impurities create division between the sexes and help define gendered status.57 They also serve to separate male and female spheres of activity.58 As she notes, the distinction between the sexes is fundamental for social identity and participation in most social institutions.59 Impurities arise in situations where it is most important to draw attention to gender difference by emphasizing these distinctions. Indeed for P, gender designation and distinction are integral to the definition of humanity: P’s first two statements on the nature of humans are, first, that they are in the image of God, and second, that they are male and female (Gen 1:27). Therefore, sexual and reproductive processes may be impure for P because they emphasize gender difference and call attention to it, not necessarily or solely because they are related to reproduction or the creation of life. The preoccupation of the purity laws with sexuality and reproduction is a fundamental means of exacerbating the differences between male and female to thereby define their gender roles.60 For both sexes impurity appears when their body behaves in an especially gendered way. For women, impurity appears particularly at times that highlight their contradictory status of both person and parent and yet property and stranger.61 56

57 58 59 60 61

Saul Olyan states, “Biblical patterns of pollution and purification, like marriage, lineage, and inheritance patterns, serve to perpetuate male dominance in various spheres of life” (Rites and Rank, 59). Purity and Danger, 141–42. Implicit Meanings, 62–64. Purity and Danger, 141. So also Archer, “‘In Thy Blood Live’,” 40. See Kathleen P. Rushton, “The Woman in Childbirth in John 16:21: A Feminist Reading in (Pro)creative Boundary Crossing,” in Wholly Woman, Holy Blood, 89, who follows Judith Plaskow in understanding sexuality as the source of women’s otherness (Standing Again at Sinai, 174).

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Despite this reason for the emphasis on sex and reproduction in the purity laws, the question remains: what does sexuality have to do with death and disease, the two other main transmitters of impurity? One answer lies in sex’s ability to disrupt society in ways similar to death and disease. As mentioned in the previous chapter, death often involves a societal shift, causing changes in leadership, economic status (widows, orphans, heirs), family structure, and agreements between contracting parties.62 Although death is clearly a personal event, it also poses danger to society at large because it requires societal readjustment and realignment. Moreover, death may occur in war, by homicide, or by contagious illness, all of which are potentially threatening to a community. (The heifer ritual from Deut 21 illustrates this point: if the rite of the heifer is not carried out, then the two neighboring communities risk being in contention with each other over who is to blame for the unsolved murder. War or other disorder may come about if the guilt is not resolved.) In addition to death’s clearly negative personal elements, then, it also can have potentially negative societal effects. Therefore, if the purity system functions properly, anyone who has come into close contact with someone who has died is made known to the community and his or her potentially changing social status can be monitored and ambiguous position clarified. We can assume that the impure skin diseases of .sa¯ raʻat as well as genital illnesses also threaten a society and its members by potentially causing changes in the social and economic status of those who contract them. Death, disease, birth, and sex are further related in that they are phenomena that are ultimately beyond human control. Indeed, death itself is far from ideal, and it is the most natural and unstoppable inevitability. Douglas, as well as Lawrence A. Hoffman and Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, emphasize this factor of controllability as part of the nature of impurity: that which is more controllable is less impure, whereas the completely uncontrollable is highly impure.63 Eilberg-Schwartz argues that this feature of control partly explains why ejaculation is considerably less impure than menstruation: it is far more possible for a man to control his ejaculate than a woman to control her menses. While it is difficult to know why the skin diseases of .sa¯ raʻat and the particular genital ailments described in Lev 15 are singled out as carriers of impurity, we can note that there does not seem to be any human remedy for them and they may be contagious, and so they too arrive and are healed by means that are not physically controlled.

62 63

Saul Olyan, Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions, 43–61. The Savage in Judaism, 186–89; Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 151–54.

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Although both of these explanations for the relation of death and disease to reproduction are plausible, they are still speculative and unproven. What is clearly ascertainable, though, is that in priestly thought these phenomena all resemble each other in some way: death and disease are like the acts of childbirth, ejaculation, and menstruation. The exact criteria by which they were joined may be unknowable – they are in many ways arbitrary – but their grouping together as “rejected elements” from the ideal implicitly makes them seem alike in ways that they objectively are not. Under the rubric of impurity, death begins to seem a part of reproduction, as does disease, and reproduction seems like death. Thus menstruation, which is not a disease, is called an illness (d¯avˆa; Lev 12:2; 15:33, 20:18; cf. Isa 30:22), and death’s impurity is given a term most commonly used for menstruation (niddˆa; Num 19:9, 13, 20–21). Given that the biblical purity system(s) and its underlying ideologies evolved over a long period of time, and that ideas of purity and impurity exist beyond P and H, it is likely that no single concept (i.e., death) underlies the entire system. Rather, the system as we have it represents a conglomeration of ideas that become associated as threats to the social order and beyond and, in doing so, form new ideological constructions. This conglomeration creates a conceptual set in which disparate elements overlap and construct one another.

 purity systems thus function in different ways to maintain control over societal structures. It is true that the elements of ritual purity are not based strictly on morality and they are concerned with phenomena that are completely natural. Although these phenomena are problematic and in many ways undesirable, they cannot be banned outright, as can moral sins, precisely because they are natural and uncontrollable. Indeed, one of the most interesting aspects of the biblical purity system is that, at least as presented in Lev 12–15 and Num 19, it concerns the very conditions that are fundamentally human and outside of any class or rank. Purity restrictions apply to every human being and address the basic aspects of humanity – birth and death, health and sickness, and a gendered body. Not only are these essential elements of humanity important to each individual but they are potentially problematic for societal structure and for this reason require monitoring and produce anxiety. Ultimately, the disregard of ritual law becomes a societal and moral issue because it violates fundamental societal norms and threatens expulsion from society itself. For example, disregarding purity laws while participating in sacrifice results in extirpation: “Anyone who touches any unclean thing, be it the uncleanness of a person or of an unclean animal or any unclean forbidden

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animal, and then eats from the sacrificial meat of Yahweh’s peace offerings, that person shall be cut off from their people” (Lev 7:21). For this reason, EilbergSchwartz argues that the “life” that is protected from “death” in the priestly purity system is not an objective abstract, but the social body – the “life” of the Israelite lineage – that is of such great concern to the priestly writer.64

purity and gender hierarchy In his discussion of pollution, Eilberg-Schwartz argues that the biblical purity system creates a dichotomy of life and death (as in death impurity) as well as a dichotomy of the controllable/uncontrollable (as in the distinction between ejaculation and menstruation). He argues that these dichotomies become parallel and ultimately enmeshed, so that what seems lifelike is controlled, whereas the uncontrolled is like death. Along with these dichotomies he puts forth a third one: male/female. Some things are impure due to their resemblance with death, some because they are uncontrollable (or both), and some because they resemble the female. Thus for instance, menstruation is especially impure because it resembles death, because it is uncontrollable, and because it is a feminine emission; the loss of semen, although representative of death, is less defiling than menstruation, because, as he says, “menstrual blood is more contaminating simply because of its gender.”65 This dichotomy of gender further expands the conceptual set of impurity so that the attributes of controllable and representing life come to apply to the male, whereas those of uncontrollable and deathlike apply to the female.66 Furthermore, as L´eonie Archer also argues, ritual activity becomes aligned with the male aspect of these paradigms: the ritual acts of sacrifice and, as they discuss, circumcision form the antidote to the negative aspects of death, the feminine, and the uncontrollable.67 Circumcision is the controlled, male letting of blood from the genitals, whereas menstruation is the uncontrollable, deathlike female releasing of blood. The controlled shedding of blood in sacrifice overcomes the uncontrollable, deathlike blood of birth. The purity system together with other aspects of the larger ritual system helps create hierarchies of gender and of other aspects of the social world. Despite the conclusions of Douglas, Eilberg-Schwartz, Archer, Saul Olyan, Hoffman, Ortner, and Jay that impurity regulations create hierarchical 64 65 66 67

The Savage in Judaism, 183, 190–91. Ibid., 196. Ibid., 188–91. “Bound by Blood: Circumcision and Menstrual Taboo in Post-Exilic Judaism,” in After Eve: Women, Theology and the Christian Traditions (ed. J. M. Soskice; London: Marshall Pickering, 1990), 38–61.

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relations among the sexes, some biblical interpreters have attempted to show that biblical purity laws do not necessarily indicate gender hierarchy or a relatively inferior status for women. One of the most important arguments for this position is that sex prohibitions apply to both genders. It is not only females and their reproduction that the system deems impure; male sexual functioning is impure as well. David Biale, for example, argues that interpreters who juxtapose female genital blood with male ritual blood make a false dichotomy with regard to gender and misunderstand the priestly characterization of menstruation: menstruation should not be compared with circumcision or sacrifice but with ejaculation – they are equivalent genital fluids that are natural and that cause ritual defilement.68 Deborah Ellens also rejects Eilberg-Schwartz’s theory that menstrual blood is severely defiling because it is female blood. She argues that the blood of menstruation is impure for the same reason that semen is impure – because it is related to the creation of life; blood is a “gender-neutral factor.”69 It is certainly true that the impurity laws reject both male and female sexuality from the image of the divine and from sacrificial practice. It is also true that they classify menstruation together with semen. Menstrual blood is opposed to sacrificial blood for the same reason that semen is opposed to sacrificial blood: because sexuality as a whole is antagonistic to the concept of the divine. This juxtaposition is an example of privileging ritual and social entities and relationships over biological ones, as both Jay and EilbergSchwartz imply. Jay, for example, is clear that sacrificial systems undermine and correct biological conception and birth to form social patrilineal systems 68

69

David Biale, “Does Blood Have Gender in Jewish Culture?” I take issue with Biale on a few points. First, although he denies that blood has a gender, it is very much the case that genital blood has a gender in priestly thought. There is no impure male genital blood in the Bible. Even the law of the z¯ab does not use the term “blood” for his illness. Conversely, all female genital impurities – parturition, menstruation, and illness – are recognized solely in terms of their “blood” (dam); there is no other vaginal substance that causes impurity. This term is the same for the blood of sacrifice. Moreover, Biale seems to argue that interpreters of the purity laws, and not the priestly writer himself, relate the impurity of genital discharge to death (9) and deem intercourse impure (11). It is P who associates discharge and death by describing them both as impure and juxtaposing them to sacrificial practice. In addition, as I discuss later, Biale’s argument that the problem with menstruation is its exposure of a sacred site in the female body cannot hold. The female body is never referred to as holy. It is powerful, but P does not consider its reproductive function to be sacred. Finally, Biale criticizes Ortner’s essay and the studies that use her insights, saying that they are “forced” in the case of Jewish culture (8), but his reading of Ortner does not consider the complexity of her argument, in which she states that the female cannot be exclusively tied to nature. In my reading of Ortner, I think she would agree that men are also not exclusively associated with culture. “Leviticus 15: Contrasting Conceptual Associations Regarding Women,” in Reading the Hebrew Bible for a New Millennium: Form, Concept and Theological Perspective; Vol. 2: Theological and Exegetical Studies (ed. Wonil Kim, Deborah Ellens, Michael Floyd, and Marvin A. Sweeney; Harrison, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000), 149.

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that supersede any sexually constructed lineage, though ideally the social and the biological coincide. Therefore both male and female sexuality have the potential to cause tensions and are presented as impurities. Nevertheless, while purity and sacrifice generally juxtapose the sexual with the social, they simultaneously make gender distinctions by emphasizing sexspecific phenomena. Those scholars who would deny the contribution of sex-specific impurities to gender hierarchy have made some commendable attempts to understand the laws otherwise, but their argumentation is sometimes difficult and inconsistent. For example, Klawans, who also views ritual impurity in general to be completely natural and morally neutral, argues against any hierarchical implications for menstrual laws in part by stating that women in ancient Israel may not have menstruated as frequently as modern women.70 Even if this were true, it is beside the point. For the priestly writer, a healthy female body that is either menstruating or bearing children is functionally more impure than a healthy male body due to the length of the impurity. And more practically, if women were menstruating less because they were birthing more, they would be unclean from parturition more often than modern women.71 Also, because the infant mortality rate was high in antiquity, women would often lose their young children and thereby discontinue the nursing that kept menstruation from recurring. These women would be especially unclean because they would bear the impurity of parturition and then that of menstruation soon after. Thus this argument is insufficient. Following Ross Shepard Kraemer, Klawans also discusses the practical fact that the menstrual laws enable a woman to occasionally reject sex.72 The unfortunate implication of this argument is that women regularly wanted to reject sex, but were not otherwise able to do so; this is an implication that cannot be proven and that makes profound and sad assumptions about the sexual lives and desires of women in ancient Israel.73 Similarly, Klawans, as well as Gruber and Milgrom, argues that the doubled length of impure time for the birth of a girl does not indicate any inferiority of girls and women. Rather, on this point alone they make the difficult argument that impurity represents value, so that the more impure a thing is, the more 70

71 72

73

See his Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism, 21–41, especially 38–41, and his synopsis in Purity, Sacrifice and the Temple, 53–56. See also Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 953; Wenham, Leviticus, 224; Be’er, “Blood Discharge: On Female Im/Purity in the Priestly Code and in Biblical Literature,” 158–59; Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel, 538–44. Olyan, Rites and Rank, 57. Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings: Women’s Religion Among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World (New York: Oxford, 1992), 103–4. For criticisms similar to mine, see Rosie O’Grady “The Semantics of Taboo: Menstrual Prohibitions in the Hebrew Bible,” in Wholly Woman, Holy Blood, 22. Moreover, cf. the view of women toward sex with their husbands in Gen 30:14–18.

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value it may have.74 However, it is hard to imagine that “lepers” are somehow of greater value than people without scale disease or that the carcass of an animal that has died on its own is more valuable than a sacrificed animal.75 It is also doubtful that these authors would contend that a female person, in the Bible or otherwise, generally has more social value than a male, which is the logical conclusion of this argument. In addition, Lev 27 clearly shows that a female is worth less than a male in monetary terms. In any event, regardless of any objective value, the system itself classifies the birth of a girl as less clean. A girl may be more valuable or perhaps more useful in some way outside of the sacrificial cult, but within the cult, which is the system in question, her birth is not as highly valued, or otherwise it would not be so dramatically circumscribed. Biale similarly argues that the system of impurity indicates a positive, even sacred, aspect to the female. He understands the blood of childbirth to be “a divine fluid, more sacred than normal blood.”76 Kristen De Troyer urges a similar positive reading of women’s impurity at birth to be like that of sacred scripture, which “defiles the hands,” and she suggests that the blood of parturition is protective of the new mother.77 It is true that the purity system underscores the female power of birth by causing it to stand out within the sacrificial system.78 This treatment does surely represent acknowledgment of female reproductive power, but the purity system does not positively value it. It is connected to death and illness, which though also normal and natural are shunned by the sacrificial system. Birth is a condition that must be atoned for or purified from with sacrifice. Like the milk of a mother goat, it may be beneficial, but it does not belong in a sacred context. 74

75

76 77

78

Gruber, “Women in the Cult According to the Priestly Code,” 43, n.13; Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 751. So similarly, Samuel E. Ballentine, Leviticus (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Preaching and Teaching; Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1999), 102. Indeed, in a nonpriestly passage, becoming severely impure is a feminizing curse. In 2 Sam 3:29, David curses Joab’s lineage by saying, “Let the house of Joab never be without a z¯ab or a leper or a man who grasps the spindle or who falls by the sword or who lacks bread.” A man who grasps the spindle is explicitly an effeminate man, and those who suffer both genital disease or skin disease are like him. For further discussion of the femininity of using the spindle, see H. A. Hoffner, “Symbols for Masculinity and Femininity: Their Use in Ancient Near Eastern Sympathetic Magic Rituals,” JBL 85 (1966): 326–34. In my reading of Klawans, however, with his reliance on the newer work of Douglas, I assume he would argue that the impure are under divine protection, and thus “lepers” are in fact somehow more protected than the average person. “Does Blood Have Gender in Jewish Culture?” 12. “Blood: A Threat to Holiness or toward (Another) Holiness?” in Wholly Woman, Holy Blood, 53–56. Here she follows Milgrom (Leviticus 1–16, 751) and Gruber (“Women in the Cult According to the Priestly Code,” 43, n.13). De Troyer, “Blood: A Threat to Holiness or toward (Another) Holiness?” 57.

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Nevertheless, the arguments of Klawans and Biale are important: the purity system does not degrade female sexuality while uplifting male sexuality; human biological reproduction is problematic in both male and female aspects. Klawans is also correct that it is not the case that “the biblical ritual impurity laws were legislated for the purpose of subjugating women.”79 The purpose of the laws is to classify, characterize, and control many important aspects of the world, not just women. Both men and women are subject to the system, and the system defines both of them. It is an attempt to control the behavior of all members of society. The work of Biale, Klawans, Ellens, and other authors underscores another most important point: concepts about gender inherent in the purity system are not as cut and dried a dichotomy as has sometimes been presented in academic discussions. Females are not always and only presented as impure, and, conversely, men too experience impurity and cannot live a life free from it. Both men and women have greater and less cultic, social, and economic power at various times in their lives. For example, in Deuteronomy, a man who ejaculates temporarily loses his position as a warrior (Deut 23:10–15 [11–16]). A new mother who recovers from her impurity makes offerings, perhaps the only time in her life that she does so; her social role brings her cultic recognition and power. However, to Klawans’ point with regard to sacrifice, whatever the “original” intent or purpose of the impurity system – be it a fear of death, a desire to imitate God, or a social subjugation of women – the origin of the system is ultimately irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that, in practice, impurity lands disproportionately on females. As it functions in the biblical text, females bear the majority of impurity restrictions, and on the whole, purity results in a more restricted and more impure cultic life for female members of the community.80 Unless they become ill with genital or skin disease, males may conceivably suffer no more than one day’s impurity at a time in their lifetimes, because they otherwise become impure only from the one-day impurity of ejaculation. The healthiest woman suffers numerous week-long impurities from menstruation and, if sexually active, the impurities of intercourse (one day) as well as possibly childbirth (forty or eighty days). Though some scholars have argued that the disproportion is due to the more involved relationship of women to the process of childbirth than the male, this more involved relationship, with its resulting greater impurity, must be understood as inherent to the system’s purpose and function. It has serious practical consequences in terms 79

80

Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism, 40. See similarly Shaye Cohen, “Menstruants and the Sacred in Judaism and Christianity,” in Women’s History and Ancient History (ed. Sarah B. Pomeroy; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 276, 291. See Olyan, Rites and Rank, 57–60.

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of access to economic resources, community connections, national identity, sacred space, and social power.81 As Saul Olyan writes, exclusion from cultic rites “effectively denies the excluded individual a place in the social order.”82 Moreover, as Stanley Stowers points out, the severe impurity of menstruation and childbirth, which applies to all members of an entire gender, makes the impurity seem inherent in the gender itself, whereas more unusual cases of severe impurity by men do not have this same effect.83 Additionally, outside of P, the female image of the menstruant often stands as the quintessential image of impurity; as Milgrom writes, she is a “metaphor for extreme pollution, ultimate revulsion.”84 Although ejaculation is a specifically masculine form of impurity, it does not become symbolic of impurity in general, nor, as Olyan states, is it ever associated with sin and shame.85

 if we understand the nature of purity to be in some way a representation of the ideal – be it the divine, as Klawans argues, or wholeness, as Douglas’s work suggests – we can then see that all people show various gradations away from that ideal. Impurity falls on a spectrum that affects each person individually. A man with skin disease is far more impure than a menstruous female. In the purity system, no man is ever as ideal as God, and no female, unless she is ill, is always impure. On the whole, however, the purity system’s disproportionality shows the female to be more removed from the ideal. This general characterization contributes to the social creation of gender in the abstract, and because the most important effect of ritual uncleanness is removal from cultic practice and the material prerogatives of sacrificial worship, the ideology of sex-based impurities also materially disadvantages female members of society.

skin disease and the function of impurity An instructive text for understanding the mechanism of impurity is the Elohistic text of Num 12. The story correlates impurity with the loss of privileges, a disproportionate association with the feminine, and the creation of gender hierarchy. In this passage, Miriam and her brother Aaron, the prototypical 81 82 83

84 85

See ibid., chapter 3, especially 55. Ibid., 56. Stowers states: “Yes, lepers have a severe form of impurity, but leprosy does not index an entire gender. Leprosy is random from the perspective of structuration in the society, but since menstruation and childbirth pollution are coextensive with women of childbearing age and potentially all women, that impurity inheres in the nature of the gender itself” (Stowers, “On the Comparison of Blood in Greek and Israelite Ritual,” 190). Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 952. Rites and Rank, 57.

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priest, criticize Moses on two counts: for having married a Cushite woman (the nature of this criticism is unclear) and, apparently, for assuming that they have religious authority equal to Moses. They ask,86 Has Yahweh indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not also spoken through us?” (12:2). The deity then calls to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to come to the tent of meeting and rebukes Aaron and Miriam for claiming to have the same status and divine connection as Moses. In punishment, Miriam is struck with the skin disease of .sa¯ raʻat. Miriam becomes healed from the disease when Aaron and Moses intervene with God on her behalf, but she is ritually unclean and must leave the camp for seven days. Aaron escapes this impurity and is neither smitten nor banished. Num 12 shows the struggle for religious power and authority among competing factions. In the end, the struggle is resolved by the establishment of roles for the primary religious leaders from the priestly clan. Moses, who has a unique prophetic relationship to God, is certified as the ultimate authority, and this authority cannot be questioned or criticized. Aaron, though guilty of overstepping his privilege, is nonetheless a person able to intercede and advocate on behalf of the impure, in this case, Miriam. Throughout history, interpreters of this passage have asked why it is Miriam alone who is struck with .sa¯ raʻat while Aaron is spared. One answer is that this uneven punishment is due to a reluctance on the part of the writers and redactors to make the prototypical priest suffer a severe impurity,87 because it might disqualify him from the position. Even if this was not the original intent, it nevertheless remains the effect that the priest is not impure, but his sister is. The reverse is also true: Miriam’s impurity disqualifies her from the position of priest and from the highest cultic roles,88 to which she may have genealogical access.

86

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The verb is in the feminine singular, “she said.” It may be that originally this was a story only about Miriam, and Aaron was later included; however, it is possible for the singular here to apply to Miriam because she is first, but still includes Aaron. This grammatical structure of a singular verb applying to multiple people but agreeing with the first named appears in Exod 15:1 and Judg 5:1 (Milgrom, Numbers, 93). Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, “Numbers,” in The Women’s Bible Commentary (ed. Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe; Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), 48. The story thus uses the same technique as the church and synagogue of holding the impurity that only adheres to a woman as a means of keeping her from clerical authority. Historically, it is women’s specific impurity that has kept them from ordination. See for example, Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Sacrifice and Social Maintenance: What’s at Stake in the (non-) Ordination of Roman Catholic Women,” Cross-Currents 45 (1995): 359–67; De Troyer, “Blood: A Threat to Holiness or toward (Another) Holiness?” 45–47; Grietje Dresen, “The Better Blood: On Sacrificing and the Churching of New Mothers in the Roman Catholic Tradition,” in Wholly Woman, Holy Blood, 143–64; Anne-Marie Korte “Reclaiming Ritual: A Gendered Approach to Impurity,” in Purity and Holiness: The Heritage of Leviticus (ed. M. J. H. M. Poorthius and J. Schwartz; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 313–17 and the sources cited there.

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Miriam, like her brothers Moses and Aaron, is a Levite; she is descended from the same line. Miriam does not seem to be married, so that she remains a part of the family of Moses and Aaron and does not join the family of any husband. Due to her family ties, she is a recognized leader in the community, but her disobedience and impurity prevent her from doing the work of her priestly lineage. Although the impurity of skin disease is not a gendered impurity itself, it functions in this story to create cultic roles on the basis of gender. Only Miriam becomes impure and only Miriam is segregated from the community for it, whereas Aaron’s purity is never compromised, even though they have committed the same mistake.89 There is no logical rationale for Miriam’s sole punishment, but the story underscores the reality of her legacy in the cult: she is not a part of the priestly lineage in the same way as Moses and Aaron, she is a female, and she becomes impure while they do not. Impurity thus functions in part as a disqualification from authority, authority that in the priestly and holiness visions is never available to women of the Levitic line. This does not mean that men are not also excluded by impurity; in 2 Chr 26:19–21 King Uzziah becomes smitten with skin disease to show his lack of priestly authority in the temple. His impurity ultimately results in his inability to rule as a king, which shows that impurity can have the same function of disqualification for males (as well as disfigurement, see Chapter 2). However, in this story of foundational roles, impurity, especially as a result of overstepping religious authority, falls disproportionately on the female and results in her exclusion from the inherited masculine role of priest. The opposite of this passage is also the case: if Aaron were also to be excluded through impurity, he would be like a woman in the lineage, because, at least according to interpretive tradition, his impurity would prevent him from assuming the role of priest. The passage also illustrates the arbitrary nature of impurity: Miriam’s impurity could take any form. The importance of impurity lies in its ability to make disqualifying distinctions between brothers and sisters; in the story this can be accomplished through any form of impurity but for the systematic exclusion of women from the priestly line, the feat is more easily accomplished with sexual impurities.

corpse contamination: embracing the rejected The main text on corpse contamination, Num 19, was discussed in detail in the previous chapter where it was argued that the rite of the red cow is 89

See Susan Ackerman, “Why Is Miriam Also among the Prophets? (And Is Zipporah among the Priests?),” JBL 121 (2002), 80, who states that Miriam has a double guilt of misconstruing her authority (like Aaron) and overstepping the bounds of her gender.

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a means of actualizing the abstract concept of impurity so as to use it as a cultic tool for cleansing. The female cow with her blood is taken outside the camp and burned as an impure ritual substance. To express and cure their defilement, corpse-contaminated people literally cover themselves with this feminine substance made from the cow’s ashes. As they are relieved from the impurity of death, they wash themselves and in the process wash away their impurity. The process of creating the ashes is one of a “negative sacrifice” or an inverted sacrifice that operates differently than other sacrifices: in general a male animal is brought to the center of the camp, has its blood poured out there, and is treated as a sacred substance. The cow, in contrast, is led away from the camp, burned together with its blood and feces, and treated as a defiling substance that creates the waters of “impurity (niddˆa),” a term that in priestly writing otherwise exclusively refers to menstruation. Impurity, death, femininity, and distance from the sacrificial cult all become intertwined and combined in this rite. In her theory of pollution, Douglas argues that at some point purity systems are faced with the unwanted realities that their schema of the ideal cannot eradicate.90 That which has been rejected and excluded as defiled must be acknowledged lest the fact of its existence destroy the entire system. Ritual systems do not confuse these rejected elements with the pure – indeed they consistently classify them differently from the pure – but they do understand the impure to hold a great deal of power that can be harnessed and used for good. The rejected has the creative power to uphold and maintain the purity system itself because, in fact, it is the rejected that creates the system and its form by its own rejection. Most often, Douglas says, purity systems hold death as part of this creative impurity because it is that less-than-ideal reality that is always eventually present. Many systems at some point freely and wholly embrace death, and by doing so they both rob death of its ability to destroy and use its power to uphold the system. The rite of the red cow is an example of this embrace of the rejected so as to take its power and reinforce the ritual worldview. Indeed, the ritual contributes to the definitions of both sacrifice and purity. We have already seen that it is a negative counterpart to most sacrifice. As an inversion of sacrificial acts and materials, it helps define the form of sacrifice by showing its difference from that form. As a created tangible image and substance of impurity, we can see in the ashes what is rejected: death, dung, contagion, menstrual-type impurity, female blood, and indeed a fertile female body. Seeing pollution in material form brings both it and purity itself into bolder relief, but it also raises extremely difficult questions about the definition of 90

Purity and Danger, 160–80.

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the impure. What kind of power does it have? Does it defile or does it cleanse? Is it like life or like death? In addition, through the rite of the cow, impurities can be controlled and yet their power is harnessed: ultimately the power of death is used for the maintenance of social life. Because the rite includes femininity and fecundity in its concept of the impure, their inherent power as a part of this complex is also acknowledged and welcomed. Indeed it is this power that is circumscribed in the purity laws of menstruation, ejaculation, and childbirth and thus inversely acknowledged. However, although the rite of the cow both defines impurity and welcomes it, the laws of Lev 12 and 15 do not welcome that power nor do they attempt to use it; there it is shunned, rather than embraced. It should be noted that although a female is the means for expressing impurity, women do not have any role in the creation of this substance because only the priest and pure men (ʼˆıˇs; Num 19:9, 18) are involved in making and aspersing the solution. This rite therefore is an explicit attempt by males to control the power of this female body and to use it for the creation of their own superior form of manageable ritual impurity. Similarly, females are never allowed to construct or manage the defiling impurities from h.at..ta¯ ʼt rites of any kind, and women of the priestly line are never allowed to eat the holy but contagious flesh of the eaten h.at..ta¯ ʼt (Lev 6:29). Their restriction from these “sacred impurities” forms an inverse of sexual impurities, with which they have greater contact. However, like the impurities of skin disease and, for the most part, genital illness, death contamination seems to apply equally to ordinary men and women – both seem to become contaminated by it and seem to be contaminating in the same way (Num 19:13,14, 16).91 There is no need to make a distinction between male and female in this basic human context of death. The same is true with regard to nazirites (Num 6:2, 6–12); the special status of both male and female nazirites is undone by death impurity in the same way. Indeed, there is absolutely no ritual difference between male and female nazirites, at least as described in Num 6:1–21, and so their status is not undone by the impurity of sexuality but only by the gender-neutral impurities of death and, uniquely, contact with grape products. There is no need to create or underscore sex differences among nazirites because they have a nonhereditary form of sanctity. However, the high priest alone in the priestly line is 91

However, it could be the case that the entire law does not apply equally to women: v. 20 specifies that it is the man (ʼˆıˇs) who does not perform the rite of the ashes who will suffer the penalty of being cut off from the assembly. This puts in doubt women’s role in the entire ritual and the extent to which the wearing of ashes applies to her. The passage highlights the difficulty in ascertaining the role of women in biblical law and ritual.

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completely prohibited from coming into contact with death (Lev 21:10–11), differentiating him from all other men and women in his family and indeed his whole community. In this respect, death impurity has a feminizing element by which it causes a man to lose a specifically masculine authority or privilege. The rite of the red cow is a complicated ritual, but it lies at the heart of the sacrificial/impurity system. It illustrates how the concept of death is not an absolute, but is intertwined with profound ideas about gender and power. It is no wonder then that it has inspired a great deal of discussion and intrigue. As Douglas writes, rituals by which the rejected become accepted are “capable of inspiring a profound meditation on the nature of purity and impurity and on the limitation on human contemplation of existence.”92 Indeed the conundrum of the red cow has inspired such contemplation for millennia.

leviticus 15 Sexual impurity has at least two main functions: (1) to put controls on sexuality and reproduction to limit their potentially damaging effect on lineage and social order and (2) to create gender distinctions for the purpose of defining social roles. Although many interpreters have understood the sexual impurities of Lev 15 primarily in terms of the creation of life, its greater purpose is the creation and maintenance of basic gender difference, though these elements of course cannot be separated. Sexual and other genital emissions become the means for gender differentiation not only because they occur at the primary site of sexual distinction but also because of a fear that sexual behavior has the ability to obscure gender roles and ultimately other societal positions as well. Therefore, in sexuality, the lines between male and female must be carefully drawn.

Sexuality as Sickness The main text detailing the impurities of sexuality is Lev 15. The passage contains laws for various genital conditions that are defiling: abnormal male discharge, ejaculation, abnormal female blood discharge, and menstruation. The impurity of ejaculating semen requires ritual bathing and a waiting period of less than one day – one is unclean “until the evening.” A man becomes unclean from ejaculation in any context; in sexual intercourse, his partner also becomes unclean with the same restrictions (15:16, 18). A menstruating 92

Purity and Danger, 171.

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woman is unclean for seven days (15:19–23).93 Should a man have sex with her, so that her menstrual impurity (niddˆa) comes on him, he becomes unclean for seven days as well (15:24). In Lev 15, a woman who suffers from a flow of blood that is not menstrual (a z¯abˆa) is unclean for the entire period of the discharge plus an additional seven days (15:25–30). At the end of the seven days she brings sacrifices and is relieved of her impurity. Similarly, a man who has an abnormal genital discharge or stoppage is unclean for its duration plus seven days and brings the same offerings at the end of the seventh day (15:3–13).94 The passage discusses genital discharges in terms of two main concerns: gender and normalcy. These concerns are inherent in the structure of the passage. As Gordon Wenham shows, the chapter is symmetrical and forms a chiasm that addresses discharges through the categories of male and female, and normal and irregular.95 Verses 2–15 describe long-term and abnormal male discharges (A), vv. 16–18 describe the normal and transient impurity of male ejaculation (B), vv. 19–23 discuss the transient and short-term impurity of female menstruation (B`), and vv. 25–30 describe the long-term and abnormal female discharge of irregular blood (A`). According to Wenham, the structure AB-BA indicates the unity of the two sexes. The chiasm’s midpoint of v. 18, which describes intercourse, further underscores this unity because in intercourse the male and female come together.96 Some interpreters take 93

94

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96

For further studies on menstruation and its taboos, see the articles in Thomas Buckley and Alma Gottlieb, eds., Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988) and those in Etienne Van de Walle and Elisha O. Renne, eds., Regulating Menstruation: Beliefs, Practices, Interpretations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). See too Frank W. Young and Albert A. Bacdayan, “Menstrual Taboos and Social Rigidity,” Ethnology 4 (1965): 225–60. For menstruation in the Bible and in Judaism, see Esther Fuchs, “‘For I Have the Way of Women’: Deception, Gender, and Ideology in Biblical Narrative,” Semeia 42 (1988): 68–83; William Phipps, “The Menstrual Taboo in the Judeo-Christian Tradition,” Journal of Religion and Health 19 (1980): 298–303; Charlotte Elisheva von Robert, Menstrual Purity: Rabbinic and Christian Reconstructions of Biblical Gender (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000). For a further discussion of the relation of the laws of the z¯ab and z¯abˆa, see Ruane, “Bathing, Status and Gender in Priestly Ritual,” in A Question of Sex?: Gender and Difference in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (ed. Deborah W. Rooke; Hebrew Bible Monographs 14; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2007), 66–81. Wenham, Leviticus, 216–17. See also the similar structures proposed by R. K. Harrison, Leviticus: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale OT Commentaries; Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 1980), 159; Milgrom (Leviticus 1–16, 904–05); Richard Whitekettle (“Leviticus 15.18 Reconsidered: Chiasm, Spatial Structure and the Body,” JSOT 49 [1991]: 31–45), who expands on the role of v. 18 in the structure; Ballentine (Leviticus, Interpretation; Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1999, 118); and Philip (Menstruation and Childbirth, 47). Interestingly, Levine does not outline the chapter chiastically and in so doing does not describe menstruation as a normal discharge (Leviticus: The JPS Torah Commentary), 93. Wenham, Leviticus, 217.

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the symmetry of structure and content to be an indication that the author of the passage viewed men and women not just as one but as equal. For example, Deborah Ellens, with some changes to Wenham’s structure, deduces that “structural symmetry constitutes gender symmetry.”97 Part of her larger point is that the substance of semen, and not the act of sexual intercourse, is defiling; it is the presence of discharge that defiles.98 Thus for her the fact that the genital discharge of either men or women is defiling indicates an equality and symmetry, and therefore no subjugation in the form of these laws. To be sure, the structure of the passage does exhibit an understanding that the impurity of sexual function applies similarly to both sexes. This is especially so in the similarity of the laws of the z¯ab and z¯abˆa in which genital illness has a similar form and ritual consequences for both male and female.99 However, in the context of normal discharges, there is a far greater disparity between male and female impurities so that what is normal for women is a much more severe impurity than what is normal for men. Thus Ellens sees the passage as offering two opposing views of women: its structure gives an impression of equality between male and female, yet its content disparages female functions and exhibits gender inequity. The syntax, point of view, and vocabulary of the passage portray woman as “marginalized, objectified, and necessarily periodically unhealthy or dangerous.”100 Part of her argument is that the menstruant is described in v. 33 as “the sick one” (hadd¯avˆa), whereas normal ejaculation is never described as an illness. We can add to Ellens’ point that the seven-day period of impurity, as for the recovery from genital illness, causes menstruation to resemble illness as well as death in a way that ejaculation does not. Moreover, a woman’s “normal” discharge is of the same substance (i.e., blood), as her pathological discharge; women are only considered impure based on the blood that comes out of their genitals, and not any other substances, even those indicative of 97

98 99

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Ellens, “Menstrual Impurity and Innovation in Leviticus 15,” in Wholly Woman, Holy Blood, 35. Her essay includes critiques of the structures propounded by Milgrom and Whitekettle who argue that v. 18 is a middle element – a C in the chiasm – thus removing some of the gender symmetry. “Menstrual Impurity and Innovation in Leviticus 15,” 41. Although compared to the normal discharges the pathological discharges have a similar treatment for each sex, I have argued elsewhere that the laws for the z¯ab and z¯abˆa do have significant disparities that are related to their social roles. The laws of the z¯ab are far more extensive. Though most interpreters assume that all of them apply to the female as well, this is not necessarily so. Most clearly, it is not sure that the z¯abˆa must bathe, because women are not specifically required to bathe after either menstruation or childbirth, a fact that may reflect actual practice and not simply an omission on the part of the writer. See Ruane, “Bathing, Status and Gender in Priestly Ritual.” “Menstrual Impurity and Innovation in Leviticus 15,” 31–32.

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venereal or other disease. Therefore the stuff of normal female discharge is the same as female pathological discharge, with only time marking the difference between normal and abnormal. Furthermore, the state of the z¯abˆa is directly related to that of a menstruant (15: 24, 25), and in Lev 12:2 the short-term impurity of lochia is compared to that of menstruation. It appears that, for the writer, menstruation is the primary referent for female genital uncleanness, and the blood of parturition and reproductive infirmity are variations on this prototype. Thus, P again describes a woman’s impure illness only as an exaggeration of her normal condition. In contrast, as Ellens also points out, the irregular discharge of men does not seem to be the same substance as semen or, in any event, is never referred to by the term “seed” (zeraʻ), which is the name given to the substance of normal ejaculation.101 His illness is thus seen as different from his normal functioning. These features give the impression that a female’s normal genital fluid is more pathological and more like an illness than a male’s. Furthermore, male pathological impurity is treated similarly to all female impurity. As a result, his illness both feminizes him to a certain degree and pathologizes the normal state of a woman. Despite this imbalance, Lev 15 shows that all genital emissions – male, female, normal, and abnormal – should be understood together. I disagree, however, with the assumption that Ellens, Wenham, and other interpreters seem to make – that if male and female are somehow equal, this means that P understands menstruation and ejaculation to be positive. Ellens makes the contrast between a characterization of menstruation as normal (i.e., as symmetrical to ejaculation) and as pathological (i.e., a sickness), but this argument is based on the premise that ejaculation is not also understood to be a pathology of some kind. Indeed, that illness is an integral part of the structure of P’s understanding of genital discharge indicates that menstruation and ejaculation, though different from genital illness, are still like it. As Ellens points out, P calls menstruation an illness, which it is not. Although ejaculation is not described in this way, its comparison with these three other forms of discharge underscore that it too is in some way pathological. Thus, although it is true that P on the one hand presents menstruation as normal but on the other presents it as sickness, this contrast, this contradiction, is the dilemma of ritual impurity in general: it is simultaneously naturally occurring, but is also characterized as pathological and rejected, like death. Menstruation and ejaculation, as well as more severe forms of impurity, are indications of imperfection. 101

“Leviticus 15: Contrasting Conceptual Associations Regarding Women,” 147; Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 907.

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The gender ideas and norms in Lev 15 create negative images of the ideal person. For men, wholeness means not to ejaculate, not to “flow,” and not to touch or penetrate a menstruant.102 For women, it means not to menstruate, not to discharge blood at any time, not to give birth (adding Lev 12), and not to have ejaculatory sex with a man. It is most intriguing that the ideal cultic human body has little distinctive gender behaviors, so that to be whole (Douglas) or to be like the divine (Klawans) requires an abstention from not only the production of life but also from sex differences. The image of God here is like that in Gen 1 where it is both sexes, but this means that it is also neither sex.

Genital Substance versus Gender Role Lev 15 draws its gender distinctions through its discussion of genital substances. Some interpreters have understood the priestly concern to be solely related to the presence of these substances and thus to biology, rather than to any social importance of gender.103 Yet at points Lev 15 shows that sexual impurities are integrally related to gender over and above the presence of fluid. This is clear in the relationship of the presence of contaminating fluid to the timing of the impure period. Although genital impurity does generally accompany the presence of fluid, it does not strictly correlate with it. For example, the seven-day period of menstrual impurity does not correlate directly with the presence of menses: women do not regularly menstruate for exactly seven days. Later Judaism conflated the laws of the menstruant with the laws of the z¯abˆa, which do determine the length of impurity by the presence of fluid, so that the final seven days of impurity begin when the discharge has ended.104 Because the biblical seven days of impurity do not correlate specifically with the ongoing presence of menses, it cannot only be this substance that is the reason for the impurity. Moreover, because the period of impurity begins with the onset of menses and lasts for seven days regardless of the duration of actual menses (unless it exceeds seven days, making her a z¯abˆa), it seems that its onset, and thus the very fact of menstruation, is the concern. In addition, another person becomes impure by touching a menstruant (v. 19), 102

103 104

Note Stowers’ assessment that in Greek religion sex and ejaculation are impure because, from the moment of ejaculation until the time that a father can officially bring his son into his lineage, the father’s seed is no longer under his own control but is given over to a woman (“Greeks Who Sacrifice and Those Who Do Not: Toward an Anthropology of Greek Religion,” 310). E.g., Ellens, “Menstrual Impurity and Innovation in Leviticus 15,” 41; Philip, Menstruation and Childbirth, 52. For discussion, see Shaye Cohen, “Menstruants and the Sacred,” 277–78.

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even without directly contacting the menstrual blood, so that it is the fact of her menstruation and not the stuff of it that is primarily problematic, though the substance too is defiling. The law concerning sex with a menstruant in v. 24, in which the man who engages in such sex becomes impure in the same manner as a menstruant, also shows a distinction between the presence of a substance and its ritual impurity. Although the man himself does not create menses for seven days and does not even have contact with it for all of the seven days, he nonetheless becomes unclean in the exact same manner as a menstruant. Interpreters such as Ellens and Wenham similarly assert that, in Lev 12, it is the presence of discharge that makes a new mother unclean.105 However, as with menstruation, the blood of lochia only loosely correlates with the period of impurity after childbirth because postpartum bleeding does not last for exactly forty or eighty days. Moreover, there is absolutely no evidence that the mother of a girl bleeds for longer than the mother of a boy; the doubled period of impurity for the birth of a girl is tied to the gender of the child, not a biological substance.106 In addition, in contrast to the laws of menstruation and ejaculation, the impurity of the z¯ab and z¯abˆa is more strictly based on the presence of defiling substances, though male impurity may also be caused by a stoppage in the penis (15:3). The period of recovery from these ailments begins after the defiling event has ceased (i.e., after the discharge has finished or after the stoppage has ended). The seven days of impurity, as for skin disease, begin when the physical cause of the impurity has gone. In contrast, the recovery from menstruation, ejaculation, and childbirth begin after the initial event, even though discharge is still present. By analogy, then, the nonpathological events of ejaculation, menstruation, and childbirth are primarily defiling, not the presence of discharge, but the discharge acts as a symbol or perhaps even a physical manifestation of these defiling events. For this reason, it does not strictly matter whether the substance is present because it is not the substance itself that is the initial cause of the impurity. Obviously, the genital actions of ejaculation, menstruation, and childbearing, as well as the substances they produce, are gender specific. The priestly construction characterizes these male and female substances as even more 105

106

Ellens, “Leviticus 15: Contrasting Conceptual Associations Regarding Women,” 140; Wenham, Leviticus, 188; David P. Wright and Richard N. Jones, “Discharge,” ABD II, 205; Allan P. Ross, Holiness to the LORD: A Guide to the Exposition of the Book of Leviticus (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2002), 267; R. K. Harrison, Leviticus: An Introduction and Commentary, 134. R. Whitekettle, “Levitical Thought and the Female Reproductive Cycle: Wombs, Wellsprings, and the Primeval World,” VT 46 (1996): 377; “Leviticus 12 and the Israelite Woman: Ritual Process, Liminality and the Womb,” ZAW 107 (1995): 395–97.

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highly gendered than they might objectively seem to be because, for P, blood from a penis is not defiling, nor is a vaginal substance other than blood (or even the blood of virginity). In Lev 15, P constructs somewhat arbitrary sexspecific substances to correlate to these important sex-specific events. The fluid is not really the problematic element, rather the distinction between male and female is the true importance; the labeling of certain substances is merely the means of making the distinction. Impurity thus calls attention to these specificities to show how the sexes are different and to protect those differences.

Menstrual Sex and the Contagion of Gender One of the Bible’s greatest concerns regarding genital impurities is the possibility of male sexual intercourse with a menstruant. As mentioned, Lev 15 (P) discusses sex with a menstruant in terms of its ritual consequence, which, for P, is a seven-day impurity that is almost exactly like that of a menstruant herself: the man who has intercourse with a menstruant becomes unclean for seven days and anything on which he sits also becomes unclean (15:24). Like a menstruant, he is also not said to bathe at the end of his impurity.107 Prohibitions on menstrual sex are also legislated by the holiness writer; indeed it is only this aspect of menstruation that is a concern for H. These laws appear in Lev 18 and 20, which include mostly “moral” laws regarding incest, other illicit sexual acts, and child sacrifice. There sex with a menstruant is strictly forbidden and punishable by k¯ar¯et – most likely the extirpation of one’s lineage from the community (18:19; 20:18). The prophet Ezekiel also considers it a moral sin (18:6; 22:10). The fact that restrictions on menstrual sex appear in both ritual and moral contexts shows, first, that these two contexts ultimately cannot be separated and, second, that whatever the nature of the problem with menstrual sex it represents something deeply engrained in the worldview of these authors. In Lev 15, the impurity of sex with a menstruant is placed in the text as parallel to the impurity of a woman having intercourse with a man (v. 18). These two cases outline the effects of intercourse with a bearer of a normal genital emission. By virtue of his discharge of semen, a man makes a woman impure just as he is – for one day with bathing required. Sex with a menstruant does the same: her genital substance makes a man impure in the same manner as she – for seven days of contamination with no bathing

107

See Ruane, “Bathing, Status and Gender in Priestly Ritual,” 73–79.

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required.108 The gender-specific impurities of ejaculation and menstruation thus become contagious and have the power to treat the opposite sex, at least cultically, in the same way as the source. This reciprocity of sex-specific status illustrates a fundamental aspect of P’s understanding of intercourse that makes it different from merely touching: in intercourse, the distinction between male and female can become blurred and undermined. Females can take on a specifically male impurity, and males can take on a female impurity, so that gender itself can become contagious, if you will. Although this confusion is problematic for P, it is not catastrophic; P gives the ritual prescriptions to allow this contagion to be undone and for gender lines to be returned to normal. For H, such a recovery is not a possibility; sex with a menstruant cannot be ritually undone. In Lev 18 and 20 the prohibition appears in the context of a number of laws against sexual acts that have no ritual remedy. Most of these acts can also confuse social roles: incest complicates genealogical lines, and bestiality obscures the boundaries between human and animal. Male homosexuality in particular is an offense against gender roles because it causes a man to behave like a woman: it is to “lie down with a male the lying down of a woman” (yiˇskab ʼet-z¯ak¯ar miˇsk˘ebȇ ʼiˇsˇsaˆ ; 20:13; cf. 18:22). This same logic may apply to sex with a menstruant: to engage in intercourse with a menstruating woman is to ignore one of the primary means by which a woman is different from a man. It is disregarding gender distinction and separation in one of its most fundamental forms. As such it is a violation of this primary structure of society. And so for H, a man may not take on an impurity that makes him like a female and be able to recover from it. Furthermore, the logic of Lev 18 and 20 is centered around a concern to preserve the “seed” of men.109 Seed may not go into unproductive places, such as a man or an animal. By this logic, a menstruant is also an unproductive place.110 It is unclear whether the holiness writer understood that it is difficult for a woman to become pregnant during menstruation. If it is the case that H understood menstruation to be a time of relative infertility, he would also understand it to be a time of sex for pleasure alone, like homosexual relations and bestiality. Further, it would be a time for pleasure alone not only for men, but especially for women, who would be free from the threat of pregnancy. A woman who engages in sex solely for pleasure is a threat to a society based on paternal genealogy, particularly if she is not pregnant or postmenopausal. She may cause anxiety and arouse suspicion. She may be feared as being lustful, 108 109 110

Ibid., 78–79. Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, 1567. Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism, 183; Biale, Eros and the Jews, 29.

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immoral, deceitful, and, by disobeying divine rules, idolatrous. Thus Ezekiel says, Human, the house of Israel lived on their land, but they made it unclean with their ways and their deeds; like the uncleanness of a menstruant were their ways before me. So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood that they had poured out upon the land, and defiling it with their idols. (36:17–18)

In Ezekiel’s image, a menstruant behaves autonomously, doing what she wants, not what she should do; she is in an uncontrolled state. Therefore, a menstruous woman easily provokes anxiety over women’s generally ambiguous nature. Her sexuality should be under male control (as property), but because she is menstruating and not pregnant, control over her sexuality is unsure, thereby raising concern about her status and fear of her ability to act sexually autonomously (as a person). And so for Ezekiel the menstruant comes to represent both the physical filth of unavoidable ritual impurity and the moral abomination of those who degrade the rules of society and religion; the blood of menstruation becomes conflated with the blood of violence that results from immorality and flouting religious ideals. Intercourse with a menstruant implicitly relinquishes control over female fertility and thereby disregards the fundamental view of the roles of both men and women in society.

 in sum, lev 15 is structured to emphasize and control the differences between the two sexes. It is not primarily focused on the impurity of intercourse per se, but on those phenomena that relate specifically to each sex. As such, distinction and separation are its main concern, and less so the creation of life. For both genders, the very fact of their difference is problematically human, like death and illness. However, female impurities are disproportionately longer, more severe, and more pathological than male impurities. This difference in severity contributes to and reinforces the social disparities between male and female. Outside of P, the separation of genders is also a more important concern than procreation per se; this is the case in the nonpriestly text of Exod 19:15, where, in preparation for the revelation at Sinai, Moses says, “Prepare for the third day: do not go near a woman.” Impurity for men has a contagious feminizing element that threatens their position in society and their status as men. Outside of the legal texts, the priestly writer describes both sexes together as the image of God, and yet having only one gender, for P, is the second most

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fundamental aspect of human identity: “male and female he created them.” The loss of distinctive gender is an obliteration of one’s very personhood, and so in its genital purity laws, P outlines a means of distinguishing the sexes in their most fundamental, biological forms. Yet although the maintenance of these boundaries is of utmost importance, the very fact of sexual difference is also profoundly human in that it is not ideal, and so it is kept from the sacred.

childbirth The physical disparity between male and female is no more pronounced than in the act of childbirth. There is no direct male counterpart to birth, either in nature or in biblical law, as there is to menstruation. It is also in childbirth where the ambiguous or contradictory status of women is most pronounced: then the female is in her most uncontrollable, most corporeal, most natural state. Childbirth is also a realm where males have no place and where control over women is most irrelevant and unsure. Therefore, it is in childbirth where the social power of ritual most needs to be asserted for society to manage potential female power. The impurity surrounding childbirth exposes the mechanism of the entire patrilineal system: babies come from their mothers, who are not a part of the male lineage, but babies are desired for a male lineage and in some way must be taken from the mother. To understand the child as belonging to the father and not the mother, the mother’s role and power in its creation must be classified as negative and contradictory to the ideal. Doing so requires an emphasis on the mother’s difference from a man; otherwise she might have a legitimate genealogical relationship with the child. Thus, in this situation, a woman must be characterized more as a resource and less as a person with legitimate claims. The mother becomes temporarily wild, nature-like, uncultured, and separate from society. By defining her in this way, she resembles an animal, who is a commodity and whose offspring can be taken from her. Yet, as with mother animals, this power to take from her is not unequivocal and must be negotiated. Should she agree to give up her claim, she is no longer viewed as a resource and reenters society in a substantially elevated role. This systematic relinquishing of her maternal right to the child secures well-being for both society and her offspring: in biblical laws, a bastard, a child who “belongs” to its mother, has no social or cultic role (Deut 23:2 [3]) and is potentially dangerous to society and religion (Lev 24:10–23). The impurity laws of the parturient in Lev 12, which include the severe impurity of childbirth, the doubled length of impurity for the mother of a

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female child, and the relationship of circumcision to the mother’s impurity – illustrate this anxiety over women as mothers. The purity and sacrificial laws of Lev 12 are most interesting because they negotiate the ways in which a mother is and is not a part of the sacrificing community. The laws closely legislate the terms under which a woman can and cannot participate in the sacrificial cult and, in doing so, distinguish the character of woman as a new mother from that of her normal state. The laws also point to the relationship between the mother and the child as a problematic element of her character. Further, the passage shows how ritual enables the child to be redefined in relation to its physical connection to the mother. In an earlier chapter I discussed sacrificial laws pertaining to mother animals and showed that their function is to sort out the details of separating these mothers from the sacrificial cult, as well as from the physical materials that they produce. Lev 12 serves largely the same function.

The Greatest Impurity As shown earlier, many theories of biblical pollution describe death as the greatest impurity; they are based on how death is manifest in other impurities. However, death is not necessarily the greatest impurity. Most scholarly discussions of impurity grade the various impurities by the amount of time required for recovery: a lesser impurity such as ejaculation requires one day or less for recovery, whereas recovery from a greater impurity, such as after touching a corpse, requires seven days.111 By this criterion of recovery time alone, childbirth is the most severe of impurities: if a woman gives birth to a male child she becomes impure for seven days plus a less restrictive period of thirty-three days.112 During this second stage a woman is probably not contagious to other people or common things, but she is proscribed from sacrificial worship and therefore from ritual food.113

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See, e.g., Wright “Unclean and Clean (OT),” 729–30. Wright also shows that a parturient has the longest fixed impurity (737). By the criterion of cost for recovery, the mother has the most valuable offering of all physical impurities, save for the skin diseases. She brings a lamb and a bird (12:6), whereas the z¯ab and z¯abˆa bring two birds (15:14–15, 29–30), though she may bring two birds as well if she cannot afford the lamb (12:8). Those with skin disease must bring three lambs, flour, and oil (14:10), or one lamb, two birds, oil, and flour (14:21–22), as well as two birds for the earlier purification rite (14:2). All other physical impurities do not require offerings. Olyan rightly points out that, although the text emphasizes the two different stages of impurity, it does not make clear exactly how those stages are different or how the woman’s behavior should change (Rites and Rank, 54). See also Philip, Menstruation and Childbirth in the Bible, 115.

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However, if the birth of a boy gives rise to a greater impurity than all others, then the birth of a girl far outweighs even that: if a woman bears a girl she is severely impure for an initial fourteen days followed by sixty-six days of separation from the sanctuary, resulting in a doubled impure period. By the criterion of time, the birth of a girl is by far the greatest impurity of all.114 A number of fascinating proposals have been made to explain this discrepancy in time based on the gender of the child.115 Some are very practical, such as Gruber’s theory that the extra time is meant to discourage mothers from stopping breastfeeding too early in an attempt to become pregnant again when the mother is disappointed by not having a son.116 Jonathan Magonet has proposed that the longer impurity for a girl is due to the fact that infant girls often have a bloody vaginal discharge soon after birth. Because the newborn cannot be held cultically responsible for her own female blood, the mother takes on her cultic responsibility, resulting in the doubled period.117 Other proposals include the notion that in antiquity girls were thought to take longer to form in the womb than boys, that the mother’s body takes longer to heal after the birth of a daughter, or that giving birth to a daughter is twice as difficult.118 Another proposal comes from a pseudo-scientific study showing that a parturient has more “toxins” in her body after the birth of a girl, thereby causing a longer duration of lochia.119 Other suggestions see the disparity in more ideological or symbolic terms. For example, Wenham suggests, “Possibly there may be some reflexion [sic] on the relative status of the sexes in ancient Israel. For example, the redemption price of women is about half of that of men (Lev 27:2–7).”120 Kristin de Troyer suggests that the 114 115

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Milgrom argues that Lev 12 is textually placed as the first human impurity because birth incurs the longest impurity (Leviticus 1–16, 743). See also Philip, Menstruation and Childbirth, 116–19. For interpretations of the chapter throughout history see Linda S. Schearing, “Double Time . . . Double Trouble?: Gender, Sin, and Leviticus 12,” in The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception (ed. Rolf Rendtorff and Robert A. Kugler; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 429–50. Gruber, “Breastfeeding Practices in Biblical Israel and in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia,” 68. Jonathan Magonet, “‘But if it Is a Girl, She Is Unclean for Twice Seven Days . . . ’: The Riddle of Leviticus 12:5,” in Reading Leviticus: A Conversation with Mary Douglas (ed. John F. A. Sawyer; JSOTSup 227; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 144–52. Wenham, Leviticus, 188; Dillman, 506; Gerard Rouwhorst, “Leviticus 12–15 in Early Christianity,” in Purity and Holiness (ed. M. J. H. M. Poorthius and J. Schwartz), 192; Noordtzij, 131; A. T. Chapman and A. W. Streane, The Book of Leviticus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914), 67. Levine and Beer cite the Ramban as holding this belief (Leviticus, 250: “Blood Discharge,” 160–61). For a survey of Rabbinic views on this topic see Yehuda Nachsoni, Studies in the Weekly Parashah Volume III: Vayikra (trans. Shmuel Himelstein; Brooklyn: Mesorah, 1988), 715–17 and Linda S. Schearing, “Double Time . . . Double Trouble?: Gender, Sin, and Leviticus 12.” David I. Macht, “A Scientific Appreciation of Leviticus 12:1–5,” JBL 52 (1933): 253–60. Wenham, Leviticus, 188. Cf. Hartley, Leviticus, 168.

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doubled period of impurity is due to a desire to keep a difference between Israelite religion and other polytheistic religions that would worship female gods in the course of praising a birth and a new mother.121 Noth states that the doubled period clearly expresses the “cultic inferiority of the female sex.”122 These social explanations seem more accurate.123 The text shows rather clearly that any impurity coming from birth is the mother’s alone. There is no indication that the child is impure in any way.124 The gender of the child affects the status of the mother not because the child is impure, but because it defines the mother herself, who is now either the mother of a daughter or the mother of a son. As De Troyer writes, “[T]he mother who just gave birth to a baby girl is more dangerous to God than the one who gave birth to a boy.”125 De Troyer thinks that this is the case because the baby girl represents the female capability to create more life. This concept might be stated in another way: the daughter causes a greater impurity because she will have the ability to create life for a different family and because of it she will remain in a peripheral status in her current community. As a girl in a patrilineal culture, she has an ambiguous familial role. Like her mother, she will remain a part but not a part of her family and societal group. Therefore she does not have a circumcision, which would definitively mark her as a member of society.126 Furthermore, the relationship of mother and daughter is problematic for P because it presents the negative counterpart to that of fathers birthing sons; that is, it is a matrilineal relationship, the diametric opposite of patrilineage. In the priestly view of the world, mothers giving birth to daughters incur the severest impurity of all; they are deathlike because they represent the greatest death of all – that of structured society. If we understand the continuation of the male patrilineage, the ritually constructed line from father to son, as the basic image of the priestly understanding of “life,” then it becomes clear that mothers of daughters are antithetical to the maintenance of that life.127

121 122 123 124 125 126

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De Troyer, “Blood: A Threat to Holiness or toward (Another) Holiness?” 56–57. Noth, Leviticus, 97. Contra Philip, Menstruation and Childbirth, 117–18. Wright and Jones, “Discharge,” ABD II: 205; Ross, Holiness to the LORD, 266, 270. Contra Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism, 174. DeTroyer, “Blood: A Threat to Holiness or toward (Another) Holiness?” 55. On the question of female “circumcision” in Judaism, see Shaye Cohen, Why Aren’t Jewish Women Circumcised?: Gender and Covenant in Judaism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 55–66. See similarly Gerstenberger, who hints toward this idea in his statement that the double period of impurity for the birth of a girl is “because this female newborn represented a doubled antipower to the (male?) element of the sacred” (Leviticus, 153).

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Although a newborn child itself does not become impure, the disparity of impurity depending on the gender of offspring marks the distinction between male and female children from the moment they are born. As with Miriam, the greater impurity comes with the female just because she is a female and not for any other apparent reason but to show her difference from her brothers.

Circumcision Some interpreters have understood the shorter period of impurity for the birth of a boy to be related to the boy’s circumcision on the eighth day after birth discussed in Lev 12:3.128 Somehow the circumcision intercedes in the mother’s impurity and shortens it. Unfortunately, the text does not explicitly describe the relationship between the mother’s impurity and the boy’s circumcision. There is some thought that originally the mother performed the circumcision or could perform it, because the agent of the circumcision is not specified in 12:3 and the story of Zipporah performing a circumcision on her son may indicate such a tradition (Exod 4:25).129 This possibility cannot be proven, but the Exodus text shows that there are a variety of biblical ideas about circumcision in the Bible, because otherwise men perform the act (Gen 17:23; 21:4; Josh 5:3, 7). In any event, there is no evidence that circumcision directly changes the mother’s state.130 However, because in this passage the procedure appears in the midst of the laws on birth – in fact, it interrupts them – it would seem that there is a relationship between the ritual of circumcision and the ritual impurity of the mother. To understand this relationship, it is helpful to look to the parallel rite of the male baby animal, which stays with its mother for the first seven days of its life but then also undergoes a ritual cutting, that of sacrifice (Exod 22:30 [29]; Lev 22:27).131 In Chapter 3 we saw that an animal must stay with its mother for a week. During that time the baby is under her protection, but after the seventh day it can or must become a sacrificial animal. The same principle seems at work in Lev 12: for seven days the male child stays in the female realm, but is not yet a cultically viable creature. In this period he belongs to 128

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See, e.g., Nachsoni, Studies in the Weekly Parashah Volume III: Vayikra, 716–17; Milgrom cites Hoffman and Shadal as having this view (Leviticus 1–16, 744). For discussion of circumcision in this text see Philip, Menstruation and Childbirth in the Bible, 116. Archer, “Bound by Blood: Circumcision and Menstrual Taboo in Post-Exilic Judaism,” 53; “‘In Thy Blood Live’,” 39; Vos, Woman in Old Testament Worship, 60. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 744. Cf. Eilberg-Schwartz (The Savage in Judaism, 175), who compares the same two laws but with different results.

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his mother; no one else can make a claim on him.132 He does not yet bear the male mark of the covenant and is not yet a part of the male community. He is like a female. After the eighth day, however, the boy no longer is like his mother. He has the mark that differentiates him from her and that includes him in the sacrificing community.133 Although the law of circumcision does not directly affect the mother, it does help clarify the relationship among the mother, the son, and the cult. The son has fairly immediate access to the cult, whereas the mother temporarily does not. The son is claimed by the sacred, whereas the mother is temporarily shunned by it.134 The child no longer “belongs” to the mother but to the cultic community. Thus like the laws of mother animals, Lev 12 details the cultic separation of the offspring from the mother. The law also helps further define the nature of sons and daughters. The son belongs to the cultic realm after the first week of his life. The daughter has no comparable procedure to join it and remains in the mother’s realm, just as the son might were he not circumcised. Therefore, although the law of the parturient aids in the gender construction of the daughter, it also creates that for the son: it shows him to be different from his sister. The cut definitively signifies his maleness and separates him from the female in this time of female power.

Sacrifice, Purity, and the Personhood of Mothers Nancy Jay argues that childbearing women are always separated from sacrificial practice. As mentioned, this is not exactly the case in the priestly system. In fact, the only time in the life of a healthy woman that she must sacrifice is as part of childbearing. Her sacrifices at the end of her impurity reintegrate her into the sacrificial community and undo her danger to it. It is vital that she come back into the community because her “otherness” in impurity would eventually undermine its control over her. By bringing the required sacrifices the mother implicitly agrees to the arrangement imposed on her: she 132 133

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Compare Gen 21:8 where a male child is welcomed into society by his father on the day of his weaning. On the exclusionary nature of circumcision, see Shaye Cohen, “Why Aren’t Jewish Women Circumcised?” in Gender and the Body in the Ancient Mediterranean (ed. Maria Wyke; Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 136–54; idem. Why Aren’t Jewish Women Circumcised?: Gender and Covenant in Judaism; Archer, “Bound by Blood: Circumcision and Menstrual Taboo in Post-Exilic Judaism”; Archer, “‘In Thy Blood Live’,” 22–49. For an interpretation of circumcision in priestly thought, see Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism, chapter 6. Archer notes that this structure especially contrasts the positive male blood of circumcision with the negative female genital blood and serves as an important means of gender creation (“‘In Thy Blood Live’,” 35–36, 39).

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acknowledges her impurity, her otherness, and by extension the illegitimacy of her claim to her offspring. Once this is completed, she rejoins the community and her personhood within it. Indeed, her act of sacrifice shows her now to be a person of great cultic consequence. Sacrifice and purity together highlight this dangerous period for society and offer its remedy. Some interpreters have proposed that Lev 12 is a rite of passage to demarcate a woman’s entrance into motherhood.135 Indeed, with the birth of a first child, a woman would be separated from the community to reemerge with the new social status as mother. However, the law in Lev 12 applies to all births, not just a first birth. Instead, the rite demarcates the end of the mother’s natural parenthood to each child and the beginning of her social motherhood to it. Various commentators have mentioned that childbirth was the main purpose and function for women in the ancient world. It is inconceivable, they say, that childbirth would be thought of as in any way sinful or wrong, because it is specifically prescribed and desired and is natural.136 However, we again come to the dilemma of impurity: what is natural and needed is not necessarily good. Just as burying a corpse is natural and necessary it is less than ideal and thus causes impurity. So birth by a woman is less than ideal and incurs the most severe form of impurity. Indeed, the fact that it causes the greatest threat to the sacred indicates how profound an issue paternity, patrilineality, and reproduction are for the priestly writer.

conclusion: purity, gender, and sacrifice The concept of ritual purity is one means by which sacrifice creates its hierarchical distinctions. Ritual purity effects many of the same gender differences for people that sacrificial laws do for animals. We can make the following

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E.g., Whitekettle, “Leviticus 12 and the Israelite Woman.” E.g., Frymer-Kensky, “Pollution, Purification and Purgation,” 403; Wright, “Unclean and Clean (OT),” ABD VI, 730; Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism, 24–25. Interestingly, Ross points to the abnormal nature of women in birth, suggesting that although birth is necessary the states of pregnancy and birth are not “healthy” because they are overly “earthy” and “physical” (Holiness to the LORD, 267, 269). Similarly, Hartley suggests that the reason the mother is impure is because she has managed to enable the human race to live forever, thus violating the principle, given in the Garden of Eden, that humans should not be immortal. According to Hartley, the mother’s impurity disallows her “to exalt herself as divine in her great accomplishment” (Leviticus, Word Biblical Commentary; Dallas, TX: Word, 1992, 169). In other words, according to Hartley, a new mother required a ritual act to socially and theologically recontextualize her experience of achievement. Cf. Bonar, A Commentary on the Book of Leviticus, 229–30.

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conclusions about the similar treatments of humans and animals in the sacrificial/purity system: 1. Both the sacrificial system and the purity system are highly concerned with the sex of their participants. Sacrificial victims almost always are prescribed or allowed based on their sex. The purity laws detail the differences between male and female and monitor the role of each in the sacrificial cult. 2. Both the purity regulations and sacrificial practice problematize the character of the new mother and exclude her from the sacrificial cult. Mother animals are excluded in certain ritual laws without explanation, but new human mothers, like other problematic people, are excluded based on their impurity. Similarly, both the purity and sacrificial laws negotiate the mother’s reentrance to the cult after the immediate time of birth. Both the mother animal and the mother human are excluded so that their offspring may be separated from them and come under the control of the sacrificing community. 3. Sexual intercourse is strictly separated from cultic worship. Among humans, sexual relations are polarized from the sacred by their impurity. We may assume that the sexual acts of animals are not a concern in part because they are physically controlled in the secular world. As discussed, control over breeding is the definitive mark of a domesticated animal. Because the sexual acts of human beings are not completely controlled by society, the purity system brings the force of the divine as a threat against any impropriety. 4. Purity and sacrifice together conflate femininity, and specifically female reproductive power, with death. The purity system implicitly relates sexuality with death and disease, if only by virtue of the fact that they are all impure. The rite of the red cow explicitly relates the outsider, unclean female with death. The sexual and reproductive aspects of human impurity underscore the focus on lineage by sacrificial systems in general. If Jonathan Z. Smith is correct, sacrifice is an outgrowth of the human control over the reproduction of animals. The sexuality of human beings cannot be so firmly controlled because that would require exerting sheer force over all men and women, which is nearly impossible. The uncertainty and uncontrollability of human sexuality provoke anxiety for societies, especially those dependent on lineage for the structured allocation of resources. The purity system attempts to effect control over sexuality and reproduction, where society cannot directly implement it, by bringing the acts of reproduction into a series of rituals

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that make it socially approved. Not to comply brings the weight of the divine against the dissenter. This socialization of reproduction works to “domesticate” the reproduction of human beings. For animals, uncontrolled sexuality and reproduction are, literally, wild. With regard to domesticated animals, however, their breeding is controlled, and thus animals are not deemed impure based on their sexuality except for cases where their breeding grossly violates ideological classifications, such as bestiality (Lev 18:23; 20:15–16) or the interbreeding of species (Lev 19:19). Just as with domesticated animals, “domesticated” people, properly socialized people, are in control of their reproduction and, by extension, their lineage and their place in society. Although purity restrictions apply to both males and females, restrictions on females are more severe because as both members and nonmembers of a patrilineal line, they are the pores in this line that could destroy it. Their sexual and reproductive behavior is dangerous to males who would control it and for the society that depends on it. For both human and animal females, prolonged reproductive activity excludes them from sacrifice far more often than males. In the case of women, their reproduction becomes attached to a temporary characterization as something other than ideally human that can be controlled. Behind the detailed ritual restrictions of mother animals and mother humans lie careful negotiations of how these females are different from, and the same as, others of their kind and how the fruits of their reproductive difference can be appropriated. Although the priestly purity/sacrificial system characterizes sexuality as negative, it is, of course, essential for the production of life. Indeed, arguably the most positive biblical texts on human reproduction are the divine exhortations by the priestly writer himself to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:22; 8:17; 9:1, 7). For P, sexuality is “good” and yet it is fraught with danger; sexuality and reproduction are thus an uneasy blessing. They can wreak havoc on societal and economic systems and so require vigilance. Nevertheless, sexuality is good, outside of sacrificial practice, yet is an impurity within. In this sense it may be compared with the role of milk in a sacrificial context: the land of Israel is a land “flowing with milk and honey,” yet milk is separated from sacrificial symbolism. On a literal level, both milk and reproduction are good and are the subsistence of life. But in the symbolism of sacrifice, which creates and reflects patrilineal social structure, they are dangerous. The purity laws in Lev 12–15 and Num 19 outline ways in which the human body, on its most fundamental and biological levels, contains imperfections that show it to be less than ideal. This imperfection is readily apparent in the understandably undesirable conditions of death and skin disease, but is

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harder for us to see in the natural and, from our standpoint, nonpathological conditions of ejaculation, menstruation, and childbirth. From our perspective the natural may be good, but this is not necessarily so from the perspective of the priestly writer for whom what is natural and necessary is not necessarily nonpathological.137 From this perspective, the obviously undesirable, such as death and disease, are classified together with the more ambiguously undesirable, such as ejaculation or giving birth, and become problematized more concretely so these arbitrary elements can become decisively redefined. This reclassification contributes to and comes from a worldview in which the unnatural takes precedence over the natural, and the social over the biological, in the service of preserving society and culture. The priestly writer has chosen to redefine and incorporate a great many aspects of the world into his viewpoint, but not all. Those that are of gravest concern are death, birth, skin disease, and some genital discharges. The priestly writer equates these disparate and somewhat arbitrary elements, which modern scholars struggle to connect, to redefine the more ambiguous aspects of biology that interfere with the functioning of society. For this reason the purity system does not have death impurity as its sole foundation and purpose, but uses death and illness as a means of pointing out the problematic nature of birth and other phenomena, including gender distinctiveness itself. When birth becomes associated with death it is redefined as negative and robbed of its positive power. In the same way, in the classification of healthy genital discharges together with abnormal genital discharges, the system undermines them and redefines them as pathological. Furthermore, in P’s process of redefinition and worldview construction, gender distinction is not only a concern to be defined but also becomes a means of this reconstruction. Female birth becomes associated with death by its impurity, but death becomes symbolically female. Impure skin disease resembles death, but this death clings to those who challenge authority.

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Note, however, that even some scholars with gender awareness use a language of illness to describe normal female functions. For instance, Richard Whitekettle in his work consistently refers to a menstruating or postpartum womb as “dysfunctional” when in fact the womb is performing its function perfectly (Whitekettle, “Levitical Thought and the Female Reproductive Cycle: Wombs, Wellsprings, and the Primeval World”).

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 Fathers and Firstlings: The Gendered Rhetoric of Child Sacrifice

introduction In Gen 22, God calls out to Abraham, the “father” (ʼ¯ab) of biblical religion, and tells him, “Take your son, your only one, whom you love – Isaac – and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him up there as a burnt offering (‘ˆolˆa) upon one of the mountains that I will show you” (22:2). This story of the ‘˘aq¯edˆa, or “binding” of Isaac, has been held up as the paradigm of faith throughout Judaism and Christianity. Abraham dramatically shows his devout obedience by bringing Isaac to the mountain and preparing an altar. Just as he is about to slaughter Isaac, Yahweh stops him and rewards his devotion with the promise of land, progeny, and wealth. Instead of offering his son, Abraham sacrifices a ram that appears in a nearby thicket; the son becomes heir to Abraham’s blessing and lineage. Despite the wording of this text, however, Isaac is not actually Abraham’s “only” son; Ishmael is Abraham’s eldest son by the slave Hagar. As the story of Abraham has unfolded, it is clear that Ishmael will not become Abraham’s spiritual and economic heir. Although Ishmael will go on to enjoy his own wealth and progeny, it is Isaac, the divinely selected sacrificial victim, who will be the true heir of the father. Although there are many aspects of Isaac’s character that make him the chosen heir – Abraham’s wife Sarah is his mother, his divinely foretold birth, and its miraculous nature given his parents’ old age and his mother’s barrenness – in the narrative this act of child sacrifice is the finale of the process of establishing Isaac’s genealogical position. In ch. 21, Ishmael has been cast out of his family and never again returns to it; instead he marries into his mother’s Egyptian family. Now the process of establishing Isaac as heir can reach its conclusion: because Abraham is willing to offer Isaac, God can confirm both Abraham and Isaac as the proper inheritors of the covenant and the land of Israel. 194

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The story of the ‘˘aq¯edˆa illustrates some of the themes of animal sacrifice discussed to this point. The passage shows that animal sacrifice is intertwined with the construction of patrilineal lines of inheritance because it is ultimately the animal that is sacrificed and not the son, and this substitute sacrifice completes the process by which the line between them is affirmed. It illustrates the ability of ritual to create social relationships that supersede biological relationships: Isaac can now be an “only” (y¯ah.ˆıd) son, even though he technically has an older brother.1 It also underscores the function of joining males together apart from mothers because Sarah is not a part of this scene even though Isaac is more literally her “only” beloved son.2 However, with this story of the near sacrifice of Isaac comes the frightening realization that human beings might participate in sacrifice not just as offerers and officiants, but as victims, and that this option is in some ways supported by the same religious ideologies that undergird rites of animal sacrifice. Indeed, in biblical law the sacrifice of the human firstborn is presented as just one form of the larger set of offerings for firstborn sacrificial animals and first fruits. These laws are discussed in Exod 22:29–30 [28–29]; 34:19–20 and in Num 3:12–13, 40–51; 8:14–19; 18:13–18 (cf. Deut 15:19–23); they show the human firstborn to be parallel to firstborn animals who should always be offered. The possibility of slaughtering certain children and offering them to God is not only vital to this foundational story of biblical religion, but as Jon Levenson has shown in his Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity,3 the motif of the sacrificed but chosen child is a seminal theme throughout the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Levenson argues that early in Israel’s history child sacrifice was practiced on certain occasions, but became less accepted after the exile. Although the practice did not continue, its ideology did, but in different forms that emphasized the concept of the redemption or resurrection of the sacrificed child. The notion that the firstborn child, or an alternate chosen child, should be given to God persisted as “a theological ideal about the special place of the firstborn son, an ideal whose realization could range from literal to non-literal implementation, that is, from sacrifice to redemption, or even to mere intellectual assent without any cultic act whatsoever.”4 This “theological ideal” is found in both narrative and legal material where it manifests in forms 1 2

3 4

Based on Zech 12:10, this term can be an equivalent to the term “firstborn” (b˘ekˆor). In fact, Sarah dies immediately after the story; she is no longer useful in the patriarchal saga. For discussion, see Phyllis Trible, “The Sacrifice of Sarah,” in “Not in Heaven”: Coherence and Complexity in Biblical Narrative. Edited by Jason P. Rosenblatt and Joseph C. Sitterson Jr. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991, pp. 170–191. Repr. Women and the Hebrew Bible: A Reader (ed. Alice Bach; New York: Routledge, 1999), 285–87. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993. Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, 9.

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of redemption, substitution, and donation to religious service.5 It continues into the New Testament with its emphasis on Jesus Christ as the only begotten son of the father who is sacrificed and resurrected. Although the sacrificial character of the firstborn is deeply entrenched in the biblical material, so is the understanding that the firstborn is vitally important to inheritance. In ancient Israel, as well as other parts of the ancient world, the firstborn son was ideally the primary heir of the father’s estate and position as head of a household.6 The book of Deuteronomy emphasizes that the firstborn inherits double the share of other children in his father’s estate (21:15–17);7 the firstborn from a levirate marriage receives the share of his mother’s dead husband (Deut 25:6). In narratives about royal families, it is ideally the firstborn who rules in his father’s place after death. In Gen 49:3, the firstborn is called “superior in responsibility and power” (yeter ´s˘eʼ¯et v˘eyeter ʻ¯az). The psalmist describes David’s status as the most powerful king as the “firstborn” (Ps 89:27 [28]). The role of firstborn is thus extremely powerful within a family, which in turn gives him a prominent status in society. However, as Deut 21:15–17 indicates, the social right of the biological firstborn is not secure. That the law restricts the father’s ability to confer privileged status on a child who is not truly his first son implies that this practice was common enough to need regulation. Indeed, other ancient Near Eastern texts clearly show that many fathers could give their inheritance to whichever child they preferred.8 Deuteronomy, which does not have a ritual law concerning firstborn children, empowers the firstborn through civil law. However, other biblical legal sources, which do not have a civil law protecting the right of the firstborn, create his status with the ritual ideology of sacrifice, in which the chosen child is characterized as special and as belonging to God. This status endows him with the sanctity of a sacrificial victim. Yet because the child is redeemed, he retains that special identity without the death that is the fate of a true sacrificial victim. Thus the ideology of the firstborn includes the paradoxical notion that the firstborn or chosen child, who should be the heir, is also a person who should or could be destroyed. His prominence 5

6

7

8

Levenson sees five ritual substitutions at work for the sacrifice of the firstborn: the paschal lamb, Levitical service, monetary ransom, naziritehood, and circumcision (Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, 48–49). See, however, Frederick E. Greenspahn, who shows that there were multiple forms of inheritance in ancient Israel as well as in the ancient Near East (When Brothers Dwell Together: The Preeminence of Younger Siblings in the Hebrew Bible [New York: Oxford, 1994]). It is possible, based on Zech 13:8, that the phrase “double share” (pˆı ˇs˘enayim) means twothirds of the inheritance, thus making for an even greater disparity in inheritance between the firstborn and the other sons. See Greenspahn, When Brothers Dwell Together, 40–48.

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in the lineage both jeopardizes the child and elevates him. Yet the ‘˘aq¯edˆa illustrates that, at least in theory, the trope of child sacrifice, of threatening and redeeming a child, can create the special status of heir where it does not naturally exist for an alternate child who is not the biological firstborn. The story of the ‘˘aq¯edˆa also shows that the choice of a particular human sacrificial victim can be made according to some of the same criteria as in animal sacrifice. Just as the choice of animal victims considers which animals should be allowed access to material resources and which should be eliminated, so, as Carol Delaney states, is the ‘˘aq¯edˆa a statement about “which children, under what circumstances, shall be deemed acceptable and shall be provided for.”9 Indeed, the whole story of Abraham has led up to this point of deciding who will be his “only one” and who will be eliminated. Inherently, the story is a resolution of issues of wealth management, lineage structures, and the selection for or against certain offspring, just as animal sacrifice is often a resolution of these issues for animal husbandry. Just as animal sacrifice is related to the controlled breeding of domestication, so the offering of children is also connected to the controlled reproduction of the family. In this story, the father is given the authority to eliminate his offspring by the power of a divine sacrificial commandment, just as sacrificial laws sanction the slaughter of one’s own animals. The very concept that the deity would demand or accept the offering of a child legitimizes the possibility of the child’s destruction.10 Although there are two examples in biblical narratives of the sacrifice of the firstborn child carried out with impunity – Jephthah’s sacrifice of his daughter (Judg 11) and Mesha of Moab’s offering of his son (2 Kgs 3:27)11 – in most biblical laws, as in the ‘˘aq¯edˆa, the special child is not actually destroyed. The sacrifice of the firstborn child usually ends up in redemption or rescue; it is, in reality, an animal sacrifice. Nonetheless, these biblical laws use a variation of sacrificial ideology to create the social character of the victim 9

10

11

The larger quote states that the ‘˘aq¯edˆa epitomizes the values of “faith and sacrifice, but also the nature of authority; the basis and structure of the family, its gender definitions and roles”; Abraham on Trial: The Social Legacy of Biblical Myth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 6. Levenson correctly points out that, contrary to many interpreters who understand the ‘˘aq¯edˆa to be an etiology for the end of child sacrifice, in fact the story never denounces child sacrifice nor does it demand the substitution of an animal victim for the child. As Levenson says, the story may show that an animal is allowed to substitute for the child, but it does not mandate that the child be replaced by a substitute nor does it disallow the offering of a child (see Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, especially 111–4). Indeed, as he says, “nothing in Genesis 22:1–19 suggests that the command to immolate Isaac in v 2 should be regarded as a law that is other than good” (113). Firstborn offerings are also alluded to in Ezek 20:25–6 and 30–31 and in Mic 6:7.

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who was specifically chosen to live, thereby serving the particular purpose of differentiating that victim from both his siblings and animals so that he can become superior to each. He becomes the heir, who may have control over his siblings and is an owner of animals. Through its threat of elimination, this sacrificial form elevates the child by his implicitly consecrated status, and yet, by his rescue, negates the inherent expendability that defines a sacrificial victim. Instead of being the means of eliminating offspring, as in animal sacrifice, the rite becomes the means of retaining, validating, and valuing the special offspring. At the same time, the offering of the firstborn also creates the social role of parent. The ability to sacrifice one’s children illustrates parents’ possession of, and power and authority over, their offspring. In the ‘˘aq¯edˆa, Abraham is endowed with the power to kill his child, whether he wants to or not. Although tradition considers Abraham a model for faith, this “father of a multitude” is also a model for fatherhood, which may be the greater power of this famous story. This character of the father is also created in distinction from the child’s mother, who does not threaten to kill her offspring. In this way, the true “owner” of the special child clearly becomes the father and not the mother. Laws of the firstborn thus create the powerful roles of both heir and father of an heir. Both of these are differentiated from women, from wives and sisters who are clearly not the “owners” in the paradigm of firstborn sacrifice, as well as from those men who do not earn the special status.

firstborn and firstlings Biblical legal texts describe offerings of the firstborn as mandatory, regular, institutionalized rituals. Unlike the stories of Jephthah and Mesha, this type of offering is not presented as a vow or spontaneous offering in which the offerer initiates the ritual.12 Instead, laws describing the firstborn offering always discuss it in relation to the firstling offering of animals and sometimes in relation to the giving of firstfruits of produce.13 For example, in the Covenant Code, children are treated in the same manner as wine and firstling animals. Exodus 22:29–30 [Heb 28–29] reads, You will not be late with your produce and what you have pressed. The firstborn of your sons you will give to me. So you will do with your oxen and your flock: seven days it will be with its mother; on the eighth day you will give it to me. 12 13

Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 193. Exod 13:2, 12–13, 15; 22:29–30 [28–29]; 34:19–20; Num 3:11–13; 8:17; 18:15, 17–18.

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However, the laws vary a great deal in the procedure for the offered child. For example, Exod 22 appears to legislate a private offering made according to the time of birth, whereas in some formulations the rite must be performed during a national event (e.g., during Matsot; Exod 34:18–20) so that it is a public offering. Some formulations command the unqualified donation of the firstborn child to the deity (Exod 13:2; 22:29–30 [28–29]), whereas others require redemption of the child with a sheep (Exod 13:13; 34:19–20), or money (Num 3:46–51; 18:15–16), or by the substitution of the Levites (Num 3:12, 40– 42, 45; 8:16–19). In some instances it is unclear whether the giving of the child is intended to be an offering that is destroyed or whether it is a donation to the temple for some sort of service.14 Although the forms of firstling/firstborn/firstfruit laws differ a great deal on the details of what is offered, when it is offered, and who benefits from the offering, they all share a few similar features. First, the general concept underlying firstling sacrifices is that the first thing belongs to the sacred and should be set aside for ritual use. Its inherent consecration, as desired by the deity, makes it destructible. For instance, Deut 15 states, Of every firstborn that is born in your herd or your flock, you will consecrate the male to Yahweh your god; you will not work the firstborn ox or shear the firstborn of your flock. You and your household will eat it before Yahweh your god every year in the place that Yahweh will choose (15:19–20).

In this setting, the divine claim on domesticated firstborn male animals enables them to be set aside for an annual feast at the central sanctuary where they will be eaten by their owners and his household. Like the law in Exod 22, the animal is marked for a ritual use, though here that use is the feasting, whereas the Exodus law requires sacrifice (or donation). In either case, its sanctity allows it to be destroyed. Second, these different forms of firstling offerings are never made as restitution or recompense for any impurity, sin, or other cultic infraction, nor are they done in the course of trying to influence the deity. As Karin Finsterbusch shows, they have no ability to effect forgiveness, nor are they an occasion to freely express thanksgiving;15 they are not voluntary like a vow, but compulsory. Firstlings must be offered solely because they exist. 14

15

Hartley and Dwyer, “An Investigation into the Location of the Laws on Offering to Molek in the Book of Leviticus,” in “Go to the Land I Will Show You”: Studies in Honor of Dwight W. Young (ed. Joseph E. Colson and Victor H. Matthews; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 87. “The First-Born between Sacrifice and Redemption in the Hebrew Bible,” in Human Sacrifice in Jewish and Christian Tradition (ed. Karin Finsterbusch, Armin Lange, and K. F. Diethard R¨omheld; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 107.

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More importantly, the victim of firstborn/firstling laws must be one that the offerer has made and owns. First things are the only offerings that must belong to the offerer. Other sacrifices require “a” sheep, “a” dove, “a” red cow, but do not specify where it comes from or who created it. Therefore, as offerings created by their offerer, firstlings are given on the occasion of ownership and are public displays of that ownership and the power over what is owned. In the example from Deuteronomy, the farmer brings his animal because he has created it; his slaughtering of the animal publicly illustrates his wealth and the power that it brings. He and his family can, and indeed must, kill and eat the animal because they made it, and as such, it is theirs to kill.16 The animal’s inherent sanctity becomes the means of illustrating that ownership. However, in the ritual, the issue of ownership and possession is also one of conflict: on the one hand, the animal belongs to the owner, but on the other, there is a divine claim to it. Because God makes a claim to the possession, and thereby makes it sacred, its owned status is loosened. The firstling then becomes available not only for destruction but also for alternate possession, for transfer. Indeed, the verbs n¯atan and ʻ¯abar, which are expressly concerned with transferring possessions from one domain to another, are the main verbs used for both child sacrifice and other firstling offerings. The phenomenon of the sacred firstling, therefore, is in part a means of negotiating and expressing concepts of ownership. The element of possession is fundamental to the ideology of firstborns/first things regardless of the sacrifice’s particular form or procedure. Whereas Deuteronomy emphasizes the farmer’s ownership of his first things, priestly texts show that firstlings ultimately belong to the priests who are supported by them and other sacred donations. In Num 18:13–18, for example, the deity says to the priests, The first of everything in their land, which they bring to Yahweh, is yours; everyone in your household who is clean may eat them. Every proscribed thing (h.¯erem) in Israel is yours. Every womb opener from all flesh, human or animal, that is offered to Yahweh, is yours, but you will redeem the firstborn human and the firstborn of unclean animals. Their redemption cost valued in money, starting at one month old, will be five shekels according to the sanctuary shekel; this is twenty gerahs. But the firstborn of cattle or sheep or goat you will not redeem; it is holy. You will pour out their blood on the altar and you will turn their fat to smoke in fire for a pleasing odor for Yahweh. But their meat will be yours: it is like the breast of the elevation offering and like the right thigh; it is yours. 16

Note, however, that Deuteronomy also allows for the sale of the firstling and the purchase of another near the shrine to ease the problem of traveling with animals (Deut 14:24–7).

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In contrast, in Exod 13:2, the firstborn is not said to belong to the offerer or to the priests; it belongs to Yahweh alone: “Consecrate for me every firstborn, the opener of every womb among the sons of Israel, among human and animal; it is mine.” Thus, ownership is a main concern of firstling laws, regardless of their particular circumstances or conflicting understandings of who ultimately owns the offering. Indeed, the fact that multiple entities have a claim on firstlings underscores that their consecrated status makes their ownership fluid and in doubt; firstlings are up for grabs, be it for slaughter or for transfer. Unlike other animals, people, and food, their chosen status separates them in some way from normal existence and allows them to be destroyed or given away. This fluid status further shows that the nature of ownership itself over first children, domesticated animals, and crops is conflicted and uncertain. On the one hand, they belong to their owners; on the other, they belong to the sacred, either directly to the deity, or to a sacred functionary (the priests), or in the more abstract way of being consumed or destroyed in a ritual setting. Further confusing the issue of ownership of firstlings is another competing entity, namely, the mother, the “womb,” from which firstlings come. There are two Hebrew terms for “firstborn,” which are sometimes interchangeable. The first is b˘ekˆor (e.g., Exod 13:2; 22:28[29]; 34:20; Num 3:12; 8:16; 18:15), which may mean the firstborn of either a father or a mother. The second is pet.er reh.em, literally, “womb-splitting” or “womb opener” or, as Propp suggests, “womb loosening” (Exod 13:2, 13:12–13, 15, 34:19–20; Num 3:12; 8:16; 18:15, etc.),17 which refers only to the firstborn of the mother. It is thus a specific term related to maternity. It is important to note that the term pet.er reh.em appears solely in sacrificial contexts and appears only in the laws just cited (Exod 13:2, 12, 13, 15; 34:19, 20; Num 3:12, 8:16 [in the form of a unique feminine noun] and 18:15), which describe the sacrifice of the firstborn or its substitution, and in Ezek 20:26, a passage discussing firstborn offerings. In contrast, the term bekˆor is frequently attested in many different passages, including poetry and narrative (e.g., Gen 25:13; 35:23; 49:3; Exod 4:22; 11:5; Ps 78:51; 105:36; Job 18:18; Jer 31:9, etc.). The term pet.er reh.em is a circumlocutory means of discussing the mother while acknowledging her solely in her reproductive capacity. It reduces her to her womb.18 As a sacrificial term, however, it juxtaposes female reproduction 17 18

Exodus 1–18, 421. Exod 13:12 also uses the term pet.er ˇseger. Most interpreters understand ˇseger to mean “throw” or “cast” (cf. Deut 7:13; 28:4, 18, 51), and thus Propp translates it as “spawn.” But, as he points out, ˇseger is parallel to reh.em in Exod 13:12, and the Syriac translates ˇseger as “womb” (rah.maʼ). Propp concludes that it may refer to the womb or to what comes from the womb (Propp, Exodus 1–18, 425–26). Karel van der Toorn also shows that the term only refers to the spawn

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with both divine ownership and the sanctity of the consecrated victim: the “womb opener” does not belong to the “womb.” Indeed, consider Exod 34:19a: “every womb opener is mine” (kol-pet.er reh.em lˆı). Furthermore, the term pet.er reh.em equates the mother not only with her womb but with animals who create their own pit.rȇ reh.em, because the term can belong to either animal or human mothers. The general association of the firstborn with firstfruits also equates “the womb” with fields and vineyards. In this way, firstborn laws characterize “the womb” as a natural resource that can be owned. Because of the characterization of the mother as a resource, and the consecrated status of the child that allows for fluidity of ownership, the father, who must offer the child, is able to take him from her. He must transfer ownership of the child from the mother to the divine, who demands it. In legal forms that include redemption, this ownership is then transferred from the divine to the father at the ransom. The divine acts as a mediator between the mother and the father that enables the transfer of the child. The fluidity of ownership or possession that is inherent in the form of firstborn/firstling sacrifices thus allows not only payment to a sanctuary, or the destruction of an animal for meat, or the donation of a child to a shrine: it also is a means of creating and negotiating lineage. This negotiation of “ownership” among the mother, the divine, and the father creates the status of children in a patrilineal society, who do not properly belong to their mothers. If they are redeemed, they belong to their fathers. If they are not redeemed, they belong to the divine, as either an actual offering or by donation to religious service; they no longer belong to either mother or father. The ideology of the firstborn enables the transfer of the child, but it also underscores the instability of “ownership” over living things. They can be owned and controlled up to a point, but they never completely belong to anyone. The same is true for the ownership of lineage; though a child may “belong” to its father’s family, this ownership is never unequivocal. Therefore, attempts at owning living things must be constantly reiterated through ritual negotiation. Although in a patrilineal society all legitimate children “belong” to their fathers, the claiming of the firstborn son via this sacrificial rite is especially important because it is through him that the line will continue. His status must be firmly enacted. Furthermore, as the “womb opener,” he stands for all that comes from the womb. In claiming him, the father claims everything that comes from the mother’s fertility. of cattle (instead of sheep and goats). The term is clearly associated with the female deity ˇsgr found in Ugarit and Mesopotamia and in a personal name from Phoenicia. In the Bible, the term appears as a pair with ʻaˇst˘er¯ot (Deut 7:13; 28:4, 18, 51), a variation on the name of the goddess Astarte. See van der Toorn, “sheger” in DDD columns 1437–40.

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redemption and the fictional victim Obviously, offered firstborn children who are not redeemed, such as the daughter of Jephthah (Judg 11) and the son of the Moabite king Mesha (2 Kgs 3:4–27), do not inherit when they lose their lives. But even those unredeemed children who are donated for service rather than for sacrifice do not become heirs. In the priestly formation of the firstborn in Num 8, the Levites, who take the place of the Israelite firstborn victim with its consecrated status, are unique in that they never inherit land, and so they do not become owners themselves. The Levites become perpetual nonheirs so that the firstborn of Israel can become true heirs.19 Similarly, other pit.rȇ reh.em in narrative who have a consecrated status but who are not redeemed also do not inherit property. So it is with Samuel, the firstborn of Hannah, who is separated from his family at his donation to the sanctuary at Shiloh. Although in his later life Samuel lives in his homeland of Ramah (1 Sam 7:15–7; 8:4; 15:34; 19:18) there is no understanding that he was an heir to his father’s house; rather he and his sons after him are remembered more as successors to Eli and thus to religious office (1 Sam 1–3; 8:1–5).20 Similarly, Samson, who is also a firstborn donated in the form of naziriteship, never becomes a true heir and instead is a warrior who lives outside of his land and creates no permanent family. The concept of sacrifice and redemption threatens the firstborn or chosen child with this consecrated status of not-owning, but then relieves him of it.21 In anthropological terms, the offering and redemption of the son act as a rite of passage, a ritual act that accompanies a change, usually an advancement, in status.22 In this sort of ritual, as described by Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner, certain members of society, especially young initiands, are put into a dangerous and marginalized status, a “liminal status” that is radically different from regular community life. They emerge with a concrete, changed,

19

20 21 22

See Num 18:23–24. In some ways, the Levites are counted as dead: they do not eat regular food, they have no regular land, they are not counted as Israelites in the census (Num 1:49, 2:33); they have the mȇ h.at..ta¯ ʼt put on them (Num 8:7, 21), and they are wave offerings like sacrificial victims (Num 8:11, 13). Levenson notes that in 1 Chr 6:28 [13] Samuel is given a Levitical genealogy (Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, 48). As Brin says, redemption is the negation of consecration (Studies in Biblical Law: From the Hebrew Bible to the Dead Sea Scrolls [JSOTSupp 176; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994], 209). See too, Bal, Death and Dissymmetry, 110. Hugh White argues that the ‘˘aq¯edˆa and the story of Ishmael and Hagar are examples of “initiation legends”– stories in which male children come to be independent adults by having their lives threatened and rescued. See his “The Initiation Legend of Ishmael,” ZAW 87 (1985): 267–305 and “The Initiation Legend of Isaac,” ZAW 91 (1979): 1–30.

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and more prominent social position. Turner defines “liminal entities” (i.e., people brought into the liminal state) as follows: They have no status, property, insignia, secular clothing indicating rank or role, position in a kinship system. . . . Their behavior is normally passive or humble; they must obey their instructors implicitly, and accept arbitrary punishment without complaint. It is as though they are being reduced or ground down to a uniform condition to be fashioned anew and endowed with additional powers to enable them to cope with their new station in life.23

The consecrated firstborn has this liminal status in which he, like true sacrificial victims, is in danger. This endangerment is partly that of having “no property or membership in a kinship system.” However, the act of redemption rescues the child from the liminal state and in so doing enables the change of status from endangered and jeopardized into definitively recognized heir. The act of redemption is the explicit choice made for the child.24 Its status is no longer ambivalent or in jeopardy, and thus it is no longer a sacrificial victim. In essence, the characterization of the firstborn son as a potential sacrificial victim (i.e., consecration) enables his societal status to be loosened so it can then be lowered or raised. When the child is redeemed, his character of chosen one can be completed because his rescue displays an intentional, practical choice for him to survive and to return to his family as the heir. The form of sacrifice and redemption, although it is a variation on the trope of sacrifice, is, however, not really a sacrifice. Mieke Bal calls it a “quasisacrifice.”25 It is a sacrificial fiction. The practice of threat and redemption largely creates a legal and social character. Perhaps the form appears so often in narratives for this reason. Indeed, Levenson has shown that in many biblical narratives the child who will inherit must undergo some sort of death and resurrection or sacrificial endangering and redemption. Thus, for example, Joseph, who is the beloved son of Jacob, suffers the “death” of being thrown into a pit, sold and taken to Egypt, but then he is “resurrected” and reunited with his family. The paramount examples are, of course, the ‘˘aq¯edˆa, and the narratives of Jesus in which the beloved child becomes a literal sacrificial victim. Portraying a child as some version of a returned sacrificial victim creates a liminal character who can ascend to the highest levels of 23 24

25

The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago: Aldine, 1969), 95. As Levenson says, “The special status of the first-born son in the Hebrew Bible is inextricably associated with the theology of chosenness [his italics]” (Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son), 59. Death and Dissymmetry, 59.

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importance. Indeed, the “charter myth” of Israel, the story of Passover, shows how Israel itself is God’s chosen firstborn son who survived the scourge of death. Even legal texts that mandate the offering of the firstborn without mentioning redemption create this character of the victim who was not a victim. As De Vaux has argued, it is impossible that at any point all firstborn male children could have been killed,26 though this characterization likely justified the occasional act of child sacrifice. Although Exod 22:29–30 [28–29] and 13:2 require offering a child without mentioning redemption, all others laws on the firstborn child prescribe its redemption or substitution. Together, they encourage an intertextual reading that promotes the ideology of redemption.27 Both the legal material and narratives of the firstborn make a distinct separation between the child who survives and all other property of the father. Laws of the firstborn that parallel laws of animals and plants show that the redeemed firstborn is fundamentally different from plants and animals. In essence, redemption shows that he is not a commodity, as those animals and plants are. Redemption also differentiates him from real sacrificial victims, such as the daughter of Jephthah and Mesha’s son, who are treated as commodities by their parents. With his redemption the firstborn is no longer in jeopardy of being property, like the sheep with which he is ransomed. As a noncommodity he becomes an owner of property.

the female firstborn Most firstborn laws specify that the firstborn child or animal who becomes a victim must be male. For instance, Exod 13:12–15 states, You will give over every womb opener for Yahweh; of every opener of the fecundity of your animals, the male is for Yahweh. But every opener of a donkey you will redeem with a sheep, and if you will not redeem it you will break its neck. Every firstborn human among your sons you will redeem. If your son promptly asks you, “What is this?” you will say to him, “With a strong hand Yahweh brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slaves.” When Pharaoh refused to send us out, Yahweh slew every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of humans to the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to Yahweh every womb opener among the males and I redeem every firstborn son. 26 27

Studies in Old Testament Sacrifice, 71. Finsterbusch points out that, as the first substantive firstborn law, Exod 13:13, which does require redemption, provides the interpretive lens through which to read the other laws (“The First-Born between Sacrifice and Redemption,” 108).

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However, Karen Finsterbusch argues that, in the earliest constructions of firstborn ideology, the b˘ekˆor and the pet.er reh.em could refer to female offspring as well.28 She bases this conclusion on the argument that the pre-exilic legal texts do not specify male offspring. The oldest law, she argues, does not have the stipulation of male (z¯ak¯ar) in its formulation. Exodus 22:29b [28] states, “You shall give me the firstborn of your sons” (b˘ekˆor b¯anȇk¯a titten-lˆı). The word “sons” (b¯anˆım) may also mean “children” and so, she says, later laws specify the male because the term b˘ekˆor does not indicate sex.29 She feels similarly about Exod 34:19–20. As JPS translates it, Every first issue of the womb is Mine, from all your livestock that drop a male as firstling, whether cattle or sheep. But the firstling of an ass you shall redeem with a sheep; if you do not redeem it, you must break its neck. And you must redeem every first-born among your sons. None shall appear before Me empty-handed.

Finsterbusch argues again that the word “sons” in v. 20 refers to “children.” She claims that the word in v. 19 that is here translated as “drop a male as firstling” (tizz¯ak¯ar) is from the verb z¯akar, meaning “remember,” and is in the second person masculine singular form (tizk¯or). She thus gives the translation: “all your herds you should remember.”30 She argues that the earliest firstborn or firstling law that specifies a male is the law on animals in Deut 15:19. This is a “farmer friendly” law on animal firstlings, in which the male animal is slaughtered, so as to accommodate the needs of animal husbandry.31 However, not until after the exile do laws begin to restrict the consecrated human firstborn to the male.32 Unfortunately, Finsterbusch’s arguments are not persuasive. Her suggestion that the earliest forms of firstborn laws apply to both male and female children because they do not specify male children (who are called, literally, “sons”) is not satisfactory. It is possible that the hearers of these laws would not need 28

29 30 31 32

Ibid., 101, 108. This argument was also made by Peritz (“Women in the Ancient Hebrew Cult,” 133–35). He felt that the lack of sex specificity for the firstborn shows that the firstborn “is but another indication that in early times no discrimination was made against the female, but that perfect parity existed between the sexes in matters of the cult” (135). Armin Lange also assumes that the pet.er reh.em refers to both sexes; “They Burn Their Sons and Daughters. That Was No Command of Mine” (Jer 7:31): Child Sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible and in the Deuteronomistic Jeremiah Redaction,” in Human Sacrifice in Jewish and Christian Tradition, 125. “The First-Born between Sacrifice and Redemption,” 98. Ibid., 95. Ibid., 99. Interestingly, by this reasoning, the blemished and the female would both be disqualified at the same time. Ibid., 108.

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this kind of clarification and that they would assume the child’s maleness, as she notes with regard to other laws of firstborn animals in Deuteronomy.33 In other parts of the Covenant Code where both sons and daughters are meant, they are specified, such as in Exod 21:4.34 It is also not universally accepted that Exod 22:29 [28] is the oldest firstborn law.35 Furthermore, Finsterbusch’s argument, following Cr¨usemann, that the form tizz¯ak¯ar in Exod 34:19 means “you shall remember” is problematic for several reasons. First, because the parallel law of Exod 13:12–5 uses the very root zkr to mean “male,” it is unlikely that the root would appear here in a different sense. Second, tizz¯ak¯ar is a difficult verbal form. Most interpreters amend it to the noun hazz¯ak¯ar (“the male”) based on the LXX and Vulgate, although some have tried to understand the term as a verb having to do with maleness. As noted, the JPS translation is “drop a male,”36 and Barth´elemy suggests “put asunder the male beasts”37 while Propp speculates that it could mean “sanctify as a male.”38 This line of reasoning, though not entirely specific, accounts for the text more fully.39 Third, Finsterbusch argues that the law in Deuteronomy is “farmer friendly” in part because it specifies that male animals alone should be sacrificed, but it is unclear why Exod 22:28–29 would not also be farmer friendly and intend male offerings. If anything, the donation of the firstborn male animal in Exod 22 well suits a purpose of sacrifice described in Chapter 2 of routinely eliminating young male animals from herds. Finally, we have already seen that male animals are preferred victims in most sacrificial rites; it seems strange, in the offering specifically concerned with the lineages of both animals and people (pet.er reh.em and b˘ekˆor), that gender would be irrelevant in any stage of this law. Although Finsterbusch’s argument that firstborn females would have been routinely offered to the deity is unconvincing, her study raises many questions about the firstborn ritual, its purpose, and its changes throughout time. For 33 34 35

36 37 38 39

Ibid., 98, n.43. The next verse considers all the children to be b¯anˆım only after this distinction. But see van Seters who argues that the Deuteronomic laws reflect the older tradition: “The Law on Child Sacrifice in Exodus 22, 28b–29,” ETL 74 (1998): 364–72, and Brin, who argues that 13:2 is earliest (Studies in Biblical Law, 171). Here it appears to follow Cassuto, who is cited in John I. Durham, Exodus (Word Biblical Commentary 3; Waco, TX: Word, 1987), 457. Ibid., 457. Propp, Exodus 1–18, 371. If Propp’s translation is correct, perhaps it means that a creature who is not a male could somehow be made into a male in a ritual manner. At Emar and Nuzi, women had to be formally adopted as males to become legitimate heirs (Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel, 579, 612). Whether the verb zkr here indicates some kind of similar practice is unknown.

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instance, could a female human firstborn become an heir?40 How would her ritual status be affected by marriage? Would a female firstborn come from more of a matrilineal system rather than a strictly patrilineal system? Would firstborn human females be redeemed or would the rite be a way of potentially eliminating them? What would be the purpose of slaughtering a firstborn female animal, because doing so is materially unbeneficial? Did femininity come to mean a form of blemish for this ritual? The story of the daughter of Jephthah answers some of these questions and illustrates the ultimate problem of having a female firstborn as an heir in a patrilineal system. In the story, the judge Jephthah makes an ʻ¯olˆa (whole burnt offering) out of his firstborn daughter. Jephthah’s offering is not a routine firstborn offering, but rather a vowed offering made in a time of war. However, the story takes pains to emphasize that “she was his only one; he had no son or daughter but her” (Judg 11:34). She was, de facto, his firstborn and his heir. Moreover, although the daughter becomes the victim by fate, that fate may be perceived as divinely guided. The conceit of the story is that she must be both only child and sacrificial victim. Therefore, the form and function of this offering is unusual and ambiguous – is it just a vowed offering, or is it somehow a firstborn offering? Like the firstborn offerings, Jephthah’s vow appears to be considered a legitimate child offering but the offering has an unsettling nature that seems to betray an ulterior motive. Thus, Jewish and Christian tradition have looked down on Jephthah, seeing his acts as a “rash vow,” even though the biblical text never condemns Jephthah for sacrificing his child in Judg 11, nor in 1 Sam 12:11 or Heb 11:32–34, where he is remembered as a great and faithful warrior. As Levenson writes, “what is missing in this story is any indication that child sacrifice . . . was inappropriate.”41 The story of Jephthah is best understood in relation to the ‘˘aq¯edˆa. Like Isaac, the girl is called her father’s “only one” (y˘eh.ˆıdˆa, the feminine form of y¯ah.ˆıd). Yet the story of the binding of Isaac is one of making a lineage, of creating the heir of the father. Abraham has two choices for his heir (Isaac or Ishmael) and must select one over another. Jephthah, in contrast, has no sons who might become heirs and his daughter should leave him to be married into another family. When she is told her fate, the girl asks to mourn for her virginity 40

41

The feminine form of b˘ekˆor, b˘ekˆırˆa, is found in the Bible with regard to Leah (Gen 29:26); Merab, Saul’s firstborn daughter (1 Sam 14:49); and the elder of Lot’s two daughters (Gen 19:31, 33, 34, 37). However, all of these three female firstborn are called so in relation to their younger sisters, not their brothers. The privilege associated with the status, based on Leah, is primarily to be married first; it does not appear to indicate inheritance status. However, as Jay says, it is possible that Laban represents a matrilineal system of inheritance whereby male children inherit from their mother’s brothers. Leah’s status then might be connected to her bearing children first for her family (Throughout Your Generations Forever, 101–11). Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, 14.

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because she will not become a wife and a mother. Should Jephthah have hoped to hold on to her as an heir to his house, her fated status as victim implicitly directs that she should rather be eliminated. While his daughter is still a child under Jephthah’s control, he can make a sacrificial victim of her, but she cannot become his heir as an adult. He cannot redeem her to continue his lineage. He can never truly own a grown daughter since she should belong with another man. And thus there is no divine intervention to rescue her from her fate. The ‘˘aq¯edˆa is really a story of animal sacrifice that joins father to son, but the story of Jephthah is about human sacrifice to disjoin father and daughter. In the ‘˘aq¯edˆa, Isaac is chosen not to die so that he can inherit; the daughter of Jephthah, who, as the “only one” of her father, is chosen to die so that she cannot inherit. However, the actual sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter, with its lack of redemption, has the same function as the trope of the sacrifice and redemption of the special son. Both maintain the patrilineal social structure of inheritance, but the ‘˘aq¯edˆa does it positively by ritually affirming a legitimate pattern of descent, whereas the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter does so negatively by undoing the illegitimate pattern of father to daughter. The story of the daughter of Jephthah is therefore the flipside of the sacrificial pattern for the firstborn human. It is, as Mieke Bal calls it, a “negative sacrifice”;42 it is the inverse of the normal firstborn offering. It is the exception that proves the rule of sacrifice and inheritance. In many ways, Jephthah’s daughter is like the red cow of Num 19, which I have also called an inverted “negative sacrifice.” Like the cow rite, this unusual offering takes an ideological ritual framework and flips it around. It is based on the principle that the firstborn is special and owned by God and that this ownership could ultimately be acted on. But its purpose is the opposite of the male firstborn offering; it creates a firstborn to be destroyed, like an animal firstborn, not a firstborn to be lifted up. The red cow ritual uses a female victim to create a negative substance in order to affirm the priestly view of life; by her victimhood the daughter of Jephthah becomes a negative heir in order to affirm the life of the patrilineage. The red cow and the daughter of Jephthah are also similar in the manner described by Mary Douglas: they both embody the “rejected element” from ritual. By embracing the red cow, the whole structure of priestly sacrifice and purity is embraced because, as the rejected, it creates the system itself. Similarly, the story of the daughter of Jephthah is not criticized or presented negatively because it illustrates the whole structure of firstborn ideology. It shows the heir who was actually sacrificed. To criticize Jephthah’s story or actions is to denounce this underside of firstborn sacrifice and the possibility 42

Death and Dissymmetry, 118.

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of the real destruction of the firstborn, which would undercut the entire firstborn system. As the rejected element, the daughter of Jephthah, like the red cow, “is capable of inspiring a profound meditation”43 on the very nature of sacrifice and its purpose. Is she a legitimate offering? Was her father right to kill her? Did the deity really demand the offering or was it caused by Jephthah’s foolishness? Is this really a firstborn offering? Or only an unusual vow? These answers cannot be fully answered, and neither can the Bible ultimately condemn her story. Therefore, if Finsterbusch is correct that at some point there were female firstborn offerings, they must have had a different function and purpose from that of the offering and redemption of the son. If they were offered and redeemed, they might reflect a different system of inheritance. But in the logic of a patrilineal system, a female cannot be an heir. The story of the daughter of Jephthah suggests that, if there were a consecrated female firstborn, she might not be redeemed. In fact, perhaps its function would be to eliminate her. Biblical law does address the unusual circumstance where there is no male child to inherit from a father. The story of the daughters of Zelophehad in Num 27:1–11 and 36:2–12 illustrates that very situation. They are a family of all daughters and are concerned that their father, who has died in the wilderness wandering, will not receive a share of Israelite land. In the first passage, the conclusion is reached that the daughters will receive a share on his behalf and therefore can be heirs to his property. Then, in the second passage, it turns out that they may only do so temporarily, because they must marry husbands within their clan who can then become the real heirs to Zelophehad’s patrimony. Females cannot truly inherit and own the property of their fathers.

fathers and firstlings In all forms of the firstborn/firstling offerings, the implied owner, the “you” who is the hearer of the laws, appears to be the father or male owner. In the stories of Mesha, Jephthah, and the ‘˘aq¯edˆa it is only the father who sacrifices and thereby asserts ownership of the child to be offered. This offering is done at the expense of the mother, be it Sarah, or the “womb” from which the “womb-loosener” is taken, or, as discussed in Chapter 3, the lactating mother animal. Firstborn sacrifices therefore also create the social roles of father and mother. In sacrifice, the father is the owner of both first children and first animals; the mother is not. As Carol Delaney says with regard to the ‘˘aq¯edˆa, 43

Douglas, Purity and Danger, 171.

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“the child belonged to Abraham in a way he did not belong to Sarah.”44 The father decides which firstborn will live and which will die; the mother does not have this power. In this sense, the ‘˘aq¯edˆa is truly a test, but one of Abraham’s ability to exert patriarchal power when called on to do so. In her intriguing book Abraham on Trial, Delaney questions the father’s role in child sacrifice. She asks why it is that Abraham felt he was able to sacrifice Isaac and on what basis was Isaac his to offer.45 She further asks why “the willingness to sacrifice one’s child” is “the quintessential model of faith.”46 Delaney argues that the ‘˘aq¯edˆa is an illustration of what she calls a “monogenetic theory” of paternity. She believes that the biblical writers subscribed to a biological understanding of procreation in which children came only from the ”seed” of their fathers, with the mother being merely the “soil” in which the seed was planted.47 Because the “essential identity”48 of the child comes from the father and not the mother, the child belongs to the father, and because the child is the creation of the father, he has the power to slaughter it. The “power to create life” she says, “implies the concomitant power to destroy.”49 Thus, as J. Z. Smith shows that an animal’s end as a sacrificial victim is related to its origins as a domesticated, humanbred creature, so Delaney shows that a child can be a sacrificial victim of the father who created him. According to Delaney, this theory of paternity is the foundation and essence of patriarchy itself because it implies that all creativity, identity, and ownership stem from the father.50 Although it is difficult to clearly ascertain the biblical understanding of reproductive biology, Delaney’s work emphasizes that the biblical concept of child sacrifice, especially that of the firstborn, is integrally related to the the concept of fatherhood.51 In essence, Delaney argues the same point as 44 45 46 47

48 49 50 51

Abraham on Trial, 7. Ibid., 7. Ibid., 5. See also her The Seed and the Soil: Gender and Cosmology in Turkish Village Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991) where she articulates this concept more clearly and with regard to modern Turkish concepts of reproduction. A similar conclusion for the Hebrew Bible is reached by Baruch A. Levine in his article, “‘Seed’ versus ‘Womb’: Expressions of Male Dominance in Biblical Israel,” in Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East, 337–43. Abraham on Trial, 7. Ibid., 18 Ibid., especially 34. Interestingly, in the Jewish rite of the redemption of the son, pidyon habben, a son who is the firstborn of his mother (and who is of nonpriestly lineage) can only be redeemed by a male. If his father is unable to do it, another male in his family may do so. The child can even redeem himself when he becomes old enough. But his mother, or another female, may not redeem him. See Yaakov Ariel, “Still Ransoming the First-Born Sons?: Pidyon Haben and Its Survival in the Jewish Tradition,” in Human Sacrifice in Jewish and Christian Tradition, 305–19; Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 179–89.

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Jay but in the opposite direction. Jay argues that sacrifice creates paternity, while Delaney argues that paternity creates sacrifice. From both perspectives, it is clear that the power of the father includes the power over life and death exhibited in sacrifice. This power is ultimately a socially constructed power, as Jay argues, yet it is ideally related to biology. Firstborn rituals are part of the process of creating and maintaining paternity and its social concept of ownership, which are continually undermined by the biological reality of childbirth. These rites allow fathers to assert their ownership over children, usually in explicit contrast to the mother. Indeed in some ways firstborn rites are the counterparts to the sacrifice made by a new mother in Lev 12.52 There, a woman’s sacrifice of animals enacts her acceptance of the social definition of motherhood with each child. Here, the father conducts a (near) sacrifice of the son to assert his social paternity over him. The mother’s sacrifice of animals shows that she does not have the son to offer, because she does not own him, but the father can offer the son who now belongs to him. These roles are intertwined with the child’s role as heir. Because the son’s ritual status is loosened as the firstborn, the father is able to claim him away from the mother, and by doing so, he makes the child a legitimate son and himself a true father of a line.

mothers as offerers If a mother were to sacrifice a child or threaten to sacrifice it, she would, like a father, enact ownership over it. There are some mothers in the Hebrew Bible who make donations of their children to cultic service, such as Hannah and the wife of Manoah, who vow their children as nazirites. Although Samson’s mother vows him in response to a divine command (Judg 13:3–7, 14), Hannah makes this pledge on her own (1 Sam 1:11), so perhaps this example is the closest we have of a mother offering a firstborn.53 It is possible that in the earlier periods of Israelite history, when this story takes place, women were able 52

53

In his account of Jesus’ birth, Luke portrays the redemption of the firstborn and the offering of the new mother together, with the result that they seem to be two parts of one ritual: “When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord’), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons’ (2:22–4; NRSV). Carol Meyers shows that ritual autonomy by women appears more often in times of weak centralized power and that the story of Hannah, coming before the monarchy, reflects women’s relative power in such times. See her “Hannah and her Sacrifice,” 103–04. Ackerman argues that their mothers redeem the children from death by donating them: “Their commission as Nazirites forestalls the need to sacrifice them” (“Child Sacrifice: Returning God’s Gift,” BR 9 [1993], 56).

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generally to command more control over the fate of their children than in later periods. However, Hannah also appears to need her husband’s permission to do as she wants with Samuel (1 Sam 1:23). Moreover, Hannah’s donation is a vowed offering and not a routine firstborn offering. In any case, although she donates him, Hannah does not actually slaughter or attempt to kill her own child. Otherwise, women in the Hebrew Bible are not usually portrayed as sacrificing their children, either literally or through threat and redemption. Instead, mothers are shown to expose their children; that is, to abandon them.54 Such is the case with Moses’ mother, who puts him in a basket and sets it in the Nile in hopes that another person would rescue him (Exod 2:3). Hagar similarly leaves Ishmael under a tree when she can no longer give him water (Gen 21:15– 19). These women give up ownership over their children instead of asserting ownership over them. Such is also the case in the story of the two prostitutes in 1 Kgs 3:16–28 in which the real mother of a child would rather relinquish her ownership of it than cause it to be killed. This willingness to relinquish the child to spare its life is portrayed as the fundamental aspect of motherhood because it distinguishes the real mother from the imposter. The act of abandoning children is one of complete powerlessness. Such mothers have no material means to provide for their children; they are utterly dependent and exhibit no control over their child’s fate. As Hugh C. White says with regard to the story of Hagar’s abandonment of Ishmael, when Hagar asks not to see the child die, her “plea is for God to absolve her of the responsibility for the death of her child.”55 In contrast, Abraham, Mesha, and Jephthah clearly bear the responsibility, as unpleasant as it may be, for the death of their children. They kill, or nearly kill, their children with power and intention. The only women in the Hebrew Bible who are portrayed as sacrificing their children are metaphorical women. They are found in Ezekiel’s portrayals of God’s metaphorical wives in Ezek 16 and 23. In Ezek 16, the prophet depicts Jerusalem as an abandoned girl rescued by the deity who raises her and then marries her at puberty. After their marriage, Jerusalem does not act as a proper wife; she becomes an adulteress with multiple lovers. She is also portrayed as a prostitute. In fact, Jerusalem becomes even more perverse than a prostitute by paying her lovers instead of being paid by them. She thereby takes on a male role of hiring others for sex instead of being paid for sex. This role not only implies that she has a masculine sexual appetite but that she has the economic 54

55

Hugh C. White argues that exposure and rescue of sons by mothers are the female equivalent to the initiation legend of the father’s sacrifice and redemption of the son. See “The Initiation Legend of Isaac,” especially 22–23. Ibid., 287.

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wherewithal to pay for sex. As this sexualized, masculinized, perverse entity, she also sacrifices her children: You took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore for me, and you sacrificed them for their food. Are your whorings few? You slaughtered my sons and gave them to be passed over for them. And with all your abominations and your whorings you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your blood (16:20–22).

Ezekiel goes on to say that she is not the only woman who is perverse in these ways; she is like her sisters Samaria and Sodom, as well as their mother, who also do not act as proper females.56 Jerusalem is characterized genealogically through the females in her family; they form a matriarchy of men haters: You are the daughter of your mother, who despised her husband and her sons, and you are the sister of your sisters, who despised their husbands and their sons. Your mother was a Hittite and your father was an Amorite. Your older sister is Samaria, and her daughters lived north of you; and your younger sister, who lived south of you, is Sodom and her daughters. (16:45–46)

Jerusalem’s sacrificing of her children is done as part of a powerful matrilineage that despises a patrilineal, patriarchal system and the males within it. She is to be punished, in part so that other women will learn from her behavior: “They will burn your houses with fire and make judgments on you in front of many women. I will stop you from whoring, and you will never give payment again” (16:41). Similarly, in ch. 23, Ezekiel portrays Jerusalem (Oholibah) as a sister to Samaria (Oholah), both of whom are wanton, adulterous wives of the deity. As part of their perversion both sacrifice their children who should properly belong to their husband: Yahweh said to me, “Human, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? And will you tell them about their abominations? For they committed adultery and blood is on their hands. They committed adultery with their idols, and even gave them, for food, their sons that they bore for me” (23:36–37).

These wanton sisters have committed all of the sins feared by husbands and fathers. They have committed adultery, hated their husbands, disregarded patriarchal authority, and done as they pleased with their own children. They have not acknowledged that the children belonged to the husband, but 56

On the rhetorical use of sisters in Ezekiel and Jeremiah to induce horror in their audiences, see Amy Kalmanofsky, “The Dangerous Sisters of Jeremiah and Ezekiel,” JBL 130 (2011): 299–312.

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sacrificed them as they chose. Thus the image of the mother who sacrifices is a deviation from a patriarchal and patrilineal system in which fathers “own” children and alone may threaten their lives. The sacrificing of children by mothers, in these texts, is ideologically bound to female adultery, uncontrolled sexuality, and prostitution, all of which assume that women have some sexual and economic autonomy and threaten patriarchal and patrilineal authority. For Ezekiel, at least, women offering their children is a manifestation of idolatry.

mothers and m¯olek This portrayal of women as potential sacrificers of children calls into question whether there were ever real women who did indeed offer their children. Though it might seem unlike female nature for a mother to sacrifice her child, we know that in the ancient world there were women who did. In the ancient Punic city of Carthage, where large numbers of child offerings have been found, some memorials indicate that mothers offered their children to the god Baal Hammon and his consort, Tanit. Although most of the stelae show that it was men who did so, some portray women making these offerings with their husbands or alone.57 This kind of offering, in Punic, is called a molk or mulk offering.58 This word is the direct cognate of an illicit form of child offering in the Hebrew Bible, the 57 58

See Shelby Brown, Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice and Sacrificial Monuments in their Mediterranean Context (JSOTSupp 3; Sheffield: JSOT, 1991), 29, 31, 34. On m¯olek offerings, see Brown, Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice; John Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Otto Eissfeldt, Molk als Opferbegriff im Punischen und Hebr¨aischen und das Ende des Gottes Moloch (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1935); George C. Heider, The Cult of Molek: A Reassessment (JSOTSupp 43; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985); Armin Lange, “‘They Burn Their Sons and Daughters. That Was No Command of Mine’ (Jer 7:31): Child Sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible and in the Deuteronomistic Jeremiah Redaction,” in Human Sacrifice in Jewish and Christian Tradition, 109–32; Paul G. Mosca, “Child Sacrifice in Canaanite and Israelite Religion: A Study in Mulk and mlk” (Ph.D. Dissertation. Harvard University, 1975); Bennie H. Reynolds, “Molek: Dead or Alive?: The Meaning and Derivation of mlk and mlk,” in Human Sacrifice in Jewish and Christian Tradition, 133–50; Ed Noort, “Child Sacrifice in Ancient Israel: The Status Quaestionis,” in The Strange World of Human Sacrifice (ed. Jan N. Bremmer; Leuven: Peeters, 2007), 103–26; Smelik, Klaas, “Moloch, Molech or Molk-Sacrifice? A Reassessment of the Evidence Concerning the Hebrew Term Molekh,” SJOT 9 (1995): 133–92; Lawrence E. Stager and Samuel R. Wolff, “Child Sacrifice at Carthage – Religious Rite or Population Control?: Archaeological Evidence Provides Basis for a New Analysis,” BAR 10/1 (1984): 31–51; idem. “The Rite of Child Sacrifice at Carthage,” in New Light on Ancient Carthage (ed. J. G. Pedley; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1980), 1–11; Francesca Stavrakopoulou, King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice: Biblical Distortions of Historical Realities (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2004).

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m¯olek offering.59 Although some scholars deny that the m¯olek offering is the Israelite equivalent of a molk or that child sacrifice was ever practiced in Israel60 or in Carthage,61 it seems most likely that the m¯olek offering was an Israelite variation of this form of sacrifice. It appears to have been a legitimate form of 59

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Since antiquity, the term m¯olek has usually been thought to be the name of a deity, Molek (Molech, Moloch). However, in 1935, Otto Eissfeldt put forth a study that he said would end the search for this god. Eissfeldt showed that the term is the cognate of the Punic term for a particular kind of offering, a molk, that was made of very young children and their animal substitutes. A m¯olek sacrifice is thus not one made “to Molek” but one done “as a m¯olek” or “for a m¯olek.” As Mosca notes, the benefits of Eissfeldt’s arguments include “a plausible explanation for the lack of extra-biblical references to a god Molech, while at the same time preserving the traditional and well-established vocalization of the Hebrew word” (“Child Sacrifice,” 137). It also explains why this deity “Molek” only appears in contexts of child sacrifice and why it would be the only specifically banned deity in the legal texts (Stavrakopoulou, King Manasseh, 248). Eissfeldt’s hypothesis is the most likely explanation of the term, yet his work created a great deal of controversy. The lack of a particular deity (Molek) who desires child victims presents the theological problem that m¯olek offerings might have been made to Yahweh and that at some points child offerings constituted a legitimate form of Yahwistic worship. Eissfeldt suggested that m¯olek offerings were an accepted Yahwistic practice in Israel until the rise of the Deuteronomists. Subsequent scholars who follow his position have suggested that late postexilic tradents of the Hebrew Bible transformed the technical term m¯olek into that of a deity due to their discomfort with the apparently Yahwistic practice of m¯olek offerings (e.g., Smelik, Stavrakoupoulou). Though some scholars since Eissfeldt, most notably Day and Heider, have sought to establish the identity of a deity “Molek” in opposition to his arguments, many scholars today accept his theory. Even some of those who maintain that there was a deity Molek in Israel still readily accept his argument that the Punic term molk refers to a specific form of offering in Punic religion. For them (e.g., Day, 82; Levenson, 19) the term has a different meaning, that of a deity in Israelite religion, which seems unlikely. Those who follow Eissfeldt include Stager and Wolff (BAR, 47); Ackerman; Reynolds; Lange; Noord; Muller (“m¯olek,” in TDOT); Mark Smith (The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel [2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002], 132–38); Stavrakopoulou; Mosca; Brown; Olyan (Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988]); and Albright, (Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan [London: Athlone, 1968], 236). Those who do not accept his argument include Day, Heider, Milgrom, and Levenson (Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, 18–9.) The most vocal of these scholars, Moshe Weinfeld, suggests that the m¯olek rite, in which children were “passed through . . . fire” (ʻbr b¯aʼ¯eˇs), was a ceremony of initiation and dedication into the cult of a foreign god, most likely Baal-Hadad. The children were not killed or burned, but were made to pass through lines of torches, a process described in the Talmud (b. Sanh. 64a). According to Weinfeld, the rite does not refer to sacrifice but to handing a child over for service, much as Hannah “gives” (ntn) her child Samuel to the Yahwistic cult at Shiloh, for service and not for slaughter (1 Sam 1). See his “The Worship of Molech and the Queen of Heaven and Its Background,” UF (1972): 133–54 and “Burning Babies in Ancient Israel,” UF 10 (1979): 411–13. For rebuttals, see Morton Smith, “A Note on Burning Babies,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 95 (1975): 477–79; Susan Ackerman, Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth Century Judah (HSM 46; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 129. M’hamed Hassine Fantar, Claude Schaeffer, Helene Benichou-Safar, and other scholars argue that the remains found in Carthage and other areas are not sacrificial victims or at least are not the victims of a regular sacrificial practice. Rather, they are mostly the cremated remains of infants and young children who died from natural causes. These scholars argue that the children were buried separately from adults and older children because they were

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offering until either the exile or the Deuteronomic reform, but biblical law and other writings vehemently denounce it. Although the historical relationship between firstborn offerings and m¯olek offerings is probably complex and intertwined, the biblical text portrays m¯olek offerings as substantially different from firstborn offerings.62 Not only are m¯olek offerings illegitimate but they also have different victims than the firstborn. Texts referring to m¯olek or m¯olek-like offerings mention the burning of both sons and daughters (Deut 12:31; 18:10; 2 Kgs 17:17; 23:10; Jer 7:31; 32:35; Ps 106:37–38; cf. Ezek 16:20–21).

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not yet perceived to be people fully initiated into society (e.g., Benichou-Safar, “A propos des ossements humains du tophet de Carthage,” Rivista di Studi Fenici, IX, 1, 1981: 5–9; J. H. Schwartz, F. Houghton, R. Macchiarelli, and L. Bondioli, “Skeletal Remains from Punic Carthage Do Not Support Systematic Sacrifice of Infants,” PLoS ONE 5(2): e9177. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009177). They stress that interpretations of Phoenician and Punic child sacrifice are distorted by the assumptions of scholars who rely on the classical texts, which were often written to disparage Carthage. See, e.g., M’hamed Hassine Fantar, “An Odyssey Debate: Were Living Children Sacrificed to the Gods? No,” Archaeology Odyssey, Nov/Dec, 2000, 28, 30. For a rebuttal, see Joseph A. Greene and Lawrence Stager, “An Odyssey Debate: Were Living Children Sacrificed to the Gods? Yes,” Archaeology Odyssey, Nov/Dec 2000, 29, 31; Claude Schaeffer, Oral communication to the Acad´emie des Inscriptions reported in Comptes rendus de l’Acad´emie des inscriptions et belles-lettres I (Paris: Auguste Durand), 1956: 67. Benichou-Safar has numerous writings, such as Les tombes puniques de Carthage: Topographic structures, inscriptions et rites funiraires (Etudes d’antiquites africaines; Paris: Editions du centre nationale de la recherche scientifique, 1982); idem., “A propos des ossements humains.” The relationship between these two forms of biblical sacrifice is complicated and ultimately unresolved. Some scholars do not differentiate between the two forms of offering (Gerstenberger, Leviticus, 292; Levenson sees them as both distinct and intertwined [Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, 18–24, 34]), while some consider them to be two completely different forms (e.g., Brown, Late Carthaginian, 27–8; Lange, “‘They Burn Their Sons and Daughters,’” esp. 119–120; Milgrom, “Were the Firstborn Sacrificed to Yahweh? To M¯olek?: Popular Practice or Divine Command,” esp. 54–5; idem., Leviticus 17–22, 1590; Day, Molech, 67; Heider, The Cult of Molek, 254; idem., “A Further Turn on Ezekiel’s Baroque Twist in Ezek 20:25–26,” JBL 107 [1988], 722 n. 10). Others have attempted to explain the relationship between the two, though these explanations are not entirely convincing. Ackerman, for instance, argues that, throughout the ANE, originally offerings were made of the firstborn, but eventually all children became potential offerings (Under Every Green Tree, 138–9; see also, Stavrakopoulou, King Manasseh, 284 n.379, 292). She seems to assume that firstborn offerings would be made as m¯olek sacrifices since she does not clarify the relationship between the two (Under Every Green Tree, 137 [see also 119 n.44], as pointed out by Stavrakopoulou, King Manasseh, 296). Mosca argues that firstborn children were usually redeemed, but they could be sacrificed as particularly valuable m¯olek offerings (“Child Sacrifice,” 238). Eissfeldt believed that biblical m¯olek offerings were made of firstborn children (Molk als Opferbegriff, 51–55). Stavrakopoulou points out that interpreters who understand m¯olek as a deity must necessarily separate the two forms, since the firstborn clearly belong to Yahweh while other children would be given to “Molek” (King Manasseh, 296, n.416). Following Mosca, Stavrakopoulou, who believes that the m¯olek offering was originally made by a royal cult in Jerusalem, argues that it was originally a royal form of firstborn offering made to ensure the fertility and perpetuation of the royal lineage that then became popularized (King Manasseh, 293–6).

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Some only mention the burning of sons (b¯anˆım, e.g., 2 Kgs 17:31; 2 Chr 28:3; 33:6; Jer 19:5; Ezek 23:37–39; cf. Isa 57:5 y˘el¯adˆım), yet this term can mean “children” without being sex-specific. Leviticus 18:21 and 20:1–5 only refer to giving “seed” or “offspring” (zeraʻ) for m¯olek. The m¯olek texts also never specify the birth order of the victim or mention burning a firstborn son. Exactly how and why m¯olek offerings took place is unclear; however, texts such as 2 Kgs 23:10; 2 Chr 28:3; 33:6; and Jeremiah 7:31–32; 19; 32: 35, describe a place just outside of Jerusalem in the Valley (gȇ’) of the Son of Hinnom (ben-hinn¯om) where there was a ritual site called a t¯opet (probably meaning “oven,” or “furnace”63 ) where parents would make offerings of their children by “burning” them (´srp; Jer 7:31; 19:5; cf. 2 Kgs 17:31; Deut 12:31) and causing them to “pass through . . . fire” (ʻbr b¯aʼ¯eˇs; Deut 18:10; 2 Kgs 16:3; 17:17; 23:10; 2 Chr 28:3; Deut 12:31 = ´srp b¯aʼ¯eˇs; cf. Lev 18:21; Jer 32:35 ʻbr lmlk). The Judean king Josiah destroyed the t¯opet as part of his religious reform “to prevent a man from causing his son or daughter to pass through the fire as a m¯olek” (2 Kgs 23:10). However, it seems likely that the practice continued unofficially into the post-exilic era, possibly being secretly conducted in various wadis.64 This form of child sacrifice is consistently related to other illegitimate religious practices, such as necromancy and sorcery (Lev 20:6; Deut 18:9–14; 2 Kgs 16:1–4; 17:17) and illegitimate sacrifice (Deut 12:29–32). Because m¯olek offerings have both sons and daughters as victims, and the victims of m¯olek offerings are never said to be the firstborn, they cannot have the same function as the firstborn offering, as least in its final textual portrayal. They do not construct the identity of the chosen child and thereby create this form of both gender and rank hierarchy. The main excavators of the t¯opet in Carthage, Stager and Wolff, have argued that the purpose of the molk child sacrifice there was one of population control; that is, of eliminating either multiple heirs who would reduce the parcel of land or other amount of property inherited, or of eliminating children in poor families who would

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The etymology of the term t¯opet is disputed. It seems most likely to be an Aramaic loan word meaning “fireplace” or “cooker” (tapy¯a; first suggested by Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites: The Fundamental Institutions, 377, n.2; Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice, 24–28, regards it as being from the root ʼph, “to bake”). The term is used to indicate the whole precinct, but probably originally referred to the pyre or hearths in which the burnings would have taken place. Zevit states that Isa 30:29–33 describes a tophet as being a small pyre on the ground too small for a grown human being to fit in (The Religions of Ancient Israel, 521–22). Others have suggested that it is related to the term “drum” (tpp, e.g., Abarbanel), “beauty” (yph), or “spit” (twp). For surveys, see Mulder, “t¯opet,” TDOT XV, 753–58; Day, Molech, 24–28; Heider, The Cult of Molek, 346. On the basis of Isa 57:5. See Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, 1778; Mosca, “Child Sacrifice in Canaanite and Israelite Religion,” 233; Ackerman, Under Every Green Tree, 111–26, 140–43.

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become a drain on economic resources.65 If the same is true for biblical m¯olek offerings, their function would be to eliminate the nameless children of both sexes and of any birth order who would take away from a family’s resources, or whose offering to a deity could bring the family some other hoped-for benefit. Unlike the redeemed firstborn, they are children who are worth more as victims than as offspring. Biblical law relates m¯olek offerings not only to idolatrous, foreign, and immoral practices but also to sexuality and reproduction. Of the nine times the term m¯olek clearly appears in the MT, five are in Lev 18:21 and 20:2–5. Leviticus 18 and 20, unlike many other chapters in Leviticus, do not concern sacrifice, but focus on sexuality and reproduction. They are largely concerned with “seed” or semen (zeraʻ) and where it may legitimately go. The two chapters are mostly made up of legislation against illicit sexual relationships, especially among specific family members (18:6–18; 20:11, 14, 17, 19–21). Included in this legislation are laws about other illegitimate forms of sexual behavior, namely bestiality (18:23; 20:15–16), male homosexual intercourse (18:22; 20:13), intercourse with a menstruant (18:19; 20:18), and adultery (18:20; 20:10). Leviticus 20 also bans the consulting of mediums and wizards (20:6, 27) and the dishonoring of parents (20:9), and it legislates the separation of clean from unclean animals (20:25). This placement appears to understand m¯olek offerings as illegitimate in part because they are considered a misuse of “seed,” yet the placement also suggests that they are related to concerns over inappropriate social and sexual roles. Moreover, Leviticus 20:5 describes these offerings as “whoring after m¯olek.”66 Though this term “whore” (z¯anˆa) is used for a variety of idolatrous acts, its use here contributes to the characterization of m¯olek offerings as sexual/reproductive offenses. This characterization led some rabbinic interpreters to understand m¯olek prohibitions as barring sexual relations with gentile women (e.g., m. Meg 4:9), and some modern interpreters, such as Elliger and Zimmerli, to believe that the children offered for m¯olek were the offspring of cultic prostitutes.67 These characterizations of m¯olek rites beg the 65

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Lawrence E. Stager and Samuel R. Wolff, “Child Sacrifice at Carthage – Religious Rite or Population Control?” BAR 10/1 (1984): 31–51; Stager, “The Rite of Child Sacrifice at Carthage,” in New Light on Ancient Carthage (ed. J. G. Pedley; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1980), 1–11. Ps. 106:37–9 similarly describes child sacrifices by both men and women as making them unclean and a means by which they “whored.” Isaiah 57:3 also relates child sacrifice to adultery (n’p) as well as “whoring” (znh). Karl Elliger, “Das Gesetz Leviticus 18,” ZW 67 (1955), 17; Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel Vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), 344; both cited in Milgrom, Leviticus 17–23, 1559.

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question: what role, if any, did women have in m¯olek offerings? Were m¯olek offerings only understood as related to theological “whoring” or were they more closely related to real, uncontrolled, women? Did Israelite women, like Punic women, make m¯olek offerings of their children, either alone or with their husbands?68 If so, does female participation contribute to their illegitimacy? And did these rites afford women a social, material, and religious power not given by firstborn rites? It is impossible to ascertain women’s involvement in the rite because there is no description of a woman making a m¯olek offering, and laws against m¯olek offerings appear to be directed toward men (Lev 18:21; 20:1–5). However, molk offerings in Carthage and other Punic sites show that these offerings were given by a father, or a mother and father together, or a mother alone.69 In addition, if biblical m¯olek offerings were made as vows, as were Punic molk sacrifices, women might have been able to offer them. Punic molk offerings were made not as the regular requirements of a deity, but in fulfillment of a vow; the deity is said to have “heard the voice” (ˇsmʻ qlʼ) of the offerer.70 As we have seen in Chapter 1, the Hebrew Bible clearly presents women vowing offerings; in priestly thought, women may make vowed offerings as long as the men who have economic control over them do not object (Num 30:3–15; cf. Prov 7:14). Similarly, m¯olek offerings may not only have been made to a male deity. Whereas firstborn offerings are always understood to be offered to Yahweh, the deity to whom m¯olek sacrifices are offered is unclear. If m¯olek is understood to be the name of an actual deity, then they are offered to him. However, in Jeremiah they are said to be offered to Baal (19:5; 32:35).71 Many scholars, following Otto Eissfeldt, believe that they were offered to Yahweh. In the

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So already Peritz states, “Woman’s part as devotee in the worship of Melek, the sacrificing of children in the Valley of Hinnom, which dates back as far as Ahaz, and reached frightful dimensions in the dark days of the seventh century, is not directly stated in the Old Testament. . . . That there was also no distinction of sex in that cult as far as the victim itself was concerned is evident from the recurring phrase ‘to make one’s son or daughter to pass through the fire to Moloch’ (2 Kgs 23:10; Jer 32:35, etc.). There is sufficient reason to suppose, then, that the general terms ‘children of Judah’ (Jer 7:30), ‘inhabitants of Jerusalem’ (19:3), ‘this city’ (19:8), used by the prophets condemning the practice include both men and women” (“Women in the Ancient Hebrew Cult,” 121–22). Brown, Late Carthaginian, 29, 31, 34. In Plutarch’s discussion of Carthaginian molk offerings, he describes the offerings being made in front of the child’s mother, who was paid for giving the child for the offering. Were she to cry, she would not be paid (Plutarch, Supers., 13). Mosca, “Child Sacrifice,” 101. However, the mentions of Baal as the recipient of m¯olek offerings in these passages are not found in the LXX and do not fit the context of the passages. Most scholars consider them to be later additions.

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Punic texts of all locations, molk offerings are made to Baal Hammon or, in the Latin Punic texts, to his Greco-Roman equivalents, Chronos and Saturn. However, in the middle and later stages of Carthage, they are also made to Tanit, the consort of Baal Hammon, who is often described as his “face” (fn). In both Carthage and other Punic sites, some are made to both deities and some to Tanit alone.72 The most common symbol on Punic molk stelae is the so-called “Sign of Tanit,” a female-looking figure of a circle on top of a triangle that sometimes has outstretched arms.73 The Carthage t¯opet also includes one stela with an image that appears to be Aphrodite.74 In the Punic examples, therefore, molk offerings could be made by offerers of either sex with victims of either sex to deities of either sex. Because biblical m¯olek offerings are consistently portrayed as an illicit form of worship, it is possible that they were understood to include an illicit concept of the deity, perhaps one in which a female consort played a role or in which he possessed feminine characteristics. In addition, women may have officiated in some way in the m¯olek cult. Although a Punic stela depicts a male priest holding children to be offered,75 there is also pictorial evidence for females in the cult of Tanit from the Carthage t¯opet,76 as there is for the cult in Punic Monte Sirai.77 Similarly, the Punic t¯opet at Tharros includes depictions of women holding tambourines and dancing.78 Thus, it seems that there were women involved in the rite. We do not know whether there were official practitioners of m¯olek offerings in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, and, if so, who they were. However, in the postexilic poem of Isa 57:3–12, which scholars understand as describing m¯olektype offerings in the wadis,79 those who make these sacrifices are referred to as “sons of a sorceress (b˘enȇ ʻ¯on˘enˆa), offspring of an adulterer, and a 72 73 74 75 76

77 78 79

´ For those made to Tanit alone, see Lipinski, “Tanit,” in Dieux et d´eesses de l’univers ph´enicienne et punique (Leuven: Peeters, 1995), 206, n. 102. See Brown, Late Carthaginian, for copious examples and illustrations. Ibid., 98, 99. Ibid., figure 64c. Ibid., 130 (see also image 500 on p. 273). Note the stela from Lillebelum in which a woman may possibly be making an offering. The image was originally published by Moscati, Italia archaeologica, centri greci, punici, etruschi, italici (Novara: Istituto geografico di Agostini, 1973), 168. Cited in Brown as inscription 58:b (130, 300). Cited in Brown as figure 61c. Ibid., 69. For discussion, see Mosca, “Child Sacrifice,” 233–35; Stavrakopoulou, King Manasseh, 253– 60; Ackerman, Under Every Green Tree, 101–64; idem., “Sacred Sex, Sacrifice and Death: Understanding a Prophetic Poem,” BR 6 (1990), 38–44; Brian B. Schmidt, Israel’s Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 254–59.

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whore”80 (57:3). This highly rhetorical terminology indicates that those who conduct m¯olek offerings are associated with female religious practitioners who are societally, sexually, and ritually characterized as illegitimate. Furthermore, Lev 20:1–6 may imply that women officiated in some way in the m¯olek cult because it associates m¯olek worship with other forms of illicit ritual practice that were known to be practiced by women. Although vv. 1–5 concern m¯olek offerings, the following verse is a prohibition on necromancy: “turning to ghosts (h¯aʼ¯ob¯ot) and known spirits (hayyidd˘eʻ¯onˆım).”81 The placement of v. 6 suggests that there was some relationship between m¯olek rites and these practices. Indeed, the terminology of “whoring after” is used for both. These illicit religious practices are also connected to m¯olek-style child sacrifice in other texts. For instance, Deut 18:10–11 states, “There shall not be found among you one who makes his son or daughter pass through fire, or a diviner (q¯os¯em q˘es¯amˆım), a sorcerer (m˘eʻˆon¯en), or an augur (m˘enah.¯eˇs), or a user of witchcraft (m˘ekaˇsˇs¯ep), or one who casts spells (h.o¯b¯er h.a¯ ber), or who inquires of a ghost or known spirit (ˇso¯ʼ¯el ʼˆob v˘eyidd˘eʻ¯onˆı), or who seeks oracles from the dead (d¯or¯eˇs ʼel-hamm¯etˆım).” Similarly, in 2 Kgs 21:6, King Manasseh is said to have “made his son pass through fire82 and used sorcery (ʻˆon¯en), augury (n¯ıh.¯eˇs), and a ghost and known spirit (ʻ¯a´saˆ ʼˆob v˘eyidd˘eʻ¯onˆım).”83 These passages clearly relate these necromantic practices to child sacrifice, and they also relate the “sorcerer” (m˘eʻˆon¯en) to it, as in Isa 57:3. These illicit rituals were often practiced by women. Leviticus 20:27 clearly states, “A man or a woman (v˘eʼˆıˇs ʼˆo-ʼiˇsˇsaˆ ) who has a ghost or familiar spirit (ʼˆob ʼˆo yidd˘eʻ¯onˆı) will be put to death; they shall stone them with stones; their blood is on them.” Furthermore, although the exact nature of yidd˘eʻ¯onˆı is not completely understood, the term ʼˆob clearly refers to necromancy, either to the ritual pit made for the purpose of communicating with the dead, to the person who uses it, or to the spirits who are consulted.84 Like m¯olek offerings, rites of the ʼˆob were done at night and possibly used ritual pits, into which offerings were put and by which the dead were thought to communicate.85 Women primarily performed the rites of the ʼˆob.86 The clearest instance of 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

Most interpreters emend the form tznh here to v˘ez¯onˆa (“and a whore”) based on the LXX and V. See Stavrakopoulou, King Manasseh, 23–24. Cf. 2 Chr 33:6, which adds “he made his son pass through fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom.” Many manuscripts have the singular. “ʼˆob,” in TDOT I, 133. But see Schmidt who argues that it only refers to the spirits themselves and that there is no proof of the use of a pit in these rites (Israel’s Beneficent Dead, 55, 151). Harry A. Hoffner, “Second Millennium Antecedents to the Hebrew ʼˆob,” JBL 86 (1967), 393; ¯ “ʼˆob,” in TDOT I, 133. Hoffner, “Second Millennium Antecedents to the Hebrew ʼˆob”: 401. ¯

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this practice is in 1 Sam 28:7 in which Saul consults a necromancer to raise up Samuel from the dead so he can prophesy for Saul. Saul specifically asks his cohorts to find him a woman who is “an owner of an ʼˆob” (baʻ˘alatʼˆob), whom he goes to see at night. The practice envisioned in Lev 20:6, and which is associated with m¯olek offerings, is one that was clearly performed by women. If women did participate in m¯olek rites, even alongside their husbands, this sacrificial form would have given them a greater role in the ideology of child sacrifice than the offering of the firstborn son. They would have been granted greater recognition as “owners” and creators of their own offspring. Like Abraham, their ability to offer their children would give importance to their social and biological role in creating them as well as their power to use them for religious or material benefit. Though it is a grisly image, imagine, for instance, if Sarah were to accompany Abraham in slaying Isaac on Mount Moriah: the fundamental story of faith and power would have been hers as well. The presence of some female officiants, even alongside male clerics, would contribute to female agency in the rite as might the presence of a female deity. This does not suggest that the m¯olek offering was primarily a woman’s ritual. However, if m¯olek rites did include female victims, offerers, practitioners, and deities, they would be less concerned with making sex distinctions that prioritize the male over the female and, therefore, with creating a gender hierarchy. In the firstborn ideology a male deity through a male priesthood gives the power of life and death over male victims to male parents. This form has the function of making a male heir that will inherit from the father and obey the deity. Its purpose is to separate males from females as well as from other males, thereby creating hierarchy in gender and status for the victim and the offerer. In the final canonical form of the Hebrew Bible, the ideology of child sacrifice is acceptable, but only in the form of the firstborn, which is a father’s ritual. Although the actual practice of child sacrifice, in any form, eventually stopped in the post-exilic age, the ideology of firstborn sacrifices remained a “reflex,” as Levenson has called it, that persisted and was transformed. Indeed, as Armin Lange points out, firstborn sacrifices are never prohibited in biblical texts, and even the difficult text of Ezek 20:26 only refers to firstborn laws as “not good” by which the people “could not live;” it does not actually prohibit them.87 Aside from this problematic passage, firstborn offerings are never spoken of negatively. In contrast, m¯olek offerings are only portrayed negatively and do not seem to have created any lasting “theological ideal” that persisted in 87

Armin Lange, “‘They Burn Their Sons and Daughters,’” 128.

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the biblical tradition.88 This form of offering, with its less restrictive purpose and participants and which may have allowed women a greater share in the control over their “seed,” came to be eliminated and despised.

child sacrifice and fertility A great many interpreters have stated that the purpose of biblical child sacrifice, be it as m¯olek offerings or firstborn offerings or the two combined, is “fertility.” Often, however, what they mean by this term is not clarified. Many formulations seem to be based on the understanding that the firstling or m¯olek offering will result in a greater abundance of what was offered. For example, Propp argues that “destroying the firstfruits and firstlings is basically an investment or a wager. One gives all to God in hopes that he will repay the offering many times over.”89 Similarly, Stavrakopoulou argues that in all forms of Judahite child sacrifice “perhaps one of the central facets . . . was the association of the practice with fertility; though seemingly paradoxical, the sacrificed child appears to have functioned as a religious symbol of, and stimulus for, fertility and the perpetuation of the family.”90 However, this position seems not just paradoxical but illogical. Why would one destroy the very thing hoped for? Some scholars have begun to question the fertility argument. Indeed, in his commentary Propp also points out that the fertility interpretation of firstlings is not necessarily present in the biblical text: One relinquishes property in hopes that more will accrue, giving one ever greater cause to be thankful. Sacrifice of firstfruits and firstlings may also be construed as redemptive, giving life to future crops and broods. . . . Curiously, however, the Bible largely ignores this commonsense interpretation of firstling/firstfruits sacrifice as an investment. . . . The text instead emphasizes that firstfruits and firstlings are inherently holy to Yahweh.91

Similarly, we have already seen Finsterbusch’s assertion that firstborn offerings exhibit divine ownership (Propp also suggests this92 ) and not fertility 88

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Similarly, Lange shows that in the exilic and post-exilic periods, the firstborn came to be redeemed only, so that the practice of firstborn rites was not abolished but transformed, whereas m¯olek sacrifices become explicitly prohibited (“‘They Burn Their Sons and Daughters,’” 128). Propp, Exodus 19–40, 264. Exodus 19–40, 299. Stavrakopoulou argues that both the sacrifice of the firstborn and the m¯olek offerings have fertility as their purpose (e.g., King Manasseh, 235, 285–86, 288, 290, 294, 296, 299). She bases this claim largely on one difficult inscription from Constantine, KAI 162. Propp, Exodus 19–40, 455. Propp, Exodus 1–18, 456. He assumes that fertility is the basis of firstling ideology, but he writes, “There is no special reward for giving God what is God’s, only punishment for withholding.”

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or thanksgiving. Milgrom argues vehemently that the firstborn offerings of Mesha and Jephthah are done solely out of piety in a time of crisis and do not have a fertility function.93 Furthermore, although Prov 3:9–10 does specifically state that offering firstfruits results in a greater volume of crops, other biblical texts offer multiple reasons for firstling/fruits/born offerings: to learn the fear of Yahweh (Deut 14:23), to celebrate his participation in one’s work and blessing (Deut 12:6–7, 17–18), to copy his slaying of the firstborn of Egyptian people and animals in the Exodus (Exod 13:14–15), to feed the Levitical priests (Deut 18:1–5), to prevent plague in the sanctuary (when Levites are taken as firstborn in Num 8:19), and because God has done numerous wonderful things for Israel including giving them the land (Deut 26:1–11). To be sure, following the law in general results in the blessing of fertility (Lev 26:2–5; Deut 8:13; 28:1–14), among many other things, but this is due to following all of the laws, not first things in particular. Furthermore, actual child sacrifice has the purpose not of creating fertility but of stopping it. Jephthah’s offering of his daughter does not get him more children, but undoes the potentially illegitimate lineage he might have. M¯olek offerings, as portrayed in Leviticus, are understood as a means of infertility, like bestiality and homosexuality, which do not allow “seed” to grow. Indeed, the royal associations of the m¯olek cult in Judah may be due to the need to eliminate multiple potential heirs who might create chaos and war in attempts to inherit the throne, or they may be a show of already achieved reproductive abundance or power. In addition, Stager and Wolff have shown that the purpose of molk child sacrifice at Carthage was population control, not fertility. These reasons may be more likely than or at least stand in addition to a need to promote reproductive abundance. All of these textual examples of child sacrifice show that parents who make such offerings do so because they want something else more than the child in question. Mesha wanted to stop the Israelites advancing on him more than he wanted his son to live. Jephthah wanted to be a successful military leader more than he wanted to save his daughter’s life. In the ‘˘aq¯edˆa, Abraham wants the blessings offered by God more than he wants Isaac to survive. The Punic parents who made molk offerings did so to fulfill their vows for something they desired, or they let their children become victims for monetary gain.94 Even Hannah, who does pray for fertility, gives her child as an offering because 93

94

“Were the Firstborn Sacrificed to YHWH? To M¯olek? Popular Practice of Divine Command?” in Sacrifice in Religious Experience. (ed. Albert I. Baumgarten; Leiden: Brill, 2002). Stavrakopoulou (King Manasseh, 195) rightly recognizes that both Isaac and the daughter of Jephthah are important because of their potential fertility, but she does not see that the story of Jephthah is intended to prevent the improper fertility of Jephthah, rather than promote it. See Plutarch, Supers., 13.

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she wants social status and not to be tormented by her co-wife: “Her rival wife would make her extremely angry by provoking her because Yahweh had closed her womb. So it happened every year: whenever she went up to the house of Yahweh, she would provoke her so that she would cry and would not eat” (1 Sam 1:6–7). With the birth of Samuel, which was dependent on his donation, Hannah is vindicated because her status is raised. The song of Hannah has little to do with the joy of motherhood, but stresses that the divine brings vindication and social mobility: “The barren one bears seven and the one with many sons is miserable . . . Yahweh impoverishes and makes wealthy; he humiliates, he even exalts” (2:5, 7).95 Indeed after she gives Samuel away Hannah only ever sees him once a year; being with him and caring for him were not her primary purposes. Hannah does have more children later on in return for giving Samuel over (2:20–21), but these are not the immediate effect of the vow. The increase in Hannah’s status is the more tangible and prompt effect. These textual examples illustrate that child offerings can operate in the same way as many animal sacrifices: they can use the elimination of offspring to suit the various needs of the parent or owner.96 The owner of animals or the owner of children has the choice to decide who will live, who will be sent away, and who will die. These options are not unequivocally positive for the owner, but the ideology of sacrifice allows such material decisions to be made and acted on with impunity. While the ability to further reproduce might be one desired outcome of child offerings, it is certainly not the only one. However, child sacrifice can be seen more strictly as creating fertility as long as the term “fertility” does not mean, as some interpreters seem to imply, sheer volume of growth. Abundant reproduction is, in some circumstances, a great thing, but that abundance – that “fertility” – may not necessarily be of great quality. It is not fertility in general that one wants, but a controlled and optimal fertility. In some situations, that may mean having a smaller but finer amount of the commodity in question or eliminating parts of it altogether. In others, it may in fact mean having more. To follow a fertility metaphor, one prunes a tree to make it grow, but one also prunes to eliminate the parts that are inefficient and that would take away from the plant’s optimal health. Both firstborn offerings and m¯olek offerings do contribute to fertility by controlling the abundance of the “family tree.” Being an owner of trees, herds, or families 95

96

Similarly, in Luke’s account of the birth of John the Baptist, Elizabeth sees in her pregnancy the end of her social disgrace: “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people” (1:5, NRSV). See also Brown, Late Carthaginian, 167, who argues that practical motivations lie behind child sacrifice, be they protection, revenge, warning, or elimination for the economic benefit of a family.

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requires management, selection, and, at times, elimination. The concept of “fertility” includes this pruning. Indeed, in the ideology of firstborn sacrifice, the potential pruning of this fertility is divinely ordained. As Susan Ackerman says, “If Yahweh fills the womb, then Yahweh has a particular claim on what comes forth.”97 However, in some instances, the concern seems to be more the hopeful expectation that Yahweh would take back some of what he gave.

97

“Child Sacrifice,” 27.

Conclusion: Child Sacrifice and Animal Sacrifice

The previous chapter cited Carol Delaney’s work on Abraham and the meaning of theʻ˘aq¯edˆa for an understanding of child sacrifice and the creation of the role of the father. Delaney’s conclusions are also helpful for understanding the relationship of sacrificial thought to the Bible’s patrilineal systems portrayed in biblical laws and narratives. I agree with Delaney that Gen 22 should not be understood in terms of a procedural innovation that allows substitution of animal for human sacrifice. But her reason for rejecting this understanding is flawed. In discussing Gen 22, she writes, Unlike most other theorists, I don’t think sacrifice – whether human or animal, ritual practice or theoretical discourse – is the most appropriate context for the interpretation of the story. Just because (animal) sacrifice as a ritual practice became important in the Israelite cult and is discussed in the books of the Pentateuch, it does not mean it is the appropriate context for the interpretation of the Abraham story. . . . [S]acrifice is an important category of religious analysis and is applicable to a fairly wide range of societies including that of the ancient Israelites. Although it may be appropriate for interpreting animal sacrifices that were a central part of cultic practice, it is an enormous leap to suggest that they were a substitution for ritual child sacrifice, and even more so to suggest that this is the background of the Abraham story.1

For Delaney, the ʻ˘aq¯edˆa should not be understood in terms of theories of animal sacrifice, because doing so would be to condone child sacrifice. Part of Delaney’s admirable agenda is to delegitimize the patriarchal power to kill children or to allow them to die. By denying the sacrificial nature of this story, Delaney is also denying the right of fathers to harm their children. This is not a story of sacrifice, she would imply, but one of murder. However, 1

Abraham on Trial, 72.

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her interpretation obscures the fact that the writer clearly understood this instance of near-killing in terms of animal sacrifice: the boy can be replaced by a ram on an altar, and the same cultic terminology is used for the boy as for animal victims (ʻ¯olˆa). Delaney is attempting to impose a modern definition of sacrifice onto this ancient text. This is an effective means of social advocacy, but does not explain the author’s perspective.2 Moreover, although Delaney is correct that the ʻ˘aq¯edˆa does seem to legitimize the killing of children by their fathers, we have also seen that mothers may have participated in the sacrifice of children. Therefore, although the form of sacrifice upheld in the ʻ˘aq¯edˆa is a particularly patriarchal one, it is not the only way in which child sacrifice was performed. Therefore, the trope of “sacrifice” as a whole is not always a particularly patriarchal one but a larger issue of ownership, dependence, power, responsibility, and survival. By viewing this story as separate from animal sacrifice, Delaney implicitly disassociates the killing of children from the killing of animals. She is not alone in doing so. As James Watts argues, theories about sacrifice tend either to address portrayals of human killings in stories or of animal offerings in rituals, with the result that theories tend not to be able to address both phenomena equally well.3 But as Watts also points out, practitioners of sacrifice often portray animals and humans as easily interchangeable. This is the viewpoint of the story, as well as of the ritual texts of the firstborn. Indeed, the crux of sacrificial ideology seems to be the tension of this interchangeability; animal sacrifice has been an effective means by which to “think” about human relations and human nature because for ancient people animals and humans may not have been as unlike as we may think of them. It can be difficult to understand animals and humans as generally interchangeable, but the biblical writers felt, at times, that a ewe can become “like a daughter” and a ram can be a substitute for a boy. Indeed, the priestly writer, on whose work we have focused a great deal, understood killing animals and humans as different manifestations of the same problem. The priestly prohibition on eating animal blood is given at the same time as the directive to punish murder, thereby giving value to the killing of both animals and humans: “For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life” (Gen 9:5 NRSV). Although Delaney is 2

3

I also wonder whether, given Delaney’s clear feminist perspective, she would be so opposed to the logic of child sacrifice if the definition of killing children were expanded to include abortion. It too is the legitimate destruction of offspring for the economic and material well-being of the parent. Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus, 176–80.

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concerned with the value of human life, this distinction includes a devaluing of the herds and fields, to which sacrificial victims are compared. This distinction is a modern one and may be one reason why animal sacrifice seems so inexplicable in modern thought.

conclusions This book has tried to follow the biblical writers’ own definitions and understandings of sacrifice, varied though they are, and has seen that many texts treat human and animal sacrifice (and the purity ideology that accompanies it) in similar ways and with similar concerns. Across the board, texts about sacrifice are highly concerned with gender. Because the legal passages, as well as the larger biblical texts, have a generally patriarchal and patrilineal viewpoint, most of these texts present females as hierarchically lesser or associated with the impure or the secular, or with the idolatrous and the illegitimate. Although some texts give inklings of alternate versions of sacrifice that were practiced at various times, biblical legal texts largely omit these forms or delegitimitize them. This book’s focus on gender in the more formalized literary portrayals of sacrifice has revealed a number of important similarities in the ritual treatment of both humans and animals. First, mothers are largely excluded from practicing licit forms of sacrifice. We saw this to be the case with purity laws that exclude new mothers and in child sacrifice where mothers do not appear to offer firstling sacrifices in legal texts. The woman who does sacrifice children is portrayed as unnatural, unfeminine, and scornful of society. Perhaps the one exception to this rule is the story of Hannah, who makes her own decision to give up her child by a vow and who, in so doing, exhibits power over her own child and simultaneously increases her own prestige. However, Hannah makes her offering with the knowledge and support of her husband (1 Sam 1:19–25), whereas in contrast, Sarah is never consulted in the ʻ˘aq¯edˆa. Yet Hannah is in a position to have at least some control over her child and therefore may make this vow. This example shows that women may participate in both human and animal sacrifice less than men simply because they do not often “own” children or property, either at all or in the same way as men. Indeed when women make offerings it is either because it is societally incumbent on them to do so, as after childbirth, or they are making vows with the approval of a husband or father, who materially supports them (Num 30:3–16). Mothers are also distanced from sacrifice as victims. In legal texts, mother animals are not sacrificial victims or at least may not be so while they are characterized as mothers, as for example, the bird over the eggs in Deut 22:6–7,

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and the animal mother in the first week of the child’s life in Exod 22:29–30 [28–29] and Lev 22:27–28. The daughter of Jephthah may be sacrificed because she is not a wife or mother. We can add that the status of mothers in holy war, which is arguably a form of sacrifice, is unclear in a number of texts and needs to be determined based on the situation at hand. In Deuteronomic thought especially, war is conflated with sacrifice through the notion of the h.erem or “total ban” in which all of the inhabitants and animals of a town are killed. The notion is that their destruction is a devotion to God.4 In most texts on war, even when the “ban” is not required, there is a general assumption that all of the men of the defeated army or town will be killed. However, it is uncertain whether women (and children) should be killed in war or taken as booty. The position of women, along with these other living things, is thus a variable for the ritual. Whether or not women are killed changes according to the nature of the war. For example, Deut 20 states that, when a defeated town is far away, all of its adult males should be killed (Deut 20:13), but women and children (and animals) should be kept alive (20:14). However, for towns that are close by and whose land will be taken over by the Israelites, nothing that breathes should be allowed to live. The town is to be under the total ban (20:16–17; see also 2:34; 3:6; 13:15; Josh 11:10–14; 2 Chr 15:13), so that the women do not contribute to the apostasy of the Israelites (v. 18). Similarly, that the status of mothers during war is unstable and must be negotiated is clear in the story of the Midianite women after the incident of Baal Peor (Num 31). In that battle the Israelites have killed all of the males (vayyahargˆu kol-z¯ak¯ar v. 7), but captured the women and children as booty along with the animals (vv. 9, 11). They bring them, as well as the other spoils, before Moses and Eleazer the Priest. The Israelites believe that the married women (who would be mothers or potential mothers) are permissible booty (and thus possessions). However, Moses sees this as impermissible. He becomes angry at the men and says in surprise, “Have you have let every female live?” (hah.iyyˆıtem kol-n˘eq¯ebˆa v. 15). He reminds them that it was the females who led the Israelites to make illegitimate sacrifices at Baal-Peor. He further instructs them to kill all the male children and all of the females who are not virgins. The virgin girls, however, are allowed to live (v. 18). In the story, mothers are the source of the confusion between Moses and the Israelites. As in the laws of purity, the laws of war must carefully work out the status of women in general and of mothers in particular, as both property and person. 4

See, e.g., Susan Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence (Oxford: University Press, 1995), 28–29.

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Another commonality, at least in the official versions, of both human and animal sacrifice is that males are the primary actors, as both offerers and victims. Men alone make firstborn sacrifices, in part to establish their social roles as fathers. The firstborn offering is the only ritual for a new father and, as such, forms a parallel to the new mother’s rite in Lev 12. However, in that rite, the woman does not offer her own child, but has handed it over to the father. The mother, in contrast, offers animals. Although a father most often redeems his child with an animal victim (or money), it nonetheless remains the “theological ideal” that he offers the child himself, thereby showing his possession of it in contrast to the “womb” that was opened by it. Firstborn ideology acts like the laws of animal mothers that negotiate the ways in which her offspring may be taken from her. The rite of the firstborn also creates the role of the child as heir and establishes him as the dominant male of his generation by threatening his death but rescuing him from it after clearly choosing him as heir. Furthermore, males are the primary actors in official forms of sacrifice because they are associated with the public and the corporate, while females are aligned with the private and the personal. Women do not offer communal or time-bound offerings and female animals appear to be offered only in the context of personal impurities or for personal events. Similarly, in both human and animal sacrifice females are rarely victims. In most firstborn laws, only male firstborn humans and animals become victims. Finsterbusch may be correct that there was a time in which female firstlings and firstborn were regular firstborn victims, but her argument has difficulties. Sacrificing a female animal firstling would work against the purposes of animal husbandry, and that of a firstborn girl would work against the purpose of creating an heir. The case of the daughter of Jephthah indicates that in some unusual circumstances a female firstborn may be offered, though the result of that rite is the inverse of the usual purpose of the firstborn offering. The daughter of Jephthah is the undone heir, whereas the firstborn or “only” son is the created heir. She is like the red cow of Num 19, which forms an opposite to the usual structure of sacrifice. In doing so she not only becomes aligned with death, but illustrates the whole nature of the ritual structure. Her case also provokes difficult questions about the nature and purpose of sacrifice. That females are largely excluded from firstborn ideology is also apparent at the beginning of the quasi-sacrificial Passover story, where the Pharaoh tells the Hebrew midwives, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live” (Exod 1:16). Girls have only supporting roles in this drama of slaughtered and chosen firstborn. The story of the daughter of Jephthah, however, shows

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that where girls are sacrificial victims, it is purely for their elimination. This is also the case in m¯olek offerings, which have girls as victims as well as boys. Both girls and (likely or often) non-firstborn boys are simply done away with, with little, if any, recognition of their identity. Sacrificial systems also primarily, though not exclusively, prefer young, nonreproducing victims. M¯olek offerings seem to be made up of very young children, though this is admittedly only by analogy with the Punic evidence. However, the story of the daughter of Jephthah takes great pains to show that she is a virgin, who “had not known a man,” and the ʻ˘aq¯edˆa takes place while Isaac is a “lad” and before his marriage. Were these children to be married, they would no longer be under the complete control of their fathers, either because they would be joined to a different family (as a girl) or because they would be fathers or potential fathers themselves. In some versions of firstborn laws, the child is to be offered and redeemed at eight days old just as an animal is offered, or is available to be offered on the eighth day of its life. In animal husbandry, the taking of young animals suits the purpose of eliminating them from the flock before making too great an investment of resources in their growth. Similarly, it is assumed that children who are to be actually killed and offered are sacrificed at a very young age before they become a member of the community and partake of its resources. The comparison of human and animal participants in sacrificial practice also shows that the nature and purpose of the rite change dramatically depending on the gender of the participants. For example, when the daughter of Jephthah is offered as a firstborn offering, there is no redemption; thus the outcome and purpose of the firstborn offering of the female are entirely different than in the ʻ˘aq¯edˆa, its parallel, where the male victim emerges redeemed and transformed into the heir. The daughter could not be redeemed, for that would make her an heir. Conversely, the nature of the rite helps characterize the participants according to gender: were a mother to perform a firstborn offering, she would offend her gender role – as does the masculinized mother Jerusalem who slaughters her children – which is wholly unacceptable, and she should be executed. If it is the case that women participated in m¯olek offerings, this participation could only contribute to their illegitimacy, as would, likely, the slaughtering of females in exactly the same manner as males. The m¯olek rite does not maintain the hierarchical distinction between boy babies and girl babies so clearly drawn in Lev 12. Similarly, were there no change in gender among the h.at..ta¯ ʼt victims of Lev 4, the rite would appear less concerned with the hierarchy between the common laity and its leaders. The comparison of the ritual treatment of humans and animals has shown that, although sacrifice is interrelated with the management of animal

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reproduction, as discussed by J. Z. Smith, it is also concerned with the management of human reproduction. This focus on controlled reproduction is one of the primary reasons that sacrifice has been an important ritual trope for understanding and enacting concepts of sexuality and gender. Both animal and human sacrifice are sanctioned means of eliminating individuals who drain the owner’s optimal resources. The purity system is also a means of regulating human sexuality by intertwining sexual activity with controlled access to the prerogatives of sacrificial worship, especially meat eating and the communal experience of feasting. Similarly, both animal and human sacrifice negotiate the ways in which the “fruits” of reproduction can be managed. With animals, this entails the proper usage of offspring and of the reproductive substances of milk and eggs. Among people, sacrifice functions to manage the proper organization of offspring, particularly by claiming them for the paternal line over and above the maternal. Scholars have debated whether human or animal sacrifice came first. This book has argued that human and animal sacrifice are variations on the same phenomenon, though they each take a wide variety of forms. Both are concerned with the maintenance of resources, the stability of the community of both people and animals, and managed reproduction through the controlled relationship between the sexes. Although animal and human sacrifice have many commonalities, there are nonetheless endless variations on the ways that their core concerns can be expressed, inverted, or changed to accommodate a wide range of ritual needs. Indeed, though we speak of sacrifice as though it were one process, it is in fact numerous processes that act in tandem to manage all kinds of different problems, expressions, and relationships. Gender relations is only one of these issues, though an extremely important one. Although sacrificial laws are highly varied, their practitioners and writers managed to adjust the ritual trope of sacrifice to meet their social needs and the changing features of gender under different circumstances.

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Biblical References Index

genesis 1 1:22 1:27 6:9 8:17 9:1 9:4 9:5 9:7 15:9 15:9–21 17 17:1 17:12 17:23 18:8 18:27 19:31–8 21 21:4 21:8 21:15–19 22

29:26 30:9–18 30:35 31:38 31:39 32:14 [32:15] 32:14–15 [32:15–16] 35:23 38 49:3

exodus

179 192 162 68 n.103 192 192 89, 143 n.111 229–230 192 44 n.20, 52 n.48 49–50 n.44 21 68 n.103 98 188 103 126 208 n.40 194 98, 188 78 n.4, 189 n.132 213 10, 23, 197 n.10, 194, 197 n.10, 228 208 n.40 167 n.73 44 n.20 44 n.20, 60 127 44 n.20 60 201 26, 36 196

1:16 2:3 4:22–23 4:25 11:5 12:3–4 12:5 12:7 12:8 12:10 12:15–20 12:22 12:43–48 13:2 13:11–16 13:12–15 13:13 13:16 15:1 19:15 20:9 21:4 22:29–30 [22:28–29]

23 23:12 23:14–19 23:16 23:17 23:18

255

232 213 64, 201 188 201 63 41, 45 n.27, 63 112 n.18 93 n.52 114 112 112 n.18 34 64 n.91, 92, 97, 198 n.13, 199, 201, 205 64 n.92 64 n.91, 95, 97, 198 n.13, 201, 205, 207, 225 57, 199, 201, 205 n.27 64 n.92 171 n.86 66, 102, 183 40 207 41, 43, 64 n.91, 85, 89 n.41, 96 n.57, 97–98, 99 n.63, 100, 105, 188, 195, 198–199, 201, 205, 206, 207, 231 37, 78, 91, 96 n.57 40 92–93 81 27, 87 82

256 23:19 24 24:5 25:5 26:14 29 29:12 29:13 29:14 29:16 29:17 29:20 29:21 29:22 29:23–25 29:26–28 29:34 29:36 29:37 29:38–42 29:40–41 30:11–16 30:29 34 34:14–15 34:18–20 34:19 34:19–20 34:20 34:22 34:23 34:25–26 34:26 35:7 35:23 36:19 38:8 39:34

BIBLICAL REFERENCES INDEX

81, 82, 85, 87, 49 n.44 49 n.44 142 n.109 142 n.109 56, 134 114 n.27 114 n.31 114 n.25, 114 n.32, 115 n.34 114 n.27 115 n.34 114 n.27, 28 112 n.15 114 n.31 113 n.24 50 114 129 113 45 83 n.23 62 113 37, 78, 91, 94, 96 n.57 225 64 n.92, 199 64 n.91, 95, 202 97, 198 n.13, 201, 206–207 57 81 27, 87 93 81, 82, 85, 87 142 n.109 142 n.109 142 n.109 25 142 n. 109

leviticus 1–5 1–7 1–16 1:3 1:5 1:5–17 1:9 1:10

73 45 13 24 n.24, 41, 46 n.34, 47, 75 n.132 35, 47, 114 nn.27 & 28 113 n.24 47, 115 n.34 41

1:11 1:13 1:14–17 1:15 1:16 2:1 2:2 2:3 2:4–5 2:9 2:10 2:11 2:14–16 2:16 3:1 3:2 3:3–5 3:6 3:8 3:9–11 3:9–16 3:13 3:14–17 3:17 4 4–5 4–6 4:3 4:4 4:5–7 4:7 4:8–10 4:11 4:11–12 4:12 4:14 4:16–18 4:17 4:18 4:19–20 4:22–23 4:23 4:25 4:26 4:27–35 4:28 4:30 4:31 4:32 4:34 4:35

47, 114 n.27 47, 115 n.34 46 47, 114 nn.27 & 28 47 81 113 n.24 50 n.45 112 113 n.24 50 n.45 82, 83 n.23, 94 81 113 n.24 41, 46, 49, 69, 132 24 n.24, 35, 114 nn.27 & 28 49, 114 n.31 41, 46, 49 35, 114 nn.27 & 28 114 n.31 49 35, 114 nn.27 & 28 114 n.31 96 n.57 51, 53, 117, 119, 123, 233 118 134 46, 51, 117 24 n.24 114 n.28, 134 114 n.27 114 n.31 114 nn.25 & 32, 115 n.34 122–123 113 n.21, 114, 117 46, 52, 117 114 n.28 112 n.15 114 n.27 114 n.31 46, 52 41, 117 114 nn.27 & 28 114 n.31 46 n.37 41, 46, 52, 117 114 nn.27 & 28 114 n.31 117 114 nn.27 & 28 114 n.31

BIBLICAL REFERENCES INDEX

4:32 5 5:1–4 5:1–13 5:2–4 5:6 5:7–10 5:7–13 5:9 5:11–12 5:12 5:15–17 5:15–6:7 [ 5:15–5:26] 5:18 6:6 [5:25] 6:11 [6:4] 6:15 [6:8] 6:17 [6:10] 6:17–18 [6:10–11] 6:18 [6:11] 6:20–23 [6:13–16] 6:22 [6:15] 6:23 [6:16] 6:25 [6:18] 6:25–30 [6:18–23] 6:26 [6:19] 6:27 [6:20] 6:27–28 [6:20–21] 6:29 [6:22] 6:30 [6:23] 7:1 7:2 7:3–5 7:6 7:8 7:13 7:14 7:18 7:19–21 7:21 7:23–25 7:30–31 7: 30–34 8 8:2 8:12 8:15 8:16 8:17 8:19 8:21 8:23

41, 52 118 117 46 n.37, 51, 119, 123 55 n.62 117 46 55 n.62, 118 112 n.15, 114 nn.27 & 28 46, 81 113 n.24 46 51 46 n.35 46 n.35 113 n.21 113 n.24 83 n.23, 121 50 n.45 50, 121 113 n.24 51 n.48 53 50 n.45, 121 117, 123 121, 129 123 121, 124 50 n.45, 121 114 50 n.45 114 nn.27 & 28 114 n.31 50 n.45, 174 47, 48, 113 nn.24 & 32 83 n.23, 94 114 n.27 121 n.41 50, 149 n.2 165 96 n.57 114 n.31 50 134 56 51 n.48 114 nn.27 & 28, 129 114 n.31 114 nn.25 & 32, 115 n.34 114 nn.27 & 28 115 n.34 114 n.27

8:24 8:25–26 8:26–27 8:30 9:2 9:3 9:4 9:8 9:9 9:10 9:12 9:14 9:15 9:18 9:19–20 9:24 10 10:9 10:12–15 10:14 10:17 10:17–18 11 11–15 11:39–40 12

12–15 12:2 12:3 12:5 12:6 12:6–8 13 13–14 13:29 13:38 13:46 14 14:1–32 14:2–9 14:3 14:4–7 14:7 14:8 14:11 14:13 14:14 14:23

257 114 nn.27 & 28 114 n.31 113 n.24 51 n.48 52 n.48, 56, 107 n.2 107 n.2, 119 46 n.36 107 n.2 114 n.27 114 n.31 114 nn.27 & 32 115 n.34 129 46 n.36, 114 n.27 114 n.31 114 n.31 121 83 n.23 34 22, 50 50 n.45, 53, 121 119 56, 94, 151 n.9, 152, 158 n.38 151 151 7, 20, 21, 77–80, 90, 98 n.58, 105, 151, 158, 159, 174, 179, 180, 184, 185–190, 212, 232, 233 164, 192 137, 143, 164, 178 98 137, 143, 153 24 n.24, 119 29 128, 142 n.109 151 29 29 113 120, 128 29 110 113 120, 142 n.109 112 n.15 113 24 n.24 50 n.45 114 n.28 24 n.24

258 14:25 14:37 14:49 14:49–53 14:51 14:52 14:53 15 15:2–15 15:5 15:14 15:14–15 15:16–18 15:19 15:19–24 15:24 15:24–26 15:25 15:25–28 15:29 15:29–30 15:33 16 16:3 16:3–11 16:5 16:7 16:14 16:15 16:19 16:20–22 16:21 16:25 16:27 16:28 16:32 17:3 17:4–5 17:6 17:9 17:11–14 17–26 18 18:6–18 18:17 18:19 18:21 18:23 18:24–30 19:7

BIBLICAL REFERENCES INDEX

114 n.28 142 n.109 129 142 n.109 112 n.15 129 120 137, 144, 158, 163, 174, 175–183 151 46 n.35 24 n.24 119 102, 151 159 79, 143, 151 14, 137, 141 n.106, 159 143 137 151 24 n.24, 25 n.29 29 143, 164 10, 54, 110–111 134 45 119 24 n.24 112 n.15 119 112 n.15 151 24 114 n.31 114 n.25, 115 n.34, 119 24, 123, 124 51 n.48 56 24 n.24 112, 114 nn.27 & 31 24 n.24 89, 143 n.111 13, 14 n.28 90–91, 181, 182, 219 219 100 n.65 139 218, 219, 220 192 140 121 n.41

19:19 19:21 20 20:1–5 20:6 20:15–16 20:18 20:21 20:27 21:1–4 21:7–9 21:10 21:10–12 21:13–15 21:16–23 21:20 21:22 22 22:3–7 22:4 22:4–7 22:12–13 22:18–19 22:19 22:20–25 22:21 22:24 22:27–28 23:10–14 23:12 23:13 23:17 23:18–20 23:19 23:20 23:40 24:7 24:10–23 24:14 24:23 26:2–5 27 27:2–7 27:26

192 24 n.24 90–91, 181, 182, 219 218, 219, 220, 222, 223 218, 222, 223 192 14, 137 n.84, 164 139, 140 n.100, 141 222 129 22 51 n.48 123, 175 22 14, 22, 69–75 74 33–34 96 n.57 149 n.2 102 34 22, 34 46 n.34, 47 41, 50 68–75 50 44 85, 97–103, 105, 231 81 45 nn.24 & 25 83 n.23 81, 83 n.23, 94 45 nn.24 & 25 46 n.36, 50 81 81 n.9 113 n.24 184 113 113 225 42, 168 186 64 n.91

numbers 1:47–53 1:49 2:33

24 203 n.19 203 n.19

BIBLICAL REFERENCES INDEX

3:3 3:6–9 3:11–13 3:12 3:40–51 3:46–51 4:2–15 4:3 4:23 4:35 4:39 4:43 5:2–4 5:11–31 5:26 6 6:1–21 6:2 6:3–4 6:5 6:6–12 6:10 6:10–12 6:13–14 6:14 6:17 6:18 6:20 7:17 7:23 8 8:7 8:8 8:11 8:14–19 8:16 8:16–17 8:17 8:19 8:21 8:24–25 9:6–10 12 12:12 15 15:1–16 15:5 15:7 15:10 15:22–31 15:23–24

51 n.48 24 64 n.92, 97, 195, 198 n.13 199, 201 97, 195, 199 199 24 24 24 24 24 24 151, 153, 154 7, 32 113 n.24 20, 24 n.24 31, 174 174 83 n.23 112 174 24 n.24 29 24 n.24 46 n.36, 50 50 24 n.24 83 n.23 46 n.36, 50 50 203 127, 203 n.19 56, 134 203 n.19 195 201 64 n.91 198 n.13 225 127, 128, 203 n.19 24 149 n.2 170–172 155 54 n.57, 73, 134 81 83 n.23 83 n.23 83 n.23 51, 117, 123 46

15:24 15:27 15:35–36 18:8–10 18:9 18:11–13 18:11–19 18:13 18:13–18 18:15 18:15–16 18:15–18 18:16 18:16–19 18:17 18:17–18 18:23–24 18:26–28 19

19:2 19:9 19:11 19:13 19:14–16 19:18 19:19 19:20–21 19:22 27:1–11 28 28:1–8 28:9 28:11 28:14 28:15 28:19 28:22 28:24 28:26 28:27 28:30–32 29:2 29:5 29:8 29:11 29:12–34 29:35 30

259 52, 117 44 n.20, 46, 52, 117 113 50 n.45 121 22, 34 50 81, 203 n.19 195, 200 198 n.13, 201 199 64 n.91 57 199 114 nn.27 & 31 198 n.13 203 n.19 24 10, 13, 16, 24, 67, 106–147, 151, 153, 154, 164, 172–175, 192, 209–210, 232 44 n.17, 67 24 n.22, 164, 174 24 n.22 164, 174 24 n.22, 174 24 n.22, 174 129 164 24 n.22 210 62 45 n.23 45 n.31 45 n.30 83 n.23 45 n.30 45 n.27 45 n.27 45 n.27 81 45 n.26 45 n.26 45 n.32 45 n.32 45 n.29 45 n.29 45 n.28 45 n.33 19

260 30:3–16 31 31:19 31:21–24 35:25 36:2–12

BIBLICAL REFERENCES INDEX

30, 31, 220, 230 127, 128, 138 n.95, 231 153 151 51 n.48 210

deuteronomy 2:34 3:6 5:14 7:3–4 7:13 8:13 12:6–7 12:12 12:13–28 12:15 12:15–27 12:16 12:17–18 12:18 12:21 12:22 12:23–25 12:23–27 12:27 12:29–32 12:31 13:15 [13:16] 14 14:3–20 14:21 14:22–26 14:23 14:24–27 14:29 15:19 15:19–23 15:21 15:22 16:2 16:11 16:14 16:16 17:1 18:4–5 18:9–14 18:10

231 231 40 140 201–2 n.18 225 225 28, 78 n.6, 96 81 36, 148, 149 n.2 49 56 225 28, 78 n.6, 96 36 148, 149 n.2 56 89 114 n.27 218 217, 218 231 94–97 56, 87, 152 82, 85, 87–97, 105 95 95, 225 200 n.16 33 112, 206 64 nn.91 & 92, 95, 195, 199–200 70 148, 149 n.2 45 n.27 28, 33, 78 n.6, 96 28, 33, 78 n.6, 96 95 70 81, 225 218 217, 218

18:10–11 20:13–17 20:19–20 21 21:1–9 21:3 21:15–17 22:6–7 22:9–10 22:10 23:1 [23:2] 23:2 [23:3] 23:3–8 [23:4–9] 23:10–11 [23:11–12] 23:10–15 [23:11–16] 23:12–14 [23:13–15] 23:17–18 [23:18–19] 25:6 26:1–11 26:12 26:14 27 27:6 27:20–23 28:1–14 28:4 28:18 28:51 29:11[29:10] 31:12 32:14 33:17

222 231 104 68, 111 135–136, 163 44 n.17, 68 196 85, 86–87, 92, 100, 101, 230 91 44 n.16 70, 74 74, 184 140 102, 148 169 113 n.22 26, 31 196 28, 225 33 148, 149 n.2 91 112 90 225 201–2 n.18 201–2 n.18 201–2 n.18 28, 78 n.6 28 n.40 60 60

joshua 5:3 5:7 8:31 11:10–14

188 188 112 231

judges 4:19 5:1 5:25 11 13 13:3–7 13:14

83 171 n.86 83 48, 197, 203, 208–210 20 nn.7 & 9 212 212

261

BIBLICAL REFERENCES INDEX

14:18 16:17–30

44 n.17 20 n.9

1 samuel 1

1–3 1:4–5 1:6–7 1:11 1:19–25 1:20–25 1:21 1:22 1:23 1:24–25 1:28 2:5–7 2:19 2:20–21 2:22 6 7:15–17 8:1–5 8:4 8:13 8:15 9:23 12:11 14:33–35 14:49 15:34 16 17:17–18 19:18 20:25–7 21:3–6 [21:4–7] 28 28:7 28:24

28, 30, 31, 63 n.88, 79, 212–213, 216 n.60 203, 226 7, 33 226 20 nn.7 & 9, 212 230 77–80 28 20 n.9 213 28–29, 35–36, 79 20 n.9 226 80 226 24 47–48, 76, 103, 106 n.2 203 203 203 37 72 n.117 37 208 112, 114 n.27 208 n.40 203 49 n.44 82 203 149 n.2 66, 102, 148 n.1 26 223 36

2 samuel 3:29 5:8 11:2–4 12:1–18 12:3 13:19

148 n.1, 168 n.75 70 n.108 148 n.1 58 n.73 59 126

1 kings 3:16–28 11:8 14:24 15:12 22:46 [22:47]

213 8, 25, 36, 37 26 26 26

2 kings 3:22 3:27 7 8:6 9:32 12:4 12:16 [12:17] 16:1–4 16:3 16:15 17:17 17:31 20:18 21:6 23:7 23:10 23:11

142 n.109 197 148 n.1 72 n.117 72 n.116 62 62 218 218 114 n.27 217, 218 218 71, 72 n.117 222 26 217, 218, 220 n.68 72 n.117

isaiah 1:11 1:18 7:15–16 7:21–22 11:7 28:9 30:22 30:29–33 34:6 39:7 55:1 57:3 57:3–12 57:5 58:5 61:3 63:2 64:6 [64:5]

60 142 n.109 83 n.23, 84 83 106 n.2 84 164 218 n.63 60 71, 72 n.117 82 219 n.66, 222 221 218 126 126 142 n.109 137 n.84

jeremiah 6:26 7:18

126 8, 26

262 7:30 7:31–32 19 19:3 19:5 19:8 31:9 32:35 34:18–20 38:7 41:16 44:15–30 50:11 51:40 52:25

BIBLICAL REFERENCES INDEX

220 n.68 217, 218 218 220 n.68 218, 220 220 n.68 201 217, 218, 220 50 n.44 72 n.117 72 8, 26 44 n.17 60 72 n.117

ezekiel 7:19 -21 16 16:20–22 16:41 16:45–46 18:6 20:25–26 20:26 20:30–31 22:10 23 23:36–37 23:37–39 27:30 34:3 36:17–18 42:13 43:18 43:20–23 44:11–12 45:15–17 45:21–25 46:4–5 46:13–15

139, 140 n.100 213 8, 36, 214, 217 214 214 139, 181 197 n.11 201, 223 197 n.11 139, 181 213 214 218 126 36 139, 183 50 n.45 114 n.27 129 34 62 45 n.27 45 n.31 45 n.23

micah 6:7

zechariah 1:8–11 6:2 12:10 13:1 13:8

26 148 n.1 44 n.17

jonah 3:6

126

142 n.109 142 n.109 195 n.1 138, 140 196 n.7

psalms 51:7 [51:9] 66:15 78:51 89:27[89:28] 105:36 106:37–39

129 60 201 196 201 217, 219 n.66

proverbs 3:9–10 7:14 9:2 27:26 27:27 30:29–31 31:2

225 30, 220 36 60 44 n.20 60 31

job 1:14 13:12 18:18 20:16–17 21:10 41:25 [41:17] 127 42:6

44 n.16 126 201 83 n.23 106 n.2 126

song of songs

hosea 4:14 9:4 10:11

60, 197 n.11

8:1

84

lamentations 1:8 1:17 2:10

139 139 126

263

BIBLICAL REFERENCES INDEX

esther 1:12 1:15 2:3 2:14 2:15 4:1 4:3 4:4 4:5

72 n.116 72 n.116 72 n.116 72 n.116 72 n.116 126 126 72 n.116 72 n.116

2 chronicles 15:13 23:19 26:19–21 28:3 29:5 29:22 29:24 33:6 35:11

231 149 n.2 172 218 139 114 n.27 114 n.27 218, 222 n.82 34, 114 n.27

daniel 9:3

judith

126 12:11

72 n.116

ezra 2:63 2:65 6:9 6:20 7:17 8:35 9:11

50 n.45 25 n.28 60 34 60 102 140

nehemiah 2:4 7:65 7:67 10:32–33 [10:33–34] 10:35–37 [10:36–38]

142 n.109 50 n.45 25 n.28 62 64 n.91

matthew 19:12

luke 1:5 2:22–24

203 n.20 25 n.28

226 n.95 212 n.52

1 corinthians 3:2

1 chronicles 6:28 [6:13] 25:5–6

72

84

hebrews 9:13 11:32–34

106 n.2 208

Subject Index

‘˘aq¯edˆa (binding of Isaac), 194, 195, 197, 198, 203, 204, 208, 209, 210, 211, 225, 228, 229, 230, 233 Aaron (biblical character), 22, 54, 69, 74, 109, 123, 170, 171, 172 abortion, 229 Abraham, 21, 23, 49, 78, 81, 103, 194, 197, 198, 208, 211, 213, 223, 225, 228 Ackerman, S., 25, 172, 212, 216, 218, 221, 227 Adams, C., 58, 83, 84 animals ritual use of, 40–1 terms for, 45 Archer, L., 18, 42, 52, 55, 132, 143, 165, 189 Arnobius the Elder, 75 ʼ¯aˇsa¯ m offering, 33, 46, 50, 51, 114, 117, 119, 121 Azazel goat, 10, 24, 111, 119, 120, 125, 151 Bal, M., 146, 203, 204, 209 Baumgarten, A., 107, 118, 124, 125, 126, 225 b˘ekˆırˆa (female firstborn). See firstborn b˘ekˆor. See firstborn Bell, C., 10, 11, 161 Berlinerblau, J., 30 Biale, D., 160, 166, 169 Bird, P., 7, 19, 25, 26, 27, 31 birds (as offerings), 31, 46, 55, 57, 86, 87, 97, 100, 101, 102, 104, 118, 120, 131, 152, 185 blood animal, 89 general, 56, 57, 89, 90, 135, 142, 143, 229 reproductive, 49, 53, 79, 89, 90, 99, 108, 109, 118, 122, 123, 128, 130, 137, 138, 142, 143, 144, 145, 147, 152, 155, 165, 166, 168, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 185, 186, 189, 214, 222, 229

sacrificial, 2, 9, 22, 23, 37, 47, 53, 54, 75, 89, 90, 93, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 117, 120, 121, 122, 123, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 142, 143, 144, 165, 166 Bodenheimer, F., 81, 82 Brin, G., 203, 207 Brooten, B., 22 Brown, S., 215, 221, 226, 229 Burnside, J., 51 Carthage, 215, 216, 218, 219, 220, 221, 225, 229 castration, 43, 44, 57, 62, 68–74. See eunuchs childbirth, 3, 6, 12, 21, 26, 29, 30, 38, 55, 77, 79, 80, 103, 119, 143, 145, 151, 153, 155, 158, 164, 168, 169, 170, 174, 177, 180, 184, 185, 188, 190, 193, 212, 230 circumcision, 8, 20, 21, 80, 98, 104, 165, 166, 185, 187, 188, 189, 196 female, 21 Daube, D., 82, 92 De Troyer, K., 168, 186, 187 De Vaux, R., 205 DeGuglielmo, A., 44 Delaney, C., 197, 211, 228, 229 Detienne, Marcel, 5, 33 Deuteronomic source (D), 14, 15, 49, 105, 148 Douglas, M., 152, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 165, 170, 173, 175, 179, 209 eggs, 58, 83, 84, 85, 86, 92, 101, 103, 104, 143, 230, 234 Eilberg-Schwartz, H., 40, 41, 90, 91, 100, 141, 144, 163, 164, 165, 166, 188, 189 Eissfeldt, O., 216

264

SUBJECT INDEX

ejaculation, 8, 12, 102, 151, 152, 158, 163, 164, 166, 169, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 182, 185, 193 Ellens, D., 166, 169, 177, 178, 180 Elohist (E), 14, 105, 170 eunuchs, 70–3, 74 fat (of sacrificial animals), 22, 47, 49, 50, 53, 93, 96, 112, 113, 114, 117, 119, 120, 135, 200 Feldman, E., 151, 152, 153, 154, 155 Finsterbusch, K., 199, 205, 206, 207, 210, 224, 232 firstborn, 4, 16, 50, 57, 64, 85, 93, 94, 97, 104, 112, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 217, 218, 219, 220, 223, 224, 225, 226, 229, 232, 233 firstfruits, 14, 28, 34, 45, 81, 82, 92, 93, 198, 199, 202, 224, 225 firstlings, 14, 15, 34, 64, 89, 93, 95, 96, 98, 101, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 206, 210, 224, 225, 230, 232 Frymer-Kensky, T., 155 gala, 72, 243 Gane, R., 54, 118 genital disease (impurity), 29, 34, 55, 153, 154, 169, 174, 175–9. See z¯ab Gilders, W.K., 11, 15, 23, 54 Girard, R., 10, 66 goddesses, 6, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 111, 146, 147, 202 Greenberg, M., 138, 141 Greenspahn, F., 196 Gruber, M., 28, 35, 37, 78, 124, 133, 142, 148, 167, 186 Hannah (biblical character), 28, 29, 31, 33, 35, 36, 63, 77, 78, 79, 80, 90, 203, 212, 213, 216, 225, 226, 230 Haran, M., 13, 28, 60, 85, 92 h.at..ta¯ ʼt, 16, 24, 33, 42, 46, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58, 62, 73, 76, 79, 81, 107, 110, 111, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 140, 143, 144, 145, 174, 203, 233 Heyman, G., 10 high priest, 12, 20, 23, 47, 51, 54, 56, 119, 123, 174 Hoffman, L., 163, 165 Holiness Code, 14, 139

265

Holiness writer, 13, 14, 15, 41, 45, 47, 48, 50, 55, 68, 69, 70, 83, 91, 100, 105, 123, 139, 151, 164, 181, 182 incest, 90, 91, 100, 181, 182, 219 intercourse (impurity of), 8, 30, 34, 102, 139, 140, 158, 166, 169, 175, 176, 177, 181, 182, 183, 191, 219 Jameson, M., 57, 62, 67 Jay, N., 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 77, 79, 102, 108, 130, 141, 162, 165, 166, 167, 189, 208 Jephthah (and daughter of), 48, 197, 198, 203, 205, 208, 209, 210, 213, 225, 231, 232, 233 Kalmanofsky, A., 214 Keel, O., 103 Klawans, J., 9, 66, 149, 150, 155, 158, 167, 169, 170, 179 Kristeva, J., 6, 8 Lange, A., 206, 223, 224, 225 Lehman, M., 21 Levenson, J., 195, 196, 197, 203, 204, 208, 216, 223 Levine, B., 42, 62, 101, 117, 126, 129, 130, 138, 176, 211 L´evi-Strauss, C., 40 Levites, 15, 24, 34, 56, 81, 97, 128, 134, 199, 203, 225 Maccoby, H., 106, 141, 146, 147 Magonet, J., 186 Maimonides, 88 Marsman, H., 7, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, 207 Matsot, 27, 78, 83, 87, 92, 93, 94, 199. See pilgrimage feasts McCarter, P.K., 33, 35, 47 McClymond, K., 9 meat, 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 15, 19, 27, 29, 33, 36, 38, 43, 49, 50, 53, 56, 57, 58, 60, 62, 66, 67, 74, 78, 80, 81, 83, 84, 87, 89, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 115, 117, 118, 121, 125, 135, 149, 165, 200, 234 menstruation, 12, 14, 30, 80, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 151, 153, 156, 158, 159, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 193, 219 Mesha (King of Moab), 197, 198, 203, 205, 210, 213, 225 Meyers, C., 19, 33, 35, 36, 63, 78, 212

266

SUBJECT INDEX

Milgrom, J., 14, 44, 46, 47, 52, 53, 54, 58, 68, 69, 70, 83, 85, 89, 90, 91, 93, 98, 101, 110, 117, 118, 123, 124, 125, 133, 134, 138, 139, 140, 147, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 167, 170, 182, 186, 188, 216, 218, 225 milk, 44, 48, 57, 58, 60, 66, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 106, 168, 188, 192, 234 minh.aˆ offering, 33, 50, 53, 81, 112, 117, 121 Miriam (biblical character), 170, 171, 172, 188 m¯olek offerings, 16, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 233 Mosca, P., 216 nazirite, 20, 31, 32, 50, 83, 112, 174, 196, 212 necromancer of Endor, 26, 36, 37 niddˆa, 108, 126, 127, 128, 129, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 153, 164, 173, 176 ʻ¯olˆa offering, 42, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 55, 56, 73, 76, 79, 113, 114, 119, 135, 208, 229 female as, 47–8, 49 Olyan, S., 11, 15, 23, 41, 70, 126, 132, 149, 153, 162, 165, 170, 185 Ortner, S., 160, 162, 165, 166 Passover, 22, 34, 45, 63, 64, 83, 93, 112, 205, 232 Peritz, I., 78, 206, 220 pet.er reh.em, 201, 202, 203, 206, 207. See firstborn pet.er ˇseger, 201 P´eter-Contesse, R., 44, 52 Philo, 42, 52, 69, 85, 87, 99, 126 pidyon habben (redemption of the son, Jewish rite), 211 pilgrimage feasts, 14, 15, 27, 28, 33, 37, 38, 78, 87, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 104, 149 women in attendance, 27–9, 78 Plaskow, J., 18 Plutarch, 220, 225, 229 priestesses, 6, 7, 22, 23 Priestly writer (P), 8, 13, 14, 15, 20, 24, 32, 35, 41, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 55, 66, 68, 69, 77, 79, 83, 105, 107, 108, 113, 125, 126, 139, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 170, 178, 181, 182, 183, 184, 187, 192, 193, 229 priests, deformed, 70, 74

Propp, W., 25, 63, 64, 82, 83, 88, 111, 201, 207, 224 q˘ed¯eˇsaˆ , 25, 26, 37 queen mother, 25 queens, 25, 37 Raab, K., 6 Rappaport, R., 62 Rashi, 75, 127, 141 Roller, L., 73, 74 Schectman, S., 22 Schmidt, B., 221, 222 ˇs˘el¯amˆım offering, 34, 46, 49, 50, 56, 58, 69, 73, 76, 83, 113, 117, 132, 135 Sered, S., 12, 20, 107 Seters, J. van, 14, 64, 207 Shevuot, 45, 78, 87, 92, 93. See pilgrimage feasts skin disease (impurity), 29, 55, 70, 110, 114, 128, 142, 144, 151, 152, 153, 154, 163, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174, 180, 185, 192, 193 Smith, J.Z., 3, 10, 11, 65, 66, 144, 191, 211, 234 Smith, W. Robertson, 63, 81, 82, 84, 218 Snell, D., 44 Soler, J., 90, 91 Stager, L., 216, 217, 218, 219, 225 Stanton, E.C., 42 Stavrakopoulou, F., 215, 216, 221, 222, 224, 225 Stowers, S., 170, 179 Sukkot, 45, 78, 81, 87, 92, 93. See pilgrimage feasts suspected adulteress (sotah), 23, 27, 32–3 Tadmor, H., 72 Tanit, 215, 221 Thesmophoria, 5 Toorn, K. van der, 31, 201 t¯opet, 37, 218, 221 Trible, P., 195 Turner, V., 84, 203, 204 virgins, 7, 58, 106, 146, 181, 208, 231, 233 Vos, C., 42 vows, 15, 19, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 38, 48, 68, 198, 199, 208, 210, 212, 220, 225, 226, 229, 230 war, 9, 10, 66, 104, 142, 163, 208, 225, 231 Watts, J., 9, 11, 13, 15, 54, 118, 156, 229 Wegner, J., 22, 32, 33, 35, 161

SUBJECT INDEX

Weinfeld, M., 216 Wenham, G., 158, 176, 178, 180, 186 Westenholz, J., 26 White, H., 213 women at the door of the tent of meeting, 24–5 women in priestly lineage, 22, 23, 34, 38, 50, 51, 74, 172 Wright, D., 75, 118, 124, 133, 137, 138, 140 Yahwist (J), 14, 64, 105

267

Yom Kippur, 23, 24, 45, 54, 118, 119, 120, 122, 123, 133 z¯ab (man with genital illness), 119, 128, 153, 166, 168, 176, 177, 180, 185 z¯abˆa (woman with genital illness), 153, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 185 Zelophehad (daughters of), 209 Zevit, Z., 72, 135, 138, 218 Zohar, N., 54, 116, 118