Today's post will cover spontaneous sacrifices. These aren't spontaneous in the sense that they just happen, but spontaneous in the sense that they are not motivated by purification from accidental sin. These are gifts.
Note: I am not an anthropologist or sociologist. I am not here to discover how sacrifice functioned for the Israelites. As the HarperCollins Study Bible points out, "[N]o single theory can encompass the sacrificial system of any society, even the most primitive" (152). But sacrifice is rife with symbolism and metaphor, something that I can examine as literature. Just as meals function as communion, sacrifice functions as...Well, we are about to find out!
Burnt Offerings: Leviticus 1.1-17
The Lord, speaking from the tent of meeting, tells Moses to tell the people that when any bring an offering of livestock to the Lord, it should be from the herd or flock.
A burnt offering should be a male without blemish. The one who offers it should bring it to the entrance of the tent a meeting and lay his hand on its head "and it shall be acceptable in your behalf as atonement for you" (Lev. 1.4). What the offering is atoning for, exactly, is not mentioned. For this reason, it is not considered a sacrifice of expiation, which are made to atone for specific sins.
The animal (here "bull") is slaughtered, and Aaron's sons should dash the blood on all sides of the altar at the tent of meeting. The animal is to be flayed and cut into parts, which Aaron's sons arrange over a wood fire on the altar. The entrails and legs should be washed with water first, but the whole thing should be turned to smoke on the altar, offering a pleasing odor to the Lord.
The animal serves an important symbolic function within the sacrifice. First of all, it is property, coming from a herd or flock. One cannot hunt it. As a piece of property, it has a greater connection with the sacrificer. An unblemished animal stands juxtaposed to the human, who is so easily fouled by inadvertent sin. When the sacrificer places his hand on the animal's head, there is a deliberate juxtaposition of pure and sullied which acknowledges that this unblemished animal will come from the hands of a human into the hands of God. The sacrificed animal functions as an intermediary between man and God. Though owned by humans, the animal is pure, unblemished. Because of this binary property, it can pass from the profane/mundane to the sacred realm.
Burning is the method by which the animal passes from human to divine realm. The animal turns from a corporeal being into smoke, which floats away. Smoke is a strange, almost supernatural thing, present but always moving, shapeless, mysterious, not unlike the cloud that sits over the tent of meeting. Through fire, the animal is able to take on this state.
Burnt offerings of birds have their own process, this one blade-free. Turtledoves or pigeons are the acceptable bird burnt offerings. The priest wrings off its head, drains its blood against the side of the altar, removes the crop and throws it among the ashes at the east side of the altar, and tears it open by the wings. The priest then turns it to smoke on the altar, offering a pleasing odor to the Lord.
Birds are perhaps a bit less personal than cattle, but (presumably) not everyone can afford cattle
Grain Offerings: Leviticus 2.1-16
For a grain offering, the worshipper is to take choice flour, add oil and frankincense, and bring it to Aaron's sons. A priest takes a token handful and turns it to smoke on the altar, creating a pleasing odor to the Lord. What is left goes to Aaron and his sons.
Can't afford frankincense? You can have it your way. Just cook the grain in one of the following ways:
- Offerings baked in an oven should be unleavened cakes of choice flour mixed with oil or wafers spread with oil.
- Offerings prepared on a griddle should be choice flour mixed with oil, unleavened. The bread should be broken into pieces and have oil poured on it.
- Offerings prepared in a pan should have choice flour in oil.
The priest should take the grain offering to the altar and turn the token portion into smoke. The rest goes to Aaron and his sons.
There is to be no leaven or honey (which promotes leavening with the addition of yeast) in grain offerings. These may be brought to the Lord as an offering of choice products, but not offered for a pleasing odor.
Grain offerings should be made with "salt of the covenant with your God" (Ex. 2.13).
Offerings of first fruits (barley) as grain offering should be from fresh ears, and parched with fire (roasted). Oil and frankincense should be added. The priest should turn a token portion into smoke.
Offerings of Well-Being: Leviticus 3.1-17
Offerings of well-being, like burnt offerings, should be an animal of the herd (like goats) without blemish. Unlike the burnt offerings, however, the animal can be male or female.
The offerer should lay his hand on the head of the animal and slaughter it at the entrance of the tent of meeting. The priest should dash the blood against the sides of the altar.
The sacrifice itself should consist of the fat covering the entrails, the kidneys with the fat on them, and the "appendage of the liver," which HarperCollins notes is "the caudate lobe of the liver" (Lev. 3.4). Aaron's sons will turn these into smoke, offering a pleasing odor to the Lord.
If you offer a sheep, the process is the same, except you shall offer the broad tail as well.
The section ends:
All fat is the Lord’s. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations, in all your settlements: you must not eat any fat or any blood.The fat and blood of the animals are reserved for the Lord. The sacrificer may eat the rest. God gets a portion of all the meat that a person eats - the tastiest portion (fat) and the portion of life (blood).
(Lev. 3.16-17)
On Leaven and Honey and Blood
Above I call blood a portion of life. I could also call it a symbol of life because it represents the life force that flows through many living things. But blood can also be a symbol of death. Contact with blood outside of this context results in impurity. Rather than being a positive force of life, in these contexts (including touching a dead body and menstruation) blood is a negative force of sin, perhaps even death.
Blood is therefore holy or not depending on where it is shed and who sheds it. The only instance of blood as a purifying entity seems to be as a sacrifice of an unblemished animal by a priest at the altar. In any other context contact with blood is a sin.
Blood has a dual nature. It is the circulating fluid that ensures life (though the ancient Israelites probably did not know about the circulatory system). The way we know this is empirical: when an animal bleeds out, it dies. Animals need blood to live. But blood outside the body is a force of death: dying animals bleed out. It is the context of the blood's appearance that determines the blood's sanctity and purifying power. Proper sacrifice at the altar creates the blood of life, holy and purifying. Any other context results in the blood of death, compounding sin on those who come into contact with it.
What about leaven (yeast) and honey? Isn't yeast living? Yes. But that is not how the ancient Israelites saw it. Leaven was a symbol of death and dying, and because the sugar from honey aided the process, it too was unfit for sacrifice. Bread is dead. You do not give life to bread by adding yeast to flour and sugar. Certainly, this activates the yeast, but yeast was not known to be living until very recently. So leaven really just added to the process of death - the bloating, if you will pardon the image.
This means that wine also could not be a burnt offering, because what is wine but grape juice that has been dead for a long time? Just think about that the next time you enjoy a Pinot Noir. Dead grapes. Delicious long-dead grapes.
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