Leviticus 19.1-20.27

Ritual and Moral Holiness / Penalties for Violations of Holiness

These commandments by today's standards are sexist, insensitive to other peoples, and anti-gay. The world was a different place back then. It was probably inhabited by the same sorts of people, though...

And yet, let me get philosophical here. I have been reading articles on ChristWire.org, at first because they are so gosh-darn ignorant, but then more because they horrify me and I desired to understand how people could actually believe these frequently racist and backward notions. I am no stranger to hate speech on the Internet - I wrote a semester-long paper on the politics of white supremacists and the "9/11 truth" movement back in my freshman year of college. But I am still taken aback every time I see the ignorant vitriol spewed on these web sites.

Some people have issues with the bible because of its commandments, and I know that I am getting bogged down in law. I would love to get to some narrative elements. But to me, this is important stuff to read in order to understand how the biblical authors thought and what was important to them. Yes, I am reading the book as literature, but it is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to read anything without bringing your own ideology into it.

Ritual and Moral Holiness: Leviticus 19.1-37

Here are some rules that Lord gives to Moses to give to the congregation of Israel. It all starts out with a recap of the guiding ideas of the ten commandments:

You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. You shall each revere your mother and father, and you shall keep my sabbaths: I am the Lord your God. Do not turn to idols or make cast images for yourselves: I am the Lord your God.
(Lev. 19.2-4)

"I am the Lord" and "I am the Lord your God" serve as a refrain for this section, demarcating rules. They shall henceforth be referred to as "IL" and "ILYG."

• Make your sacrifice of well-being acceptable. Eat it within two days or burn it on the third. Eating it on the third day profanes what is holy to the Lord and will cause you to be cut off.
• Do not reap to the edge of the field, or gather your cleanings, or strip the vineyard bare, or gather its fallen grapes. The fruits of these are for the poor and alien. ILYG. [Divine sanctioned welfare?]
• Do not steal, deal falsely, lie, or swear falsely by God's name. IL.
• Do not rob or defraud or neighbor or deny the wages of a laborer until morning. Do not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind [!]. Fear the Lord. IL.
• Be fair in your judgment. Don't be partial to the poor or defer to the great. Don't slander. Protect your neighbor if he is in trouble. IL.
• Don't hate your family members. Reprove your neighbor if he needs it. Don't take vengeance or bear grudges. Love your neighbor as yourself. IL.

The following lack a closing tag of IL or ILYG:

• Keep God's statutes. [The following cover holiness, or separateness] Don't let your animals breed with a different kind. Don't sow two types of seed in the same field. Don't wear a garment made of two different materials.
• If a man has sexual relations with a slave woman who is designated for another but is not free or ransomed, an inquiry will be held. Since she is not free, they will not be put to death. But the man should offer a ram as a guilt offering.

We again resume with the laws demarcated with IL and ILYG:

• Once in Canaan, the Israelites should regard the fruit trees of the foreign peoples "as their uncircumcision" for three years, which basically means "don't eat it."In the forth year it should be set apart for the Lord (again, don't eat it.) In the fifth year, you may eat the fruit, which will be more abundant. ILYG.
• Do not eat flesh with blood. Do not practice augury or witchcraft. Don't round off your hair at the temples or trim the edges of your beard. Do not mark yourself with tattoos or scars. [These last three keep the Israelites separate in appearance from their neighbors.] IL.
• Don't make your daughter a prostitute. Keep the sabbaths. Revere God's sanctuary. IL.
• Do not seek out mediums or wizards. ILYG.
• Defer to the old, and rise before them, and fear your God. IL.
• Do not oppress aliens residing in your land. Love the aliens as yourself as you were an alien in Egypt. ILYG.
• Keep your measurements, weights, and balances honest. IL ["who brought you out of Egypt"].

Penalties for Violations of Holiness: Leviticus 20.1-27

• If an Israelite or alien living with the Israelites gives his offspring to Moloch, that person should be stoned to death. God himself will further cut that person off from ("set my face against") the people, because that person has defiled the holy name. Those that turn a blind eye to child sacrifice will also be cut off, along with their families.
• God will set his face against those that turn to mediums and wizards. Therefore the Israelites should sanctify themselves and be holy. The Lord will sanctify the people if they obey the commandments.
• Those who curse their parents should be put to death.

Sexual situations in which both guilty parties will be put to death (it is assumed this applies to males):

• Adultery (man and the wife of his neighbor)
• Incest (man and his father's wife)
• Sex with a daughter-in-law (man and daughter-in-law)
• Male homosexual sex (both parties)
• Sex with both a woman and her mother (all three, by burning)
• Bestiality (applies to man and woman, raped animal dies as well)

Sexual situations in which both parties are cut off from the people but not killed:

• Incest (with sister or half-sister)
• Sex during a woman's menstruation or any other discharge

Other sexual situations:

• Sex with aunt by blood (punishment is not specified, but affects both parties)
• Sex with aunt by marriage (both guilty parties will die childless)
• Sex with a sister-in-law (both guilty parties will die childless)

These practices separate the Israelites from the nations that precede them in the land of Canaan. Observing these will keep the Israelites safe in the land "flowing with milk and honey."

And then we get a pretty good definition of what "holiness" is:

I am the Lord your God; I have separated you from the peoples. You shall therefore make a distinction between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean; you shall not bring abomination on yourselves by animal or by bird or by anything with which the ground teems, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. You shall be holy to me; for I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from the other peoples to be mine.
(Lev. 20.24-26)

It is separation that defines holiness.

Then appears a random commandment to close off the chapter: Wizards and mediums should be stoned to death.