James Watts, professor of Religion at Syracuse University, contends that the Book of Leviticus was written for all worshippers at the temples in Jerusalem and Samaria. On the other hand, Dr. Robert Gnuse, professor in the Religious Studies Department at Loyola University, says that historically, the rules on food and clothing found in the Book of Leviticus were meant exclusively for priests, just like the laws in the Hindu Code of Manu Smriti for Brahmin priests.
That is, until the period of the Babylonian captivity. Someone from the priestly class in Babylon found a way to encourage the Jewish people living in exile to take on these laws in order to keep them together as a community, Gnuse theorizes. This is also the view Mary Douglas took in her earlier works.
Keeping these customs would have given the Jewish people a unique identity that separated them from the non-Jews they were living among in Babylon, Gnuse explains.
Elizabeth Sloane May. God then accepted the slaughter of the animal. Many years after Moses wrote Leviticus, Jesus came to offer Himself as the ultimate sacrifice, holy and perfect, once for all, fulfilling the Law and rendering future animal sacrifices unnecessary and void Hebrews The overall message of Leviticus is sanctification.
Now that Israel had been redeemed by God, they were to be purified into a people worthy of their God. In Leviticus we learn that God loves to be approached, but we must do so on His terms. This theme of holiness extends to the church. Like He did with the Israelites, God has redeemed and consecrated Christians. Jesus offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice on our behalf, taking the punishment that we deserved so that we might be forgiven.
If you are His child, then He wants you to reflect His character. Without having an actual harvest based on seasons in ancient Israel, it is impossible to determine which month will the harvest occur for the feast tabernacles.
The seventh month clearly suggests that the book of Leviticus was written or revised after the children of Israel inherited the land, which must be after BC. The book of Exodus begins with God speaking from the tabernacle of meeting and ends with God giving commandments to Moses from Mount Sinai.
This means, the book must be written as early as the second year of exodus when the tabernacle of meeting was complete. By analyzing the ceremonies described in Leviticus, we can learn about what was most important to the Old Testament Israelites.
Second, these same ideas are foundational for the New Testament writers. Particularly the concepts of sin, sacrifice, and atonement found in Leviticus are used in the New Testament to interpret the death of Christ.
The God of Leviticus, whose essential character is shown to be holy life, is shown in the Gospels to be present in Christ and His redemptive work. Precisely because the rituals of Leviticus are so central to Old Testament thinking, they are often obscure to us, because the writers did not need to explain them to their contemporaries. Every Israelite knew why a particular sacrifice was offered on a specific occasion and what a certain gesture meant.
For ourselves, every hint in the text must be grasped to understand these things, and a judicious reading between the lines is sometimes required. Leviticus is part of the covenant law given at Sinai. The ideas that inform the whole Sinaitic covenant, including God's sovereign grace in choosing Israel and His moral demands, are also presupposed here. Certain themes are especially prominent in Leviticus.
First, God is present with His people. Second, because God is holy, His people must also be holy Lev. Since man is sinful, he cannot dwell with the holy God. Contact between the sinner and the divine holiness may result in death. Hence, atonement for sin through the offering of sacrifice is of paramount importance. These themes may be elaborated as follows. The Divine Presence. Every act of worship is performed "to the LORD" e. Though God's presence is usually invisible, He may manifest His glory on special occasions such as the ordination of the priests Lev.
The greatest of God's gifts is that He deigns to dwell with His people Lev.
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