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The NewCity Orlando All of Life Podcast
The All of Life podcast, hosted by Nate Claiborne, provides weekly episodes that help further our mission to call, form, and send disciple-makers. At NewCity, we want to see Orlando flourish by filling it with people who say "Follow me as I follow Jesus in all of life."
The NewCity Orlando All of Life Podcast
Unraveling Leviticus with Dr Jay Sklar
In this episode, Damein Schitter sits down with Jay Sklar, who is Professor of Old Testament and Vice President of Academics at Covenant Theological Seminary. Their conversation tackles why Leviticus feels so daunting and seemingly irrelevant, from its legalistic nature to its cultural oddities and ritual focus. Dr Sklar passionately makes the case for its importance, emphasizing its pivotal role in the Pentateuch and shedding light on the profound significance of the Day of Atonement.
Leviticus isn't just a book of old laws; it's a guide on living in holiness and understanding the depth of sin and atonement. Damein and Jay delve into how knowing the sacrificial system of Leviticus is essential to fully grasping the gravity of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. A foundational knowledge of Leviticus can transform our understanding of Jesus' life and ministry.
From ritual and moral purity to the broader context of ancient texts, Damein and Jay discuss how interpreting Leviticus through its historical and cultural lens can prevent modern misinterpretations. They explore the parallels between ritual purity and contemporary health protocols, shedding light on their significance in ancient Israelite culture. Moreover, the symbolic acts and the sacrificial system in Leviticus enrich our appreciation of Jesus' atoning work. Our hope is that their conversation will enhance your theological perspective and spiritual connection to the life and ministry of Jesus!
Jay, it's good to be with you. Good to be with you. Damien. Thanks for joining us. I told you right before we started the recording that, as we are recording this, just this past Sunday we launched our sermon series on Leviticus. I made a joke to my congregation that Leviticus is where most Bible reading plans go to die and that if you make it past Leviticus, you will 100% get stopped in numbers. Yeah, the chances are high. Yeah, the chances are high. The chances are high and so. But you've given so many years of your life to studying Leviticus and even numbers. You've written commentaries on both. So two on Leviticus, now one on Numbers. Is that right? Yeah, so it's about 15 years. I think so when we hear that, we can think all types of things to think about someone giving 15 plus years of their life to studying Leviticus. But I trust that it's been beneficial. So what are the main lessons that you've learned after studying Leviticus over these 15 years?
Speaker 2:Well, I've learned a lot of important lessons, Like, for example, if you're in a conversation at a dinner party that you want to get out of, you just have to mention to people. I've been studying Leviticus 15 years and it works every single time. In fact, when you say that to people, they usually respond in one of two ways. Sometimes they have, like this really confused look, because they're either trying to remember what is Leviticus or they're thinking, why, Like, why would you do that? And then the other response is people get this smile on their face, but it's the type of smile that says, oh well, at least he's not hurting anyone. These are some of the I mean there are lots of other much more important and serious lessons. I'm sure we'll get to those as we go along.
Speaker 1:Yes, Well, it makes sense because I think about for me, like in grade school I'm sure this still happens, but a form of discipline was copy work or copying, and you may copy the dictionary or you may copy something like that, but the whole point was is that you're not going to enjoy this, and so I just think about so many people in the examples that you're using. It fits more in the category of something like that, like sending me to a place to spend time with doing something that I don't want to really be doing, but I do it because I have to. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when students I've had students come to me and say things like every time I read Leviticus, I get to the end and my main thought is praise God, I don't have to do all this anymore. And then the student looked at me and said is that what I'm supposed to think? Like, there was this recognition. That that's what I feel and I'm probably not supposed to feel that. I'm probably supposed to feel different, but we really struggle when it comes to Leviticus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, totally. So I mean, why do so many of us struggle with Leviticus?
Speaker 2:I think there are a handful of different reasons, so let me list four or five. One the genre of Leviticus. It's almost entirely law, Law after law after law, and very few of us go home after a long day of work and think, oh, I'll just cuddle up to 27 chapters of law tonight. You know that's not so, it's law. It's culturally strange to us. We're reading through about purity and impurity and in the worship service sacrifices are being made and there's, I mean, like in our church, you can't even throw rice at a wedding, you know. And then you come to Leviticus and there's blood flying everywhere in the worship service. It's just so. It's culturally strange to us.
Speaker 2:There's an emphasis in Leviticus on ritual and I think many of us in the evangelical world, depending on our church, it's not all, but some or many have a negative view of ritual. Our church, it's not all, but some or many have a negative view of ritual. I grew up thinking of ritual as something that happened at churches that were really dead or had strayed from the gospel, or so we look suspiciously at ritual. Some of the laws we read seem unfair or unjust. As you're going through, you see there are capital penalties for certain things. Or in chapter 12, a woman who's given birth to a girl is ritually impure for twice as long as a woman who gives birth to a boy. And maybe we'll come back to that later in this podcast, but we read that and we're like what's going on here? This seems really unfair. And then, finally, I'd say it's hard for us to know how does Leviticus fit into the larger story of the Bible. There's not much narrative in it, and so connecting it to the narrative is really difficult for us to do, and so connecting it to the narrative is really difficult for us to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, that's so helpful. My second point in the first sermon was I mean, my first point, rather, was, why does Leviticus seem so irrelevant to us? And because of you, you know, you were a professor of mine in seminary and so I actually I directly quoted two of the things which I got from you this idea of it's mostly law, right. And then I've heard you, I've heard you joke and talk about the two, basically the two narratives that we get. Those aren't fun narratives to read either. Right, people die in both instances, and so that's a real thing. The cultural distance is a real thing. This last thing that you mentioned of how do we fit Leviticus into the story what's so amazing is the Pentateuch. Leviticus is the pinnacle of the Pentateuch and the Day of Atonement is the pinnacle of Leviticus. And so Michael Morales, in his book on a biblical theology of Leviticus, showed that. Morales, in his book on a biblical theology of Leviticus, showed that, and when you see it all laid out, it's actually shocking to. Even to me I thought really Can Leviticus really be the pinnacle? And he does such a great job of showing that.
Speaker 1:When we think, when I think of Exodus, I think when most people think of Exodus, we think of the first part of Exodus, which is God, in this amazing way, rescuing his people. There's lots of action, there's plagues, there's a burning bush, and then there's the Red Sea, and then we sort of taper off. You know, we might get through it, but we don't remember much of the second half, which is these instructions of building the tabernacle, and then it happening, and then it ends at the end and the most surprising thing happens, which is that God's presence comes down. That's not surprising. He said that was going to happen, but then Moses can't go in, yeah. And then it makes this transition right to Leviticus one and it picks up clearly right from that narrative. And so there's just this. There's this reality in which we can read.
Speaker 2:Oftentimes we can read Exodus, get to Leviticus and simply we can miss that, even though it's right there, because it seems so foreign to us and in fact, when you begin Leviticus, often the verse, the first verse, is translated and the Lord called to Moses from the tent of meeting and said to him but the Hebrew expression there is often used to refer to summoning somebody and so what you get then, as you're going through the story and I was just talking with some of my students about this on Tuesday is Exodus 40. The glory of the Lord descends, it fills the tabernacle. You can't go in. The story is interrupted while it talks about the glory of the Lord over the tabernacle and then Leviticus begins by picking up the story and then the Lord summoned Moses to the tent of meeting. So the idea is the glory withdraws then into the most holy place and now Moses can enter back in to receive the lock. But there's a yeah in the Hebrew. I mean it just connects very, very well, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing that in that book I was referring to with Michael Morales he gives some other examples where that Hebrew word is used the summoning. I love that, this idea of a king in Leviticus summoning Moses to his palace essentially. And so in Genesis 3, when God comes into the garden and he summons, he uses that same phrase to Adam. And Yahweh called to Adam in Exodus at the burning bush. He calls to Moses and there's one more Sinai. Sinai, that's it, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:He summons Korah Le is the Hebrew. Summons Moses into the cloud.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so powerful. All right, I want to pick on something that before I took us this direction that you said. I think it's very common for us as we come to Leviticus and that is trying to understand, as that student did. So when I read Leviticus, the only thing that I thought was I'm so glad we don't have to do this anymore. But there's this question I think that might be implicit in that, which is I think Leviticus is still important, but I'm not sure how. So why is it still important, Jay?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I'll give you three different reasons. The first is that, quite simply, the New Testament writers thought it was important. So the New Testament is often quoting the Old Testament and there are 39 books in the Old Testament and so if you line those books up from most quoted in the New Testament to least quoted in the New Testament, so 1 through 39, you know where would Leviticus show up Testament. So 1 through 39, you know where would Leviticus show up Now if you and I were writing the New Testament like it would be battling for 39th place, maybe with like Chronicles or something like that. Right, but in point of fact it shows up in position number six, sixth most quoted book in the New Testament, and that in itself should tell us something. Oh, if the New Testament writers are quoting it this much, maybe that's indicating this is a bit more important than I thought.
Speaker 2:Second reason what Leviticus is doing at this point in history is teaching the people of God how to live in relationship with him. So, when you remember the context, the Lord has just come down in this cloud of glory, he has entered into covenant relationship with the people and he's called them to be his kingdom of priests and holy nation. And if you're an Israelite, that leads to a really important question or set of questions at this point, namely well, how do I live in relationship with this God and what does it mean to reflect his holiness and how is it that I can walk with him in his ways? And God's answer is Leviticus. It's like he's saying great questions. Here you go. So Leviticus helps us from that perspective. The third reason it's important is that the major topics that it deals with if you think about the themes of Leviticus, you get things like sin, holiness, atonement All of these things are so important for understanding the Christian life in general and for understanding the life and ministry of Jesus in particular. So atonement, for example, you can't really so thumbnail definition of atonement for me is that God, in his love, makes a way to deal with our wrongs so that we might be made right with him. That's good. Love makes a way to deal with our wrongs in Jesus so that we might be made right with him. Well, you can't understand really what Jesus is doing on the cross without some understanding of sacrificial atonement and how it works, and Leviticus is really key to that so fun story here.
Speaker 2:So years ago a movie came out, the Passion of the Christ, and if you remember that movie, it's a movie. There's hardly any dialogue in it whatsoever. I think it's over two hours long and it starts with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and it goes from there over the next two and a half, two plus hours showing us his arrest, his trial, his beating, his crucifixion, and then at the end, in the last 30 seconds, there's this kind of allusion to the resurrection, but it's not exactly clear what's going on. Well, this was out in all the major movie theaters and so I was fascinated to see our people in our culture responding to this film. So one night on the local news they were interviewing people coming out of the movie having just watched. One night on the local news they were interviewing people coming out of the movie, having just watched it, and the interviewer, a reporter, asked one young man what did you think of the movie? And this is what he said. He said, well, it wasn't bad, but it didn't have much of a plot. And I thought to my. At first I thought that's such a strange thing to say, and then I realized if you don't go in with the back story, what is it that you see. In that movie you see a man you're not quite sure who he is who's arrested, beaten, crucified. There's something at the end about light shining. You don't know what, and so you're like well, what was? You don't know the plot, but if you know Leviticus and you know that God is the one who, through the sacrifice of a spotless lamb, brings about atonement, so that then, all of a sudden, something like that can make sense, so here's the contrasting story.
Speaker 2:Years ago, there was a missionary and his wife who went to a tribe in Papua New Guinea, and they went to work with a tribe that knew absolutely nothing about the Bible, not the very first thing and so they spent, however long a year or more learning the language, getting accustomed to the culture, etc. And then they began to teach the people the story of the Bible. They couldn't start with the Gospels. They knew that the Gospels wouldn't make sense without the story of the Old Testament. So they started back in Genesis, and as they marched through the story of the Old Testament, whenever they got to a story of sacrifice, they would slow down and make clear to the people that God had made a way for sins to be forgiven through the sacrifice of a spotless lamb. Well, finally they get to the Gospels and for a week Jesus is the village hero. I mean, the people are coming ahead of time to listen, they're getting up early, just they can't believe how good Jesus is.
Speaker 2:Towards the end of the week they then get to the story of Jesus' trial and crucifixion. And to do that, to tell it, they brought in some tribe members from another tribe that had converted to Christianity to act it out. And the player, the tribe's person who was playing Jesus, had a T-shirtshirt on, and under the T-shirt he had a bag of red dye. And so the trial begins and Jesus is being beaten. And you can see they videoed this. You can see the look on the people's face is one of utter disbelief. Like who would treat Jesus this way? Why would you do this to him? And then, when jesus is crucified, you remember in the gospels we read that a soldier pierced jesus side with a spear and when that happened, as they were acting it out, the bag of red dye broke and the blood. The shirt began to soak red as though with blood. And at that moment you could see on the faces of some of the people the penny drop.
Speaker 2:And when, after Jesus had been buried in the tomb and then come forward resurrected, the missionary stood forward and said Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And this old tribes elder jumps to his feet and he calls out, which in their language means I believe. And he goes on to say I believe that Jesus is the lamb of God and because of him my sins are forgiven. And now a village elder woman stands up and does the same and all of a sudden, people are popping up everywhere and in this village. The way that you showed joy was by jumping up and down, and there came this tipping point where the whole tribe turned into this mosh pit of praise, jumping up and down, giving glory to God because of what Jesus had done. And they understood it, because they understood the kinds of things Leviticus covers. So we need more Leviticus, not less.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so powerful, so good. One of the things that you mentioned was that part of the juxtaposition is not knowing where this story, the passion, where that fits into a broader story, and so with this tribe, they that fits into a broader story, and so with this tribe, they had to tell the broader story. And so when I think about the fact that we need more Leviticus, I want to lean into that. But as we keep going, here's a question I have is remind us again where Leviticus shows up in the story as we're trying to follow the arc so that we can more fully understand what Leviticus is trying to do. Follow the arc so that we can more fully understand what Leviticus is trying to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great. So imagine you're an Israelite, your forefathers have been enslaved in Egypt and they've lived there for 400 years now and you've just been redeemed and rescued. Book of Exodus so there are the 10 signs and wonders. The Lord delivers you, takes you through the Red Sea and he brings you to Mount Sinai. And while you're at Mount Sinai, he gives you these laws about building a tabernacle. So you build the tabernacle, he enters into covenant with you. He says you're going to be my kingdom of priests and holy nation. You're headed to the promised land, but before you leave Mount Sinai, he descends on the tabernacle, fills it. That's where Exodus ends.
Speaker 2:And at this point here are some of those burning questions we talked about earlier. In fact, let me amp them up a bit. How do we live with this holy God in our midst without him liquefying us in our sin and impurity? And how in the world, what does it look like for us to live as a kingdom of priests to the rest of the nations of the world? And the answer is Leviticus.
Speaker 2:Because as you go through, this is the flow of the book very quickly.
Speaker 2:Chapters 1 through 7 teach you about sacrifices so that you know how to worship God correctly and how to take care of your sin and impurity.
Speaker 2:Chapters 8 through 10 give you a priesthood, so that you have a mediator between you and this holy king who's now dwelling in your midst. Chapters 11 through 16 deal with all different forms of sin and impurity, culminating in the great day of atonement, so that you have this annual spiritual spring cleaning to get rid of all sin and impurity so that God can continue to remain among you. And in the final chapter, 17 through 27, he goes into great detail in terms of what it means to live as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. And when Leviticus ends, you're going to still be there at Mount Sinai for 10 chapters more, in the first 10 chapters of Numbers, but after that you're on your way to the promised land. And so, all that to say, we tend to look at Leviticus as this burden, but to the Israelites it was actually a blessing because it was answering there at Mount Sinai some of the most crucial questions they had before they went on this mission to enter into the promised land.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so good. Thank you for that. So the first seven chapters are about sacrifice. And on Sunday the scripture reader after the sermon, who had been reading chapter one, we read the whole chapter, the first 17 verses, chapter one. And so this scripture reader had been practicing that week and read, and after the sermon came up to me and as they were talking about the sermon and describing Leviticus and their experience, they said I just kept thinking and they weren't trying to make a joke, although I did laugh and we laughed together, but they were serious they said I just kept thinking so much blood, so much blood.
Speaker 1:But now, as we talked about it, the first seven chapters even though it's strange to us because of that cultural distance, in large part we as Christians are used to talking about blood. We're used to talking about sacrifice as it relates to Jesus. He died for me, his blood atones for my sin, and clearly a better understanding of Leviticus is going to give us a better understanding of what the New Testament writers were thinking about when they described Jesus' sacrifice for us. So my point is I think we need to learn more, we need more Leviticus, to your point. But we're willing to suspend judgment on those first chapters, because we have some categories for blood. But the purity stuff, once we start talking about purity and impurity, I think we just we don't, we have, we have less. There's less plausibility to us. We don't, we don't quite get it, I think. So I'll just say it this way why is Leviticus so concerned with purity and impurity?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question and I think the first thing to note is that when we talk about purity and impurity, it's important to distinguish between moral purity and impurity, which some of the later chapters of Leviticus talk about, from ritual purity and impurity, from ritual purity and impurity. And I think we can understand what somebody means when they say oh, that action was morally impure. That makes enough sense to us. Or that person is an upright and pure person in terms of their morality. That makes sense. But the thing that's confusing to us is this whole idea of ritual purity and impurity. Like having sex with your spouse results in ritual impurity, or having a baby results in ritual impurity or leprosy ritual. So what in the world is that?
Speaker 2:I think the first thing to make clear is that ritual impurity is describing a ritual state, not a moral state. In other words, it tells you where you can go and what you can do from a ritual perspective. So you might think of it like this Think of your state of health. Your state of health, that's not a moral category. If you have a cold, that doesn't mean you're more sinful than somebody else, right. But if you have a cold, you can't go into a hospital and hold a newborn baby At least you're not supposed to right. Your state of health impacts where you can go and what you can do in a hospital. If you don't have a cold but you're not scrubbed and sterilized, you can't walk into an operating room, right. That requires even a different level of cleanliness and that kind of thing. And ritual purity and impurity works the same way. If you are ritually impure, it doesn't mean you're sinful, any more than it means that you have a cold, but it does impact where you can go and what you can do from a ritual perspective. You can't partake, for example, of a fellowship offering because you had to be ritually pure for that.
Speaker 2:And it's important for us to note, I think, the whole idea of ritual purity and impurity. That would not have been new to Israelites. It's not like Moses came down the mountain and began talking about this and they were like wait, what? What is this Like? Even in Exodus 19, before Leviticus is given, moses says yeah, to prepare for the third day, avoid sexual relations. Well, why is that? Well, because it was already part of their culture. These things can make you ritually impure, right, and so what's going on here is that the Lord is theologians talk about this concept called accommodation, which means that the Lord, who is the master communicator, speaks to us in ways that we can understand.
Speaker 2:Calvin called it. He said, just as nurses lisp to their children like, use baby talk, that's what the Lord does with us, and so what he often does is he uses things in our cultural context in order to explain his laws and ritual purity and impurity work. That way it was, though the Lord was answering the question how can I teach my people that they are to be morally pure and to deal properly with their moral impurity? Because I am a God of moral purity, what I'll do is I'll use this concept of ritual purity and impurity, and so the laws kind of were like tying strings around the finger. They were reminders that were woven into every aspect of an Israelite's life. So very quick story.
Speaker 2:I taught a class once just on Leviticus, like the whole semester long. It was just on Leviticus, like the whole semester long. It was just on Leviticus, and some students actually signed up. So the class went forward and one of the requirements was that for an entire week they had to live Levitically, which meant follow as many of the laws of Leviticus as you can and keep a journal while you do, and at the end of the week they turn their journals in and you know there were comments like day two I really miss bacon. You know my wardrobe has been entirely wiped out by the law about not mixing fabrics. But what was fascinating to me, there were over 20 students in the class and as I'm reading through their journals around day three or four, almost every single student said something like this For the last 48 hours, I've been thinking constantly about cleansing ritual impurity, avoiding ritual impurity, seeking to be ritually pure, and all of a sudden it hit me If that's what God requires at a ritual level, how much more at a moral level?
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, the God I worship is so holy. Well, I had my own personal revival just reading through these. It was just so striking. So, anyway, yeah, things like ritual purity and impurity, that's kind of a background of what it is, but I think also why God has it in there. It's a pointer to something far deeper, which, of course, is what Jesus gets at when he says to the Pharisees in Mark 7, you're focused on the outside of the dish. Yes, what comes from inside is what makes you impure. Right. They had missed what ritual impurity was pointing to a deeper reality. Yeah, that's so helpful.
Speaker 1:So you had mentioned that Leviticus is mostly law in terms of a genre, and we know that Jesus people might say Jesus has fulfilled the law, and so what can we still learn from Leviticus? So maybe to ask it in question form, how do we know what parts of Leviticus or the laws in Leviticus are still relevant to us today? Laws in Leviticus are still relevant to us today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really important question, especially because, as Christians, we've sometimes been inconsistent here. I was at church once and I often bring my Hebrew Bible with me to church and one of our friends, his brother, was visiting and his brother happened to pick up my Hebrew Bible and he was flipping through and, um, and at the top the there's. Even though it's a Hebrew Bible, it still had the book names in English. And he got to Leviticus and he said, ah, Leviticus. And I knew immediately why he was where he was going. But he closed the Bible and looked at me and he said but he closed the Bible and looked at me and he said may I ask you a question, Do you eat shellfish? And I said no, why in the world would you eat shellfish? I hate shellfish. But what I really said, I mean you have these laws in Leviticus about prohibiting certain types of sexual behavior, especially same sex, same sex sexual activity, and yet you also have laws against shellfish. Why can you eat the shellfish and not do this Right? And so for him, that was an inconsistency. So it does lead to the question you know which laws are still relevant to us today? And while some of us have been inconsistent. Many people have also thought very carefully about this question and it's a very long discussion, but if I were to summarize what I find to be the most helpful approach, it goes something like this Leviticus is part of the covenant between God and Israel.
Speaker 2:It's part of the old covenant. In Jesus, he comes, he establishes a new covenant and that means as Christians, as those who are under a new covenant, we don't necessarily need to follow the laws of the old covenant. Now, that word necessarily is important for two reasons. The first reason is that many of the laws of the old covenant are repeated in the new Do not murder, do not steal, do not lie, all these things. So those are things that are still laws that were to follow. But even when they're not repeated, there's always a principle or a value underlying the law.
Speaker 2:To state it simply, laws reflect the values of the lawgiver, and that makes sense to us if we just think oh, why do we have laws against murder? Well, we value life. Why do we have laws against murder? Well, we value life. Why do we have laws against stealing? Oh, we value the right to private property. Why do we have laws against speeding? Because our municipalities need the money. Now, again, it's related to protection of life. Right, we have these. So values underlie laws, which means, even if a law is no longer one, we have to follow in some literal kind of way.
Speaker 2:Today we're not thinking, oh, we're under the new covenant, we don't pay any attention here.
Speaker 2:We're actually thinking, oh no, the laws in Leviticus are a window into the values of the lawgiver, who is the Lord.
Speaker 2:And so then we're always asking so, for example, two examples Leviticus 19 talks about when you harvest your field, do not glean, do not harvest to the very edge, so you leave one edge of your field unharvested for the poor and the resident alien and the widows and the widows.
Speaker 2:What kind of values are on display there? Obviously values of compassion that the Lord actually values, caring for the unfortunate, more than he values you maximizing personal profit. There are values on display there or, more controversial in our context today, More controversial in our context today, laws on sexual ethics. But we have to remember, Leviticus occurs against the backdrop of Genesis, chapter 2. And in Genesis, chapter 2, when Jesus is looking for a model for marriage, for example, he looks back to Genesis chapter 2 and he sees it as normative, and we can see, then, that what we have in Genesis two is underlying this sexual ethic, in which, yeah, sexual activity is to take place in the context of heterosexual marriage right, and so values that are underlying, some of that are underlying the laws are what we're going to want to try and determine as we're reading them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I find that so helpful and the examples you gave are they're so obvious in the best way. I think about the parapet even that they're to put basically a fence around on the roof, understanding that it was for safety, that it was protection, so we can understand these types of things. The examples that you gave, I do think you're right. The sexual ethics one might be more controversial in our current setting, but there are others that in most settings right now, I think, would seem unjust or unfair, and so I'm wondering how can we approach something in Leviticus that seems unjust or unfair? You actually billboarded some of these, I think, earlier, when you mentioned something very natural for a woman in her reproductive years is menstruation. So what's wrong with that? That's how God made her, so that would be an example that seems unjust and unfair. So tell us how we, how we can approach those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's really important to do, to take a few steps in our mind when we come across these, and often not just our minds, but especially in our hearts, because that's where they hit us the most often.
Speaker 2:So the first thing to do is just to be aware we bring modern presuppositions to a text and that might seem very simple to say, but I think we often don't realize that things that seem obvious to us would have seemed very wrong to an ancient context. So, for example, very wrong to an ancient context. So, for example, it seems obvious to us that when somebody turns 19, that they would leave home and go to college. An ancient Israelite would look at that and say you've let your child leave home before arranging a marriage for them. That is so cruel, right. Arranging a marriage for them, that is so cruel, right. I mean very different presuppositions. So just for us to be aware okay, I have modern presuppositions. I need to be willing to challenge those. The second step I get at with a question have you, have your words ever been taken out of context or have you ever found yourself saying that's not what I meant? You know, and most of us have had that experience, we often feel angry or wronged or not heard, because we value being understood and that we're being understood in accordance with what we actually meant to say. And so, as that applies to the Bible, it's very important to take what's being said in context. In class we repeat the saying. I'll start class by saying context and the students say is king. You know, you've probably said dozens of times when you're a student at the seminary, probably said dozens of times when you're a student at the seminary. So, for example, just remember that these laws are spoken into a context very different than ours today. It's a context that's tribal, it's a context that's pre-modern, it's a context that's honor and shame based, and all of those things have to be taken into account as we're trying to evaluate certain laws. So let me use the example I mentioned earlier of Leviticus 12, right? So a woman has a baby girl, and when she has a baby girl, you are impure, ritually impure, for twice as long as you are when you have a baby boy. Again, ritual impurity is not connected to sin, right, it's like having a cold just has an impact. But why twice as long?
Speaker 2:I think for us, when you come with modern presuppositions, where we are very aware of, historically and to this day, the mistreatment of women and bad forms of abuse from males. We come to this and rampant sexism. We read this difference and we immediately think, aha, this is just sexism, pure and simple. Right. But this is where we have to remember that Israel's story in Genesis begins in the very first chapter of the Bible by making clear male and female he created in the image of God, that male and female equally bear the image of God. That's exactly what you would expect to find in the Bible if God valued women as highly as men. It's not what you would expect if women were somehow second-class citizens. And so, however we approach Leviticus 12, we have to remember Genesis 127, that verse I just quoted. That's a guardrail, and that guardrail means you're not supposed to look at this. God puts it in the very first chapter. You're not supposed to look at a law like Leviticus 12 and think, oh, this is somehow a negative commentary on women. So how are you to look at it?
Speaker 2:And this is where it's fascinating when you go through historically and look at different commentators. Some have suggested, for example, non-medical reasons, like the circumcision of the boy contributed in some way to his cleansing that women maybe bled longer after the birth of a girl, or that the formation of boys in the womb was shorter. None of these is actually true medically. They can't be the explanation. But what's fascinating?
Speaker 2:One of the early rabbis, rabbi Ishmael. So he's closer to New Testament times, right, rabbi Ishmael? So he's closer to New Testament times, right? So this is where women weren't anywhere close to having equal rights in New Testament times, right? So, rabbi Ishmael, when he's reading the text, he's not reading this as some liberated modern person. He's living in a very patriarchal world. But even as he reads the text, he's not coming to the conclusion.
Speaker 2:This is somehow a negative commentary on women and that's suggestive to me that maybe we go there so quickly because of modern presuppositions we're bringing to the text, because of modern presuppositions were bringing to the text. There's a beautiful. I got a letter once from a mom who had been going through Leviticus with her children and she said we came up with our top 10 list of why we love Leviticus, and this mom had, I think, two of her children were young girls and the comment on Leviticus 12 was God really loves young girls because he gives them twice as long with their mommy. Oh, wow, that's so sweet. Now, that's not the right reason either, but what it shows. Why would a young child come to that conclusion? Well, maybe it's because she hasn't yet been unhelpfully influenced by some of the modern presuppositions we bring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2:So, at the end of the day, I don't think we know the reason why the woman was impure for twice as long, but we know what the reason was not. Genesis 127 shows us it wasn't because women were somehow second-class citizens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's so important. Thank you for exploring that at length. A question comes to my mind now that may or may not be able to be answered, but I think about how there are several things in Leviticus that aren't described in detail to us, and so, as modern readers, we're that happens. What's probably true is that a reason, or the reason Moses or the author didn't describe it is because it would have been very obvious to the original audience how to carry out this particular law or obey it. So I'm just wondering, even though we're not entirely sure, do you think that Leviticus 12 and the example you gave, do you think this could be one of those scenarios in which the Israelite, they would have understood in the guardrails of the image of God? Do you think this could have been an example of they understood what it was? Even though we're not quite sure because it's not elaborated, I don't know the answer to that and and this is the reason why.
Speaker 2:So I think there are a lot of things in Leviticus that didn't need to be explained because it was just so self-evident to an ancient Israelite. It might be today, like when you're reading a recipe and it says add two eggs. The recipe doesn't tell you to crack them. Yeah, right, but we just know you crack the. You just don't throw two eggs and then you crack the eggs. We understand what that means. So that's, some of the things in Leviticus work like that, but some of the other things, I think, work more like this question.
Speaker 2:I will ask my class sometimes okay, when you, it used to be the case, imagine it's 40 years ago a man's walking into a building somewhere and he takes off his hat. Why does he do that? And everyone looks at me. They're kind of bored. Everyone knows this, jay, it's a sign of respect. I say great. Then I ask why is's a sign of respect? I say great. Then I ask why is that a sign of respect? And they look at me and they start guessing. Well, maybe this, but they're all guessing and I've actually tried to research this we don't actually know how this started, we just know.
Speaker 2:So finally, someone says that's just the way it is, and I say exactly right. There are some things that you know what their purpose is to show respect in Leviticus 12, to properly address impurity but you don't know the rationale behind it. And so, with Leviticus 12, I don't know if it's a crack the egg example or a why you wear a hat, example.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so helpful. That's great, all right. Well, one final question, and I think it's a question that many people would like to know more fully how to embrace, and that is no matter how they approach Leviticus. I think they know. Many of the people that will be listening to this podcast know the whole Bible is about Jesus, so therefore, leviticus must relate to Jesus somehow. It teaches us about Jesus somehow. So how does Leviticus relate to Jesus?
Speaker 2:There are a lot of different ways to answer that question because it relates to him in so many different ways. So, and knowing knowing you, damien, I as you guys go through this series, I know your congregation is going to be able to see a lot of those. So let me just mention kind of general impression type ways that that come to mind, two stories. One my wife and I lived in England for three and a half years and I was doing my doctoral work there in the book of Leviticus and so for every day, from like nine to five, I was studying Leviticus and after about a year something happened to me that I didn't expect. I would go to church and in our church the songs were put up on a screen. So a song would go up that would mention sacrifice or atonement or Jesus as the lamb, and invariably I would start to cry because I'd been doing so much work in Leviticus and understanding so much more clearly the wonder of what God had done in making a way of atonement and the great riches of what it means that he has made this way for our sins to be forgiven, and the work of priests and what they do, that when those songs would go up the gospel was just all the sweeter to me. It made it richer and deeper. It put it into high definition color for me. So that's one way it helps you to understand the work of Jesus better, his life better, his ministry better. What the Lord is doing in and through Jesus and related to that would be atonement in particular. So every time that I take communion there's a verse that I repeat to myself and I repeat it in the Hebrew because there's a certain emphasis in the Hebrew there that it can be a bit tricky sometimes to capture in the English and the verse goes it's talking about sacrificial atonement and the use of blood on the altar, and it goes for the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your lives. In the Hebrew there's an extra I in there, so that let me translate literally for the life of the flesh is in the blood and I, I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your lives.
Speaker 2:As one commentator notes, it's like the Lord is reversing the conceptual direction of sacrifice. We think of sacrifice as something we give to God, and that's true on the one hand. But when it comes to atonement, why does atonement even work? Why does sacrificial atonement even work? Why does sacrificial atonement even work? And here in Leviticus 17, 11, the Lord's saying it's because I'm the one who has given it to you, because I want you to be able to be in fellowship with me. You know this is the Romans 5, 8 of Leviticus. God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were sinners, christ died for us. So in the gospel it's even richer because in Leviticus you still brought your own sacrifice. In Jesus, god himself, the offended party provides the atoning sacrifice for the offenders. He might be reconciled. I mean, it's just so, so beautiful.
Speaker 1:So it makes what the Lord has done in Jesus all the sweeter and more meaningful that, as folks listen to this while we're in the series, and maybe those who discover it somehow for whatever reason in the future, as they're trying to engage Leviticus, that this will be a terrific aid in helping them understand it and also see more of Jesus through it. So thank you for your time.
Speaker 2:It's been a pleasure to be with you.
