Leviticus

Bloody Rites

The Book of Leviticus  opens with details of the burnt offerings Yahweh required, speaking to Moses ‘from the tent of meting’:

Then he shall kill the bull before the LORD; and Aaron's sons the priests shall present the blood, and throw the blood round about against the altar that is at the door of the tent of meeting. (1:5)

Blood is spattered all around, “Then the anointed priest shall bring some of the blood of the bull to the tent of meeting, and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle it seven times before the LORD in front of the veil.” (4:17)

Lo, the glory of the Lord appears:

And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting; and when they came out they blessed the people, and the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people. And fire came forth from before the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the fat upon the altar; and when all the people saw it, they shouted, and fell on their faces. 

 Yahweh had special-effect fiery abilities, and was able to kill a lot of people. It seems that his power in the Tent of Meeting could short-circuit and kill people, maybe unintentionally: 

Now Nadab and Abi'hu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer, and put fire in it, and laid incense on it, and offered unholy fire before the LORD, such as he had not commanded them. And fire came forth from the presence of the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD (10:1)

Aaron doesn’t get an apology, au contraire he has to make a sin-offering to be forgiven:

and the LORD said to Moses, "Tell Aaron your brother not to come at all times into the holy place within the veil, before the mercy seat which is upon the ark, lest he die; for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.  (16:2)

Aaron has to make a sacrifice and sprinkle blood round the place, to atone.

While Yahweh appears as relatively benevolent at the start, later in Chapter 26 the terrible list of curses begin, with long lists of who is to be put to death, for failure to ‘obey.’ Here’s a brief section:

 If you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, I will do this to you: I will appoint over you sudden terror, consumption, and fever that waste the eyes and cause life to pine away. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it; I will set my face against you, and you shall be smitten before your enemies; those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you. And if in spite of this you will not hearken to me, then I will chastise you again sevenfold for your sins, and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like brass; and your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit. 

Then if you walk contrary to me, and will not hearken to me, I will bring more plagues upon you, sevenfold as many as your sins. And I will let loose the wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number, so that your ways shall become desolate.  And if by this discipline you are not turned to me, but walk contrary to me, then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will smite you sevenfold for your sins. And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant; and if you gather within your cities I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and shall deliver your bread again by weight; and you shall eat, and not be satisfied. And if in spite of this you will not hearken to me, but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and chastise you myself sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. …etc.

The pretence s made, that ‘These are the commandments which the LORD commanded Moses for the people of Israel on Mount Sinai’ as if an alleged ‘oral tradition’ were here written down.

Nothing here resembles morality, there is a mere choice of obedience or death, of commands with vengeance. Did a people really exist, who believed anyone had to be put to death, if they were found doing any work on the Sabbath…  No-one would choose a god like that?

We turn to Douglas Reed: there had been, he held, an earlier, benevolent God, whose memory had been carried down in an oral tradition, before the priests wrote down their texts of entrapment - ever using the ‘The Lord spake to Moses’ ploy.

The Levites in Babylon added Exodus, Genesis, Leviticus and Numbers to Deuteronomy. Genesis and Exodus provide a version of history moulded to fit the “Law” which the Levites by then had already promulgated, in Deuteronomy… Whatever has survived of the former Israelite tradition is in Genesis and Exodus, and in the enlightened passages of the Israelite prophets. These more benevolent parts are invariably cancelled out by later, fanatical ones, which are presumably Levitical interpolations.

 The puzzle is to guess why the Levites allowed these glimpses of a loving God of all men to remain; as they invalidated the New Law and could have been removed. A tenable theory might be that the earlier tradition was too well known to the tribespeople to be merely expunged, so that it had to be retained and cancelled out by allegorical incident and amendment.

 Although Genesis and Exodus were produced after Deuteronomy the theme of fanatical tribalism is faint in them. The swell and crescendo come in Deuteronomy, Leviticus and Numbers, which bear the plain imprint of the Levite in isolated Judah and Babylon.

 Thus in Genesis the only fore-echo of the later sound and fury is, “And I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed … and the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land …”

Goyim slaves allowed (Chapter 25:44-46)

44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.