Writing a Commentary on Leviticus

Hermeneutics – Methodology – Themes

Thomas Hieke, Christian A. Eberhart

• Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9783647534718
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Writing a commentary on a biblical book is not limited to the scholar's study and desk. Hence, several experts in the field of Hebrew Bible currently writing a larger commentary on the book of Leviticus followed the invitation of Christian Eberhart and Thomas Hieke to meet between 2014 and 2016 at the Annual SBL Conference. They shared their experiences, discussed hermeneutical and methodological considerations, and presented their ideas about particular themes and issues in the third book of the Torah. The results of these consultative panels had significant impact on the production of the commentaries.The first part of this volume features essays reflecting on the process of writing a Leviticus commentary, including boosts and obstacles, while suggesting innovative insights on particular problems of the book. The second part identifies certain themes of Leviticus, especially sacrifices and rituals ("the cult"), the notion of unintentional and deliberate sins and purity/impurity ("the bad") and how to eliminate them, and the relationship to the sphere of God ("the holy"). This section demonstrates how commenting a biblical book highly depends on the perspective a scholar takes, and how different commentaries on the same biblical text come to different conclusions because of a diversity of methodological and hermeneutical approaches. These are issues innate in the subject matter; in the end the variety of approaches bears witness to the complexity, intricacy, and richness of the biblical text. This volume, therefore, offers a fascinating inside view into the studies and onto the desks of several prolific biblical experts who share their reflections and concepts about their commentaries on Leviticus with an interested audience.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Body
• Preface
• Christian A. Eberhart / Thomas Hieke: Introduction. Writing a Commentary on Leviticus
• Thomas Hieke: Writing a Commentary as a Research Achievement
• James W. Watts: Unperformed Rituals in an Unread Book
• William K. Gilders: Commentary as Ethnography
• Hannah K. Harrington: The Role of Second Temple Texts in a Commentary on Leviticus
• Thomas Hieke: Writing on Leviticus for the HThKAT Series. Some Key Issues on Sacrificial Rituals
• Christian A. Eberhart: Sacrifice? Holy Smokes! Reflections on Cult Terminology for Understanding Sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible
• Naphtali S. Meshel: The Form and Function of a Biblical Blood Ritual
• Roy E. Gane: Purification Offerings and Paradoxical Pollution of the Holy
• Naphtali S. Meshel: Some New Questions in the Fundamental Science of P
• Nicole J. Ruane: Constructing Contagion on Yom Kippur. The Scapegoat as Ḥaṭṭāʾt
• Thomas Hieke: Participation and Abstraction in the Yom Kippur Ritual According to Leviticus 16
• William Gilders: Is There an Incense Altar in This Ritual? A Question of Ritual-Textual Interpretive Community
• Thomas Hieke: The Prohibition of Transferring an Offspring to “the Molech”. No Child Sacrifice in Leviticus 18 and 20
• David P. Wright: Law and Creation in the Priestly-Holiness Writings of the Pentateuch
• James W. Watts: Drawing Lines. A Suggestion for Addressing the Moral Problem of Reproducing Immoral Biblical Texts in Commentaries and Bibles
• List of Contributors
• Contributors’ Publications about Leviticus
• Index