The jubilee year and the return of cosmic purity

Catholic Biblical Quarterly

Volumn 65, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 370-389

  Kawashima, Robert S ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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EID: 42049102298     PISSN: 00087912     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (82)

1. See, most recently, Gregory C. Chirichigno, Debt-Slavery in Israel and the Ancient Near East (JSOTSup 141; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993) 55-100;
2. Moshe Weinfeld, "Freedom Proclamations in Egypt and in the Ancient Near East," in Pharaonic Egypt: The Bible and Christianity (ed. Sarah Israelit-Groll; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1985) 317-27;
3. idem, "Sabbatical Year and Jubilee in the Pentateuchal Laws and their Ancient Near Eastern Background," in The Law in the Bible and in Its Environment (ed. T. Veijola; Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 51; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990) 39-62;
4. idem, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1995) 75-96, 140-78.
5. Sara Japhet, "The Relationship between the Legal Corpora in the Pentateuch in Light of Manumission Laws," in Studies in Bible, 1986 (ed. Sara Japhet; ScrHier 31; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986) 63-89;
6. Adrian Schenker, "The Biblical Legislation on the Release of Slaves: The Road from Exodus to Leviticus," JSOT 78 (1998) 23-41.
7. Chirichigno, Debt-Slavery in Israel, 302-43;
8. Jeffrey A. Fager, Land Tenure and the Biblical Jubilee: Uncovering Hebrew Ethics through the Sociology of Knowledge (JSOTSup 155; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993);
9. Stephen A. Kaufman, "A Reconstruction of the Social Welfare Systems of Ancient Israel," in In the Shelter of Elyon: Essays on Ancient Palestinian Life and Literature in Honor of G. W. Ahlström (ed. W. Boyd Barrick and John R. Spencer; JSOTSup 31; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984) 277-86;
10. Robert North, Sociology of the Biblical Jubilee (AnBib 4; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1954);
11. Gnana Robinson, "Das Jobel-Jahr: Die Lösung einer sozial-ökonomischen Krise des Volkes Gottes," in Ernten, was man sät: Festschrift für Klaus Koch zu seinem 65. Geburtstag (ed. Dwight R. Daniels, Uwe Glessmer, and Martin Rösel; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991) 471-94;
12. Raymond Westbrook, Property and the Family in Biblical Law (JSOTSup 113; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991) 36-57.
13. Christopher J. H. Wright, God's People in God's Land: Family, Land, and Property in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990) 3-43.
14. For a more general discussion of these issues, see Jan Joosten, People and Land in the Holiness Code: An Exegetical Study of the Ideational Framework of the Law in Leviticus 17-26 (VTSup 67; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 93-192.
15. See already Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (1878; reprint, New York: Meridian Books, 1957) 116-20;
16. Johannes Pedersen, Israel (2 vols.; London: Oxford University Press, 1926) 1. 87-89.
17. See, more recently, Karl Elliger, Leviticus (HAT 4; Tübingen: Mohr, 1966) 349-50;
18. Fager, Land Tenure, 110-11;
19. Menachem Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel: An Inquiry into the Character of Cult Phenomena and the Historical Setting of the Priestly School (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978) 122-24;
20. and Westbrook, Property and Family, 38-52.
21. Even Binyamin Uffenheimer's sensitive study ("Utopia and Reality in Biblical Thought," Immanuel 9 [1979] 5-15, esp. 7-10) focuses almost exclusively on the Jubilee's temporal rhythm.
22. Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1995) 217; see also 121-23, 187-89, 216-18.
23. I happen to accept Knohl's analysis of the Priestly source in terms of what he calls the Priestly Torah (PT) and the work of the Holiness School (HS), but I will, in general, bracket questions regarding the various strata of P and their dating. There is sufficient continuity to P for my purposes here, and thus the solutions to these highly controversial problems do not affect my primary theses. Regarding HS and P, see, in addition to Knohl, Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus: A new translation, with introduction and commentary (3 vols.; AB 3; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1991-2001) 1. 13-35; 2. 1319-67.
24. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966) 2.
25. Douglas's theory has been criticized in Anna S. Meigs, "A Papuan Perspective on Pollution," Man 13 (1978) 304-18;
26. My interpretation thus solves one of the puzzles of the Jubilee Year, namely, why it begins on the Day of Atonement (7/10). See Jonathan D. Safren, "Jubilee and the Day of Atonement," in Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies (2 vols.; Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1999) 1. 107-13, for a helpful survey as well as for his own (unconvincing) solution.
27. Israel Knohl ("The Priestly Conception of Evil," unpublished paper read at the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, 1997) points out the analogous roles played by the waters of the flood and by Azazel in the atonement ritual.
28. For a reading particularly sensitive to the "mythological" elements in Genesis 1, see Moshe Weinfeld, "God the Creator in Genesis 1 and in the Prophecy of Second Isaiah" (in Hebrew), Tarbiz 37 (1968) 105-32, esp. 121.
29. On the flood as cleansing pollution, see Tikva Frymer-Kensky, "The Atrahasis Epic and its Significance for our Understanding of Genesis 1-9," BA 40 (1977) 147-55, esp. 151-54;
30. eadem, "Pollution, Purification, and Purgation in Biblical Israel," in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday (ed. Carol L. Meyers and M. O'Connor; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983) 399-414, esp. 409-13.
31. The open seas in the flood narrative constitute what David Wright calls a "place of impurity"; see his The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature (SBLDS 101; Atlanta: Scholars, 1987) 231-74.
32. Note, however, that corporeal "corruption" (mošh{dot below}ātām) does disqualify an animal from being sacrificed (Lev 22:25). For a convenient discussion of the semantic range of "violence" (h{dot below}āmās), see Frymer-Kensky, "Atrahasis," 153.
33. For the classic definition of "sacred" and "profane," see Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Co, 1959) esp. 8-18.
34. Ronald Hendel, "The Poetics of Myth in Genesis," in The Seductiveness of Jewish Myth: Challenge or Response? (ed. S. Daniel Breslauer; Albany: SUNY Press, 1997) 157-70, here 163.
35. In this way, the sanctuary mirrors what Mircea Eliade (The Myth of the Eternal Return [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965] 3-21) refers to as the divine "archetype" underlying the world as a whole.
36. Regarding the notion of a mythic paradigm, see Eliade, Sacred and Profane, 68-113. The actual blood rites performed on the Day of Atonement, however, are neither directly nor explicitly based on the flood, so the latter does not constitute a true mythic paradigm. It stands, nonetheless, as a divine example.
37. See Milgrom, Leviticus, 1. 1011-84;
38. D. Wright, Disposal of Impurity, 15-74.
39. Regarding the "ideal camp of the desert," see Frymer-Kensky, "Pollution," 399-401. Not coincidentally, midbār appears in poetic parallelism with tōhû in Deut 32:10.
40. See especially David P. Wright, "Deuteronomy 21:1-9 as a Rite of Elimination," CBQ 49 (1987) 387-403, and references there. He mentions the role water plays both in the rite described in Deuteronomy (pp. 397-98) and in some Hittite and Mesopotamian rituals as well (pp. 401-3).
41. On the meaning of o{open}êtān, see D. Wright, "Deuteronomy 21:1-9," 396-97.
42. Moshe Weinfeld, "Social and Cultic Institutions in the Priestly Source Against their Ancient Near Eastern Background," in Proceedings of the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies (5 vols.; Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1981) 5. 95-129, here 116.
43. For other analyses of the dates in the flood story, see Gordon Wenham, Genesis 1-15 (WBC 1; Waco: Word Books, 1987) 179-81;
44. and Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11 (trans. John J. Scullion; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984) 432-33, 449-51.
45. Samuel E. Loewenstamm, "The Flood," in Comparative Studies in Biblical and Ancient Oriental Literatures (AOAT 204; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1980) 93-121, esp. 110-14;
46. Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (2 vols.; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1964) 1. 43-45.
47. Regarding this symmetry, see William H. C. Propp, Exodus 1-18: A new translation, with introduction and commentary (AB 2; New York: Doubleday, 1999) 387-88, 443-44. As with the flood, R is responsible for the overall chronology of the story of the exodus.
48. The day apparently begins at sunrise; see Propp, Exodus 1-18, 391-92;
49. and Milgrom, Leviticus, 3. 1967-68.
50. See Norman K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 B.C.E. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1979) 253-67.
51. I translate these terms of kinship into naively straightforward English equivalents. For a critical explication of the groups of kin actually referred to, see Gottwald, Tribes of Yahweh, 257-92;
52. and C. Wright, God's People in God's Land, 48-55.
53. See Israel Knohl, "Two Aspects of the 'Tent of Meeting,' " in Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg (ed. Mordechai Cogan, Barry L. Eichler, and Jeffrey H. Tigay; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997) 73-79;
54. and Benjamin D. Sommer, "Conflicting Constructions of Divine Presence in the Priestly Tabernacle," Biblical Interpretation 9 (2001) 41-63.
55. Unlike the camp, however, the nation itself is not a pure idealization, for here Priestly idealism had to be superimposed on the brute facts of history. It is worth noting, however, that once history had swept away this first set of facts, Ezekiel felt free to imagine an idealized postexilic Israel (Ezekiel 47-48), unfettered by historical reality. See Moshe Greenberg's incisive analysis in "Idealism and Practicality in Numbers 35:4-5 and Ezekiel 48," in idem. Studies in the Bible and Jewish Thought (JPS Scholar of Distinction Series; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1995) 313-26, esp. 320-24.
56. For a general discussion of the camp as paradigm of the land, see Joosten, People and Land, 137-48.
57. Milgrom, Leviticus, 3. 2173.
58. John E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC; Waco, TX: Word Books, 1992) 437-38;
59. Baruch A. Levine, Leviticus = V{dot below}a-yik{dot below}ra: The traditional Hebrew text with the new JPS translation (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989) 270-74;
60. Wright, God's People in God's Land, 58-64.
61. See Milgrom, Leviticus, 1. 6, 866-67, 3. 2171-73.
62. See Moshe Weinfeld, "The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East," JAOS 90 (1970) 184-203, esp. 202-3.
63. The priests probably possessed such a tradition; Joshua 13-19 may itself be related to Priestly tradition. See Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973) 320-21;
64. See Moshe Greenberg, "The Biblical Conception of Asylum," in idem, Studies in the Bible and Jewish Thought, 43-50, esp. 47-48;
65. Jacob Milgrom, Numbers = Ba-midbar: The traditional Hebrew text with the new JPS translation (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990) 294.
66. See Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy = [Devarim]: The traditional Hebrew text with the new JPS translation (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996) 179-80.
67. See Greenberg, "Asylum," 45-46. The principle is stated explicitly in Num 35:30-34.
68. Knohl, Sanctuary of Silence, 217.
69. Erhard Gerstenberger, Leviticus: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996) 378.
70. Mary Douglas, Leviticus as Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) 242.
71. Weinfeld, "Freedom Proclamations," 319.
72. Weinfeld, "Sabbatical Year and Jubilee," 43.
73. For general discussions of this vow, see Baruch Levine, Numbers 1-20: A new translation, with introduction and commentary (AB 4A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1993) 229-35;
74. and Milgrom, Numbers, 355-58.
75. Frymer-Kensky, "Pollution," 411-12.
76. Binyamin Uffenheimer, "Sabbath, Sabbatical Year, Jubilee" (in Hebrew), Beth Miqra 30 (1984-85) 28-40, here 28.
77. Contra Milgrom, Leviticus, 3. 2198.
78. Regarding the central principle of amortization that shapes the whole, see Rainer Albertz, "Der Kampf gegen die Schuldenkrise - das Jobeljahrgesetz Levitikus 25," in idem, Der Mensch als Hüter seiner Welt: Alttestamentliche Bibelarbeiten zu den Themen des konziliaren Prozesses (Calwer Taschenbibliothek 16; Stuttgart: Calwer, 1990) 40-60, esp. 52-53;
79. and Gerstenberger, Leviticus, 380.
80. Contra Fager, Land Tenure, 58;
81. Contra Hartley, Leviticus, 443;
82. Hendel, "Poetics of Myth," 162, emphasis added.