Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Sunday Sermonette: Motherhood is Icky

If you thought all the instructions for killing and burning animals were weird, you ain't seen nothing yet. We are now getting into the weirdest part of Leviticus, as far as I'm concerned. Chapter 12 is very short, but the next two are quite possibly the longest in the Bible, so I'll have to take them 1/2 at a time. This one is among the shortest, but it requires some exegesis. Why would a new mother be "unclean" and require "purification"? Why must she make a sin offering? Is childbirth a sin?

I've read some commentary on this. It turns out that some form of purification ritual after childbirth was ubiquitous in ancient religions. But as with animal sacrifice, I can't find any convincing explanation as to why. What this chapter literally seems to say is that the uncleanness has to do with blood. Childbirth is a messy process that involves some discharge of blood, as does menstruation, so they are treated similarly. (The book will get to menstruation later.) Blood, as we have seen, is something of an obsession. It's sacred when smeared on the altar or the priests' toes and ears, but otherwise abhorrent.

Note that there is a difference between the one or two week period of "uncleanness," and the more extended period of purification. The text defines "uncleanness" in this context as equivalent to the requirements for menstruation, which means quarantine. Of course she needs to have the baby with her. Maybe it's okay for grandma to help out? But why the different length of time for baby girls and baby boys? Are girls ickier?

What is happening during the more extended period of "the blood of her purifying?" And why that odd turn of phrase?  I haven't been able to find an explanation. Again, no good explanation for the double period for girl babies. And, while the burnt offering could be seen as a symbol of gratitude God for the new baby, the sin offering has unclear implications. Apologists come up with various metaphorical explanations for all this but if you can read anything into it you like, it doesn't actually mean anything, as far as I'm concerned.

12 The Lord said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, If a woman conceives, and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as at the time of her menstruation, she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Then she shall continue for thirty-three days in the blood of her purifying; she shall not touch any hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying are completed. But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her menstruation; and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying for sixty-six days.
“And when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the door of the tent of meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering, and he shall offer it before the Lord, and make atonement for her; then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female. And if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean.”

1 comment:

Don Quixote said...

The part about childbirth being "unclean," especially for so many days, is, IMO, weird. So is the part about different rules for females.

And so is the part about sacrificing animals for expiation of our so-called "sins."

It's almost as weird to me as what came later, namely what I (at least) see as the clearly cannibalistic idea of transubstantiation. Eat my body, drink my blood. That's psychologically unhealthy. I've been in hundreds of churches and the ones that have the figure of Jesus with the bloody stab would are displaying something that is both grotesque and that, in my mind, violates the second commandment.

What can I say ... people get hold of a concept like E = mc2 and whadda they do? They build a bomb. I suppose that's why Einstein is reputed to have made the comment that if he had it all to do over again, he'd have been a plumber.