As I've noted before, the division into chapters and verses was made by medieval monks, and isn't always logical. (They may have been getting into the sacramental wine.) Leviticus 24 consists of three obviously distinct parts, two of which might have originally gone together as specifications of ritual but the third of which is unrelated. Furthermore, the whole thing is an interpolation between the schedule of festivals in 23 and the schedule of jubilees in 25. Leviticus generally is haphazardly organized. It seems the priests didn't really care about narrative or logical coherence, they just wanted to get everything in there. As I've said, it seems more like a filing cabinet than a constructed document. In any event, the third section is very important in the history of moral thought and remains influential, for better or, in my opinion, for worse, among some people.
24 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2 Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil of beaten olives for the lamp, that a light may be kept burning regularly. 3 Aaron shall set it up in the tent of meeting, outside the curtain of the covenant, to burn from evening to morning before the Lord regularly; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. 4 He shall set up the lamps on the lampstand of pure gold before the Lord regularly.
Just another reminder of the fictitious setting. They're camping out in the desert, subsisting on manna. They cannot possibly have had a continuous supply of olive oil. This requirement was initiated in the Second Temple period under King Josiah, when the Israelites were well established in the land.
5 You shall take choice flour, and bake twelve loaves of it; two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each loaf. 6 You shall place them in two rows, six in a row, on the table of pure gold. 7 You shall put pure frankincense with each row, to be a token offering for the bread, as an offering by fire to the Lord. 8 Every sabbath day Aaron shall set them in order before the Lord regularly as a commitment of the people of Israel, as a covenant forever. 9 They
shall be for Aaron and his descendants, who shall eat them in a holy
place, for they are most holy portions for him from the offerings by
fire to the Lord, a perpetual due.
More priestly swag. Yeah yeah, the priests have to eat. Now we get to the important part of this chapter.
10 A
man whose mother was an Israelite and whose father was an Egyptian came
out among the people of Israel; and the Israelite woman’s son and a
certain Israelite began fighting in the camp. 11 The
Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the Name in a curse. And they brought
him to Moses—now his mother’s name was Shelomith, daughter of Dibri, of
the tribe of Dan— 12 and they put him in custody, until the decision of the Lord should be made clear to them.
We already know that the penalty for blasphemy is death, so the question here seems to be whether it applies to the person of mixed ancestry. Note that the writer is uninterested in his paternal lineage. Intermarriage is generally discouraged (forbidden entirely to Levites, as we have read) so the general taint of that probably affects this story. But the point ultimately is that the law applies to anyone living among the Israelites.
13 The Lord said to Moses, saying: 14 Take
the blasphemer outside the camp; and let all who were within hearing
lay their hands on his head, and let the whole congregation stone him. 15 And speak to the people of Israel, saying: Anyone who curses God shall bear the sin. 16 One who blasphemes the name of the Lord
shall be put to death; the whole congregation shall stone the
blasphemer. Aliens as well as citizens, when they blaspheme the Name,
shall be put to death. 17 Anyone who kills a human being shall be put to death. 18 Anyone who kills an animal shall make restitution for it, life for life. 19 Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered. 21 One who kills an animal shall make restitution for it; but one who kills a human being shall be put to death. 22 You shall have one law for the alien and for the citizen: for I am the Lord your God. 23 Moses
spoke thus to the people of Israel; and they took the blasphemer
outside the camp, and stoned him to death. The people of Israel did as
the Lord had commanded Moses.
This is called Lex Talionis in modern times, the law of retaliation in Latin. Note first of all that the assertion that anyone who kills a human being shall be put to death is obviously preposterous, since God has already commanded the Israelites to kill many thousands of their own people, and foreigners, and is about to command them to go on a genocidal rampage through Canaan. The idea that punishment should be proportional probably represented a degree of restraint in this historical context, though nowadays most cultures are considerably more merciful. Those states that still have the death penalty reserve it for particularly egregious murders, and for Black perpetrators (who are often actually innocent). We do not impose corporal punishment for assault or maiming for maiming. We do have the vague constitutional prescription that punishment should not be "cruel or unusual." In any case neither contemporary Judaism nor Christianity applies this very literal interpretation of proportionality, though many people do see it as more about vengeance than any other possible value.
1 comment:
Whoa. I want to hear more about the sacramental wine. Perhaps the scribes were watching Red Sox games. Personally, wine or no wine, I'm writing them off till they disown Shitler.
I see the Super Shitty Court Overbalance By Republican Assholes just brought us back to resuming executions. I think if they're going to do that, Kavanaugh and Thomas could demonstrate how it works from the prisoner's perspective. Just to make sure it works okay.
Susan Collins could supervise.
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