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9. Incense Is Offensive to Me: The Cult in Ancient Israel
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9 “Incense Is Offensive to Me” The Cult in Ancient Israel Primary Reading: Leviticus 16. Ritual Within the Bible Religious ritual has an ambiguous place within modern life.1 It is often critiqued as an archaic remnant of earlier practices, which should be replaced by more abstract forms of religion.2 This antipathy toward ritual is reflected in the work of many biblical scholars , especially those influenced by the work of the great German scholar Julius Wellhausen, who systematized much of biblical scholarship toward the end of the nineteenth century.3 He viewed the history of biblical religion as a devolution , in which free expression of religion, reflected in the early sources, was gradually replaced—most especially in the Priestly Source—by fixed ritual. In this view, the prophets, some of whom are seen as hostile toward ritual, are viewed as the apex of biblical religion. It was not unusual, for example, for scholars to highlight the centrality of texts such as Isaiah 1:10–17: (10) Hear the word of the Lord, / You chieftains of Sodom; / Give ear to our God’s instruction, / You folk of Gomorrah! / (11) “What need have I of all your sacrifices?” / Says the Lord. / “I am sated with burnt offerings of rams, / And suet of fatlings, / And blood of bulls; / And I have no delight / In lambs and he-goats. / (12) That you come to appear before Me— / Who asked that of you? / Trample My courts (13) no more; / Bringing oblations is futile, / Incense is offensive to Me. / New moon and sabbath, / Proclaiming of solemnities, / Assemblies with iniquity , / I cannot abide. / (14) Your new moons and fixed seasons / Fill Me with loathing; / They are become a burden to Me, / I cannot endure 73 them. / (15) And when you lift up your hands, / I will turn My eyes away from you; / Though you pray at length, / I will not listen. / Your hands are stained with crime—(16) Wash yourselves clean; / Put your evil doings / Away from My sight. / Cease to do evil; / (17) Learn to do good. / Devote yourselves to justice; / Aid the wronged. / Uphold the rights of the orphan; / Defend the cause of the widow.” These verses are often understood as a blanket condemnation of ritual practices, especially those associated with the Jerusalem cult as prescribed in the Torah; ethical behavior is meant to replace ritual behavior. This unit from Isaiah will be examined in chapter 17 (see “Isaiah as a Typical Classical Prophet”); for now, it is sufficient to note that this negative view of ritual is exaggerated. The fact that the Bible is so rich in rituals certainly argues for their centrality. Indeed, this is confirmed by texts such as Isaiah 1:10–17, for only central practices would have been railed against so vociferously. Thus, developing a sympathetic understanding of ritual is crucial for understanding what biblical texts meant. Ritual was a central part of all ancient Near Eastern religions. Many ritual texts covering a wide variety of situations have been discovered at Ugarit, a city near the Mediterranean coast of Syria, which has yielded a large number of texts from the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries.4 These texts are extremely important given the geographical proximity of Ugarit to Israel, and although they predate biblical literature by several centuries, they show significant contiguities with the Bible. Ugaritic narrative texts highlight the significant role that ritual played in daily life there.5 A similar picture is evident with Israel’s immediate neighbors, where large numbers of ritual texts have been unearthed.6 Thus, given the geographical and historical context of the Bible, the prominent role of ritual in it is expected. I will focus here on the Temple ritual associated with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Since it was an unusual ritual even for the Bible, I will supplement its analysis with some general reflections on the place of ritual within Israelite life. The Yom Kippur ritual is found in Leviticus 16. Actually, verses 1–28 outline two rituals that combine to form the larger ritual. The first ritual (which itself comprises several sub-rituals) transpires inside the sanctuary precincts (vv. 1–19, 27–28). The second ritual, involving the scapegoat, takes place outside the sanctuary (vv. 20–26). Verse 20 serves to integrate the two: “When he has finished purging the Shrine, the Tent of Meeting, and the altar, the live goat shall be brought forward.” These rituals combine to assure that the desired results— the ritual cleansing of the...