From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus (review)

This remarkable study of the composition of the book of Leviticus represents a new sensitivity to literary design in Central European biblical scholarship. Although Nihan's point of departure is defined by the common assumptions of historical criticism with regard to the extent of the "Priestly" source (the corpus of ritual prescriptions in Exodus 25–Numbers 36 and its narrative congeners in Genesis–Exodus) and its exilic/post-exilic date, his attention to literary insights and anthropological perspectives leads to a totally different view of this book.

Nihan discusses the literary function of Leviticus 1–16 within the priestly narrative of Israel's origins, and describes chapters 17–26 (the "Holiness Code," H) as the product of intra-biblical exegesis, intended to react to and to complement both the "Priestly" source (P) and the Deuteronomic legislation. The narrative legislation of Numbers is largely viewed as an additional layer in the priestly corpus, which is to establish the theocratic regime of the newly founded nation. In this vista Leviticus truly forms the center of the Pentateuch, as it completes the revelation of the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai (Lev 26:46; 27:34). Like Milgrom, whose contributions to the study of the priestly compositions figure large in Nihan's work, the Swiss scholar ascribes the redactional framework of Leviticus to the scribes treading in the footsteps of H (the Holiness School, HS), to which he, however, attributes only few passages in which H phraseology is particularly frequent.

In Nihan's view chapters 1–16 of Leviticus derive from a Priestly source that was edited by HS. It was to close the priestly narrative of Israel's origins, and opened with the inauguration of the sacrifical cult. This section comprises the description of the sacrifices (chapters 1–3) and the inauguration of the altar of the Tabernacle (chapters 8–9, from the same stock as Exod 25–29; 35–40). In a significant departure from Wellhausen, who viewed these chapters as essentially nomistic, Nihan regards this section as an essential part of the P narrative. The sacrificial framework indicates, in his view, "the partial [Nihan's italics] restoration, in Israel's cult, of the original community between God and man at the creation of the world." The Priestly narrative thus presents a complete reinterpretation of "the Sinai tradition, suggesting that the content of the revelation made at Mt. Sinai was the sacrificial cult itself, and that such revelation comprised nothing less than the outcome of a process of reconciliation between God and his creation that started after the Flood" (pp. 610–11). The tale of rejection of the "alien fire" sacrificed by Nadab and Abihu (Lev 10) is regarded as an exegetical amplification by the final redactor (the "theocratic" redactor of Numbers).

The section of chapters 11–16 which deals with purity and purification of the community forms the compositional counterpart of the chapters of the inauguration of the sacrificial framework. If the latter centers on the harmony created by the sacrificial order, the chapters on purity and purification show how to uphold this harmony in face of the dangers threatening it. This section is closed by the purification ritual of Yôm haKippurîm (Lev 16:1–28), which Nihan presents as a largely closed composition and a structural parallel to chapters 8–9. Nihan attaches particular weight to the cloud formed by Aaron's incense at his entrance of the adytum (Lev 16:12–13), in a sense a manifestation of the divine cloud appearing above the Holy of Holies (v. 2) and the sign of the replacement of the prophetic mediation through Moses by the priestly-sacrificial mediation. Hence the purification ritual of Yôm haKippurîm doubles as a cultic theophany, and as such forms the culmination of "a coherent development framing the entire Sinai pericope in P" (p. 365...