The Ambiguous Details in the Blasphemer Narrative: Sources and Redaction in Leviticus 24:10–23

I. Leviticus 24:10–23 in the Context of the Holiness Code and Related Texts

Leviticus 24:10–23 is the lone narrative in the otherwise exclusively legislative Holiness Code (H; Leviticus 17–26) about a man of mixed ancestry who engages in an act of blasphemy and receives punishment after Moses consults with YHWH regarding his blasphemous act.¹ In many respects, the blasphemer narrative has much in common with the other Holiness school narratives set in the wilderness period (Num 9:1–14; 15:32–36; 27:1–11): the people approach Moses with a difficulty, and Moses ultimately returns with new laws that resolve the problem. ² Despite these similarities, none of these other cases incorporates a doxology of legal stipulations akin to the blasphemer narrative (Lev 24:[16]17–21). Moreover, these other cases fit well into the literary miasma of Numbers, which contains an admixture of narrative, poetry, genealogical lists, and legislation.³ By contrast, the blasphemer narrative stands alone within H.

These features are clarified somewhat when the blasphemer narrative is viewed against the rhetorical nature of H as a legal collection self-consciously distinct from other collections of biblical law. As several scholars have noted, the laws cited in the blasphemer episode utilize lemmas abstracted from the Covenant Code (CC; Exodus 21–23),⁴ and take up the theme of talion using nearly identical formulations (compare Lev 24:17–21 to Exod 21:14–17, 23–25). The formal difference between narrative and law has led some to conclude that this legal material was secondarily introduced,⁵ but the author’s use of CC’s legal language is consistent with his compositional strategy elsewhere in H.⁶ Bernard M. Levinson and Jeffrey R. Stackert have each argued in separate studies that H eclipses older legal collections (including CC) by abstracting their literary lemmas and reworking them into a more comprehensive ideological system.⁷ Furthermore, H’s use of earlier material from CC is at home in the broader exegetical culture characterizing the composition of biblical law. The late-eighth-or early-seventh-century authors of CC took up and reworked Mesopotamian law codes,⁸ and the late-seventh-century authors of Deuteronomy did the same with CC and Neo-Assyrian treaty texts.⁹

If, as most researchers have argued, H was composed subsequent to CC and Deuteronomy,¹⁰ it stands to reason that the H author would exegetically develop the language from earlier legal collections as well. Both methodologically and ideologically, the blasphemer narrative is woven from yarns very much at home in H’s school of thought,¹¹ which conceived of law for the purposes of theological discourse. ¹² Nevertheless, several ambiguities remain. While the invocation of CC is not uncharacteristic of H’s legal revisions, it remains unclear why the H author parades them here in the context of a narrative. In addition to this, we must question why this case, if it was meant to serve as a theoretical discourse, contains so much information about this ostensibly anonymous blasphemer’s ancestry (tribal affiliation, mother’s name, etc.) that serves no discernible purpose in the narrative. Finally, we are never informed in the narrative exactly what constituted the blasphemer’s actual transgression. We are told that he blasphemes, but we are not told how he engaged in this egregious act t (the verb in v. 11 is ambiguous in its present context).¹³ Addressing each of these problems will reveal a more complicated and subtle tradition inherited by the H author and underlying the current narrative’s unique characteristics.

II. Syntax and Lemmatic/Formulaic Abstraction in the Blasphemer Narrative

A first step in identifying the character of the blasphemer narrative is to determine its stylistic/syntactical profile and what it tells us about the H author’s own social location. In a series of detailed essays, Frank H. Polak has demonstrated that a notable shift in narrative compositional style may be detected in texts generally viewed as pre-dating the late eighth century and those...