Gary North
Leviticus is the third book in the five books of the Pentateuch. It is the book on the details of priestly law.
Leviticus is about legal boundaries. This is the “No Trespassing” book in the Bible.
In this book, we learn of four kinds of law:
- Land laws
- Seed laws
- Priestly laws
- Cross-boundary laws
Only the fourth category is binding on gentiles in the New Testament era. These are the “Jonah laws”: laws that applied outside the boundaries of Israel.
The book is divided into five sections. The five sections parallel the five points of the biblical covenant model: God, hierarchy, law, sanctions, and inheritance. These categories in Leviticus are sacrifices, cleansing, separation, covenantal acts, and inheritance.
There were five sacrifices. They paralleled the biblical covenant model: whole burnt offering (God’s), grain offering (priestly), peace offering (boundaries), purification offering (sanctions-avoiding), and guilt offering (preservation).
Chapter 6 deals with one of the greatest errors in anthropology and sociology: the sacred/profane dualism. The biblical distinctions are common, sacred, and profane. The Bible does not teach that anything that is not sacred is therefore profane. Hardly anything is profane. Few things are sacred. Most things are common, but to be common is not to be profane except in a single instance: violating a sacred boundary. That alone is profanity.
The longest law in the Bible was the law of cleansing: quarantine (chapters 13, 14).
Click here to view and download Boundaries and Dominion, vol. 1.
(Originally published here: https://www.garynorth.com/public/9171.cfm)
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