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| RoofBeamReader |
This post covers the whole of the book of Leviticus. This was a boring book to read, it's the laws of the priests. We've been looking at the Bible as a teaching device. In that thread, this section is primarily a list of laws, rules, and instructions for the priests to follow in order to provide guidance to the people.
Rituals of Sacrifices - Chapters 1-7
In the Old Testament, God still required sacrifices, but they weren't just willy-nilly done, this section is the specific and very detailed rules of sacrifices and offerings. While a lot of the offerings are of the same components, different types of offerings must be prepared and presented differently.
Ceremony of Ordination - Chapters 8-10
These are the rules for ordaining priests. Like with other rituals, there must be a sacrifice made and only males from Aaron's bloodline can be priests. These a moral story about two of Aaron's sons and how they didn't follow God's rules and the punishment they faced. Following this is the sections on how priests should conduct themselves and even rules for how the priests are supposed to consume the offerings.
Laws Regarding Legal Purity - Chapters 11-16
This section starts off with the rules regarding clean and unclean food (think no pork or shellfish).
Then goes to how childbirth is unclean...well being a woman, in general, is unclean. Chapter 12 goes into detail into how giving birth to a son is different than giving birth to a daughter and depending on which the mother delivers changes how long she is considered unclean before she can offer up a sacrifice to purify herself.
The next part of this section deals with leprosy and how the leper is unclean and his clothes are unclean and his house is unclean and what to do once the leprosy is cleared and the rules to purify everything.
I guess the most interesting part of this section was in chapter 16 and The Scapegoat. So a priest symbolically transfers all the people's sins onto a goat and then the goat is lead away from the encampment and with it goes the sins.
Code of Legal Holiness - Chapters 17-26
So blood is sacred because it is considered to be the life of the living body. So there are rules about what to do with it with sacrifices. Then there is the sanctity of sex, and God lays out who you can and cannot have sex within this chapter. This section then goes on to list various rules and penalties for sin. Then the sanctity of the priesthood, some rules for banquets, and who can't be a victim. Next up are rules for Holy Days and each major holy day has a different set of rules. Then because some years are not just regular years, there are rules for those years (Sabbatical and Jubilee).
Now that you know all these rules we'll end this section with how you will either be rewarded or punished.
Redemption of Offerings - Chapter 27
This is the list for how much money needs to be offered for people depending on their age. If people don't have the money there is a list of how to offer animals instead again based on the price that would have been used for age. However, you can't offer up a first-born animal and there are some food offerings that belong to the Lord and you have to buy them back from him.
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