Liane Feldman has provided us with a very important study that achieves a number of goals. The work contributes to one of the most persistent hermeneutical problems of dealing with the Pentateuch's ritual texts, wherein interpreters are tempted to excise, marginalize, or downplay - in different ways admittedly but similar at least in their reductionism. With a deft touch and significant methodological sophistication, Feldman brings these texts back, treating them above all as part of the priestly narrative, on something closer to its own terms. She also joins other scholars in warning against reading them directly as evidence for ritual practice, and in so doing adds some intriguing suggestions about which I will say more in a little while. She combines tools that many scholars seem to choose between as mutually exclusive, working with source analysis as well as with narratological and literary acuity.
In these remarks I want to concentrate on the second chapter of The Story of Sacrifice, and what she calls Moses’ “private audience” at the end of Exodus and the beginning of Leviticus. In focusing on a quite specific part of the text, Feldman sheds much light on the big question of sacrifice; my remarks from here amount to an appreciative conversation, where Feldman’s work is prompting me to ask new questions.
With the subheading “some assembly required,” Feldman set my mind on a particular and fairly recent experiential path. Like many of you, I have had to rearrange working space during the pandemic, and for the first time in seven years actually organized a home office in a space where I had previously just dumped things. I know I am not alone in having resorted to IKEA for appropriate accoutrements, and so had my own Mosaic moments, putting things together by myself as Moses does (and Feldman interprets) in Exod 40, if not with common sense then guided by authoritative textual instruction.
Feldman draws our attention to the remarkable nature of these solo construction performances, which seem not only to have Moses going to IKEA and ignoring the implied infographic that would surely indicate the need for helpers but also apparently skipping a page (and you know how disastrous that can be in these processes), given that he starts using the tent and its equipment before its consecration, in particular making a burnt offering and a grain offering (40:29).
Why now, Moses, and why these two offerings? I don’t think we can just lightly assimilate these to some idea of “sacrifice” which doesn’t seem, in P’s narrative, to exist yet, and hence say Moses performs “sacrifices.” Even if we read the Pentateuchal narrative as a final whole, there are numerous specific offerings prior to this, but there is no qorbān until the next chapter, Lev 1. In P terms then, Moses may be doing something remarkable with these offerings but is arguably not “sacrificing,” if we take the priestly terminology and narratology absolutely seriously.
In her exposition of the curious assembly narrative, Feldman emphasizes the unusual use of the hiphil of עלה for Moses’ offerings, suggesting elevating the offering to the divinity, instead of what she terms the more “commonly” used versions of קרב that suggest approach or proximity. Here she points convincingly to how this terminology depicts Moses attracting the attention of the divinity. Yet perhaps there is an additional narratological point to be made here, which may be illustrated more clearly if we abandon momentarily the strictly priestly material to look at how sacrifices are presented before this point. This same language of raising up (עלה) used in Exod 40 is actually applied to two of the most crucial Pentateuchal offerings prior to this: Noah “elevates” his post-diluvian offerings, and Abraham does the same to the ram substituted for Isaac in Gen 22. This of course takes us off the rails of the priestly narrative, but I think it is worth noting because Moses here in Exod 40 still does not use the language that the priestly narrative will (a few verses later) apply to aggregate and interpret offerings. In fact, קרב only becomes clearly cultic and more common after this point, and the choice (even restricting ourselves to the priestly narrative) may not be as much an exception as a logical narrative restraint.
Why these two rituals though? The burnt offering, in particular, is not hard to explain as the definitive or ideal offering, and for that matter as one requiring no other participants – you can indeed assemble it alone. The grain offering puzzles me however since there is no one else here to benefit from a ritual that otherwise usually provides food. Perhaps this pairing indicates something like the future daily public offerings, but it isn’t quite obvious. It could also be that the inclusion of the grain offering implies a more ambitious claim, also reflected in its placement in Lev 2, namely that in this priestly scheme the grain offering has greater prominence than we would infer from other texts about sacrifices. This possibility perhaps supports Feldman’s insight regarding the prominence of the ordinary Israelites in the text and outside it, here addressed as potential suppliants. This is their “work."
Feldman then presents Lev 1-7 as the “Introduction of sacrifice" in the priestly scheme. If this is really the first time cultic offerings appear in priestly writing, other than in Moses’ IKEA moment, there is a measure of redundancy in the labored introduction of qorbān as a new category. This may be exactly what is going on, but of course, the priestly authors are aware of offerings in their own real world too, and the question then becomes what exactly is the literary contrivance here, of introducing offerings in general and also this new interpretive category to embrace them.
Feldman’s point that the “concept of sacrifice is systematically introduced” is true not only of the priestly narrative but for the whole Pentateuch. The other sources of course introduce rituals we call “sacrifices” before this, but they have various names, and there is no unified concept of “sacrifice” beyond whatever common horizon readers construct themselves. What she calls a “broad idea of sacrifice” is thus not simply a narrative revelation here but also a conceptual claim. Even though the implied or real Israelites (as opposed to those in the narrative) reading this text know perfectly well that there are offerings with various names, they are now being taught that these are to be understood as species of the genus qorbān, with the locative implications brought by that word. So just as in IKEA terms one doesn’t merely buy a bookshelf, but also a Billy or a Hemnes - I speak from experience - here one is being introduced both to offerings in general, but also to a category that gathers and interprets them. Yes, this is now “sacrifice,” but that is a claim not merely about the narrative but about the mutual interpretive power of the offerings, the sacred space, and the authority of the cult.
Finally, I already mentioned the significance of how Feldman’s narratological work highlights the Israelites themselves; this comes up again helpfully in her treatment of the individual offerings, where the initiative of the suppliants is foregrounded relative to the role of the priests. While Feldman interprets this as a participatory or even democratizing move - I appreciate this insight very much - I do find myself wondering, not least in the light of recent political experience around the world, whether its emphasis on participation could be populist as much or more than democratic. The authors of this text do see a very significant role for suppliants - but this could mean cementing their place in an economy of offering, as loyal customers who will keep coming back, making their offerings, and yes reading the authoritative instructions carefully like Moses.
Again I join my colleagues in congratulating Dr. Feldman on this fine work and look forward both to its further impact on related biblical studies and to its ramifications for broader conversations about sacrifices and offerings.
Dr. Andrew McGowan is Dean and President of Berkeley Divinity School
and McFaddin Professor of Anglican Studies and Pastoral Theology