One of the most dramatic stories in the Torah occurs in perhaps one of the least likely places—in the middle of a book otherwise largely devoted to ritual instruction. As Leviticus 10 opens, Nadab and Abihu, the two elder sons of Aaron, the high priest, offer “strange fire” before God and, as will happen to Korah and his allies later on in the book of Numbers, are incinerated for their mistake. Their bodies are drug outside the camp by their tunics (miraculously not incinerated), while their father and two brothers are not even allowed to mourn. To do so would result in their own deaths and endanger the entire Israelite community. In the face of this horrific turn of events in the narrative, Aaron, the family patriarch, is silent.
Yet he is anything but silent in the second half of the chapter. Aaron is now given the role of teaching all the laws God has given to Moses (which, along with his other duties, he is not to perform under the influence of strong drink). And he finally speaks out about the day’s events only after Moses angrily chastises his remaining two sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, for an alleged ritual error—they have eaten the meat of the sin offering in the wrong place. Aaron’s speech secures Moses’s approval of their procedure, bringing the chapter to an end.
The papers that constitute this forum first appeared as a conference panel at the 2021 meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. They discuss several different issues that are relevant to questions of the relationship between ritual and narrative, ritual innovation in both practice and ideal, and the historical development of the priesthood in ancient Israel, including its intersection with political power. The place of Leviticus 10 in the development of priestly literature in the Torah bears at every turn on how these issues are understood. The time is ripe for us to reevaluate these questions, because recent scholarship has kicked up the dust on older analyses of the chapter. What was once understood to be a text with a complex process of development with roots in the earliest layers of priestly literature is now more commonly understood to be more coherent literary whole and in some cases as one of the latest priestly texts in the Torah.
The first and perhaps most striking issue for readers of this text is what Nadab and Abihu could possibly have done wrong to warrant such a gruesome death. Did they overstep their authority in a system that allows only the high priest—in this case, their father, Aaron—to offer incense? Were they permitted to offer incense but misused their position as priests by offering it for their own personal benefit instead of on behalf of the Israelite community? Is the incident an effort to write them out of the story, eliminating them from from access to priestly and political power in lieu of their brothers? Or is it an anti-Aaronide polemic that makes way instead for the Zadokites, from a rival priestly line? Our contributors here consider the relationship of Leviticus 10 to other texts in the Torah, such as Exodus 30 and Numbers 16–17, that offer conflicting views of how incense offerings work and debate whether the conflicts are best made sense of in terms of historical development, narrative chronology, or both.
Equally unclear in Leviticus 10 is why Moses is angry about the procedure for the sin offering and how what Aaron says—If I had done it, would it really have been problem?—solves the problem. Here again, we must contend with conflicting guidance in other texts (in this case, in chapters 4 and 9 of Leviticus) and whether to resolve it diachronically or synchronically.
Finally, this forum touches on the question of theocracy, or rule by God, administered by priests. Is Leviticus 10 a theocratic text? If so, in what sense? And who holds power? Our contributors consider the question of whether it contains any anti-Aaronide polemic—namely, are Aaron and his sons the holders of whatever power might be in play, or have the Zadokites made their mark on some parts or all of this text? The forum also raises the important question of whether the concept of theocracy can apply to this and other texts in the Torah without introducing anachronism—the term was coined, after all, by Josephus in his Contra Apionem (ca. 93 CE), centuries after these pentateuchal priestly texts were written, even according to the recent efforts to date them among the latest in the Torah.
Error and Response in Leviticus 10
“There are two intractable problems. First, what precisely was the error in vv. 1–2 that led to Nadav and Avihu being consumed by divine fire?… Secondly, why does Aaron’s enigmatic response in v. 19 mollify Moses and allow an irregular practice to be permitted?”
Adaptation to the Story World: a Response to Nathan MacDonald
“The procedure for sacrificing the calf ends up looking like a hybrid form not because this text was written by a later author who doesn’t understand the details of the priestly sacrificial system, but rather because Aaron was forced to adapt and innovate due to circumstances in the story world.”
A Pair of Pyromaniacs
“I would thus conclude that the supplemented version of Lev 10 is “theocratic” in the same way as the basic layer might be called “theocratic”: The text strengthens the priestly family’s important role in Israel’s daily life and in keeping Israel’s relationship with their God in good order.”