The Good Book Club: Week 9
Leviticus 10-27, Jubilees 1-3: The rules of holiness, Molech and Azazel, and talking animals
This Week
We are reading:
Leviticus 10-27
Jubilees 1-3
Psalms 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 10
Summary
This week we finish Leviticus. Some people find Leviticus boring and this is the book where a lot of people committed to reading the Bible in a year fall off.
But not the Good Book Club!
Leviticus is nuts, you guys. We’ve got multiple Moloch references. We’ve got God having to spell out to the Israelites that they are not to sacrifice their children or have sex with their moms. We’ve got the return of Azazel, the head of the watchers from the Book of Enoch, receiving the scapegoat in the wilderness in the origin of Yom Kippur.
In my (un)professional opinion, Leviticus is where God is laying out the laws of organizing an utterly chaotic and sinful world, finding a safe way to dwell with humans, and charting a path for returning humanity to holiness. Will the Israelites survive this?!
The late Dr. Michael Heiser (famous for reintroducing the cosmic worldview to modern audiences) thought Leviticus was an incredibly supernatural book that evolved out of the events of Genesis 6 — reaffirming and reestablishing the boundaries around humanity’s holiness in the wake of corruption from fallen angels. He hosted The Naked Bible podcast, an excellent resource that dives very deep into scripture with a cosmic worldview.
And then we begin Jubilees, which is commonly referred to a little Genesis — but with more detail. I am so excited for a Genesis REDUX!!!
But I also want to forewarn you a bit that everyone is gonna need to get real cool about a bunch of stuff really quickly. Jubilees elaborates on the stories told in Genesis and adds details that many of us have never heard before. It also differs slightly from Genesis in perspective. But not really in major ways.
Jubilees is likely the first ever commentary on Genesis and parts of Exodus.
Jubilees is only considered canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox church. However, it is historically relevant, and many church fathers did treat it as scripture or close to it — because remember, most of the church fathers were operating from the perspective of having dozens of scrolls that were relevant for different educational purposes and they weren’t so black and white about what was “in” and “out” because they didn’t have a singular printed book of the Bible. I think some people think if a book isn’t in the Bible it’s heretical, but that’s not true — it’s simply not considered AS important.
The Book of Jubilees is not nearly as “out there” as the Book of Enoch though, so I think this group is going to have fun reading this book and comparing some details to the stories in Genesis.
If you don’t have a copy of the Book of Jubilees, you can find it online here.
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Here is the daily breakdown from our annual plan:
Day 54 — Monday, 2/23 — Leviticus 10-12, Psalm 87
Day 55 — Tuesday, 2/24 — Leviticus 13-15, Psalm 88
Day 56 — Wednesday, 2/25 — Leviticus 16-18, Psalm 90
Day 57 — Thursday, 2/26 — Leviticus 19-21, Psalm 91
Day 58 — Friday, 2/27 — Leviticus 22-24, Psalm 92
Day 59 — Saturday, 2/28 — Leviticus 25-27, Psalm 93
Day 60 — Sunday, 3/1 — Jubilees 1-3, Psalm 10
Day 54 — Monday, 2/23 — Leviticus 10-12, Psalm 87
Starting off with a bang — after being explicitly told how to prepare a fire fit for God, Aaron’s sons offer some sort of “unholy” or “unauthorized” fire to the Lord, and are immediately consumed by God’s fiery presence. At first glance, this story may seem harsh for what seems to be a minor offense (killed for the wrong kind of fire?) — but when you dig into the original Hebrew and the background of this story, it sounds like the boys may have been making a forbidden pagan fire, possibly using knowledge that humans shouldn’t have had.
The unclean animals are really interesting — they are scavengers, carnivores, and bottom-feeders who tend to eat decaying meat or other animals (i.e. vultures) — meaning they are riddled with parasites, diseases, and toxins harmful to human health. I wonder if the unclean animals resulted from the watchers sinning against animals as we learned in Genesis and Enoch.
Day 55 — Tuesday, 2/24 — Leviticus 13-15, Psalm 88
Chapters 13 and 14 of Leviticus deal with mold in houses and leprosy, a condition clearly associated with mold illness. We dive deep into these chapters in our article coming out on Wednesday detailing how the Bible associates leprosy with mold illness, and outlining a biblical approach to remediating mold.
Day 56 — Wednesday, 2/25 — Leviticus 16-18, Psalm 90
“‘Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.”
Leviticus 18:21
The things God has to spell out in Leviticus 18 are absolutely insane to me. “Don’t do what they do in Canaan — don’t sacrifice your children to demons, for that is a bad thing to do. Don’t have sex with your mom, for she is your mom. Don’t have sex with animals, because that’s disgusting. And you know what, let me just go ahead and list all the other family members you shouldn’t have sex with because it seems unclear to some of you.”
In Leviticus 16, in the origin of Yom Kippur, we learn that Azazel, head of the Watchers, is somewhere out in the wilderness and the word scapegoat is a reference to a goat that carries the sins of Israel out into the wilderness to Azazel
Another interesting point in Leviticus 17:11 is that “the life of the body is in the blood”
Day 57 — Thursday, 2/26 — Leviticus 19-21, Psalm 91
“You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material.”
Leviticus 19:19
The direction in Leviticus 19 not to breed two kinds of animals, not to mix two kinds of seeds, not to mix two things together is a clear callback to Genesis 6 and the forbidden mixing of species. It’s also inspiring me to keep sticking to 100% cotton and linen in my postpartum wardrobe overhaul.
I think we should bring back the laws of Leviticus 20.
20 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Say to the Israelites: ‘Any Israelite or any foreigner residing in Israel who sacrifices any of his children to Molek is to be put to death. The members of the community are to stone him. 3 I myself will set my face against him and will cut him off from his people; for by sacrificing his children to Molek, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. 4 If the members of the community close their eyes when that man sacrifices one of his children to Molek and if they fail to put him to death, 5 I myself will set my face against him and his family and will cut them off from their people together with all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Molek.
Leviticus 20:1-5
Day 58 — Friday, 2/27 — Leviticus 22-24, Psalm 92
Leviticus 23 outlines God’s holy appointed feasts, structured seasonally — and foreshadowing Jesus
Leviticus 24 lays out laws designed to prevent disproportionate revenge, which we’ve seen play out before (e.g. Genesis 34).
19 If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, 20 a fracture for a fracture, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Whatever anyone does to injure another person must be paid back in kind.
Leviticus 24:19-20
Day 59 — Saturday, 2/28 — Leviticus 25-27, Psalm 93
Leviticus 25 talks about Jubilees, discusses the calendar, and emphasizes a rhythm that includes rest to recalibrate and support all aspects of life.
The idea that God owns the land and Israel are the tenants is quite radical, as are the other ideas outlined about economic fairness and equity — God explicitly forbids usury, or lending money at high rates.
Day 60 — Sunday, 3/1 — Jubilees 1-3, Psalm 10
In Jubilees 1, God predicts how the Israelites will violate the laws of the covenant resulting in their exile — however, they will be restored in the future. Moses is like… couldn’t you just restore us now? But God says NOPE.
Jubilees 2 discusses the natural laws of the world God created as a retelling of Genesis 1-2 — most interesting note here may be that great sea monsters were God’s first “fleshly” productions
Jubilees 2-3 are a retelling of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden — and the most interesting notes here are that Adam and Eve lived in the Garden for 7 years until they sinned, and all the animals used to be able to talk.
On that day the mouths of all the animals, the cattle, the birds, everything that walks and everything that moves about were made incapable of speaking because all of them used to converse with one another in one language and one tongue.
Jubilees 3:28
Update on the chats — the chats have calmed down a bit so I am starting a new chat for each book. We’ll see how that goes. The Leviticus chat is open now and I will start the Jubilees chat this week. Thanks for being flexible as the chats evolve!
That escalated quickly