Finishing up my Research
The past two days I have been in Baltimore, using the Johns Hopkins library for the last bit of my research. I have much more that I could do, but it is time for me to head on. Wednesday I am driving to Holy Cross Monastery for a retreat, and after that I will be hooking up with my family again in Albany, NY, for a wedding. We will then drive up to Maine for three weeks of vacation, where I hope I can do some more research and writing.
These two days at JHU were mostly spent writing articles for the New Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible. I only have five more articles to go, and those can be written with the resources I have in Lithuania.
I have also been able to synthesize some of my research from VTS and my chats with Steve Cook. Here is what I am thinking at this point:
- The P layer is the first stage in the priestly tradition. In Numbers 16-17, it presents a story of 250 people who rebel against the idea that the priests are holy while the people are not. God consumes with fire the non-priests who offer incense at the tabernacle. This is followed by the contest of Aaron’s rod, which confirms the election of the tribe of Levi to be priests. Knohl assigns this to H, but this layer actually seems to argue against H’s main point that everyone is holy. As Moses says, offer your incense and we will find out who is holy. As it turns out, people not from the tribe of Levi are not holy and are killed. This contrasts with H’s point that all the people are holy (Lev.19 et passim).
- Ezekiel 44:6-16 represents the next stage, when the Levites are demoted for their role in idolatry, while the Zadokites are reaffirmed in their position because they were faithful. Cook is right that Ezekiel is reflecting on Numbers 16-17 here, but it is the P layer of that story that Ezekiel reads. There, the concern is on inappropriate people approaching the tabernacle. Most of the languages parallels that Cook rightly points out are between Ezekiel and the P layer.
- The final stage is H, which edits the P and J layers of Numbers 16-17 and adds Numbers 18. H also adds Korah the Levite as leader of the 250, thereby making them complicit in the wilderness rebellion. In other words, what Ezekiel has done in oracle, H does in narrative. Here, the Levites are made to be a buffer between the people and the tabernacle / temple, so that the people do not incur guilt by encroaching on the sacred. Without this division, it makes no sense for the Levite to be excluded from the tabernacle in Numbers 16-17, only to have their tribal election reaffirmed by the budding of Aaron’s rod. H is aware of Ezekiel’s oracle and incorporates some of the languages into this story, although he does disagree with Ezekiel on some points.
That, then, is the theory I want to explore in my next paper. I hope to be able to get some of that done in Maine, although my research resources will be limited to what I already have and what I can find on the Internet.
On June 29th, 2006 at 11:51 am
Hi Kevin,
I certainly hope the retreat is proving refreshing. Catherine and I are flying off to New England later today. Meanwhile, I am wondering why you imply here that for the HS source everyone is equally holy. I would argue just the opposite that HS sees significant hierarchies of holiness. For my arguments, see p. 11 of my _Ezekiel’s Hierarchical World_ volume. Note 26 argues with Saul Olyan on this point. Also, I am wondering if it is possible to think that Ezekiel innovates a demotion of the Levites. If Ezekiel does not find this demotion already in HS, then we are back to the old problem: Where in Israel’s history is the event to which Ezekiel refers in Ezek 44? I thought that I had solved this problem once and for all in my JBL article. I can’t think of any other possible referent that Ezek 44 has in mind than the rebellion of the Levites in HS. I hope I’m not sounding too self-confident, but I researched this for about a year back about a decade ago and I’m pretty sure this is solid. Anyway, that’s my two cents…
On July 1st, 2006 at 11:12 pm
[…] Steve Cook was kind enough to respond to my post on Ezekiel and the Levites. Steve just made full professor at Virginia Theological Seminary and would be a great addition to the biblioblogging world. (I am trying to convince him to start a blog. I wanted to address several of the points he made. […]
On February 21st, 2007 at 1:31 pm
[…] Steve Cook did a great deal to further the discussion when he recognized that Ezekiel 44 is making explicit reference to the Levitical rebellion in Numbers 16-18.1 It seems to me that Ezekiel is reading the situation in late preexilic Judah (c.620-586 BCE) through the lens of Numbers 16-18. The people of Judah are going astray, and the Levites — who have been granted leadership positions by Josiah — are participating in this idolatry. The Zadokites, on the other hand, did not participate in the idolatry (Ezek 44:15). For more on my thoughts on the relationship between Numbers 16-18 and Ezekiel, see my post from last summer. […]