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Does Matthew craft a typological correspondence between Jesus and Barabbas and the two goats of Yom Kippur? As on the Day of Atonement-the one day on the Jewish calendar when lots were cast over two goats, one goat \"for the Lord\" and one goat \"for Azazel\" (Lev 16:7-10, 15-22)-so it seems to be in Matt 27:1526. Two figures identical in appearance yet starkly juxtaposed, Jesus Barabbas and Jesus the Messiah, are presented to the crowd. Jesus Barabbas, the scapegoat, is released living, and Jesus the Messiah, the immolated goat, is put to death. But there are several problems with this interpretation. First, it is unclear how Barabbas functions as a scapegoat in this typology. Second, it is uncertain how this Yom Kippur narrative relates to Matthew's innocent-blood discourse, which climaxes in the proclamation, \"His blood on us and on our children\" (27:25). Third, the function of Pilate's hand washing (27:24) in the typology is ambiguous. To solve these riddles, I submit that, in his context of intra-Jewish sectarian conflict, Matthew inverts the Day of Atonement ritual for polemical effect, extending Barabbas's role as scapegoat to the populace gathered before Pilate in a satirical rendition of the Yom Kippur ritual. Matthew has the gentile governor transfer the pollutant of bloodguilt off his hands and onto the people, who, with their children, are destined to bear a curse, suffer exile, and inhabit a new wilderness in 70 CE.

A new text-historical analysis of the dietary and purity laws in Leviticus 11 suggests that the relative dating of the literary strata in this chapter is different from what has been argued in the past. Based on a highly nuanced differentiation between impurity and prohibition that was the new and deliberate contribution of Priestly (non-H) writers, this analysis suggests that extensive literary activity of P took place following that of H.

De Purity and Danger dans les années 1960 à Leviticus as Literature trente ans plus tard, le parcours de l’anthropologue britannique Mary Douglas peut sembler être le simple passage d’un intérêt quelque peu « exotique » pour la Bible à un véritable intérêt intellectuel et scientifique. En effet, après avoir choisi « Les abominations du Lévitique » comme exemple à sa démonstration sur les notions de pureté et d’impureté, l’anthropologue en venait à étudier l’exemple pour lui-même. Mais à y regarder de plus près, on peut penser aussi qu’il ne s’est pas seulement agi d’une évolution plus ou moins limpide, on peut même penser qu’il y a une rupture dans le parcours. Non seulement Mary Douglas a cessé d’être anthropologue en devenant bibliste, mais elle est totalement revenue sur ses premiers pas pour en effacer les traces et suivre celles d’un rabbin philologue au pas très assuré : Jacob Milgrom. Pourtant, malgré l’hétérogénéité des facteurs contextuels d’explication, la clé d’interprétation énoncée par Douglas en 1966 garde toute sa pertinence.

The Milgroms married in June 1948 after meeting at an adult Jewish camp the previous year. \"He was a bachelor rabbi who came to look over the products of Jewish education,\" Jo Milgrom recalled recently, her sense of humor still intact despite her grief. The Milgrom home was always open to students and other people, especially on Shabbat. During his period as congregational rabbi in Orange, Milgrom established a leadership training program and maintained a very personal relationship with the students, influencing many of them to study at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. In Israel, Baruch Schwartz, a senior lecturer in biblical history at the Hebrew University and long-time student and friend of Milgrom's, eulogized him at his funeral, observing that for some people the multitude of laws set down in Leviticus were one big yawn, whereas for Milgrom they had been a source of discovery and excitement in the intricacies of their detail. \"You found a system, you found perfection, you found an emotional world, you found an ideal Torah, you found a living God,\" he said of Milgrom's life-long fascination with Leviticus.

\"I came to the conclusion that these revolutionary writings go back to Moses - one human mind was responsible for this, if not directly then indirectly. How else can we Bible scholars use the term Torat [Moshe Greenberg] (the Torah of Moses)? The answer that [Jacob Milgrom] gave satisfied me. Whatever teachings Moses gave at the time were the basis for the ideas of the Torah.\" \"When I graduated - it was normal for everyone to go into the armed forces. I was stationed in the wilds of the west - South Dakota - there were maybe 10 Jewish families there. Then I became a congregational rabbi in Illinois. I was awarded a doctorate in Hebrew Letters (theology) from the Seminary, and a second PhD from nearby Northwestern University in communicative disorders. This is a branch of special education to do with speech, and I turned it into my first book - \"The Other Child in Jewish Education.\" It was a handbook on how to teach kids with handicaps and I'm pleased to say that it is still being used.\" [Reuven Hammer] reflects on the fact that not all these revolutions have taken place, while others have taken time to be realized. \"It's a bit like the American Revolution,\" he explains. \"They spoke about - 'these self-evident truths' - that all men are created equal. But they did not mention women and blacks. There were still slaves in America! It took some time before this was resolved. Similarly, sacrifices were still the order of the day in the time of the Torah. But, as Maimonides says, the society could not accept any other way. Ideally, God didn't want them, but the people were used to them. So the Torah allows it, but it has to be done in a limited way.

[Robert Alter] is no less keen on disparaging source criticism than he is on praising literary criticism. He ridicules the late E.A. Speiser's commentary in the Anchor Bible Series (\"one of the American monuments to the documentary approach to the Pentateuch\") on the report in Genesis 33 of the reunion of [Jacob Milgrom] and Esau after Jacob's 20 years with Laban. Given only a page to devote to the episode, Alter says, Speiser makes some brief remarks about the \"affectionate reunion\" of the brothers and \"then proceeds to more serious business.\" And he quotes: \"The sympathetic portrayal of Esau accords well with the picture that J drew of him in ch. xxvii. The present account of the meeting is largely from the same hand, perhaps even entirely. To be sure, vss. 5, 10, and 11 use the term Elohim, hence many critics would assign all or most of 4-11 to E. Actually, however, the argument is far from conclusive.\" Alter goes on to say that Speiser then considers why the entire passage may be plausibly attributed to J, with a little appendix from P. ALL THIS seems to be reversed in the reunion of the brothers. Esau repeatedly addresses Jacob in a fraternal second-person singular, but Jacob does so only once. Otherwise, after having approached Esau by prostrating himself seven times, he maintains the deferential third-person form of address, again and again referring to himself as \"your servant\" (avdekha) and to Esau as \"my lord\" (adoni). Alter then reveals a second ironical note in the word berakha, when Jacob urges Esau: \"Please take my berakha that has been brought for you.\" He points out that the word berakha means both \"blessing\" and \"gift\" and that the latter is obviously the sense in which Jacob is using it here. But since there are at least three other common biblical words that mean \"gift,\" Alter finds it significant that the writer chose one with a double meaning. What, then, does Jacob mean? Is he offering a more material gift in exchange for a stolen blessing? Or is he now seeking to right the old wrong and asking Esau to take his blessing just as he took his? The reader is impressed.

Knohl reviews \"Leviticus 23-27: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary\" by Jacob Milgrom.

Milgrom's mixed-media art packs in unflinching commentaries on biblical narratives, spirituality, creativity, gender and politics. Her unorthodox approach to religious art may have found a welcoming home in Berkeley, but in the conservative capital of the Jewish people, exhibiting this stuff takes guts. \"How dare you use these ritual objects in such a sacrilegious way?\" was the gist of some visitors' comments at New Things and Old, Beloved, Milgrom's 2007 exhibition at the Jerusalem Theater. (Does Jewish law forbid the artistic recycling of ritual objects? \"There is enough ambiguity that it works in my favor,\" Milgrom said.) Noga Arad-Ayalon, the Jerusalem Theater art curator, recalled Milgrom's piece \"Marilyn Gets Religion,\" in which Monroe dons tzitzit. \"A person needs a lot of bravery to hang that up on the wall and to say, this is my truth,\" Arad-Ayalon said. \"That's what amazed me about her art. \"[Jo Milgrom] isn't interested in making anyone feel good.\" Neither is most of her art. Her mezuzas aren't like any you'd find in a Judaica shop. One is an old manual typewriter with the rolled-up klaf (parchment) peeking out. \"[The Bible] says write them on the doorposts of your house.' Someone conveniently threw out a typewriter. You think I would pass that up?\" Milgrom said with a grin. On the Milgroms' front doorpost is a jumbo-sized mezuza with a triangle-shaped hazard reflector - the kind found in the glove compartments of Israelis' cars - reassembled to form the Hebrew letter shin that adorns traditional mezuzas. This mezuza was made from a row of apartment-building mailboxes. \"Messages being sent and received,\" Milgrom explained. There's plenty of humor in these mezuzas, but she relates to them with the utmost spiritual gravitas: \"They're a response to those tiny things that people put on the doorpost and pass without much attention. It's the axis mundi connection with God. The idea of stopping at the threshold, where time and space meet. That's the sanctified moment. It's a gesture. When it's conscious, it's very powerful.\"