Priestly Code: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Jewish body of laws}}

{{Kehuna and Kohanim}}

{{More citations needed|date=May 2025}}

The '''Priestly Code''' (in Hebrew '''''Torat Kohanim''''', תורת כהנים) is the name given, by academia,<ref>The book of Leviticus: composition and reception - Page 55 Rolf Rendtorff, Robert A. Kugler, Sarah Smith Bartel - 2003 "Research agrees that its relation to the "Priestly Code" is the central, literary historical problem of Leviticus. However, there are major differences when it comes to solving this problem."</ref> to the body of laws expressed in the [[Torah]] which do not form part of the [[Holiness Code]], the [[Covenant Code]], the [[Ritual Decalogue]], or the [[Ethical Decalogue]]. The Priestly Code constitutes the majority of [[Leviticus]], as well as some of the laws expressed in [[Book of Numbers|Numbers]]. The code forms a large portion, approximately one third, of the commandments of the Torah, and thus is a major source of [[Jewish law]].

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==Composition==

{{main|textualTextual criticism}}

It is evident that rules of priestly procedure must have accompanied the institution of the priesthood, and in the earliest of times, before writing was invented, these rules probably were transmitted orally. When writing was first employed in connection with them, it is likely that only some general directions, or some details deemed most important, were committed to writing. As time passed on the importance given to written law would lead the priesthood to commit more and more of the details to writing. Critical scholars assert that in addition to this, over time, variations of detail would develop, authority for which must be committed to writing, so that actual practise would become justified by law. One would, therefore, suppose beforehand that such a code would exhibit evidence of gradual growth.

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Leviticus 4 is of this vein, extending the laws of the "sin-offering" to specify the penalty for each level of sin. Additionally, the ritual for the offering itself is more elaborate than that described elsewhere, for example at Leviticus 9:8-11, and utilizes a bullock, rather than the goat that is required according to Leviticus 9:15, 16:8, and Numbers 15:24. Critical scholars, therefore, regard this chapter as being a much later addition to the ''sin-offering'' laws.

Different stages of precision are also thought evident in Numbers 8. Numbers 8:15b-26 repeats the rules of Numbers 8:6-15a, but also connects the ownership of the firstborn with [[the Exodus]] from Egypt, as well as adding rules concerning a minimum age and a [[retirement]] age. Standard textual criticism, as well as the repetition, is thought to indicate that the second portion is by a different writer, creating an explanation that wasn'twas not originally present.

Such increasing of precision is not only present in direct modification of the law, and there are examples of instances where narrative frameworks present modifications of the law, but openly admitting that they are extra rules, not present when the laws were originally given out. For example, the law of the ''little passover'' in Numbers 9:9-14 adds rules concerning how people who have become unclean can manage to carry out the passover rules of Exodus 12:1-20. In a similar manner, the [[case law]] example, involving the daughters of Zelophehad, at Numbers 27:1-11, is returned to at Numbers 36, conveniently providing a framework to express a quite different law.