Jesus and Leviticus

     Jesus quoted from Leviticus fairly frequently.  This is worthy of examination, because Leviticus was Priestly in origin.  Some of these quotes were in opposition to Leviticus.  To "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," Jesus replies, "But I tell you to not resist a wicked person."[1]  To "You shall not swear by my name falsely" he replies "You shall not swear at all."[2]

     But in other places, Jesus appears to endorse Leviticus.  "Love your neighbor as yourself" is found in Leviticus, but here the section starts out with "Yahweh spoke unto Moses," not Moses and Aaron, as the Priestly text does elsewhere,[3] and so its connection to the priests of Aaron is weakened. 

     Jesus' saying "Every sacrifice will be salted with salt," is also paralleled in Leviticus.[4]  But the ritual use of salt was not confined to the Priestly sect, for Elisha also used it.[5]  Elisha was of the northern tradition and was therefore unaffiliated with the southern Aaron-Zadokee sect that wrote the Priestly text.

     If there is any passage where Jesus seems to have unequivocally embraced a Priestly regulation, it occurs where Jesus tells the leper, "Show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded."[6]  The regulations for this gift are found in Leviticus.  But Jesus adds "do it as a testimony to them," perhaps to signify that he was not commanding this from his own belief but rather requesting it in order to stay on good terms with the priesthood, as a testimony to them that he was not a rebel, for it was still early in his ministry and his time had not yet come.  This interpretation is substantiated in the gospel account of the temple tax, wherein Jesus tells Peter that the children of the kingdom don't have to pay temple tax, but tells him to pay it anyway, "lest we offend them."[7]  The gospel passage is relevant because it refers to the command that all Jews pay the temple tax, which was part of the Priestly text.[8]  Therefore, when Jesus declares that the children of the kingdom don't need to pay the temple tax, he speaks against the Priestly text, yet he obeyed its command anyway, in order to stay out of trouble.

     Concerning the leper, the Old Testament passage to which Jesus refers speaks only of Moses, not of Aaron – unlike a great deal of the Priestly text in which Aaron and Moses act together, yet here Moses acts alone.  As such, the passage may have an author who was not affiliated with the Aaron-Zadok line of priests.[9]  This is substantiated by two other facts.  First, Deuteronomy, which is derived from the old Elohist traditions of those affiliated with Abiathar, mentions the command about leprosy, and calls the priests "Levites" instead of "sons of Aaron," thus associating the leprosy laws with the Elohist school.[10]  Second, Leviticus contains two parallel pieces of legislation about leprosy – chapter 14, which mentions only Moses; and chapter 13, which mentions both Moses and Aaron.  It appears, therefore, that chapter 14 may be a Priestly redaction of the Elohist version touched upon in Deuteronomy, and that chapter 13 is the purely Priestly version. 

     Hence, we may plausibly excuse the anomaly, for there is no doubt that Jesus accepted the bulk of the Elohist and Deuteronomy law codes, which he quotes frequently. 

     It is also noteworthy that Campbell and Obrien regard only chapters 8, 9, 10, and 16 of Leviticus to have been part of the Priestly text proper, as they write, 

 

The extensive collections of laws in Leviticus 1-7, 11-15, and 17-26 do not belong to the Priestly document (see Pentateuchal Traditions 8-9); hence only the narrative sections are attributed to P here.[11]

 

If this is true, then Jesus never quoted nor even alluded to the Priestly text at all, since all the parts of Leviticus he referenced were outside chapters 8, 9, 10, and 16. 

     Certainly Leviticus on the whole is of a Priestly nature, and of this there is broad agreement, yet the sum total of everything Priestly can be subdivided into several components.  There was a Priestly document or narrative of a very late date which was a forgery, and this includes Genesis 1, for it was part of the manufactured narrative.  But before this, there was a vast amount of Priestly regulation, which, as Wellhausen said, must have been based on much older traditions, for by the time they were incorporated into the Priestly text, the priests had forgotten what the regulations meant, and this is why everywhere sacrifices are described but never explained.[12] 

     This, perhaps, is why Jesus warned against removing any jot or tittle from the Torah,[13] for even though it is filled with disinformation, any attempt to remove the false parts may result in the accidental deletion of valid parts.  However, modern scholarship has given us a great deal more precision than what was available to the ancients.

 

Every Jot and Tittle

Don't believe that I came to destroy the Torah or the Prophets.  I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill.  Truly I tell you, till heaven and earth passes, not one jot nor one tittle shall pass from the Torah until all is fulfilled.  So whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches people to follow suit will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.[14]

 

So said Jesus, according to Matthew.  Yet, like so much of Matthew, a parallel is found in Luke.  Both paraphrase the earlier Quelle document from which they wrote their gospels.  In Luke's version, Jesus said something a little different: 

 

The Torah and the Prophets were until John.  Since then, the kingdom of God is preached.  It is easier for heaven and earth to pass than it is for one tittle of the Torah to fail.[15]

 

Thus, according to Luke, Jesus' point is that the Torah foretold the coming of the kingdom of God, and toward that end it had in no way failed.  Matthew also indicates this, for "not one jot or tittle will pass until all is fulfilled," and "I came to fulfill." 

     Notwithstanding, if it still be held that Jesus meant that the Torah is perfect, then it must be asked, to which Torah was Jesus referring?  There were four different Torahs in his day – one from Judea, one from Samaria, one from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and one from the Greek Diaspora (Septuagint) – and these were by no means entirely consistent with each other.  In light of this, the whole argument becomes superfluous.  For all we know, Jesus was referring to a heavenly Torah, which truly is perfect, despite the corruptions which have occured to the Torah that has been handed down to us.  This is not just a copout.  The book of Jubilees, which the Essene community of the Dead Sea Scrolls accepted as Biblical, records that there are "Heavenly Tablets," that is, not tablets as in pills you pop, but rather tablets of Law.[16]  Not one jot or tittle of the Heavenly Tablets will fail, even though much of the Law has been corrupted on the earthly tablets.

     For this reason Saint Paul said that "Jesus took away the regulations that were against us, and nailed them to his cross, making a mockery of the world-creating angels that govern the cosmos."[17]  What were the regulations that were against us?  Neither the Yahwist narrative nor the Elohist texts are filled with regulations.  It is primarily the Priestly text which is filled with all manner of regulations.  Therefore, Paul in no way declared an end to the Old Testament Law when he said this.  Rather, he declared that Jesus had purged the Law of the Satanic verses that had polluted it.  For why should God give one Law under a certain dispensation only to negate it with a future dispensation?  Is God such an unstable Judge as to overturn legal precedent which he himself has set?  This makes God a fool.  It is much more reasonable to believe that the Law of God is forever, that it does not change.  The reason why God sends Prophets is to correct the corruption of the Law, not to issue a new Law.  As Mohamed rightly said, the eternal Law is never abrogated, but rather it has become corrupted:

 

There is a faction among the People of the Book who twist the Book with their words, and say it is from Allah, but it is not from Allah… Some of the Jews move words around, erroneously rearranging them… and so they have lost a great deal of the Prophetic word that was given to them… Woe unto thee who write the Book with thine own hands and then say 'tis from Allah![18]

 

Indeed, modern scholarship has proven Mohamed correct, not for the intolerance such statements caused, but rather for the technical correctness of the objective fact.  A great deal of the Bible is corrupted.  Therefore, new Prophets are sent to correct the errors that have accumulated over the centuries, both by accident and by intention. 

     Other gods do the same with their holy books.  Krishna, god of the Hindus, stated that he has come down time after time to straighten out the mess:

 

When righteousness becomes puny and cowardly, and when evil struts around haughtily, then my spirit comes to earth.[19]

 

     Aside from this, it is interesting to note that Jesus only sanctioned the Torah and the Prophets.  The Jewish Bible is divided into three sets of books – the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings.  Jesus never sanctioned the Writings.  The Writings include Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, and Esther, which we have already described the reasons for rejecting based on their affiliation with the Priestly sect and on their lack of representation among the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The Writings also include the books of Solomon – namely Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs. 

     Solomon was among the most notorious criminals of the Bible.

Return to this section's landing page:  Genesis 1 is a forgery.

The creationist narrative in Genesis 1 is contradicted by many ancient Christian texts.  Instead of an Almighty Creator God, ancient Christian texts espouse that the universe is born from blind arrogance and stupidity.  The angels caused evolution to occur from species to species.  There are many gods, (or aliens?), and the Christian God is just one among them.  Satan the Devil writes scripture, and thus the Bible was polluted with Genesis 1.  Archaeology and modern scholarship demonstrate that Genesis is indeed corrupted.  Cavemen walk with Adam and Eve.  Esoteric prophecies reveal the coming of Christ, and also reveal the dark forces that govern the cosmos.  Such are the ancient Christian writings.

Science vindicates the truth of these ideas.  Evolution often happens too fast for Darwin’s theory.  Gaps in the fossil record indicate that some kind of unnatural force acts together with natural selection.  Astrobiology reveals that intelligent life probably evolved long before us.  The fossil record reveals strange clues that aliens abducted species and transported them across oceans, and that DNA from diverse lineages was combined to spawn hybrid species.  Evidently, aliens influence evolution, and they are the gods of the world’s religions. 

This is not fiction.  All these facts are thoroughly documented in the links above.

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