28 January 2004 18:02
Leviticus 10-18: revisitedyou ever get the feeling that it'd be pretty hard for a levite to be a vegitarian? i wonder if having a high-protein diet aided them in their tasks at all, if eating all that meat improved their ability to minister before the Lord.
Leviticus 11:10 and a few other verses in that chapter tell the Israelites they must detest certain animals. detest is a strong word, i wonder why it was used in place of "it is unclean for you" like in verse eight does. some of these animals are beautiful, the eagle, hawks, owls (vv 13-19). i can see detesting a california condor, those things are hideous, but an eagle? but then things like rats (v29) are not "detestable" per se, merely unclean. dunno bout that. not that i have any great thing against rats, but i would think they'd be much more likely to spread disease than an eagle would be.
scapegoat, n. [[coined by William Tyndale (1530) < SCAPE + GOAT, prob from LL(Vulg) caper emissarius, lit., emissary goat, transl. of Gr(Ec) tragos aperchomenos, departing goat, used as transl. of Heb sair laazazel < sair, he-goat + l, to + azazel, prob. name of a desert demon, but ? with folk-etym. meaning "goat that leaves," as if < ez (female) goat + azal, has left]] 1, a goat over the head of which the high priest of the ancient Jews confessed the sins of the poeple on the Day of Atonement, after which it was allowed to escape: Leviticus 16:7-26. 2, a person, group, or thing upon whom the blame for the mistakes or crimes of others is thrust. —Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th ed., 1999.
scape, sense 2, archaic form of "escape" —ibid. (paraphrase)
Tyndale, William 1494?-1536; Eng. religious reformer & translater of the Bible: executed for heresy —ibid.
see, that is just fascinating to me. "goat that leaves." i'd hate to be a translator. but the concept of a scapegoat as it is put forth in the OT also fascinates me. the whole nation's sins, being sent off into the desert like that. it sounds like a setting for a novel, a British platoon on patrol in a remote Indian village kill and eat a wild goat that the villagers sent away in some pagan ritual, bringing down a rain of curses upon the village. i guess i should use cows in that part of the world. it's like David eating the consecrated bread, what if some poor alien was hungry and found the scapegoat wandering in the desert. or did God immediately drive the scapegoat to it's death? and is there any connection between the sins of Israel being sent to the desert and Jesus being tempted in the desert? is the desert simply consigned to the devil? looking at southern california, one might wonder. but there is so much life in the desert, until you get into the deep desert. the atacama desert, death valley, they're pretty hard to get along with, but there is still some life there, at least around the edges. life is pretty hard to get rid of. but i digress.
found while looking up scapegoat, the kjv version of jer 2.36a, "Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way?" gaddest is a cool word. it's how the "to go away" part (azal) was translated in context for the jeremiah passage. here's the whole thing if you want it. <--that's an excellent hermeneutic tool, blueletterbible.org, though i normally just use bible.gospelcom.net (in case you haven't noticed)-->
Lev 18.24-25, "'Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways [sexual perversions], because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.'" how can land sin? apparently it can, and apparently it's more responsive to punishment than humans. "to be thrown up or out with force or violence; rush out." that's one of the prettier definitions of vomit (websters). v28, "'And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.'" well, that happened clearly enough. and if the PLO has it's way, we'll be able to nod our heads wisely, saying, "so it was written." .. of course, if Israel has it's way, we'll be able to nod our heads wisely, saying, "so it was written." .. of course, we can look at teh current situation and nod our heads wisely, saying, "so it was written." so were the american indians defiling the land, is that why our conquest was so easy? i can see a few parallels between the european conquest of north america and the original Israelite conquest of canaan. then the israelites hung around for a good number of centuries before getting 'vomited'. that means we still have plenty of time ourselves, eh?
0128044.1343-1502, notes0128044.10-11
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