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The Casuistic Priestly Law in Ancient Mediterranean Context: The History of the Genre and its Sitz im Leben *

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2018

Guy Darshan
Guy Darshan*
Affiliation:
Tel Aviv University
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Abstract

While numerous scholars have compared the Priestly regulations in the Pentateuch to ancient Near Eastern “ritual texts,” the Priestly legal material more generally corresponds in form and style to ancient Near Eastern casuistic law collections than to descriptive or prescriptive “ritual texts.” At the same time, ancient Near Eastern law collections do not contain any ritual or religious ordinances, relating instead primarily to civil and financial affairs or social law and order. This paper examines the formal, substantive, and generic affinities between the Priestly laws and the casuistic Greek “Sacred Laws” inscribed on stone and other materials throughout the eastern Mediterranean basin from the sixth century BCE onwards. Analysis of related Northwest-Semitic and Punic texts, as well as potential precedents from the Hittite world, further contributes to our understanding of the Sitz im Leben of the casuistic Priestly law.

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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 111 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 24 - 40
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2018 

Previous Comparative Studies: The Priestly Material and Ancient Near Eastern “Ritual Texts”

In recent decades, numerous studies have compared the Priestly material in Leviticus and Numbers with ancient Near Eastern “ritual texts.”Footnote 1 While this modern term is vague, covering various cultic texts such as prayers, hymns, lamentations, omens, and incantations, scholars frequently apply it to any composition written for priestly purposes. The Priestly material in Leviticus and Numbers is thus assumed to have served priestly ritual or administrative needs. Some scholars have even sought to reconstruct the ancient “ritual text” that preceded the extant material, on occasion emending the biblical text in line with literary and social presuppositions.Footnote 2

In a series of comparative studies of the Priestly and ancient Near Eastern literature—primarily Akkadian, Hittite, and Ugaritic—Baruch Levine categorizes ritual texts as descriptive and prescriptive. The former describe the rituals, possibly originating as archival records written by a witness.Footnote 3 The latter specify what should be performed during the rituals. Possibly serving as priestly manuals, these are formulated as instructions phrased in the imperfect or imperative.Footnote 4 According to this classification, the majority of the texts in Leviticus and Numbers are prescriptive ritual texts.

The Priestly material in the Hebrew Bible undoubtedly reflects priestly norms and practices, with close affinities existing between various texts in Leviticus and Numbers and the ancient Near Eastern “ritual texts.” Thus, for example, the daily temple rites in Mesopotamia, Ugarit, Hatti, and Egypt parallel the cultic chapters in Leviticus and Numbers.Footnote 5 The purgation rituals in biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts—especially Hittite and Akkadian—also exhibit close correspondences.Footnote 6 However, neither of Levine's categories fully explains the priestly genre in the Hebrew Bible.

The Casuistic Formula: The Impact of the Mesopotamian Legal Tradition

Several factors relating to style, purpose, and target audience suggest that the identification of much of Numbers and Leviticus as “ritual texts” is missing the point. One of their principal characteristics is their use of conditional sentences commencing with the phrase —“If/when anyone . . . .” These sentences consist of two parts—the protasis at the beginning of the sentence, which presents the case or specific situation (e.g., —“If anyone sacrifices . . .”), and apodosis, denoting the solution or action that must be taken in these circumstances (e.g., —“You shall bring your offering from the herd or from the flock”).Footnote 7

This conditional structure runs all through the principal blocks of Leviticus and Numbers: the offerings section dealing with various types of offering (burnt, grain, peace, and expiatory) (Leviticus 1–5), the laws of purity and purification (Leviticus 11–16) —in particular those relating to the woman who gives birth (Leviticus 12) and genital impurities (Leviticus 15), and the majority of the holiness ordinances (Leviticus 17–27). On occasion, the primary conditional clause is followed by a series of sub-clauses opening with the word —“If”Footnote 8 :

  1. Leviticus 1

    2 When any man of you presents an offering to Yhwh, he shall choose his offering from the livestock – from the herd or from the flock.

    3 If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd. . .

    10 If his offering for a burnt offering is from the flock. . .

    14 If his offering is a burnt offering of birds. . .

  2. Leviticus 2

    1 When a person presents an offering of meal to Yhwh, his offering shall be of choice flour; he shall pour oil upon it, lay frankincense on it . . .

    4 When you present an offering of meal baked in the oven. . .

    5 If your offering is a meal offering on a griddle . . .

    7 If your offering is a meal offering in a pan . . .

  3. Leviticus 12

    2 When a woman at childbirth bears a male, she shall be unclean seven days; she shall be unclean as at the time of her menstrual infirmity. . .

    5 If she bears a female, she shall be unclean two weeks as during her menstruation. . .

    8 If, however, her means do not suffice for a sheep . . .

Such conditional statements are characteristic of both biblical and ancient Near Eastern law collections.Footnote 9 Thus, for example, we read in Exod 21:26–32:

  • 26 When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let him go free on account of his eye.

  • 27 If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let him go free on account of his tooth.

  • 28 When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox is not to be punished.

  • 29 If, however, that ox has been in the habit of goring . . .

  • 30 If ransom is laid upon him . . .

  • 32But if the ox gores a slave, male or female . . .

  • 33 When a man opens a pit . . .34 the one responsible for the pit must make restitution; he shall pay the price to the owner

As is well known, the conditional clauses in the biblical legal material form part of the judicial legacy the Israelites inherited from Mesopotamia. This formulation constitutes one of the hallmarks of ancient Near Eastern law, first appearing in the laws of Ur-Nammu (dated approximately to the twenty-first century BCE), although today perhaps being most familiar from Laws of Hammurabi, of which multiple copies existed in Mesopotamia.

The same formula also occurs—with minor variations—in first millennium Neo-Babylonian law collections. In this text, the term “man” stands before the relative pronoun, serving as a conditional particle. The Akkadian form awīlum ša thus corresponds precisely to the biblical (primarily Priestly) formula ( ) —as in Lev 20:9–21, for example (cf. the Priestly formula ).Footnote 10 Although this can be traced back to earlier periods, it became the standard form in the Neo-Babylonian law collections written ca. 700 BCE, which are closer chronologically to the biblical legal material than the second-millennium law collections.

The use of the casuistic formula (Sumerian tukum bi lú, Akkadian šumma awīlum) and conditional sentence spread from Mesopotamia to Hittite law (Hittite takku LÚ), thence making its way into the Canaanite world, as demonstrated by a tablet fragment recently discovered at Hazor.Footnote 11 During the first millennium BCE, it reached the Israelites, and further west, the Greek and Roman worlds.Footnote 12 We find it in the law code of the city of Gortyn in Crete (dated ca. mid-fifth century BCE).Footnote 13 The well-known Roman Duodecim Tabulae (Law of the Twelve Tables)—originally written in the same century but only surviving in a very fragmentary state—also appears to have contained conditional clauses.Footnote 14 One of these is the famous lex talionis, which closely corresponds not only stylistically but also in content to parallel ancient Near Eastern laws (VIII, 2 4).Footnote 15

The conditional sentence appears to have originated in omen texts, serving to determine the precise relationship between signs (usually on the liver) and the future they predicted.Footnote 16 The Šumma izbu—“If a reject (= an anomalous birth)”—or the Šumma ālu (“If a city”), for example, were well-known ancient Mesopotamian compendia of omens constructed as conditional sentences.Footnote 17 As Raymond Westbrook and other scholars have demonstrated, the conditional clause represented the ancient Near Eastern form of scientific thinking and the endeavor to present “facts” in a schematic and organized fashion.Footnote 18

As indicated by Ugaritic literature, this type of writing found its way into local texts composed in Western Semitic as early as the second millennium BCE. In this milieu, the primary witness comes from technical writings—omens and hippiatric texts (for the healing of horses).Footnote 19 In one Ugaritic omen (KTU 1.103+1.145; 1.140), the principal condition is indicated by the Ugaritic term k (kî), equivalent to the Hebrew יכ: “If one gives birth to an omen (in the shape) of a stone (k tld ’at. ’abn.),” the apodosis being: “many people will fall in the land (m’adtn tqln bḥwt).”Footnote 20

Although the affinities between the conditional formulae in Leviticus and Numbers and this material might lead us to assume that the latter are modeled on medical or technical ritual literature, several pieces of evidence suggest that the casuistic formulation in the pentateuchal Priestly texts is rather derived from ancient legal collections. Firstly, the style and structure of the P material closely corresponds to ancient Near Eastern law collections—such as the biblical laws in Exodus 21.Footnote 21 Secondly, and more conclusively, like the Akkadian šumma awīlum or in the biblical civil law, the biblical Priestly law collections are addressed to the public at large ( ). Thus, for example, Lev 1:2 states: “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: If any of you bring an offering of livestock to Yhwh, you shall bring your offering from the herd or from the flock” (Lev 1:2). Other passages in Leviticus and Numbers employ the same usage: , etc. While some Šumma izbu texts appear to open in the same way as Leviticus 12, stating that “If a woman gives birth (šumma sinništu uldima) and (the foetus) has two ears on the left,” the apodosis focuses on the omen and its consequence rather than the person: “The advice of the land will be unheeded (milik māti issappaḫ).”Footnote 22 This formulation significantly differs from the Priestly and other biblical and ancient Near Eastern laws, in which both their protasis (e.g., Lev 12:2: ) and apodosis (e.g., Lev 12:2–4: ) refer to the man/woman/animal etc., and their circumstances. Although ancient Near Eastern law did not necessarily serve as a binding judicial codex, apparently not being accessible to the masses, it was addressed to a general audience.Footnote 23 The ancient Near Eastern ritual texts, in contrast, are secret knowledge revealed solely to the priests for professional and technical use.Footnote 24

Significantly, on the other hand, ancient Near Eastern law collections do not contain any ordinances relating to ritual or religious matters, relating instead primarily to civil and financial affairs or social law and order. While Hittite law contains a series of ordinances dealing with sexual offences, such as bestiality, incest, and adultery (187–200a), which recall the statutes in Leviticus 18–20 (see also Exod 22:18; Deut 27:21), even being defined as ḫurkel—the Hittite equivalent of the Hebrew or —these also pertain to proper social order, being attracted to this location by the theme of adultery.Footnote 25 While some laws state that the punishment for the offence is “not approaching the king,” they do not explain how purification is to be performed or the sacrifice to be offered. They cannot thus be regarded as ritual laws of the biblical type. The Priestly cultic laws thus appear to be unique in phrasing ritual matters as casuistic laws and blending ritual and civil matters. If this is the case, was this innovation a distinctively Israelite phenomenon or did it also develop in other ancient societies?Footnote 26

Sacred Laws from the Ancient Mediterranean Basin

The traditional answer is that Israel constitutes a sui generis case in this regard.Footnote 27 This conclusion has become commonly accepted largely due to the fact that the “sacred laws” (leges sacrae) genre prevalent in the ancient Greek world has been ignored in comparative studies.Footnote 28 Although the term “sacred laws” is a modern invention, it draws upon the title ἱερός νόμος by which inscriptions (most frequently on stone) recording and laying out instructions relating to various cultic practices (festivals, purification regulations, sacrifices, etc.) were known.Footnote 29 Texts of this type have been discovered across the Greek world, both in the motherland and the Greek colonies, all dating to between the early sixth century BCE and the first centuries CE.Footnote 30

Although the modern term covers epigraphic materials belonging to diverse genres—such as laws, decrees, edicts, contracts—it refers primarily to prescriptive texts pertaining to religious and cultic practices. Several “sacred texts” have been discovered in the precincts of sacred places or temples, one of their principal purposes being to instruct worshipers with regard to the purity laws governing them. Several could thus be placed at various points within the sanctuary, entrances being a particularly popular spot because of the maximum exposure. Although various types existed, I shall focus here on legal texts dealing with religious material that employ the conditional clause characteristic of ancient Near Eastern law collections. These all address pollution of various kinds and purification rites of one form or another.

The earliest example, dated to the early sixth century BCE, comes from the city of Cleonoae in Greece (IG iv, 1607 = LSCG 56), the boustrophedon writing indicating its early provenance.Footnote 31 Although the text is damaged, it was evidently formulated in the conditional:

Rather than dealing with the civil penalties to which the murderer was liable, it addresses the consequent pollution and the purification ritual the murderer had to perform, most likely in the sanctuary.

Another recently discovered example—a large lead tablet dated to the first half of the fifth century BCE—comes from Selinus, an ancient Greek city on the southwest coast of Sicily (SEG XLIII 630 = NGSL 27).Footnote 32 The first section (A) refers to sacrifices offered to chthonian divinities, the second (B) contains several laws concerning purification from elasteroi—a sort of ghost. The formulae αἴ κ’ ἄνθροπος (“if a man”) and αἴ τίς κα (“if someone”) appear in lines 1 and 7.Footnote 33

The “sacred laws” found on the island of Cos and dated to the third century BCE also appear to employ the same formula (LSCG 154 = IG XII 4, 72 = HGK 8).Footnote 34 Although the second part of this inscription is badly damaged and difficult to read, it appears to contain a series of ordinances relating to purity and impurity formulated as conditional clauses. Each clause originally appears to have commenced with Αἰ δέ κα . . . —“And if . . .” The relatively well preserved first part provides us with instructive information regarding the genre, opening with the statement: “That the purity and puri[fication] (ὅπως ταί τε ἁγνεῖαι καὶ τοὶ κα[θαρμοί) . . . be accomplished according to the sacred and ancestral laws (ἱεροὺς καὶ πατρίους νόμους) for good fortune” (A 5–8). This indicates that it dealt primarily with regulations relating to purity and impurity. The term ἱεροὺς . . . νόμους refers here to the norms that preceded the written legislation, the following lines employing it also in relation to the written laws: “What is written in the sacred laws (ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς νόμοις) in regard to purity and purifications, and record on each of the two pillars . . . and consecrate one in the temple of Demeter within . . . (τὰ γεγραμμένα ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς νόμοις περὶ τ[ᾶν ἁγνειᾶν . . . καὶ τῶν] καθαρμῶν ἀναγραψάντω ἐς ἑκατέραν [στάλαν – – – – – – καὶ ἀναθέντω τὰν] μὲν ἐς τὸ ἱερὸν τᾶς Δάματρος ἐς τὸν ἐντὸς . . .)” (A 8–14).

The Cyrene inscription, dated to the late fourth century BCE (although parts may be earlier) is much better preserved and contains extensive purification regulations, the majority formulated as conditional clauses: Αἴ κα (if) + subject + verb.Footnote 35 The first rule deals with the removal of famine or disease: “If (Αἴ κα) sickness or famine or death (νόσος ἢ λιμός ἢ θάνατος) visit the land or the city, sacrifice a red billy goat ( ίμαρον ἐρυθρόν) in front of the gate, opposite the Shrine of Aversion, to Apollo the Averter” (A 4–6). Footnote 36 This recalls the slaughter of the red heifer outside the camp whose ashes were used to purify those who had come into contact with the dead (Numbers 19).Footnote 37

The third rule specifies: “A man coming from a woman, having slept with her by night, may sacrifice whatever he wishes. If he (τὰν δέ) has slept with her by day, once he has washed, he may go . . . wherever he wishes, except to . . .” (A 12–15).Footnote 38 Here, too, we are reminded of the purification rite to be performed after the emission of semen in Lev 15:16–18. Contra Herodotus's claim (2.64) that only the Greeks and Egyptians bathed after sexual intercourse, the custom of purifying oneself in water after coition was common practice in the ancient world.Footnote 39 Most important for our present purposes is the fact that both the biblical and the Cyrene texts formulate this custom as a conditional “sacred law” intended to be observed by the public at large.

The fourth rule deals with the woman who gives birth—corresponding to the laws governing the woman after childbirth in Leviticus 12. Like post-biblical halakhic literature, this discusses the various levels of impurity in detail—whom the woman can make impure and whether a person who has been defiled can defile others: “She pollutes anyone within the house, but she does not pollute anyone outside the house, unless he comes inside. Any person who is inside will be defiled for three days, but he will not pass pollution to another, no matter where this person goes.” Footnote 40

The sixth rule refers to the purifying of the altar after a forbidden sacrifice has been offered (A 26–32), also being phrased casuistically: “If someone sacrifices at an altar a sacrifice which it is not customary to sacrifice, he is to remove from the altar the fat that remains and wash it away and remove from the sanctuary the rest of the filth, and take away the ash from the altar and the fire to a pure place, and then, when he has washed himself and purified the sanctuary and sacrificed as a penalty a full-grown animal, let him sacrifice according to custom” (A 26–32).Footnote 41

The remaining law consists of a series of conditional rules relating to tithes (δέκατος). The eighth states: “If someone who is of adult age is subject to a tithe (Αἴ κα δεκατὸς ἦι ἄνθρωπος ἡβατάς) . . .”; the tenth: “If property is subject to a tithe . . . (Αἴ κα χρήματα δεκατὰ ἦι)”; the eleventh: “If a person who is subject to a tithe dies . . .”; and the twelfth: “If someone who is subject to a tithe dies and leaves children and some live and some die . . . ([Αἴ κ]α δεκατὸς ἐὼν ἄνθρωπος ἀποθάνηι).” Both the style and content of these rules and the term δέκατος (“tithe”) recall the biblical regulation governing tithes in Leviticus 27 and Numbers 18.Footnote 42

It concludes with a series of regulations concerning refuge and suppliants, including the purification of the murderer.Footnote 43 These recall the biblical injunctions pertaining to the cities of refuge (Numbers 35; Deut 19:1–13).

As Eran Lupu has noted, this document resembles the ancient Near Eastern law collections and Gortyn law in form, employing the conditional formula, presenting a list of possible cases, envisioning problems, and specifying solutions.Footnote 44 However, since the ancient Near Eastern law collections do not contain any regulations relating to impurity, purification, tithes, or sacrifices, as this brief review has revealed, the Cyrenean inscription thus exhibits much closer affinities with the Priestly text in the Pentateuch.

Its title is also noteworthy in this regard: “Apollo issued an oracle: (The Cyrenaeans) shall inhabit Libya forever, observing purifications and abstinences and tithes ([Ἀ] όλλων ἔχρη[σε· | ἐς ἀ] ὶ καθαρμοῖς καὶ ἁγνήιαις κ [ὶ θε|ραπ]ήιαις χρειμένος τὰν Λεβύαν οἰ [έν]).”Footnote 45 The length of the inscription and its detailed laws have led scholars to argue that the document was brought to Delphi as a law to be approved by Apollo rather than attesting to the precise wording of the Delphian oracle.Footnote 46 Apollo had a close link with purification, being regarded as responsible for sending diseases, the oracle at Delphi also on occasion being consulted with respect to purification. However, as this constitutes the only known example of a purity law claiming to be an oracular decree, it may conceal a literary and religious idea.Footnote 47 Delphic Apollo possessed a special place in Cyrene due to the fact that the Greek settlement there had been founded by a group led by Battos from Thera at his order. In adducing Apollo, the inscription may thus be seeking to associate itself with the city's founder-god—and perhaps even the time at which it was established. The concept that settlers can only live and thrive in a new land if they observe the laws of purifications recalls the biblical Priestly assertion that inheritance of the land depends upon adherence to the commandments (Lev 18:28, 26:1–46).Footnote 48

These biblical and Greek texts may attest to the existence of a similar legal tradition in other cultures in the eastern Mediterranean. No textual witness being available to confirm this conjecture, however, it must remain speculative. Although some of the Punic inscriptions may suggest that Western Semitic and Mediterranean cultures were accustomed to placing inscriptions relating to cultic affairs in temples, these were tariffs or payment inventories rather than conditional laws. Several Punic sacrificial tariffs have been discovered in Carthage and southern France dating to between the fifth and third centuries BCE.Footnote 49 The most complete example, inscribed on two blocks of stone, comes from Marseilles. Footnote 50 Originally erected at Baal Zaphon's temple, it lists a series of sacrifices and their value, delineating the fees and portions to be given to the priests and the offerers, for instance:

This text does not explain how the sacrifices were offered or employ any distinctively legal formulations, including conditional clauses. The particle here denotes simply “or” rather than the “if” that opens the conditional sub-clause in the pentateuchal texts. Nonetheless, the schematic organization and types of sacrifices with which it deals (whole and peace offerings) closely resemble the biblical cultic sections.Footnote 51

Little evidence is available from the Roman world, most of the findings dating to a later period. The fragmentary text preserved from the Duodecim Tabulae suggests that it did not contain cultic laws of the same type as the Greek and biblical sources discussed above, however.Footnote 52

The Genre's History and Sitz im Leben

The above survey indicates that ritual laws formulated as conditional clauses were not known before the first millennium BCE in the ancient Near East. Neither the Greek nor the biblical examples are earlier than the second quarter of this millennium, the earliest Greek epigraphic sources dating to the beginning of the sixth century BCE. Although the conditional formula was already prevalent west of Mesopotamia in the second millennium BCE, it was not employed with respect to ritual, the cultus, or purity/impurity laws. The ritual texts were not formulated in the style of the ordinances that open with šumma awīlum, nor did the ancient Near Eastern law collections contain religious statutes.

The biblical and ancient Greek texts we have discussed attest that at some point during the second quarter of the first millennium BCE, priestly scribes in this region of the Mediterranean turned the cultic regulations relating to sacrifices and purification into a law collection modeled upon the style and form of those prevalent in the ancient Near East. The Israelite priestly scribes thus formulated their cultic regulations in line with the casuistic model of the Near Eastern law collections (cf. the resemblance between the Priestly law and the civil law from the Covenant Code adduced above). This phenomenon is unknown in earlier periods in this region, in either ancient law collections or other genres.

Rather than ritual descriptions or prescriptions, these priestly texts constitute a law collection. In employing this format and formulation, the scribes achieved several goals that distinguish their texts from the ancient Near Eastern “ritual texts”:

1) Divine status: By definition, the ancient Near Eastern ritual texts represent the practices or customs performed in temples. When texts are phrased in the casuistic formulation of the Near Eastern law collections (or the omens literature), they are also represented as divine or meta-divine—i.e., as part of the cosmic order.Footnote 53 As Hammurabi states in his well-known epilogue (xlviii 95), he received the kittum (cosmic truth) from Šamaš the Sun-god in order to implement mīšarum (earthly justice) in the land. The priestly laws possess a similar supernatural power, regulating the cosmic order. In the case of the pentateuchal texts and Cyrenean sacred law, both explicitly assert that they were given by divine decree.Footnote 54

2) Addressee: While the ritual texts were professional instructions or technical literature for priests, the Priestly rules and Greek sacred laws (as also the šumma awīlum ordinances) were addressed for the general public—even if mediated via the priests (see Jer 18:18; Ezek 7:26; Hag 2:11). The Priestly rules or Greek sacred laws were phrased as intended for the common man—just like the šumma awīlum laws. Note the words of Hammurabi about the latter: “Let any wronged man who has a lawsuit come before my statue . . . and let my stela reveal the lawsuit to him” (xlviii 3 19).

3) Authoritative nature: Although they possessed no binding validity and did not govern daily life, ancient Near Eastern law collections were imbued with declarative, official, and ideological authority. Rather than merely producing archival documents, the priestly authors may thus have sought to gain the same status for their texts in imitating them.Footnote 55

The declarative nature of the conditional formulation may suggest that the law collections were intended to be open and accessible to the public rather than restricted to the priests—thus being inscribed on stones at sacred places. This was certainly the case with regard to the Greek “sacred laws,” several copies of an inscription being discovered at the same site in a number of sites. The absence of equivalent epigraphical material from the biblical world suggests that the Israelites did not practice this custom—or at least not to the extent to which it was prevalent in the Greek world. The lack of findings may also reflect the use of non-durable writing materials, however—ink on plastered walls, for example (cf. the Balaam Inscription or Deut 27:2–3). It goes without saying that the comparison of the biblical and Mediterranean texts as belonging to similar genres is based on their unique content rather than the material on which it was inscribed.

As scholars whose interest does not lie in comparative studies have argued, some of the Priestly legal material very likely existed as independent and separate written sources.Footnote 56 At a later stage of the production of the Priestly literature, these may have been collected together and joined to other texts written in a similar style, thereby being incorporated into P. Some of the Priestly legal sections may thus have existed earlier as independent documents along the lines of the “sacred laws” inscribed on stelae erected in sacred places. If this argument is correct, the claim made by such scholars as Menahem Haran that the Priestly teaching was esoteric becomes much less tenable.Footnote 57 It nonetheless does not preclude the possibility that the full Priestly narrative did not possess binding status prior to the extant form of the Pentateuch. These questions are of great significance for understanding the various stages of the formation of P and analyzing the various forms of material within it according to their literary type.

In summary, comparison of the biblical genre and eastern Mediterranean sources with ancient Near Eastern legal and ritual documents aids us in dating the origin of this new and distinctive genre that blends ritual customs with the judicial casuistic formulations characteristic of ancient Near Eastern law collections. In light of the findings presented here, the casuistic formula and legal tradition of the Near East appear to have spread over the course of time into the Eastern Mediterranean. This casuistic model served as the basis for the development of a new form during the first millennium BCE used primarily for purification and impurity regulations. The biblical Priestly ordinances can thus be understood to form part of a cultic-law genre that included the Greek casuistic “sacred laws,” both corpora probably drawing on the same cultic-legal traditions prevalent in the region. This new genre in effect constituted the early beginnings of the religious law that would emerge so prominently centuries later in the same geographical space in rabbinic halakhah, Christian canon law, and Islamic sharia.

Footnotes

*

An early version of this paper was presented at a joint Harvard Law School and Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University seminar dedicated to the topic of Jewish Law while I was a Harry Starr Fellow in 2015. My thanks go to the participants for their comments—in particular Profs. Noah Feldman, Shaye J. D. Cohen, Jay M. Harris, and Bernard Septimus, and to my colleagues in this group—Dr. Hila Ben-Eliyahu, Prof. Chaya Halberstam, Prof. Yair Lorberbaum, Prof. Amihai Radzyner, and Dr. Roni Shweka. I am grateful also to Prof. Baruch J. Schwartz who read an earlier version of this paper.

References

1 See the surveys by Watts, James W., “The Rhetoric of Ritual Instruction in Leviticus 1–7,” in The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception (ed. Rendtorff, R. and Kugler, R. A.; VTSup 93; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 79–100, at 89–90Google Scholar; Sparks, Kenton L., Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible: A Guide to the Background Literature (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2005) 144–47Google Scholar; Weinfeld, Moshe, The Place of the Law in the Religion of Ancient Israel (VTSup 100; Leiden: Brill, 2004) 34–63 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 “Wir bezeichenen diese Gattung als ‘Ritual’ ( Rendtorff, Rolf, Die Gesetze in der Priesterschrift: eine gattungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung [FRLANT 44; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1954] 12)Google Scholar. See also Koch, who sought to reconstruct the original “ritual” behind Exodus 25–40 and Leviticus 1–16: Koch, Klaus Die Priesterschrift von Exodus 25 bis Leviticus 16: Eine überlieferungsgeschichtliche und literarkritische Untersuchung (FRLANT 53; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959) 46–76 Google Scholar.

3 Levine, Baruch A., “Ugaritic Descriptive Rituals,” JCS 17 (1963) 105–11Google Scholar; idem, “The Descriptive Tabernacle Texts of the Pentateuch,” JAOS 85 (1965) 307–18; idem, “The Descriptive Ritual Texts from Ugarit: Some Formal and Functional Features of the Genre,” in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman (ed. C. L. Meyers and M. O'Connor; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983) 465–75; idem, Numbers 1–20 (AB 4; Garden City: Doubleday, 1993) 81–82; Hallo, William W. and Levine, Baruch A., “Offerings to the Temple Gates at Ur,” HUCA 38 (1967) 17–58 Google Scholar; Levine, Baruch A. and Tarragon, Jean-Michel de, “The King Proclaims the Day: Ugaritic Rites for the Vintage (KTU 1.41//1.87)” RB 100 (1993) 76–115 Google Scholar. See also Rainey, Anson F., “The Order of Sacrifices in Old Testament Ritual Texts,” Bib 51 (1970) 485–98Google Scholar. The reading of some verbal forms as indicative being debatable, however, some texts may have been misclassified. Thus, for example, while Levine regards the Ugaritic ritual texts as descriptive, others regard them as prescriptive: see Moor, Johannes C. de, An Anthology of Religious Texts from Ugarit (Nisaba 16; Leiden: Brill, 1987) 157 Google Scholar; Pardee, Dennis, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (Writings from the Ancient World 10; Atlanta: SBL, 2002) 25–116 Google Scholar.

4 Hallo and Levine, “Offerings to the Temple Gates,” 18; Levine, Baruch A., Leviticus (JPS Torah Commentary Philadelphia: JPS, 1989) xix, xxi–xxiii Google Scholar.

5 See for example, Blome, Friedrich, Die Opfermaterie in Babylonien und Israel (Sacra scriptura antiquitatibus orientalibus illustrata 4; Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1934)Google Scholar; Haran, Menahem, Temples and Temple Service in Ancient Israel (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1985) 221–24Google Scholar; Weinfeld, The Place of the Law, 34–63; Lambert, Wilfred G., “Donations of Food and Drink to the Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia,” in Ritual and Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East (ed. Quaegebeur, Jan; Leuven: Peeters, 1993) 191–201 Google Scholar; Sparks, Ancient Texts, 149–55.

6 See, for example, Weinfeld, The Place of the Law, 47–51; Wright, David P., The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1987) 15–86, 291–99Google Scholar; Olmo Lete, Gregorio Del, Canaanite Religion According to the Liturgical Texts of Ugarit (trans. W. G. E. Watson; Bethesda: CDL Press, 1999) 144–60Google Scholar; Sparks, Ancient Texts, 161–65; Ayali-Darshan, Noga, “The Origin and Meaning of the Crimson Thread in the Mishnaic Scapegoat Ritual in Light of an Ancient Syro-Anatolian Custom,” JSJ 44 (2013) 530–52Google Scholar.

7 Unless otherwise noted, biblical quotations follow the NJPS with minor changes.

8 Yaron, Reuven, The Laws of Eshnunna (2d ed.; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988) 63, 101–102Google Scholar; Paul, Shalom M., Studies in the Book of the Covenant in the Light of Cuneiform and Biblical Law (VTSup 18 Leiden: Brill, 1970) 112–18Google Scholar; Gilmer, Harry Wesley, The If–You Form in Israelite Law (SBLDS 15; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975) 1–26 Google Scholar; Jackson, Bernard, “Exodus 21:18–19 and the Origins of the Casuistic Form,” Israel Law Review 33 (1999) 798–820, at 803–804CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Levinson, Bernard M. and Zahn, Molly M., “Revelation Regained: The Hermeneutics of יכ and םא in the Temple Scroll,” in A More Perfect Torah: At the Intersection of Philology and Hermeneutics in Deuteronomy and the Temple Scroll (ed. Levinson, B. M.; Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible 1; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013) 3–43 Google Scholar.

9 The legal material has long been the object of comparative study, beginning with Jirku, Anton, Das weltliche Recht im Alten Testament (Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1927)Google Scholar. See also Alt, Albrecht, Die Urspünge des israelitischen Rechts (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1934)Google Scholar. For the conditional sentences in biblical and ancient Near Eastern law collections, see more recently Wright, David P., Inventing God's Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Bartor, Assnat, Reading Law as Narrative: A Study in the Casuistic Laws of the Pentateuch (Ancient Israel and its Literature 5; Atlanta: SBL, 2010)Google Scholar; Malul, Meir, Law Collections and Other Legal Compilations from the Ancient Near East (Haifa: Pardes, 2010) 22–25 (Hebrew)Google Scholar; Levinson and Zahn, “Revelation Regained,” 8–10.

10 See Exod 30:33, 38, 35:21, 23; Lev 15:5, 21:18, 19, 21, 22:3, 4, 5; Num 5:10, 30, 19:20 (all P). See also Deut 23:11.

11 Horowitz, Wayne, Oshima, Takayoshi, and Vukosavović, Filip, “Hazor 18: Fragments of a Cuneiform Law Collection from Hazor,” IEJ 62 (2012) 158–176 Google Scholar.

12 See Segert, Stanislav, “Form and Function of Ancient Israelite, Greek and Roman Legal Sentences,” in Orient and Occident: Essays Presented to Cyrus H. Gordon on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday (ed. Hoffner, H. A.; AOAT 22; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1973) 161–65Google Scholar; Westbrook, Raymond, Ex Oriente Lex: Near Eastern Influences on Ancient Greek and Roman Law (ed. Lyons, D. and Raaflaub, K.; Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) 70–114, 181–93Google Scholar. For another comparative approach relating to the Gortyn law code and Deuteronomy, see Hagedorn, Anselm C., Between Moses and Plato: Individual and Society in Deuteronomy and Ancient Greek Law (FAT 204; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hagedorn, Anselm C. and Kratz, Reinhard G., ed., Law and Religion in the Eastern Mediterranean: From Antiquity to Early Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Knoppers, Gary N. and Harvey, Paul B., “The Pentateuch in Ancient Mediterranean Context: The Publication of Local Lawcodes,” in The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding its Promulgation and Acceptance (ed. Knoppers, G.N. and Levinson, B.M.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 105–41Google Scholar.

13 See Willetts, R. F., The Law Code of Gortyn (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kristensen, Karen Rørby, “Codification, Tradition, and Innovation in the Law Code of Gortyn,” Dike 7 (2004) 135–68Google Scholar; Gagarin, Michael, Writing Greek Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) 122–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 For the date of the Roman Duodecim Tabulae, see, for example, Johnston, David, Roman Law in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 2 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Flach, Dieter, Die Gesetze der frühen römischen Republik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1994) 109–207 Google Scholar; Watson, Alan, The State, Law and Religion: Pagan Rome (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992) 1–29 Google Scholar; Robinson, Olivia F., The Sources of Roman Law: Problems and Methods of Ancient Historians (London: Routledge, 1997) 1–2 Google Scholar; Mousourakis, George, A Legal History of Rome (London: Routledge, 2007) 24–27 Google Scholar.

15 “(2) Si membrum rupsit, ni cum eo pacit, talio esto. (3) Manii fustive si os fregit <collisitve> libero CCC, si servo CL poenam subito [sestertiorum]. (4) Si iniuriam [alteri] faxsit, XXV [aeris] poenae sunto” (“[2] If [someone] has maimed another's limb, let there be retaliation in kind, unless he makes agreement for composition with him. [3] If he has broken or bruised freeman's bone with hand or club, he shall undergo a penalty of 300 pieces, if slave's, 150. [4] If he has done simple harm [to another], penalties shall be 25 pieces”). For the text and English translation, see Warmington, Brian Herbert, Remains of Old Latin. Vol. 3: Lucilius, the Twelve Tables (LCL; London: Heinemann, 1957) 476–78Google Scholar.

16 Cf. Yaron (The Laws of Eshnunna, 107–108), who maintains that the casuistic formulation originated in the court setting, only later being adapted by legislators.

17 For casuistic formulation in ancient Near Eastern omen literature, see, for example, Bottero, Jean, Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992) 187–94Google Scholar; Guinan, Ann K., “A Severed Head Laughed: Stories of Divinatory Interpretation,” in Magic and Divination in the Ancient World (ed. Ciraolo, L. J. and Seidel, J. L.; Leiden: Brill, 2002) 7–40, at 9–12Google Scholar; Annus, Amar, “On the Beginnings and Continuities of Omen Sciences in the Ancient World,” in Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World (ed. A. Annus; Oriental Institute Seminars 6; Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2010) 1–18, at 6–7Google Scholar; Francesca Rochberg, “‘If P, then Q’: Form and Reasoning in Babylonian Divination,” in ibid, 19–29. For the omen compendia, see Leichty, Erle, The Omen Series Šumma izbu (TCS 4; Locust Valley: J. J. Augustin, 1970)Google Scholar; Freedman, Sally M., If a City is Set on a Height: The Akkadian Omen Series Šumma ālu ina mēlê šakin (Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Krammer Fund 17, 19; Philadelphia: Samuel Noah Kramer Fund, 1998–2006)Google Scholar.

18 Westbrook, Raymond, “The Character of Ancient Near Eastern Law,” in A History of Ancient Near Eastern Laws (ed. Westbrook, R.; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 1:17–18 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See, note 53 below, however.

19 For the hippiatric texts, see Cohen, Chaim, “The Ugaritic Hippiatric Texts: Revised Composite Text, Translation, and Commentary,” UF 28 (1996) 105–53Google Scholar; Cohen, Chaim and Sivan, Daniel, The Ugaritic Hippiatric Texts: A Critical Edition (AOS 9; New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1983)Google Scholar; Pardee, Dennis, Les Textes Hippiatriques: Ras Shamra-Ougarit II (Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1985) 21–37 Google Scholar. Both Cohen and Sivan (11) and Pardee (42 n. 69) demonstrate the parallels between this material and the pentateuchal text.

20 For the text, see Olmo Lete, Gregorio Del, Canaanite Religion According to the Liturgical Texts of Ugarit (2d ed.; AOAT 408; Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2014) 299 Google Scholar.

21 Contra Watts (“The Rhetoric of Ritual Instruction,” 93), while Akkadian law collections and omens use the conditional word šumma and Hittite laws takku, the ritual texts more commonly employ enūma in Akkadian or mān in Hittite to differentiate between several cases/situations: see CAD I–J, 160 s.v. inūma 1j; CAD Š3, 275–78; CHD L–M, 154–56, s.v. mān 7b, 4, 7g. Although the mān sentences in Hittite instructions for priests may constitute an early Mediterranean antecedent for the Priestly material, the factors adduced above suggest that the ancient Near Eastern law collections (including texts such as the Covenant Code) are closer in form and literary function to the biblical Priestly texts (for the texts see, e.g., Jared Miller, Royal Hittite Instructions and Related Administrative Texts [SBLWAW; Atlanta: SBL, 2013] 144–61). The Ugaritic prayer to Baal (KTU 1.119:26–36), which opens with the phrase “If/when” (k), should be examined in the same way. For the text, see Pardee, Ritual and Cult, 50–53.

22 For the text, see De Zorzi, Nicla, “The Omen Series Šumma izbu: Internal Structure and Hermeneutic Strategies,” KASKAL 8 (2011) 43–74, here 56Google Scholar. Therapeutic texts were also intended for the priests/physicians rather than the general public. For medical texts see recently: Salin, Silvia, “Transmission and Interpretation of Therapeutic Texts. Šumma amēlu muḫḫašu umma ukāl: A Case Study,” Distant Worlds Journal 1 (2016) 117–32Google Scholar.

23 For the role the addressee plays in biblical law, see Bartor, Reading Law as Narrative, 25–31. See also below.

24 See for instance the temple program for the New Year's Festival in Babylon (Racc 133:34): “Secret rite (niṣirtu) of the temple Esagil for Bēl. No one may show (it) to anyone except the urigallu-priest of the temple Ekua.” See Thureau-Dangin, F., Rituels accadiens (Paris: Leroux, 1921) 130 Google Scholar; ANET 331a; Cohen, Mark E., The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East (Bethesda: CDL, 1993) 442 Google Scholar; Weinfeld, Moshe, “Israelite and Non-Israelite Concepts of Law,” Beit Mikra 17 (1964) 60–61 (Hebrew)Google Scholar; Paul, Studies in the Book of the Covenant, 9 n. 1.

25 Hoffner, Harry A. Jr., “Some Contributions of Hittitology to Old Testament Study,” TB 20 (1969) 27–55, at 41–42Google Scholar; idem, The Laws of the Hittites: A Critical Edition (Leiden: Brill, 1997) 224; Cohen, Yoram, Taboos and Prohibitions in Hittite Society: A Study of the Hittite Expression natta āra (‘not permitted’) (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 2002) 88–96 Google Scholar; Singer, Itamar, The Hittites and their Civilization (Biblical Encyclopedia Library 26; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2009) 163 Google Scholar.

26 This study does not address the (apodictic) festival and calendar regulations in the Covenant Code (Exodus 21–23) or small Covenant Code (Exodus 34). While these biblical law collections employ the casuistic formula for “civil” laws in line with ancient Near Eastern tradition, the distinctively “ritual” Israelite laws in Exodus 21–23 and 34 are apodictic in style. The ordinances in Deuteronomy also require a separate study.

27 Paul, Book of the Covenant, 8–9 and n. 1. Cf. Crüsemann, Frank, The Torah: Theology and Social History of Old Testament Law (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996) 10 Google Scholar. As LeFebvre notes: “That distinctive trait of Hebrew law writing . . . is the tendency to integrate cultic laws with judicial laws. Unlike other ancient Near Eastern peoples, the Hebrews incorporated cultic law writing into the typically judicial law-collection genre. In other ancient Near Eastern societies, cultic practices were recorded in priestly texts (and often kept secret)” ( LeFebvre, Michael, Collections, Codes, and Torah: The Re-characterization of Israel's Written Law [New York: T&T Clark, 2006] 78)Google Scholar.

28 While Weinfeld adduces some of these Greek materials, he does so in the context of foundation stories, thus failing to pay attention to the uniquely parallel legal genre: Weinfeld, Moshe, The Promise of the Land: The Inheritance of the Land of Canaan by the Israelites (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) 28–29 Google Scholar.

29 For debate regarding the term Leges sacrae, see Lupu, Eran, Greek Sacred Law: A Collection of New Documents (NGSL) (Leiden: Brill, 2009) 5–6 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Petrović, Ivana and Petrović, Andrej, “‘Look Who's Talking Now’: Speaker and Communication in Metrical Sacred Regulations,” in Ritual and Communication (ed. Stavrianopoulou, E.; Kernos Suppl. 16; Liège: Centre International d'Étude de la Religion Grecque Antique, 2006) 151–79, at 151–54Google Scholar; Gawlinski, Laura, The Sacred Law of Andania: A New Text with Commentary (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012) 3 Google Scholar; Carbon, Jan-Mathieu and Pirenne-Delforge, Vinciane, “Beyond Greek ‘Sacred Laws,’” Kernos 25 (2012) 163–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 For Greek sacred law in general, see, for example, Parker, Robert, “What are Sacred Laws?” in The Law and the Courts in Ancient Greece (ed. Harris, E. M. and Rubinstein, L.; London: Duckworth, 2004) 57–70 Google Scholar; Lupu, Greek Sacred Law, 3–112; Carbon and Pirenne-Delforge, “Beyond Greek ‘Sacred Laws,’” 163–82; Jan-Mathieu Carbon, “Monographing ‘Sacred Laws,’” Kernos 25 (2012) 318–27.

31 See Gagarin, Michael, Writing Greek Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) 63, 251–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Jameson, Michael H., Jordan, David R., and Kotansky, Roy D., A Lex Sacra from Selinus (GRBS Monographs 11; Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Lupu, Greek Sacred Law, 359–87; Robertson, Noel, Religion and Reconciliation in Greek Cities: The Sacred Laws of Selinus and Cyrene (American Classical Studies 54; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 3–255 Google Scholar.

33 “(2–3) [If a] person, [a homicide, wishes] to purify himself from elasteroi ( ]), having made a proclamation from wherever he wishes, and in whatever year he wishes, and in whatever [month] he wishes, and on whatever day he wishes, having made a proclamation in whatever direction he wishes, he shall purify himself. (4) The one hosting him shall give the [homicide] to wash himself and something to eat and salt; and, having sacrificed a piglet to Zeus, he (the homicide) shall go away from him, and turn around, and he shall be spoken to, and take food, and sleep wherever he wishes. (7) If someone wishes to purify himself with respect to a guest/host (? or foreign) or ancestral (αἴ τίς κα λε̑ι ξενικὸν ἒ πατρο̑ιον, ἒ ‘πακουστὸν ἒ ‘φορατὸν ἒ καὶ χὄντινα καθαίρεσθαι), either heard or seen or any whatsoever, he shall purify himself in the same way as the homicide when he purify himself from an ancestral (elasteros) etc. [. . .])” For the text see Lupu, Greek Sacred Law, 363–64.

34 See Herzog, Rudolf, Heilige Gesetze von Kos (Berlin: Verlag der Akademie der wissenschaften and de Gruyter, 1928) no. 8Google Scholar; Sokolowski, Francizek, Lois sacrées des cités grecques (Paris: de Boccard, 1969) 263–69 (no. 154)Google Scholar. For the first part of this text, see also Guen-Pollet, Brigitte Le, La vie religieuse dans le monde grec du Ve au IIIe siècle avant notre ère (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 1991) 123–29 (no. 39)Google Scholar; McLean, Bradley H., Hellenistic and Biblical Greek (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 355–58Google Scholar; Parker, Robert, Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983) 52–53 Google Scholar.

35 For the possible existence of an early substratum, see Parker, Miasma, 334.

36 [Αἴ] ἐπὶ τὰγ γᾶν ἢ ἐπὶ τὰμ πόλιν ἐπείηι νόσο[ς ἢ λι‖μὸ] ἢ θάνατος, θύεν ἔμπροσθε τᾶμ πυλᾶν, [κάθα|ρμ] τῶ ἀποτροπαίω, τῶι Ἀπόλλωνι τῶι ἀποτρό[π|ωι] ίμαρον ἐρυθρόν.

37 See Latte, K., “Ein Sakrales Gesetz aus Kyrene,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 26 (1928) 41–51, at 41–42Google Scholar; Weinfeld, The Promise of the Land, 28; Parker, Miasma, 334–35.

38 .

39 See Milgrom, Jacob, Leviticus 1–16 (AB3; New York: Doubleday, 1991) 931–34Google Scholar.

40 [ὲν ὑπώροφον μιανεῖ, τὸν | δ’ ἐ]ξόροφον οὐ μιανεῖ, αἴ κα μὴ ὑπένθηι. Ὁ δ’ ἄ̣[νθρ|ω]πος, ὅ κα ἔνδοι ἦι, α<ὐ>τὸς μὲν μιαρὸς τέντα[ι ἁμ|έρα]ς τρῖς, ἄλλον δὲ οὐ μιανεῖ, οὐδὲ ὁπυῖ κα ἔν [ηι ο]‖ὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος.

41 Αἴ κα ἐπὶ βωμῶι θύσηι ἱαρήιον, ὅ τι μὴ νόμος θύεν, τ[ὸ] | ποτιπίαμμα ἀφ̣ελὲ ἀπὸ τῶ βωμῶ καὶ ἀποπλῦν|αι καὶ τὸ ἄλλο λ̣ῦμ̣α ἀνελὲν ἐκ τῶ ἱαρῶ, καὶ τὰν ἴκ|νυν ἀπὸ τῶ β̣ωμῶ καὶ τὸ πῦρ ἀφελὲν ἐς καθαρόν· ‖ καὶ τόκα δὴ ἀπονι Ψάμενος, καθάρας τὸ ἱαρὸν καὶ ‖ ζαμίαν θύσας βοτὸν τέλευν, τόκα δὴ θυέτω ὡς νόμ<ος>.

42 See Leviticus 30–33; Num 18:21–28; cf. Deut 12:6, 17, 14:22–29, 26:12–15. The precise reference to the tithes in this inscription is not unclear: see Parker, Miasma, 339–344; Rhodes and Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions, 503–504; Robertson, Religion and Reconciliation, 299–317; Jim, Theodora Suk Fong, Sharing with the Gods: Aparchai and Dekatai in Ancient Greece (Oxford Classical Monographs; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) 50–51 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For tithes (ešru/ešrētu) in the Mesopotamian world, see Dandamajew, Muhammad A., “Der Tempelzehnte in Babylonien während des 6.–4. Jh.v.u.Z.,” in Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte und deren Nachleben: Festschrift für Franz Altheim 1 (ed. Stiehl, R. and Stier, H. E.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1969) 82–90 Google Scholar. For biblical tithes, see Weinfeld, Moshe, “The Royal and Sacred Aspects of the Tithe in the Old Testament,” Beersheba 1 (1973) 122–31 (Hebrew)Google Scholar; Jagersma, Hendrik, “The Tithes in the Old Testament,” in Remembering All the Way (OTS 21; Leiden: Brill, 1981) 116–28Google Scholar; Milgrom, Jacob, Leviticus 23–27 (AB3B; New York: Doubleday, 2001) 2421–34Google Scholar; Nihan, Christophe, “The Priestly Laws of Numbers, the Holiness Legislation, and the Pentateuch,” in Torah and the Book of Numbers (ed. Frevel, C. et al.; FAT 62; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013) 109–37Google Scholar. For Greek tithes, see Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985) 63–70Google Scholar.

43 See Parker, Miasma, 347–51.

44 Lupu, Greek Sacred Law, 406.

45 See Rhodes, P. J. and Osborne, Robin, eds., Greek Historical Inscriptions 404–323 BC (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) 494–505 Google Scholar.

46 Fontenrose, Joseph Eddy, The Delphic Oracle: Its Responses and Operations with a Catalogue of Responses (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981) 252–53Google Scholar; Parker, Miasma, 334; Lupu, Greek Sacred Law, 78.

47 For the unique nature of the Cyrene Law, see Rhodes and Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions, 501–502.

48 See Weinfeld, Promise of the Land, 29 n. 21.

49 For these texts, in particular the Marseilles Tariff (KAI 69) see COS 1.98; Lipiński, Edward, “Rites et sacrifices dans la tradition phénico-punique,” in Ritual and Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the International Conference Organized by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, April 1991 (ed. Quaegebeur, J.; Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 55; Leuven: Peeters, 1993) 257–81Google Scholar; McLaughlin, John L., The Marzēaḥ in the Prophetic Literature: References and Allusions in Light of the Extra-Biblical Evidence (Leiden: Brill, 2001) 38–42 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For comparison with the biblical text, see David W. Baker, “Leviticus 1–7 and the Punic Tariffs: A Form Comparison,” ZAW 99 (1987) 188–97. For comparison with Greek “sacred laws,” see Lupu, Greek Sacred Law, 391–95.

50 See Dennis Pardee in COS 1.98; cf. F. Rosenthal, ANET, 656–67. For the text and commentary, see KAI 69. See also Maria Giulia Guzzo Amadasi, Le iscrizioni fenicie e puniche delle colonie in occidente (Rome: Istituto di Studi del Vicino Oriente, 1967) 169–83 (no. 3).

51 Baker, “Leviticus 1–7 and the Punic Tariffs,” 188–97.

52 For the tenth tablet of Duodecim Tabulae see Warmington, Remains of Old Latin, 497–503. See also Watson, Alan, The State, Law and Religion: Pagan Rome (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992) 21 Google Scholar; Beek, Leon ter, “Divine Law and the Penalty of sacer esto in Early Rome,” in Law and Religion in the Roman Republic (ed. Tellegen-Couperus, O.; Mnemosyne Sup. 336; Leiden: Brill, 2012) 11–29, at 13–28Google Scholar.

53 For a similar understanding of the Mesopotamia omens, see Fincke, Jeanette C., “Omina, die göttlichen ‘Gesetze’ der Divination,” Ex Oriente Lux 40 (2006–2007) 131–147 Google Scholar; Pongratz-Leisten, Beate, “The King at the Crossroads between Divination and Cosmology,” in Divination, Politics, and Ancient Near Eastern Empires (ed. Lenzi, A. and Stokël, J.; SBL Ancient Near East Monographs 7; Atlanta: SBL, 2014) 33–48, at 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Démare-Lafont, Sophie, “Judical Decision-Making: Judges and Arbitrators,” in The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture (ed. Radner, K. and Robson, E.; Oxford: Oxford University Press) 335–57Google Scholar. Following Nissinen, Stackert highlights the importance of the textual nature of omens and law: Stackert, Jeffrey, A Prophet Like Moses: Prophecy, Law, and Israelite Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) 51–54 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nissinen, Marti, “Prophecy and Omen Divination: Two Sides of the Same Coin,” in Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World (ed. Annus, A.; Oriental Institute Seminars 6; Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2010) 344–45Google Scholar.

54 The Cyrene inscription possesses a unique status in this regard among Greek sacred laws. For other Greek ordinances, see Aslak Rostad, “Human Transgression–Divine Retribution: A Study of Religious Transgressions and Punishments in Greek Cultic Regulations and Lydian-Phrygian Reconciliation Inscriptions” (Ph.D. diss., University of Bergen, 2006) 85, 94, 128–34.

55 This does not mean, however, that these cultic laws in the biblical and Greek world were always observed or had binding validity in court: see Rostad, “Human Transgression–Divine Retribution,” 47–49, 87; Fitzpatrick-McKinley, Anne, The Transformation of Torah Scribal Advice to Law (JSOTSup 287; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999) 113–45Google Scholar; Jackson, Bernard S., Studies in the Semiotics of Biblical Law (JSOTSup 314; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000) 114–43Google Scholar.

56 See Rainey, “The Order of Sacrifices,” 487; Baker, “Leviticus 1–7 and the Punic Tariffs,” 196; Parks, Ancient Texts, 206. These scholars regard the original material as a “priestly handbook” rather than a declarative inscription, however.

57 For the concept of P as a secret ritual text, see Haran, Temples and Temple-Service, 8, 11, 143, 224; Weinfeld, Place of the Law, 81–82 and n. 7.