Misreading Ritual

Book excerpt: Many Christians treat the first half of Leviticus with, at best, benign neglect. Bloody animal sacrifices? Rituals for skin diseases and genital discharges? Surely these things are irrelevant for a modern follower of Jesus. Our engagement with these texts often doesn’t go beyond a pious “thank God we don’t have to do that anymore!” But this isn’t enough if we want to take the world of the Bible seriously. Scripture itself testifies that plenty of ancient worshippers found beauty and meaning in these laws—that they encountered God even in those sacrificial rituals that seem so bizarre to us. This book offers a constructive interpretation of Old Testament rituals for Christians today, even for the majority of us who don’t practice them literally. Drawing on contemporary scholarship, as well as the long history of Jewish and Christian interpretation, the book explores how sacrifice was a way to experience worship, cleansing, and fellowship with God; what systems of ritual impurity teach us about embodied holy living; and how dietary regulations can train God’s people in humility and reverence for God’s good creation. It provides followers of Jesus with the tools to treat Leviticus as a valuable theological resource, not an embarrassment.