Nathan MacDonald

Issues in the Dating of Deuteronomy: A Response to Juha Pakkala

In a recent article in this journal Juha Pakkala offered several reasons to date the oldest edition of Deuteronomy after 586 BCE. This response examines the reasons offered and finds them problematic. Dans une étude récente publiée dans cette revue, Juha Pakkala a avancé un certain nombre de raisons pour date la plus ancienne édition du Deutéronome après 586 av. n. è. Cet article analyse les arguments évoqués et les juge problématiques. In seinem kürzlich in dieser Zeitschrift veröffentlichten Aufsatz hat Juha Pakkala verschiedene Gründe dafür angegeben, dass die älteste Fassung des Deuteronomiums nach 586 entstanden sein muss. In diesem Beitrag werden seine Begründungen überprüft und für problematisch befunden.

Priestly Rule: Polemic and Biblical Interpretation in Ezekiel 44

Prophetic oracles in the books of Isaiah and Ezekiel evidence tensions about the Jerusalem temple and its priesthood in Persian Yehud. MacDonalds Priestly Rule challenges the scholarly consensus about how these texts relate to each other. He demonstrates how important written prophetic oracles were in the early Jewish community and disputes the dominance of a Zadokite priestly family in the Second Temple period.

The Hermeneutics and Genesis of the Red Cow Ritual

The difficulties with the red cow ritual have long exercised readers of the book of Numbers. The ritual in Num 19:1–22 describes how cleansing from corpse impurity is to be effected. A red cow is burned in a manner carefully prescribed in order to produce ash. Mixed with water, the ash is then sprinkled upon the corpse-impure individual on the third and seventh day of his or her impurity. To some of the rabbis and many subsequent interpreters, the automatic efficacy of the rite appears to be tantamount to pagan magic. In addition, it has long been observed that the red cow ritual has a number of anomalies when compared to other rituals in the Old Testament. The red cow is designated a “purification offering” 1 but is unlike the purification offerings described in Leviticus 4–5 or, indeed, any other sacrifice: the entire animal, including the blood, is burned outside the camp, and the goal of the ritual is the production of ash for the treatment of future and not past impurity. 2 Finally, there is what Jacob Milgrom describes as the “paradox of the red cow”: the red cow ritual makes the pure impure and the impure pure. 3