Leviticus 15-18: Sex, Blood, and Bodily Fluids

Advisory: This entry discusses adult topics. Also disgusting ones. But it's religious scholarship, so everything's cool.

Leviticus 15: the Fluids

The first 15 verses of Leviticus 15 are about men's "bodily discharges," which raises a fairly obvious question: What's a bodily discharge? At first, I thought we were talking about good ol' fashioned ejaculation, but since verses 16 - 18 are specifically about semen that can't be it. Browsing around in different translations, I see that some of them specify -- I hope that none of you are reading this before breakfast -- oozings from, you know, genital sores. Other of them don't make this distinction. So, based on this Biblical scholarship, let's preliminarily define bodily discharges as "any pussy oozings, especially if they are coming from your naughty bits."

Discharges are, as you might well imagine, ceremonially unclean. So is anyone who touches the oozing guy, or his bed, or sits in the chair where he sat. Anything wood he touches has to be scrubbed; any pottery he touches has to be broken. Once he stops oozing, he has to wait seven days, do some serious bathing, and then take a couple of doves or pigeons to the priest for sacrifice.

Semen is less of an issue. When it is "emitted," the folks involved are merely unclean until evening. They just need to wash themselves and anything the semen got on, which is always a good idea anyway in my opinion.

Verses 19 - 24 are about regular menstruation. For the seven days of her period, a woman is unclean, as anyone who touches her. If you touch her, or her bedding or chair, you've got to wash yourself and be unclean until evening. And if, in the delicate wording of the text, a man lies with her and her monthly flow touches him, he then in unclean for the next seven days, along with his bedding and clothing, much as if he was himself having a menstrual period. Verses 25 - 30 unusually prolonged menstruation or other female "discharges," which are treated much like the male discharges discussed above.

This might be a good moment to remember from last week that "uncleanness" is a ceremonial deal, and doesn't necessarily carry a moral weight. But no one really knows. (Personally, I'm pretty skeptical that it wasn't considered pejorative. There, I've said it.)

The point of all these regulations, God says to Moses at the end of the chapter, is that:

31 'You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them.'

It's an interesting passage, in that it again gives God a specific physical location of being, which is an idea I'm not used to. It also seems ambiguous about the nature of God's relationship to the law. Will God kill unclean people because he wants to, because he feels it right that they should die? And if so, why?

(Alternatively, sometimes God seems to be explaining something that just is, as if people will simply die if they come into his presence with no volition on his part one way or the other. Saying so they will not die instead of so I will not kill them makes the giving of law sound more like a practical warning of the way of things, rather than the willful imposition of a set of commands.)

Leviticus 16: More Ritual

Recall that, when we last saw Aaron the priest, two of his sons had just been struck dead for ad libbing during a religious service. To ensure against a repeat, God now gives very detailed instructions for how priests are to enter the sanctuary of the Tabernacle. This involves goats, bulls, rams, blood, linen garments, and so on, and since I do not believe any of my readers are considering the priesthood I will skip over most of the details.

Two interesting tidbits, though. For one, this is the chapter that introduces the "scapegoat." The scapegoat is a sacrificial goat that the priest ceremonially burdens with all of the sins of the community, after which it is led out into the desert and released. It makes a nice piece of symbolism, and a heck of a metaphor. Then, at the end of the chapter God creates a new sabbath on the tenth day of the seventh month, given over wholly to atonement. I imagine this is the basis of Yom Kippur. [note: I'm right. I checked.]

Leviticus 17: Eating Blood

Actually, the main thrust of this chapter is that sacrifice has to be done in the temple, by the priests, damnit! Any sacrifice outside of the Tabernacle is designated as equivalent of manslaughter, punishable by exile. Wow! That's very harsh! But the reason for this draconian rule is pretty transparent; as the chapter goes on there is first a complaint about how too many people are sacrificing in the open fields. Then, we get to the REAL problem:

They must no longer offer any of their sacrifices to the goat idols to whom they prostitute themselves. (7)

Ah-ha! God wants sacrifices under strict control of the priests to make sure nobody is sneaking in a sacrifice to some other deity, or supernatural power.

Then, there is the part about blood. It is put in very strong terms, and also made punishable by manslaughter. Here, though, the reasoning is less clear: for the life of a creature is in the blood. (11) Apparently, since animal blood is so important in sacrifice rituals, it is not to be messed without outside of those rituals. Maybe this is another way to close a backdoor to sneaky polytheistic practices outside of camp? Just guessing.

Finally, anybody scavenging an animal that they found already dead is ceremonially unclean, and needs to bathe and wash his clothes. Not a bad idea.

Lev 18: Unlawful Sexual Relations!

OK, you've been very patient. Here goes. God tells Moses that the Israelites must avoid certain behaviors common among the Egyptians and the Canaanites, who were apparently some serious, serious swingers. In the interest of your moral enlightenment, I will summarize the rules here, in the order in which they are given:

• Don't have sex with your mom.
• No, don't have sex with any other wife of your father either.
• Don't have sex with your sister. No, not your half-sister either. No, not even if she didn't grow up with you.
• Don't have sex with your granddaughter. Freak.
• Again, don't have sex with your half-sister.
• Don't have sex with your aunt on your father's side.
• No, don't have sex with your aunt on your mother's side, either.
• No, you still can't have sex with your aunt even if she is only your aunt by marriage.
• Don't have sex with your daughter-in-law.
• Don't have sex with your sister-in-law.
• Don't have sex with both a woman and her daughter. Don't have sex with both a woman and her granddaughter; "that is wickedness." (17)
• Don't have sex with your wife's sister.
• Don't have sex with a woman during her period.
• Don't have sex with your neighbor's wife.
• Don't give any of your children to be sacrificed to the bull-god Molech.
• Don't "lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable."
• Don't have sex with an animal. No, not even if you are a woman.
• All of the above applies to alien residents as well as full Israelites.
• All of the above punishable by exile.

OK, much of the above lays out what I hope we can all agree are good common-sense tips for avoiding really, really tense Thanksgivings with the family. But then, there are some surprises. The prohibition against sacrificing your children to Molech, an incarnation of Ba'al, is the real oddball on the list. (And the kind of law that makes me think: "If I was the kind of guy who sacrificed my children to Molech, would the rule stop me?) Strict prohibitions against beastiality aren't surprising, although it's not especially flattering to your aunt to have her and Fido on the same list.

Prohibition of homosexuality.... or at least male homosexual intercourse... is not a big surprise; we knew we'd run into it eventually. Its equal billing with the prohibition of sex during a woman's period is maybe more of a surprise. Now... let's be delicate here... I am aware that there is more than one school of thought out there about sex during a woman's period. Yet, I have always understood this to be a question of, shall we say, practicality and personal qualms, not a moral or religious issue. Just saying.

Next Week: More laws! More punishments!