Leviticus Dear Reader,

When reading Leviticus, it is important to keep certain things in mind. Like anything, the story is a text which can be taken by its word, or as a story designed to enlighten the average human person in their life. According to Mary Douglas in her article "Justice at the Cornerstone," the story of Leviticus is based on ancient structural elements of storytelling. The form of the story is that of a journey; the reader enters from one end of a tunnel, has to follow the path of the story, and then is led out of that tunnel by the climax of the story. This, she says is an analogy for the story as well as an understanding of the structure. She asks that...

With Leviticus in particular, Douglas compares the story to a tabernacle. As it is a "structure of three compartments of unequal size," so too the story is comprised of three parts, of unequal length. The book then parallels the building and is as much a part of the religious understanding as the tabernacle. If her interpretation of the form is correct, then after reading the third portion of Leviticus, the…