35 pages • 1 hour read
Purity and Danger
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Chapter 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Abominations of Leviticus”
Here, Douglas offers her interpretation of the dietary rules found in the Book of Leviticus in the Hebrew Bible. Her main argument is that the dietary rules aim at fostering holiness. They “develop the metaphor of holiness” by giving it a physical expression in everyday life, inviting the believer to contemplate the “oneness, purity and completeness of God”: “To be holy is to be whole, to be one; holiness is unity, integrity, perfection of the individual and of the kind” (67). In developing this thesis, Douglas rejects both rationalistic/medical and
allegorical/ethical interpretations of Leviticus as inadequate.
Chapter 3 Analysis
Douglas looks at several of the dietary rules of Leviticus, including prohibited animals such as the ox and pig and classifications of animals based on anatomy or motion. Douglas argues that these rules, arbitrary as they may seem, express the idea of wholeness in the body and in society, mirroring the covenant between the Jews and God. She theorizes that some of the prohibitions express the idea of certain animals being anomalous, or falling between categories of classification. For example, the Mosaic law deemed some birds unclean because they swam as well as flew, and thus were not entirely birdlike.
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