An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 24: God's side of the contract, and the fine print (Leviticus 26-27)

Leviticus 26-27
God's side of the contract, and the fine print.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.
For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT
For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:
Leviticus 26
“And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.”

At this point, after all these rules and regulations, you may well be wondering what the Israelites get out of it. And this chapter gives God’s side of the covenant – peace, prosperity and plenty for all. However it rather spoils all this by then threatening “And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.” And a whole load of other terrible things – basically utter ruin and destruction – for disobedience. And there’s more of this stick than there is carrot, which all seems a bit abusive to me. Better, surely, for a caring god to say “look, the world is tough but you’ll do better with me than without me” rather than all the JEHOVAH SMASH PUNY HUMANS! bluster.  There’s a little grace note, however, at the end of the chapter, whereby atonement will fix things, and there’s even a hint that God seems rueful for all the threatened smiting. Can a relationship between a god and humans ever be other than dysfunctional? Discuss.

Leviticus 27
“Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When a man shall make a singular vow, the persons shall be for the LORD by thy estimation.”

This is a strange chapter to end the book on, I would have thought the last one provided more of a capstone. This one barely even makes sense to me. It seems to be about the valuation of sacrifices, but it’s worse than reading the small print in an insurance document. The only thing I took away from it was that men are worth 50 shekels and women only 30; or their “singular vows” are, whatever that might be. Something to do with the value of tithes, but I don’t know if this is what is paid, or if the costs of the livestock and crops are offset against the monetary offering – help!

And there I leave Leviticus, on that rather anti-climactic and confusing note. Normally I do these things by five chapters a time, and Genesis and Exodus rather handily ended on a multiple of five. Sometimes I might make an extra large post to finish off a book, sometimes a small one like this. I couldn’t face seven chapters of Leviticus in a row, and I’ve got a feeling that Numbers and Deuteronomy are going to be hard work as well. Enough of these commandments, I want more history! We adjourn next time at the start of Numbers.

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