Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

Leviticus chapter 21 is a little bit intense, it goes back to instructions for the Levite priests. The first topic is “there shall none be defiled for the dead among his people.” This means the priests aren’t allowed to come in contact with dead bodies except for his mother, father, son, daughter, brother, or unmarried virgin sister. This offers an interesting insight into the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Levite priest had a donkey and was the only one who could have realistically carried the injured man to get help but he refused and one of the reasons was that the injured man might have appeared to be dead and the Levite priest didn’t want to become ritually unclean and have to undergo the cleansing process for 7 days in which he would have had to destroy the clothes he was wearing and go without his priestly pay. Just an interesting insight. Another interesting thing about this commandment is that the people included in the group of bodies the priest could come in contact with...

Chapter 20 is another conglomerate of already discussed commands, but starts off with something a little unfamiliar which is giving of children “unto Molech.” We first heard about Molech just recently and It doesn’t say exactly what happens to these kids, like if they are given to serve Molech or if they are to be human sacrifices, which TB suggests that that is the case. Any one who gives their children to be given “unto Molech” or I would imagine any other type of god as well, are to be put to death, more specifically, “the people of the land shall stone him with stones.” It’s interesting that God prescribed the method of execution here and TB suggests that if it was like beheading or shot with an arrow or something like that, then it would only take one single skilled executioner to perform the task. But with stoning, it takes a whole group of people hurling stones at the person for a while before they actually die. The point, TB says, is to make sure that lots of people participat...

The IM classifies chapter 19 as the start of the section of “Laws of Mercy and Righteousness,” and while TB doesn’t do that, he notes that chapter 19 is special to the Hebrews because it’s considered a “Torah within a Torah,” because it reiterates laws that have already been discussed. Back in chapter 11, TB spent a whole lecture of what it means to be holy and why it’s important. I didn’t spend a lot of time on it because it’s such an abstract concept and to me it just means continuously seeking a closer relationship with God through small, consistent improvements in our behaviors through repentance and the atonement. It’s not a glamorous definition and it’s not quick or easy, it’s definitely a “slow and steady wins the race” kind of mindset. Anyway, chapter 19 starts with the command from God “ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy.” In the next few verses 6 of the 10 commandments are reemphasized, in addition to more practical commandments about fairness in your work, tr...

Chapter 18 covers everyone’s favorite topic… sex. TB notes that this isn’t really about sex, because like we’ve discussed previously, adultery was culturally only a sin that females could be found guilty of, it was about who a man was allowed to marry. He points out that in ancient middle eastern culture at that time, the most ideal spouse was to be a cousin, so God wanted a more diverse gene pool, therefore implemented all these rules about who a man could marry. The whole thing is really focused on who has the right to possess which woman, and I find it kind of irritating, but it is what it is. The IM notes that the phrase “uncover the nakedness” was a euphemism at the time to mean sexual intercourse, and if that’s the case then it might seem like God is saying that as long as the man doesn’t have sex with these prohibited women, then he has a full license to do whatever he wants, which some men might have taken to mean that but I reject it. The law is and was that sexual relations ...

Chapter 17 gives an interesting and, at least to me, unexpected commandment and that is that all animals that will be used for food must be first sacrificed at the tabernacle. This means that if a family is going to eat meat for dinner, they have to take the animal to the tabernacle first to be properly sacrificed. This is really interesting to me because I could only imagine the volume increase this one commandment made as far as the work load for the temple workers. As far as why God made this commandment, I could see it as being made so that all animal life could be respected, so if you wanted to eat meat then you had to offer that meat first to God. The IM also notes that this might be because the Hebrews at this point had 400 years of being immersed in Egyptian religious traditions and apparently there were a lot of rituals that involved blood. So if God could control when and where that blood was shed, then it set the conditions for what the blood could be used for and deny the b...

Chapter 16 is covers what is the most holy and important day in all of Israel, Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. When this was revealed by the Lord to Moses, it happened right after Aaron’s sons were killed for the thing that they did wrong so the first time that Aaron went into the Holy of Holies, he was probably terrified and felt like he was taking his life into his hands. To properly participate in the day of atonement, the people were, as TB put it, “abstain,” or “deprive” themselves of anything pleasurable. The IM focuses on the fasting aspect of it, but he also suggests that it would have been happy gatherings, food, drink, sex, games, anything like that. This was a very solemn occasion. TB also notes that Yom Kippur was contingent on everything being done in the temple so when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, the Jewish leadership started making up all sorts of rules to try to make the event work in a way that they thought was close to the original meaning, even...

Chapter 15 is interesting because it now talks about ritual purity for people when they experience “discharges” both normal and abnormal. It was funny, during TB’s lecture on this chapter he said that the audience was probably going to be uncomfortable with this chapter and that he could probably skip it but he pointed out that Leviticus was the first book of scripture studied by Jewish children when they start school, so he said “if Jewish 6 year olds could learn about this chapter then you guys can too.” The first 18 verses address men and all their “discharges” and I’m going to rely on TB’s version here because the KJV is just too abstract. TB describes the first issue as “there are two basic forms: the first is that the discharge is a flow… a liquid that runs; and the second is a much thicker fluid that acts to block or seal an opening. A male with this condition is unclean.” Even though I work in medicine, I don’t really know which disorders these two situations could be talkin...