I Will Walk Among You by Harper G. Geoffrey;Eisenbrauns (Firm);

Author:Harper, G. Geoffrey;Eisenbrauns (Firm);
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press

The Recontextualization of Prior Material

A third criterion for testing whether intertextual parallels are intentionally deployed is determining whether prior material has been recontextualized. Albeit counterintuitive, the reworking of a text for a new situation is a better indicator of dependence than verbatim quotation (see chapter 2). Lyons notes that such “creative interaction” can take numerous forms: “An author can interpret an earlier text, use it as a basis for an argument, disagree with it, or reuse its words to create a new argument.”113 Important, therefore, are several ways in which Lev 11 has refashioned material that appears in Gen 1–3.

First, Lev 11 uses the description of YHWH’s actions at creation to prescribe Israel’s actions in the present. Just as YHWH established order through separation (בדל hiphil) on a cosmic scale, so Israel’s priests (Lev 10:10), and people generally (Lev 11:47; cf. 11:2), are to establish order through separation (בדל hiphil) on a microcosmic scale. Part of that ordering activity is the proper categorizing of creatures “according to their kind” (מין + ל). Therefore, just as God populated the three spheres of sky, water, and land with their respective avian, aquatic, terrestrial, and “swarming” denizens (Gen 1:20–21, 24–26), so Israel is to think in similar terms and categorize accordingly. In this way, Israel is instructed to act as YHWH himself acted, to actively engage in imitatio Dei in relation to the ordering of the world (cf. Lev 11:44–45).

Second, multiple elements of the Garden of Eden story are reworked in a legislative setting. The primordial grant of food (Gen 1:29; 2:16) with subsequent limitation (Gen 2:17) is echoed in Lev 11 using the same language. This time, however, the recipient of the divine allocation of food is not Adam, but Israel en masse (Lev 11:2). So also, it is now Israel that receives limitations on what may be eaten (Lev 11:4 et passim). Moreover, as noted earlier, the wider contours of the Gen 2–3 narrative vis-à-vis the motif of eating are represented in Lev 11. Along similar lines, there is also recontextualization of Eve’s “touching.” In Gen 3, a prohibition against touching is the woman’s innovation. In Lev 11:8, which like Gen 3:3 employs the rare pairing of אכל and נגע, touching is disallowed by YHWH’s command. Thus, the verbal allusion is present, but it is doing different work.

Third, the making of allusion often involves reworking the original syntax; that is, the actual forms used are contextually and grammatically determined by the alluding text. This is exactly what is found in Lev 11; for example, with regard to the unique syntactical cluster of הלך + על + גחון. The direct address of the serpent in Gen 3:14 is reflected in the second-person forms of both verb and pronominal suffix (על־גחנך תלך). Leviticus 11:42, in contrast, reworks the same verb, preposition, and noun combination in order to delineate a category of creature (כל הולך על־גחון), one that by virtue of the rare combination recalls the Edenic serpent’s cursed mode of locomotion. This shared

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