Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Text Are Not Rituals And Rituals Are Not Texts, With An Example From Leviticus 12, James Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

Biblical scholars have increasingly realized that textual representations of rituals do not have the same function or meaning as the ritual performances that they describe. A survey of this theoretical distinction in biblical scholarship over the last 25 years shows the impact of this realization, and also several points of resistance. The significance of the distinction between ritual text and ritual performance can be illustrated clearly in Leviticus 12, which describes the rituals required of new mothers after giving birth. The chapter mandates practices that are unique in the Bible and, possibly, novel in ancient Israel’s religious culture. However, they …