Leviticus 1:15
Hebrew Bible
14 “‘If his offering to the Lord is a burnt offering of birds, he must present his offering from the turtledoves or from the young pigeons. 15 The priest must present it at the altar, pinch off its head and offer the head up in smoke on the altar, and its blood must be drained out against the side of the altar. 16 Then the priest must remove its entrails by cutting off its tail feathers, and throw them to the east side of the altar into the place of fatty ashes,
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
LXX Leviticus 1:15
Septuagint
14 ‘If you present a burnt offering from the birds as a gift to the Lord, then he will bring his gift from the turtledoves or from the pigeons 15 And the priest will bring it to the altar and wring off its head. And the priest will place it on the altar and squeeze out its blood onto the base of the altar 16 And he will remove the crop together with its feathers and cast it away along the side of the altar toward the east, onto the place for the ashes
Date: 3rd Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
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Texts in Conversation
In Leviticus 1:15, the Hebrew text says the bird’s blood is to be drained “on the wall of the altar,” while the Greek Septuagint translates this as “at the base of the altar.” This small change corresponds with how other sacrificial texts in the Septuagint and the Temple Scroll (from the Dead Sea Scrolls) describe the correct blood placement. The shift reflects an effort to clarify ritual precision, showing how later texts tried to standardize earlier, less specific wording.
Notes and References
"... In the Masoretic text, this corresponds to "on the wall of the altar". This expression is found only here and in Leviticus 5:9, where it is nevertheless correctly translated with "on the wall of the altar." The Greek term βάσις is generally used to translate the Hebrew יְסוֹד. It is only here that the translation is different. This must also be considered in 7:2, where the Masoretic text has "and he shall pour its blood on the altar all around", which the Septuagint translates specifically: "and the blood shall be poured at the base of the altar all around." This reading also appears in 11QTemple 34:8, 52:21, and in the Septuagint of Deuteronomy 12:27, but regarding the holocaust. According to Dion and Milgrom, it reflects the concern, explicitly expressed in the Mishnah, Zebahim 3:32a, that this blood should not be poured on the ramp leading to the altar, but rather on the base of the same altar, under penalty of invalidating the sacrifice ..."
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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