Texts in Conversation
In Leviticus, a priest’s daughter who engages in prostitution profanes her father. In 4Q213a from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the shame spreads to her brothers and ancestors, and her disgrace is said to last forever.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Leviticus 21:9
Hebrew Bible
7 They must not take a wife defiled by prostitution, nor are they to take a wife divorced from her husband, for the priest is holy to his God. 8 You must sanctify him because he presents the food of your God. He must be holy to you because I, the Lord who sanctifies you all, am holy. 9 If a daughter of a priest profanes herself by engaging in prostitution, she is profaning her father. She must be burned to death.
4Q213a 3–4 3–8
Aramaic Levi b
Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Retellings
12 [to take] from the females [who are foreign, and a profaner.] And now, the plagues of the men will come up 13 [upon those who] incur guilt [by taking her for themselves as] a wife. And she profanes her name and the name of her father. 14 [They judged] her to be burned [for the wrong of her] deed, in [profaning] the fathers. And every 15 [virgin] who ruins her name and the name of her fathers, and brings shame on all her brothers, 16 [the sons of] her father, the name of her disgrace will not be wiped out from all her people forever. 17 [She is cursed] for all the generations of eternity. And whoever [makes guilty] the holy ones of the people, who 18 [put the sons of Israel to shame,] and [let him not be] a holy tithe, an offering to God from
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Notes and References
“... These fragments might be different from the rest of the manuscript
or from a different manuscript altogether, since they appear to vary
somewhat, both in layout and perhaps in script. Yet, the deteriora-
tion of the parchment due to the ravages of time make a definite
paleographic or codicological determination impossible. So, we have
preferred to leave them here, but regard them with a measure of
doubt. As for content, lines 1–5 of these two fragments, which join
together, seem at first glance to deal with the Dinah story, but on
further examination this is doubtful. Just how Dinah’s rape could be
related to the statements made here and how they can be related
to the Dinah material in chapter 1, is quite obscure. Although the
Dinah incident is prominent in TPL, there is no textual or concep-
tual correspondence between these two fragments of ALD and Testament
of Levi.9 [...] The verb is used in Hebrew for the dese-
cration of one’s parent, so Leviticus 21:9 where it is translated “It
is her father she defiles”. ...”
Greenfield, Jonas C.
The Aramaic Levi Document: Edition, Translation, Commentary
(p. 220–221) Brill, 2004
* 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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