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Leviticus commands that a priest’s daughter guilty of a sexual offense be burned. In Jubilees, Abraham anachronistically applies the same penalty to every Israelite woman, expanding the priestly rule because it treats all of Israel as a priesthood.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Leviticus 21:9
Hebrew Bible
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. 10 “‘The high priest—who is greater than his brothers, and on whose head the anointing oil is poured, and who has been ordained to wear the priestly garments—must neither dishevel the hair of his head nor tear his garments.
Jubilees 20:4
Pseudepigrapha
3 That they should circumcise their sons in the covenant which he had made with them; that they should not deviate to the right or left from all the ways which the Lord commanded us; that we should keep ourselves from all sexual impurity and uncleanness; and that we should dismiss all uncleanness and sexual impurity from among us. 4 If any woman or girl among you commits a sexual offense, burn her in fire; they are not to commit sexual offenses by following their eyes and their hearts so that they take wives for themselves from the Canaanite women, because the descendants of Canaan will be uprooted from the earth. 5 He told them about the punishment of the giants and the punishment of Sodom — how they were condemned because of their wickedness; because of the sexual impurity, uncleanness, and corruption among themselves they died in their sexual impurity.
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Notes and References
... Jubilees 20:4 extends the law of Leviticus 21:9 to all Israelite women. This accords with the general tendency in Jubilees to see all Israelites as priests and is developed on the basis of Exodus 19:6 ('You shall be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy people'). In Jubilees 41:28, Judah determines the punishment of his daughter-in-law 'on the basis of the law which Abraham had commanded his children,' which refers back to Abraham's testament in Jubilees 20:4. Unlike rabbinic literature in which Tamar is made the daughter of a priest, in Jubilees the law is extended to all women, and, moreover, it is made known to Abraham and his offspring. Therefore, Judah knew what to do. ...
van Ruiten, Jacques T.A.G.M.
Abraham in the Book of Jubilees: The Rewriting of Genesis 11:26-25:10 in the Book of Jubilees 11:14-23:8
(p. 270) Brill, 2012
* 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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