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Leviticus 5 requires those who sin unknowingly to still make atonement, following ancient Near Eastern tradition such as in the Surpu tablet, which similarly accounts for those who commit sin unknowingly.
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Surpu III
Sumerian and Akkadian Incantations
Ancient Near East
The sin of father or mother, the sin of his father’s father or his mother’s mother, the sin of brother or sister, the sin of friend or companion, the sin of family or in-laws, the sin of late offspring or sucklings, the sin of dead or living, the sin of wronged man or wronged woman, the sin he knows and the sin he does not know, Asalluḫi, exorcist among the gods, will undo. The committing of assault or violence.
Date: 1200 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Leviticus 5:17
Hebrew Bible
16 And whatever holy thing he violated he must restore and must add one-fifth to it and give it to the priest. So the priest will make atonement on his behalf with the guilt-offering ram, and he will be forgiven. 17 “If a person sins and violates any of the Lord’s commandments that must not be violated (although he did not know it at the time, but later realizes he is guilty), then he will bear his punishment for iniquity 18 and must bring a flawless ram from the flock, convertible into silver shekels, for a guilt offering to the priest. So the priest will make atonement on his behalf for his error that he committed (although he himself had not known it), and he will be forgiven. 19 It is a guilt offering; he was surely guilty before the Lord.”
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Notes and References
"... In the Priestly Source, all sins are confessed collectively on an annual basis, as we learn in Leviticus 16:21. The sins of Leviticus 5, which were not committed completely unwittingly, require, an additional confession as stated ... Comparable circumstances can be detected in Šurpu, although this source contains a much longer list of offenses. Similar to what we had observed for P, the types of transgressions listed are broad and include offenses committed either on purpose, unwittingly or through carelessness. While it is true that some sins of the catalogue cannot be committed unknowingly, such as shedding the neighbor’s blood or sleeping with the neighbor’s wife (Šurpu II 48 – 49), Šurpu also lists sins which might have been committed unwittingly or through carelessness. This is the case, for example, when the supplicant sins by coming into contact with an accursed person (Šurpu II 98–103). The claim that this list of potential transgressions is deliberately vague and also includes unknown sins is supported by the concluding line of the catalogue, “The sin he knows, the sin he does not know” (Šurpu III 183). In short, Šurpu was phrased to include as many potential transgressions as possible ..."
Cranz, Isabel
Atonement and Purification: Priestly and Assyro-Babylonian Perspectives on Sin and Its Consequences
(p. 48) Mohr Siebeck, 2017
* 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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