In 2021 NYU hosted a virtual book panel on the newly published The Story of Sacrifice: Ritual and Narrative in the Priestly Source by Liane M. Feldman, Assistant Professor in the Skirball Department of Hebrew & Judaic Studies.
Joining Prof. Feldman for the book panel was scholars Mira Balberg (UC San Diego), Martha Himmelfarb (Princeton), Andrew McGowan (Yale), and Hindy Najman (Oxford).
Procedure as Imaginative Art
by Mira Balberg
Leviticus as a Mission Statement
When Moses Goes to Ikea: the Introduction of Systematic Sacrifice
Legal Discourse as World-Building
by Hindy Najman
ABOUT THE BOOK
The sacrificial instructions and purity laws in Leviticus have often been seen as later or secondary additions to an originally sparse Priestly narrative. In this volume, Liane M. Feldman argues that the ritual and narrative elements of the Pentateuchal Priestly source are mutually dependent and that the internal logic and structure of the Priestly narrative makes sense only when they are read together. Bringing together insights from the fields of ritual theory and narratology, the author argues that the ritual materials in Leviticus should be understood and analyzed as literature. At the core of her study is the assertion that these sacrificial instructions and purity laws form the backbone of the Priestly story world, and that when these materials are read within their broader narrative context, the Priestly narrative is first and foremost a story about the origins and purpose of sacrifice.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Liane M. Feldman is an Assistant Professor in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. Her work focuses primarily on priestly literature, with an emphasis on the literary representation of sacrifice and sacred space in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple literature. She pays particular attention to the interplay between ritual and narrative, compositional history, and the relationship between texts and historical religious practice. Prof. Feldman received her Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible from The University of Chicago, M.A.s from Yale University and Boston College, and a B.A. in English literature from Northeastern University.