Review

Reviewed Work(s): Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible: Meaning and Power by William K.
Gilders
Review by: Casey A. Toews
Source: Shofar , Summer 2006, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Summer 2006), pp. 189-192
Published by: Purdue University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42944219

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 Book Reviews ♦ 1 89

take the literary and constructedness of Biblical narratives seriously without

discounting the possibility of some grounding in actual events.
Hendel uses the term "memory" variously to refer to a small detail or a
congeries of details that amount to a fact about the past as well as to a narra-
tive that could have been composed originally as an oral or as a written rep-
resentation about the past* This vagueness enables him to repress the past, so
that "historical" is used to refer to a statement or belief or text about the past
that may or may not be correct. By employing this critical modernist strat-
egem he elevates his study from that of biblical history and literature or from
that of history and historiography to that of theory.
It is clear that the author numbers himself among Biblicists, historians,
and archaeologists who are very pessimistic about the quality and quantity
of true historical data to be found in biblical narratives covering events prior
to the death of Solomon. Although seemingly concrete because of their sub-
ject matter, the individual chapters despair of actually remembering anything
about these early periods. When false memories are dismissed and true mem-
ories dismembered critically, the real past is lost, residing beyond the recover-
able. Only the text remains.
This is a thought-provoking book.
Ziony Zevit
University of Judaism
♦ ♦♦

Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible: Meaning and Power, by William

K. Gilders. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. 260 pages.
$55.00.

A number of texts in the Hebrew Bible provide legislation regarding the cultic
and domestic handling of blood. But as William K. Gilders notes, this blood
ritual corpus provides no comprehensive or coherent explanation for why
blood must be manipulated in the manners stipulated, with the exception of
Lev 17:11. Though select texts do rationalize correct blood ritual with the
puzzling assertion that "the life is in the blood," Lev 17:11 alone provides 'the
only biblical text that specifically interprets blood manipulation by referring
to the identification of blood with life" (p. 185). Due to this dearth of textual
articulation, it is not surprising that the potent text of Lev 17:11 is often ex-
ploited by scholars as the conceptual key for explaining how the "blood as life"
notion drives the various stipulations which regulate blood handling (tossing,
sprinkling, daubing, or pouring). This exploitation produces creative inter-
pretations, perhaps the most common being that since blood is life, and life

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190f Book Reviews

comes from God, blood must be returned back to God (i.e., applied to G
altar) . However, such interpretations, are not "native' to the Hebrew Bible,
through a close examination of Lev 17:11 at all stages of his work, Gild
concludes that this popular text is not the key scholars claim it to be»
In Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible, Gilders confronts head on the me
odological weakness of employing the "blood as life" axiom as the interpr
paradigm for understanding blood ritual- Instead, Gilders takes a cauti
what he calls "agnostic" approach to interpreting the meaning of blood m
ulation in the ritual corpus, noting that the texts themselves are not pri
ily concerned with providing interpretive or explanatory statements regard
the symbolic meaning of ritual acts, but rather with identifying the key ac
and outlining the procedural details involved in the execution of patter
rites of praxis. With his approach, Gilders does not approve of innovative
planations about "native' interpretations of ritual acts when articulated e
dence is not present, a scholarly practice he regularly refers to as "gap fi
Moreover, he strongly opposes "analogical reasoning," whereby scholars a
speculative interpretations from one context (commonly Lev 17:11) to fil
gap of another context. In Gilders' view, these relaxed methodologies have
the academic field of blood ritual study saturated with a myriad of constru
assumptions, and in need of an alternative approach.
In his novel and sophisticated analysis to the blood ritual corpus, G
ers provides a course correction, suggesting that scholars turn from the
to find the meaning of blood manipulation in the conceptual connectio
blood with life, to a consideration of blood s "latent" functionality as an ind
cal sign that symbolically marks (and perhaps defines) structured relat
ships between humans, Yahweh, and sacred space in the socio-cultic settin
the textual corpus. Building on the socio-cultic work of his Brown Univer
mentor, Saul M. Olyan, and his own doctoral dissertation (2001) conduc
under Olyan, Representation and Interpretation : Blood Manipulation in Anc
Israel and Early Judaism (though Gilders makes no mention of his diss
tion in his current work), as well as a comprehensive review of recent the
regarding ritual practice, Gilders provides a bold and sophisticated elucida
of blood manipulation, arguing that blood handling functions to index s
structure and holy space within the cultic sphere.
Gilders notes that in the world of the text there are various "cultic acto

functioning in the ritual practices. Only the ritual specialists (initially M

and the elders, but eventually the Aaronoid priesthood) perform the "elit
tivity," the handling and manipulation of the blood. The "subordinate acti
(the bringing, slaughtering and dividing of the offering) is performed by s
ordinate cultic actors. The elite activity is marked, or "indexed" by the hand

Shofar ♦ An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies

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 Book Reviews ♦ 1 91

of the blood. Gilders notes that blood manipulation even reinforces cultic dis-
tinction among the priesthood, as Aaron is indexed superior to his sons, who
merely have an intermediate status: the sons bring the blood to Aaron, but
Aaron alone brings the blood to the altar. As such, blood marks social hier-
archy and status in the cultic relationships between humans, making blood
manipulation "socially potent activity." Moreover, when blood is manipulated
between Yahweh and the Israelites, it indexes a relationship, or covenant, be-
tween the human and the divine. Finally, the same holds true for sacred space.
Blood applied to door posts or an altar functions to index territory within the
sphere of holiness, thus mapping 'ordered space." The power of the blood is its
ability to mark out ritual structure.
Gilders has provided an exceptional and compelling work. However, we
wonder if Gilders hypothesis could be reversed by the same evidence. Is it
possible that the power is not in the blood, but in the elite actor? Perhaps it
is the blood that is indexed, and made elite because it is handled by an elite
actor, a priest who is already privileged by virtue of his appointment. At times,
this apparent ambiguity surfaces in Gilders' own reflections (cf. pp. 118-119),
including his contemplation that blood is indexed as an important cultic ma-
terial (p. 140). It would be helpful if Gilders were to have identified and dis-
cussed this possible converse application of the evidence.
Furthermore, some might find Gilders' devotion to isolating the various
priestly and non-priestly tradents bothersome in its neglect of a larger, canoni-
cal context. Could final redactors have intended a homogenized reading of
the blood ritual corpus, with the later Priesdy materials informing the earlier
tradents, thus expecting the reader to situate blood ritual within a larger ritual
system, such as purification? If so, this would have serious implications for
Gilders, who takes a disapproving approach to intertextuality, preferring to
elucidate text in historical isolation. As the primary example, he identifies Lev
17:11 as a late exegetical product, secondary to, and therefore inapplicable for
illuminating the earlier Priestly traditions. His commitment to this historical
isolation pauses only once in an unexpected "experiment in interpretation,"
where he considers a reading of Exod 30:10 in the context of Lev 17:11 and
other Priesdy material, leaving the reader somewhat confused regarding the
consistency of his analogical caution (p. 176 ff). Had Gilders allowed for a
larger, canonical context, perhaps a fuller impact of his work would have been
enjoyed. In particular, it would have been valuable to see a more intentional
application of his index theory to the purification system. Gilders does not
clearly indicate where purity falls within his research plan, and his attention to
the topic is sporadic; his discussion of the sin offering provides the only con-
certed discussion of significant detail (p. 129 ff). Perhaps Gilders' future work

Vol. 24, No. 4 ♦ 2006

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1924 Book Reviews

will provide a more direct consideration of his premise to the broader ritu
systems, thus affording even further benefit form his scholarly acumen*
Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible : Meaning and Power makes a solid con
tribution to the intellectual brevity and sophistication of blood ritual studi
for both Hebrew Bible scholars and religious anthropologists in their stud
of ritual practice (all biblical words are transliterated for the non-Hebrais
Gilders provides a careful and thorough analysis of both the priestly and
non-priesdy tradents, giving capable attention to the Greek and Samarit
variations where applicable, the important Rabbinical trajectories, and both
medieval (particularly Ibn Ezra) and modern interpreters. This exception
work provides a serious possibility regarding the latent function of blood m
nipulation in the socio-cultic world of the biblical text, to which scholars w
have to give legitimate consideration. As such, Gilders' work stands as a sou
scholarly investment.
Casey A. Toews
Trinity Western University
♦ ♦♦

Ancient Near Eastern Literature and the Hebrew Scriptures about the Fa-
therhood of God, by David R. Tasker. New York: Peter Lang, 2004. 230 pp.
$65.95.

Dissatisfied with what he calls anthropoceņtric approaches to the study of

God as Father by feminists, psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists,
Tasker proposes a linguistic, literary, and historical approach to "provide
sound exegetical input from the Hebrew Scriptures themselves, and . . . allow
this ancient source of wisdom to speak for itself on its own terms" (p. 1). He
proposes that conceptions of divine fatherhood among ancient Near Eastern
peoples serve as a cultural backdrop against which the 'canonical biblical per-
spective' (p. 5) of God as Israel s Father can be compared.
Tasker begins by discussing ways in which ancient Sumerian- Akkadian,
Egyptian, and Ugaritic texts speak of pagan deities as Father (Part I). He then
identifies fifteen texts from the Hebrew Scripture where God is explicitly re-
ferred to as Father (Part II). He arranges them in what he calls canonical or-
der - Song of Moses (Deuteronomy), the Vision of Nathan (2 Samuel and 1
Chronicles), Hymnic and Wisdom Literature (Psalms and Proverbs), and the
Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Malachi) - to reflect "an approximate chrono-
logical sequence rather than the order found in the Hebrew Scriptures" (p. 6).
Part III is entitled "A Biblical Theology of the Fatherhood of God," in which

Shofar ♦ An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies

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