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Leviticus 19:18 Does Not Mean “Love Everyone”

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Leviticus 19:18 Does Not Mean “Love Everyone” Leviticus 19:18 Does Not Mean “Love Everyone”: Why I Disagree with Richard E. Friedman Hector Avalos, Professor of Religious Studies, Iowa State University The conflicts over immigration and social inequality mean that Leviticus 19:18 is being revived once again as a biblical prooftext.1 Immigration, when managed poorly, has resulted in some of the worst tragedies in human history, including the Nazi Holocaust.2 One of the main defenders for the universalist interpretation of Leviticus 19:18 is Richard E. Friedman, who wrote an article in 2014 in the 1 See Gregory Lee Cuéllar, Voices of Marginality: Exile and Return in Second Isaiah 40–55 and the Mexican Immigrant Experience (New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2008). More generally, Paul Collier, Exodus: How Migration Is Changing Our World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 2 Scholarly literature on the Holocaust is massive, and this is not the place to discuss that tragedy. My own analysis of the religious roots of the Holocaust, including a summary of different views and historiography, is in Hector Avalos, The Reality of Religious Violence from Biblical to Modern Times (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2019), pp. 312-354. Biblical Archaeology Review on that passage.3 Friedman is the Ann and Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia. In the interest of transparency, I will disclose that I often assign his writings to my students in the Bible classes I teach at Iowa State University, and we were both students of Frank Moore Cross (1921-2012). Leviticus 19:18, with some preceding verses added for context, reads as follows in the Revised Standard Version:4 [15] You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. [16] You shall not go up and down as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand forth against the life of your neighbor: I am the LORD. [17] "You shall not hate your brother in your heart, 3 Friedman, Richard E., “Love Your Neighbor: Only Israelites or Everyone?” Biblical Archaeology Review 40 (2014): 49-52; Online:https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible- interpretation/love-your-neighbor-only-israelites-or-everyone/ 4 Unless noted otherwise, all of our biblical quotations are adapted (diacritics have been removed) from the Revised Standard Version edited by Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger, The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977). 2 but you shall reason with your neighbor, lest you bear sin because of him. [18] You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor .I am the LORD .[ האו ב ת ךערל ךומכ ] as yourself Interpretations range from those who claim Leviticus 19:18 applies only to fellow Hebrews to those who see it as applying to all human beings. Examples of a broad or universalistic understanding include the self-identified Guatemalan-American scholar, M. Daniel Carroll R., author of Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible (2008), and Fleur S. Houstonֶ author of You Shall Love the Stranger as Yourself: The Bible, Refugees, and Asylum (2015).5 5 M. Daniel Carroll R., Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008); Fleur S. Houston, You Shall Love the Stranger as Yourself: The Bible, Refugees, and Asylum (New York, NY: Routledge, 2015). See also Bohdan Hrobon, “Be Useful to Your Neighbor Who Is Like You: Exegesis and Alternative Translation of Lev 19:18B,” CV 59 (2017):5-24; Marianne Heinbach-Steins, “‘Die fremden lieben…’ Biblische Impulsen für eine Christliche Migrationenethik,” BK 73 (2018): 232-39; Dorothea Erbele-Küster, “Zur Anthropologie der Ethik der (Liebes) Gebote,” in Andreas Wagner and Jürgen van Oorschot (eds.), Individualität und Selbstreflexion in den Literaturen des Alten Testaments (Veröffentlichungen der Wissenschaftlichen 3 Jesus, according to many Christian scholars, understood it as a universal commandment (e.g., Matt 22:37-40), but even Christian scholars may disagree. John P. Meier, the prominent Christian scholar of the historical Jesus, concludes: There is no good reason to think that, when Jesus cited, Lev. 19.18b, ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself’, he meant anything other than what the Hebrew text means by rēa>, namely, a fellow Israelite who belongs to the cultic community Gesellschaft für Theologie 48; Leipzig: EVA, 2017), pp. 341-54, An evangelical Christian perspective is in Henry Ansgar Kelly, “Love of Neighbor as Great Commandment in the Time of Jesus: Grasping at Straws in the Hebrew Scriptures,” JETS 60 (2017):265-81. A discussion of why some Dead Sea Scrolls might have intentionally omitted Leviticus 19:18 at a place expected to include it may be found in Kengo Akiyama, “Reproof in CD 9:2-8 and 1QS 5:24-6:1: A Note on a Curious Omission,” DSD 24 (2017): 301-06; Carole Fontaine, “Golden Do’s and Don’ts: Leviticus 19:1-17 from a Human-Rights-Based Approach (HRBA),” in Athalya Brenner and Chin Lung Lee (eds.), Leviticus and Numbers (Texts@Contexts; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2013), pp. 97-118. 4 that worships Yahweh alone as the one true God (as proclaimed in Deut. 6.4-5). 6 If Jesus changed any originally more restrictive meaning, then his authority to change the meaning rests on a theological presupposition that he has such authority to reinterpret scripture. If Jesus did change the original meaning of Leviticus 19:18, then Jesus is misusing and de-contextualizing scripture as much or more than any other interpreter. Jesus should not be allowed any special interpretive skills or insights.7 A more restrictive understanding includes Joel S. Kaminsky, author of Yet I Loved Jacob:Reclaiming the Biblical Concept of Election (2016), who believes Israel’s special elected status is justified. James K. Hoffmeier, the author of The Immigration Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens, and the Bible (2009) is on the more conservative side of evangelical Christianity.8 A technical philological analysis 6 John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume 4: Law and Love (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), p. 651. 7 A discussion of Jesus’ portrayal as a paradigmatic exegete of the Hebrew Bible may be found in Hector Avalos, The Bad Jesus: The Ethics of New Testament Ethics (Sheffield: Sheffield Pheonix Press, 2015), pp. 32-35, 376. 8 Joel S. Kaminsky Yet I Loved Jacob: Reclaiming the Biblical Concept of Election (Eugene, OR; Wipf and Stock 2016); James K. Hoffmeier, The 5 may be found in Hans-Peter Mathys, Liebe deinen Nächsten Wie Dich Selbst: Untersuchungen zum altestasmentlichen Gebot der Nächstliebe (Lev 19, 18) (1986).9 A more open discussion of the ethics of commentaries on Leviticus is offered by James W. Watts in his recent essay “Drawing Lines: A Suggestion for Addressing the Moral Problem of Reproducing in Commentaries and Bibles” (2019). 10 He grants that some of the teachings of Leviticus are immoral in: Immigration Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens, and the Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2009). 9 Hans-Peter Mathys, Liebe deinen Nächsten Wie Dich Selbst: Untersuchungen zum altestasmentlichen Gebot der Nächstliebe (Lev 19, 18)) (Freiburg: Vandenhoek and Ruprecht, 1986). More recently, Christophe Lemardelé, “Another Suggestion Regarding the Hebrew Noun m∑r∑a>,” BN NF 153 (2012): 107-111. For the syntax, see T. Muraoka, “A Syntactic Problem in Lev 19:18b,” JSS 23 (1978):291-297. 10 James W. Watts, “Drawing Lines: A Suggestion for Addressing the Moral Problem of Reproducing Immoral Biblical Texts in Commentaries and Bibles,” in Christian A. Ebehart and Thomas Hieke (eds.), Writing a Commentary on Leviticus: Hermeneutics—Methodology—Themes (Götingen; Vandenoeck & Ruprecht, 2019), pp. 235-252. 6 mandating that readers treat some other people in ways now widely regarded as immoral, cruel, inhumane, and exploitive—texts and have historically justified genocide, indiscriminate capital punishment, slavery, and the subjugation of women by men.”11 Watts proposes that we strike-through/delete passages in Leviticus that would be considered immoral today. As such it is similar to my plea to decanonize some immoral passages in the Bible in general.12 Despite the enormous number of scholars who argue that Leviticus 19:18 applies to all human beings, I specifically will critique the arguments of Richard E. Friedman. Aside from an attempt to make a case for a universalistic understanding, Friedman identified me as uncritically following Harry M. Orlinsky (1908-1992), the Effie Wise Chair of Bible at the New York School of Hebrew Union College— Jewish Institute of Religion. Orlinsky was a prominent biblical translator who served as editor-in-chief for the New Jewish Publication Society. Friedman refers to the comments in my book, Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence (2005), about Orlinsky as follows: 11 Watts, “Drawing Lines,” p. 235. 12Hector Avalos, “The Letter Killeth: A Plea for Decanonizing Violent Biblical Texts,” Journal of Religion, Conflict and Peace 1 (2007). Online: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=philrs_pubs. 7 The much respected Bible scholar Harry Orlinsky made the context argument in 1974. Because of his scholarly standing, he was followed by others… Hector Avalos also followed Orlinsky, saying “as Orlinsky has deftly noted … The “deftly noted” remark has been used (and often quoted) over and over again in connection with the interpretation of this verse. It was not deft at all.13 My article here will argue that, despite a pro-immigrant and welcoming appearance, Lev 19:18 actually is part of a colonialist and patriarchal attitude toward foreigners found in Leviticus and in other biblical traditions.
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