Peter_Kirk AT sil.org wrote:
Unfortunately I don't have these available either - the best BHDear Peter,Luckily, the College and the library are open half-day this year during the intermediate days of Sukkot (all schools are closed and academic institutions in any case don't start class until after Sukkot), so I found the following:
library here in Baku is probably my personal one. Averbeck's article
in VanGemeren on xa++f)t quotes Milgrom enough to get me interested;
although (from his conservative Christian standpoint) he does not
agree with Milgrom, he accepts that xa++f)t deals with physical (e.g.
Lev 12:6,8) as well as moral defilement. (But is this distinction
anachronistic?) So perhaps someone else can check out what Milgrom and
others have to say on this.Do any recognised translations translate xa++f)t by anything other
than "sin offering"?I thought only the first and eighth days of Sukkot which were supposed
to be days of rest - Leviticus 23:35,36,39. But then I am sure your
librarians have earned their break.
hatt'ath is interpreted as "purification offering by Gary Anderson, "Sacrifice and Sacrificial Offerings", Anchor Bible Dictionary 5, pp. 870-886, esp. p. 879, following Milgrom's 1983 study, Studies in Cultic Theology and Terminology, Leiden.
On the other hand, Koehler-Baumgartner's HAL, p. 306, def. 2, has "expiation, sin-offering"; def. 1 is merely "sin". HAL translated het' as "offence"; and the pi'el of hata' (p. 305, def. 20 as "cleanse from sin, purify".
I get the impression that "cleanse from sin" and "purify" are not far
apart, and this leads to the question of the Priestly theology of all kinds
of het' - physical, moral, spiritual, ritual, etc. as causing ritual impurity
which must be expiated by means of a special sacrifice.
Does this help, or merely confuse?
Yours,
Jonathan
----
Jonathan D. Safren
Dept. of Biblical Studies
44905 Beit Berl Post Office
Israel
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