Priestly Disability and Centralization of the Cult in the Holiness Code

Introduction

Over the years, scholarly interest in cultic centralization has tended to fixate on the book of Deuteronomy (D) due to its prevalent discourse on the concept of centralized space. However, in her recently published dissertation, Rhyder (2019) proposes a new way to reconstruct cultic centralization in ancient Israel. While acknowledging D’s central role in the study of cultic centralization, she contends that other pentateuchal traditions, and especially the priestly traditions, may have their own distinctive centralization logic beyond the notion of a centralized cultic site alone. Focusing on the Holiness legislation of Lev. 17–26 (H), Rhyder explores additional cultic centralization elements, such as the centralization of ritual, authority, and time. She compellingly argues that the authors of H developed and promoted a centralization program that highlighted the centrality of the temple and the special status of its personnel, namely, the priestly elites. However, in her discussion on the status of the priesthood in the cult, Rhyder (2019: 345–371) fails to address how the stigmatization of the disabled priests in Lev. 21.16–23 fits into H’s centralization discourse which promoted the status of the priestly community.

This article aims to analyze how the notion of disability is used in H to construct social identity, shape culture, and organize the society of ancient Israel. ¹ To that end, after describing the theoretical framework for analyzing disability, this article examines H’s conceptualization of priestly disability to identify the status of the disabled priests in the social hierarchy of ancient Israel according to H. Then, H’s stigmatization of the disabled priests is analyzed on the basis of the cultural model of disability to understand how priestly disability is used in ancient Israel to form identity, shape culture, and organize society, especially in light of the treatment of disabled people in other biblical and extra-biblical texts. Finally, the function of the legislation on priestly disability within H’s centralization discourse is examined.

Models of Disability and Theories of Stigma

Scholars have proposed various models for addressing the issue of disability. According to the theological model, disability was understood “primarily in its representation of divine favor or disfavor” (Eiesland, 1998: 216). The theological approach to disability was later replaced largely by the medical model, which defined disability as a medical condition requiring medical treatment. This model locates disability in the individual’s body and seeks to correct any physical defects in order to conform to the normalized ideal of the body (cf. Thomson, 1997: 79; Junior and Schipper, 2013: 22). In recent decades, however, two models have become prominent alternatives to the older theological and medical models, namely, the social model and the cultural model. The social model of disability, popular among British scholars, shifts the locus of disability from individuals to society and considers it a social problem. This model differentiates between impairments and disability: the former refers to any biological anomaly, whereas the latter refers to social discrimination against individuals with a biological anomaly (cf. Moss and Schipper, 2011: 3–4, Junior and Schipper, 2013: 22). In the social model, “disability is defined or measured by one’s capacity to fulfill socially prescribed tasks or functions rather than by medical or physical criteria” (Walls, 2007: 15).

In contrast, the cultural model of disability has been the most prominent model in North America since the 1990s and was a reaction to the medical and social models. ² Whereas the medical model defines disability only in terms of individualized medical conditions and the social model interprets disability only as social discrimination against people with impairments, the cultural model recognizes disability as a much more complex concept. In the cultural model, though medical issues and social discrimination are aspects of disability, they are not the only factors in the complex notion of disability. Therefore, in this model, disability is not defined in a specific way as in other models but rather understood as “a product of the ways that cultures use physical and cognitive differences to narrate, organize, and interpret their world” (Moss and Schipper, 2011: 4). Here, the cultural approach “focuses on how different notions of disability and non-disability operate in the context of a specific culture” (Retief and Letšosa, 2018: 6). In other words, this approach “analyzes how a culture’s representations and discussions of disability (and nondisability or able-bodiedness) help articulate a range of values, ideals, or expectations that are important to that culture’s organization and identity” (Junior and Schipper, 2013: 35).

One of the primary concepts that links disability with a culture’s organization and social identity is the concept of stigma. The prominent sociologist Goffman (1963: 2) observes, “Society establishes the means of categorizing persons and the complement of attributes felt to be ordinary and natural for members of each of these categories. Social settings establish the categories of persons likely to be encountered there.” Because members of a society have certain expectations for people in each category, a person with any attributes that differentiate them from other people in the same category is stigmatized. Goffman (1963: 3) defines stigma as “an attribute that is deeply discrediting” and the person with a stigma “is reduced in our minds from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one.” He then identifies three types of stigma, namely, physical defects, character or behavioral defects, and tribal stigma transmitted through familial lineage (Goffman, 1963: 4).

Since Goffman, the definition of stigma has been criticized, modified, and elaborated. Despite Goffman’s (1963: 3) advice that “a language of relationships, not attributes, is really needed,” the early studies on stigma continued to consider stigma as a person’s attribute (Link and Phelan, 2001: 366). Recent approaches to the issue, by contrast, recognize that stigma is not situated in an individual but in one’s social context (Bos et al., 2013: 1). Pescosolido et al. (2008: 431), for example, define stigma as “a mark separating individuals from one another based on a socially conferred judgment that some persons or groups are tainted and ‘less than’” (emphasis added). As with most definitions of stigma, this particular definition highlights two fundamental components of stigma: difference and devaluation. ³ Also important in this definition is the recognition that stigma is not an integral part of a person but rather a product of social interaction because what is considered a stigma varies from one social context to another.

Furthermore, stigmatization is a powerful tool for organizing a society because it determines how social identity and hierarchy are constructed. In the process of stigmatization, not only are people with stigmas marginalized, but the superior status of the people without stigma is also highlighted, reinforced, and legitimized. Thompson (1997: 31) astutely observes the relationship between stigmatization and the construction of the normal image in society and concludes:

Stigmatization not only reflects the tastes and opinions of the dominant group, it reinforces that group’s idealized self-description as neutral, normal, legitimate, and identifiable by denigrating the characteristics of less powerful groups or those considered alien. The process of stigmatization thus legitimates the status quo, naturalizes attributions of inherent inferiority and superiority, and obscures the socially constructed quality of both categories.

By marginalizing one group and promoting the other, stigmatization contributes to the distribution of power in a society. To describe the relationship between normality and power in society, Thomson (1997: 8) coined the term “normate,” which she defines as “the constructed identity of those who, by way of the bodily configurations and cultural capital they assume, can step into a position of authority and wield the power it grants them.” Thus, the higher the degree of resemblance to the normate image, the more powerful one becomes. By contrast, the more deviations from the normate image, the less powerful one becomes.

H’s Conceptualization of Priestly Disability

Sacrificial duties were not always the prerogatives of the priestly community, as laypeople were able to offer sacrifices unmediated early on in Israel’s history (cf. Gen. 12.7–8; 13.4, 18; 15.9–10; 31.54; 46.1; Judg. 6.17–27; 13.16–20; 1 Kgs. 18.23). Only since the monarchic period, and especially during the post-exilic period, did the priests begin to monopolize this cultic activity (cf. Preuss, 1996: 53; Watts, 2007: 143–147). Hieke (2018: 68–88) argues that the Priestly legislation of Lev. 1–16 (P) promotes the priests’ status in the religious and spiritual lives of the people, albeit not explicitly. ⁴ He points out, “In the descriptions of the sacrifices and their rituals, the priests draw an invisible line between the tasks and competences of the offering people and the priestly prerogatives. The priests do not expressly mention this border; rather, it emerges from the portrayal of the proceedings” (Hieke, 2018: 69). Hieke is correct that P does not permit non-priests to approach the altar and perform sacrificial duties, but this prohibition is never overtly mentioned in Lev. 1–16. Such prohibition appears in later legislation, such as in Num. 18.7, in which priesthood is given to Aaron and his descendants as a gift and, as a result, non-priests are banned from performing sacrificial duties, namely, the acts of offering the sacrifices at the altar, under the threat of the death penalty.

Although the authors of H proper (Lev. 17–26) did not explicitly ban the non-priests as in Num. 18.7, it is more unambiguous than P in suggesting that there are special requirements that dictate who can or cannot perform sacrificial duties. ⁵ Preuss (1996: 56) believes that both the more explicit text of Num. 18.7 and the less explicit one in Lev. 21.16–23 indicate the time when “the priests become the only ones who may ‘draw near’ to God at the altar and serve him.” According to Lev. 21.16–23, the priests with certain physical blemishes are disqualified from approaching the altar to offer bread to Yahweh. ⁶ The legislation prescribes, “For no man who has a blemish (מום‎) shall approach to offer the bread of his God: a man who is blind, lame, disfigured, deformed, a man with a broken leg or broken arm, or a man who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or a man who has a spot in his eye, a scar, a scab, or a crushed testicle” (vv. 18–20). ⁷ In short, H prohibits the priests with physical imperfection from offering sacrifices in the Yahwistic cult of ancient Israel. ⁸

Numerous theories have been proposed as to why physical perfection is required in H for offering sacrifices in the sanctuary. One of the leading theories is that physical defects are inappropriate for officiating priests because most of them are “visible to the eye, long lasting or permanent in nature, and characterized by physical dysfunction, and more than a few share asymmetry as a quality” (Olyan, 2012: 30). Such a view has long been criticized, for example, by Elliger (1966: 291), who rejects the criterion of visual beauty as the common denominator of all the blemishes, as the priestly vestment would have covered the crushed testicle. Likewise, Milgrom (2000: 1838–1839) argues against the criterion of appearance and posits that these blemishes are selected to match the similar list of blemishes in sacrificial animals in Lev. 22.22–24. In a more recent defense for the criterion of aesthetics, Schipper and Stackert (2013: 459) postulate that “H’s blemish laws are fundamentally related to the Priestly myth’s larger characterization of the Israelite god as a superhuman king,” who “must be attended by servants whose ministrations are as unobtrusive as possible.” They further assert that blemishes are dangerous for officiating priests because they are a visual offense to the deity (Schipper and Stackert, 2013: 460, 463). Here, Schipper and Stackert attempt to offer the solution for the problem of visual disfigurement, particularly in the case of the crushed testicle, by shifting the offended party from human to God. Despite the various explanations, the reason H requires physical perfection for officiating sacrifices remains elusive. The nature of any theories on this issue will always be speculative, primarily because the text is silent about it. By contrast, the text is clear about, and more interested in, the effect of priestly physical imperfection. The law states that no descendant of Aaron with any of the blemishes is allowed to come near the veil (v. 23a) or approach the altar to offer food offerings to Yahweh (vv. 17b, 21, 23a) because they pose the threat of profaning the sanctuaries (v. 23b). ⁹ This concept of profanation is critical for understanding how H utilizes the notion of priestly disability to organize society and form social identities, particularly those of the priestly community in ancient Israel.

Furthermore, it is necessary to highlight two more aspects of the legislation on the disabled priests in Lev. 21.16–23, which are essential to assess the disabled priests’ status in the cult and society. First, the priests with blemishes are priests, nonetheless. Like many scholars, Douglas (1966: 52) assumes that Lev. 21 stipulates that one “must be perfect as a man, if he is to be a priest.” ¹⁰ This assumption is based on the idea that the requirements for the holders of religious office to be perfect and without physical blemishes were common in the ancient Near East (see e.g., Van der Toorn, 1985: 29–33; Grünwaldt, 1999: 268–270; Milgrom, 2000: 1841–1843; Rabinowitz, 2007: 749). This premise, however, is not supported by the text of Lev. 21. Although the legislation forbids Aaron’s blemished male descendants to approach the altar to offer sacrifices to Yahweh, it does not explicitly disqualify them from being priests. Instead, Lev. 21.16–23 only proscribes the blemished priests from sacrificial duties, but it does not prohibit them from performing other priestly duties, at least not explicitly. As indicated in other biblical texts, priests are responsible for overseeing not only the sacrificial cult but also the various aspects of cultic life in ancient Israel, such as providing legal decisions based on the laws (Lev. 10.10–11; Deut. 17.8–13; 21.5), overseeing the rituals of purification (Lev. 11–16; Num. 19), and pronouncing the priestly blessings (Num. 6.22–27). ¹¹ In other words, a physical defect does not render a priest unfit to remain in the holy place or perform his priestly duties outside of sacrificial ones, although they may not access the most privileged sanctuary rites in the altar area and the holy of holies, thereby disqualifying them from the office of the high priesthood (Olyan, 2000: 105–106). ¹² It is only in this sense that H considers a blemish as a stigma because of its discrediting effect. It renders a blemished priest tainted or less than an able-bodied priest and “effectively stigmatizes him, casting him as a second-class member of his elite lineage” (Olyan, 2010: Article 9:39).

Second, the legislation includes a concession to what the blemished priests can do. It permits the blemished priests to partake in the consumption of holy and most holy foods (v. 22) despite their being banned from performing some of the most prestigious rites in the cult. This concession that allows the disabled priests to consume the holy and most holy foods is interesting in light of the subsequent laws in Lev. 22. Although the disabled priests must not approach the altars to offer sacrifices because of the potential profanation of the sanctuaries, it is evident that they do not pose the same threat in their consumption of the holy and most holy foods. The permission to partake in both the holy and most holy food suggests that the defects are not the result of divine disfavor or the sin of the blemished priests; otherwise, it would be inconceivable that the author of H would allow them to enjoy the most holy and holy things while various groups in the priestly community and the rest of the people are not allowed to do so (cf. Goldingay, 2009: 612). In fact, priests with physical defects are holy, just like his fellow priests who are able-bodied (cf. Wright, 1999: 356; Schipper and Stackert, 2013: 466). The concession that they may eat both most holy and holy things suggests that their disability neither disqualifies them from being priests nor affects their holiness such that they should be deprived of their priestly prerogatives (Hieke, 2014: 839). Thus, the authors of H carefully worded the legislation to suggest that the blemished priests still belong to the same group as the able-bodied priests who may partake of the most holy things as per the rule in P that “every male member among the priests may eat of [the most holy food]” (Lev. 6.22 [ET 6.29]; 7.6). The fact that the disabled priests are still allowed to eat the most holy foods indicates that they are not banned from, but retain access to, the holy place (Hieke, 2014: 837; cf. Lev. 24.9).

This concession stands in stark contrast to the list of various social groups who cannot partake in the holy foods as delineated in Lev. 22.1–16. The first group is the priests who are in a state of impurity due to various conditions, such as contracting a leprous disease, having a discharge, being in contact with the dead, and so on. These unclean priests are not allowed to eat holy things until they return to a state of purity. Based on this observation, Melcher (1998: 65–66) argues that disability in Lev. 21.16–23 does not render a priest ritually impure. The fact that a priest with a disability “may eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy things” (Lev. 21.22) suggests that physical defects in priests do not correspond to impurity despite disqualifying the priest from approaching the altar due to the threat of profanation. ¹³ Moreover, although uncleanness is temporary, it poses a more significant threat of profanation than disability does, as unclean priests cannot even eat holy things let alone offer sacrifices. Whereas the disabled priests may partake in the holy and most holy foods, the consumption of the holy foods by unclean priests is a profanation that results in sin and the death penalty (Lev. 22.9).

In addition, Lev. 22.10–16 regulates other groups of people that are not allowed to eat the holy foods, including laypeople, resident aliens that belong to a priest, and hired workers (v. 10). Even a priest’s daughter who marries a layperson is no longer part of the priestly community that can consume the holy things unless she is widowed or divorced and returns to her father’s house with no children (v. 13). By contrast, a priest’s slave and anyone born into a priest’s house may eat the holy foods (v. 11) because they become members of the priest’s family and live off his food (Keil and Delitzsch, 1996: 609). In other words, the holy food is reserved only for the members of the priestly family, including this family’s servants (Balentine, 2002: 170). The permission for the members of the priestly family to eat the holy food, however, does not confer upon them the same status as the disabled priests, as they are only allowed to eat holy things and not most holy things, which are reserved only for male priests, including the blemished ones (Sklar 2013: 268–269).

Priestly Disability and H’s Discourse of Cultic Centralization

Scholars have observed that H stipulates a different set of rules for the priests than for the rest of the people to underline the priests’ superior status (cf. Nihan, 2007: 485; Rhyder, 2019: 346–348). For example, the priests are forbidden from profaning themselves by practicing mourning rituals except for their closest relatives (21.1a–5), and they are not allowed to marry a prostitute, a defiled woman, or a divorcee (21.7). The legislation also prescribes the death penalty for the daughter of a priest who becomes a prostitute, as she profanes her father (21.9). Additionally, priests are prohibited from eating carrion (22.8–9) whereas the rest of the community can, as long as they wash their clothes and bathe themselves afterward (17.15–16). ¹⁴ Rhyder (2019: 347) correctly posits that the strict rules in Lev. 21.1–22.16 that regulate only the priestly community affirm “their special status and obligations.”

Remarkably, the high priest has an even stricter set of rules to follow than does the rest of the priestly community: he cannot mourn anyone’s death, even his father’s and mother’s (21.11), he is not allowed to leave the sanctuary (21.12), and he can only take a virgin from his own people as a wife (21.13–14). Thus, the higher one’s status in the cult, the stricter the rules are. ¹⁵ The priestly traditions also employ various means to communicate the high priest’s preeminence among other priests, for instance, the special garments the high priest wears, the oil with which he is anointed, and his access to the most sacred rites and space. Olyan (2000: 33) notes, “All of these distinctions, whether of dress and appearance, responsibility, access to what is most holy, or restriction, communicate the high priest’s higher status and greater privilege vis-à-vis the rest of the priesthood.”

If the legislation in Lev. 21.1–22.16 is intended to highlight the priests’ special status, how do the laws of priestly disability in Lev. 21.16–23 accomplish the goal? The legislation on priestly disability in H centralizes the priesthood in at least two ways. First, it marginalizes the position of the disabled priests within the priesthood, which in turn reinforces the idea of the officiating priests as the normate image. Some scholars, however, have warned that not all disabilities have discrediting effects. Wynn (2007: 101), for example, posits that disability can be used to mark one’s privileged status instead of one’s loss of status, based on his analyses of the blindness of Isaac in Gen. 27 and the disabling of Jacob in Gen. 32. He blames “the contemporary normate bias” for the scholarly tendency to understand disability as dehumanizing and encourages further research on how other pentateuchal traditions understand the meaning of disability apart from the modern notion of disability. Though Wynn may be correct to maintain that disability can be used as a mark of status in some cases, it may nevertheless be said that the biblical texts tend to offer the general portrait of physical defects in a negative light (cf. Olyan, 2000: 104). Yong (2007) also makes a similar argument to underplay the discrimination against the disabled in biblical texts. He opines, “Ancient Israel was less concerned with what we late moderns would call discrimination against people with disability and more concerned with ordering an impure world through proper rituals, a recognizable symbol system, bodily hygiene, and social practices” (Yong, 2007: 23). Even if the primary concern of biblical authors is the ordering of the world, the ordering strategy still includes discrimination against various elements of society, such as people with disabilities.

Another argument that disabled people were not necessarily stigmatized in the ancient world comes from Walls (2007: 30), who argues that there is little evidence of stigmatization of the disabled in ancient Mesopotamia:

Whatever social stigma was attached to physical disease or mental disability, people with abnormal physical or cognitive conditions were assigned jobs as they were able…. Like all societies, ancient Mesopotamia must have had its own, largely unspoken, taxonomy of abnormalities and limits to its inclusive ideology. Yet apart from a very few prescriptions of infanticide or euthanasia and sparse references to the social exclusion of people with leprosy or dropsy, we see little clear evidence for the social rejection of disabled people based upon their physical forms.

Nevertheless, the presentation of disability in the Mesopotamian texts is multifaceted, and the stigmatization of the disabled existed in Mesopotamia (Lemos, 2011: 58). As in some Mesopotamian texts, disability does not disqualify a priest from all meaningful activities, although it is “recognized as deviating from the norm” (Walls, 2007: 30). However, contra Walls, it seems clear that the disabled priests are stigmatized and assigned a lower social status compared with their nondisabled peers because of their physical characteristics that render them unqualified to perform the most elite rites.

If the blemished priests are stigmatized and marginalized, how then, according to H, does this stigmatization and marginalization reinforce the idea of the officiating priests as the normate image? On one hand, blemishes certainly cause priests to lose their status among their fellow priests, as indicated by their inability to participate in the most prestigious rites. However, while H’s disability laws marginalize the blemished priests, these same laws also promote the status of the officiating priests by implicitly confirming the possession of the body without blemishes as the normate image in the cult. The physical perfection of the able-bodied priests and the high priest serves as a representation of the deity to the people. As Raphael (2008: 39) provocatively puts it, “If priests must be god-like, then God must be priest-like.” By portraying these priests, especially the high priest, as the normate image, the authors of H ensure that these priests “can step into a position of authority and wield the power it grants them” (Thompson, 1997: 8).

Second, H’s disability laws also enable the disabled priests to maintain their higher social status in ancient Israelite society and remain in a position of power despite their blemishes. Although disability is a stigma that marginalizes the disabled priests to a certain degree, it is by no means the only or the most critical aspect that determines their position in society. Lemos (2011: 54) correctly points out that status in ancient Israelite society “was not in fact determined merely by one set of oppositions—whole versus blemished. There were other status oppositions and status hierarchies that came into play and could either mitigate or exacerbate the impact of this or another opposition.” The normate image, including in H’s discourse, is a complex notion because identity is not constructed from a single element but from a combination of elements. Lemos (2011: 55) describes this complexity as follows:

Identity, then, is not unitary but multiple, and status is not based upon simple binaries, but is highly complex and situational…. Any given individual has a multiplicity of identities, statuses, and roles because every society, and particularly highly stratified ones, comprises not one but various social groups, which perpetuate not one but various discourses. These discourses may well contradict each other and may not even be consistent within themselves.

Furthermore, since the normate image is the combination of numerous idealized traits, the number of people who conform to it is few, making them a small, elite group. ¹⁶

The various elements of identity that determine one’s status in the cult in ancient Israel, according to H, are characterized in Lev. 21. The three stigmata identified by Goffman appear in the passage, namely the stigma against non-priestly familial lineage (vv. 1, 15, 17, 21), ¹⁷ the stigma against improper behaviors (vv. 1–15), and the stigma against physical deformities (vv. 16–23). Therefore, the normate image in the Israelite cult is a male able-bodied descendant of Aaron who behaves according to a certain code of conduct (cf. Raphael, 2008: 39). The combination of the various traits is the reason for the superiority of the disabled priests over other social elements in the Israelite cult. In the case of the disabled priests, it is their familial lineage as the male descendant of Aaron that gives them the priestly status that is ultimately the most crucial trait, since not even their disability can lower their social status below that of the lay people in ancient Israel. It is the defect in the lineage that would disqualify one not only from officiating for the cult but also from receiving the priestly benefits, although a state of ritual impurity would have the same effects temporarily (cf. Abrams, 2014: 26). Therefore, the marginalization of the disabled priests in Lev. 21.16–23 paradoxically underscores not only the superiority of the officiating priests and the high priest but also that of the disabled priests over the rest of the people in the sociocultic hierarchy. It is in this sense that “sometimes the mutilated and disabled had a higher status than those whose bodies were normative and idealized” (Lemos, 2011: 59).

Furthermore, the concession that the blemished priests may enjoy privileges unavailable to the rest of the people suggests that “disability emerges as a phenomenon producing status differentiation within the ranks of the priesthood” (Olyan, 2010: Article 9:39). Even though the disabled priests are prohibited from participating in the most prestigious rites, and although their status is lower than that of the able-bodied priests, they nevertheless do not maintain a marginalized status in relation to other groups in ancient Israel. As Olyan (2000: 112; cf. 2012: 31) notes:

The blemished priest of Lev. 21:16–23 is forbidden to approach highly restricted and prestigious space within the sanctuary (such as the altar) and cannot participate in most of the elite rites that realize and communicate the superior status of priests vis-à-vis others. Cut off from such activities and their specialized sites in the sanctuary, the blemished priest loses status vis-à-vis his unblemished priestly brethren. But even though he cannot perform most of the prestigious, priest-specific rites, he remains, nonetheless, in a status position superior to that of priestly dependents and to that of nonpriests.

The superiority of the blemished priests over priestly dependents and non-priests in the cult is communicated by their preserved privileges, namely, the rights to remain in the holy place and partake of the most holy and holy foods.

H’s treatment of the disabled priests stands in contrast to how the disabled non-priestly members of Israelite society might have been treated. For example, Deut. 23.2 (ET 23.1) prohibits people whose testicle is crushed or whose male organ is cut off to enter the assembly of Yahweh. ¹⁸ The prohibition to enter the assembly of Yahweh is likely a reference to the ban on participation in the cult, namely, in the cultic festivals and public worship (cf. Merrill, 1994: 307; Olyan, 2012: 27–28; Lam. 1.10; Isa. 56.3–7; Ezek. 44.7–9). ¹⁹ If this interpretation is accepted, the text of Lev. 21.16–23 displays a logic which is similar to, but also different from D’s stance on people with mutilated genitalia in the cult. ²⁰ As with Deut. 23.2, Lev. 21 marginalizes people with a crushed testicle in a similar way by banning the priests with this condition from full participation in cultic matters. However, unlike Deut. 23.2, Lev. 21 does not entirely ban these priests from cultic participation but instead allows them to remain in the holy sphere to eat the most holy and holy foods. ²¹ Although the disabled priests may seem marginalized within the cult, they receive special treatment compared to the disabled laypeople in D. ²²

Another text concerning disability, 2 Sam. 5.8, states that “the blind and the lame shall not enter the house.” ²³ Olyan (2012: 28) asserts that this text “presented as a popular adage, appears to bear witness to an interdiction on entry of blind and lame Israelites into a sanctuary—likely the Jerusalem temple—for the purposes of worship” (cf. Brueggemann, 1990: 240; McCarter Jr, 1984: 140). If this reading is correct, it further supports the idea that the disabled is more stigmatized and marginalized in other biblical traditions than in H. Familial lineage, therefore, makes a difference when it comes to the marginalizing effects of disabilities. Without the correct familial lineage, disability has more discrediting effects.

Conclusion

The present study finds that the legislation on priestly disability was used in H as a strategy for reconstructing and narrating a new social order, namely, the centralized cult, in which the status of the Aaronite priests was promoted over the rest of the people. Although previous scholarship has correctly argued that physical perfection was used to enhance the social status of the officiating priests, this study shows that physical imperfection was also used by H to highlight the primacy of Aaronite familial lineage over any physical imperfection in the socio-cultic hierarchy. Although the blemished priests, in contrast to able-bodied priests, were marginalized insofar as they were banned from the most elite rites, they still nevertheless maintained a higher status in the cult compared to other groups in both the priestly and non-priestly communities. Thus, their unique priestly status was affirmed regardless of their disability. H’s disability laws showed that the possession of the correct familial lineage was more important than the possession of bodily perfection. By marginalizing the blemished priests, the legislation heightened the contrast between the officiating priests and the rest of the people. Furthermore, the stigmatization and marginalization of the disabled added another ideal trait of physical perfection to the already idealized identity of the normate, namely, the male descendants of Aaron. Thus, the law served as a reminder of the kind of people in charge of the most elite rites, that is, the ideal ones. Finally, by reinforcing the idea of the officiating priests as the normate image, H’s discourse on priestly disability centralized the authority in the cult of ancient Israel and granted power to the priests.