A verse was mentioned in class today that seems to me to have a direct bearing on the date of Leviticus. Jeremiah 7:22 reads “when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices.” This seems at first glance to provide fairly straightforward evidence that the Levitical code had not been made part of the Pentateuch and attributed to Moses at this time. This would agree with the dominant scholarly view that the Priestly material dates from the exilic or post-exilic period.I can, however, think of another possible interpretation of Jeremiah 7:22, namely that there were already those who claimed that laws about sacrifice had been given through Moses, and Jeremiah simply disagreed with them. Jeremiah seems to have been willing to deny the divine origin even of longstanding laws and customs.
In either case, it is striking how the NIV adds the word “just” so as to negate the meaning of the verse. Rather than wrestle with the text as it stands, the translators “know” that God did give such commands at the time of the Exodus, and therefore they felt free to change the meaning of what Jeremiah said. Once again I ask, how can tampering with the text constitute a means of defending its inerrancy?
What do others think? How relevant is Jeremiah 7:22 to the date of Leviticus? And how do you feel about the NIV’s tampering with the text’s meaning?
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