Hermeneia Commentary on Leviticus

I am contracted to write a new commentary on the book of Leviticus for the Hermeneia series of Fortress Press. In my commentary, which will published in two volumes, I will present an interdisciplinary analysis of the book that works passage by passage to illuminate the text in its final form but also to explore its history of composition, transmission, and reception in antiquity. In addition, I will build on my interdisciplinary research with Céline Debourse to offer a new reading of Leviticus within the larger frame of the “priestly literature” of the ancient Near East that was produced in the second half of the first millennium BCE in response to the pressures of imperial conquest and temple destruction. Specifically, by comparing Leviticus with Late Babylonian Priestly Literature in particular, I hope to provide a new and compelling case to support the theory of a Persian-period date of Leviticus and explain what might have inspired such a large project of ritual textualization in the Pentateuch.