#jepd

New Page -JDEP or JEPD

But note what follows from this. Sacrifice is not something which man brings to God, because man happens to think it a good idea. Cultic service is not something man does for God, as if God needed anything. Sacrifice is something that God has appointed, of his pure grace, so that men may have a way of repairing the damage whih their sins and failures do. Sacrifice is a way back, which God offers, into his presence. The key text here is Lv. 17:11: 'For the life of the flesh is the blood, and I have given it upon the altar, to make atonement for yourselves.' Sacrifice, then. for the Priestly writer, is not something which man gives, but which God gives.

Though the story of the fall is a J tradition, the Priestly writer knows about it and it is part of the total structure of the Pentatuech as it left P's hand. It is important to notice, therefore, that P does not think that at the fall man lost the divine image, for he is careful to tell us that, after the fall, Adam begot sons in his image and likeness (Gn. 5.3) passing on to the rest f humanity the image he had received.

The well known account of creation is a priestly account. In it God proceeds by ordering, and indeed, creation is essentially nothing more than an ordering. God begins with chaos. It is there from the start, and God proceeds by imposing order upon it.

The Priestly work is dated much later than JE. It took shape in the exile or the immediate post-exilic period, and it reflects the interest of the Jews of that era. This was a period when the shock of the exile was still fresh. The exile had shaken the nation's confidence in itself and shaken its complacent belief that God would take care of his people however they might behave. It had proved the great prophets to be right, and Israel had begun, belatedly, to take seriously their condemnation of sin. The new Jewish religion which was frged in the exile was therefore a religion dominated by penitence. It developed a law, which was intended t guard against future corruption and hence repetition of the exile, and it developed a cultic system rich in provision for expiatory sacrifice, whereby the sins that did inevitably occur could be atoned for. The Priestly work contains tat new law, and it devotes a great deal of space to the organisation of the cult. Through and Through it is filled with the spirit of the new religious order, born in exile. It seems unlikely that the Priestly work ever existed outside as an independent, self contained writing. The Priestly authors took over the existing JE and D traditions... The Priestly writings therefore form the framework of the Pentatuech as we now have it. Occassionally P has combined the old material with material of his own...His major additions are the laws which occupy large tracts of the Pentatuech, including virtually the whole of the book of Leviticus.

The J in WWJD stands for JEPD, right? What would JEPD do?

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