The study of the concept of atonement in Leviticus has been focused on sin offering, which is ritual centered only including blood rites. The author of Leviticus, however, suggests another expiatory sacrifice, that is reparation offering, which is rep...
The study of the concept of atonement in Leviticus has been focused on sin offering, which is ritual centered only including blood rites. The author of Leviticus, however, suggests another expiatory sacrifice, that is reparation offering, which is reparation centered only in one literary unit(4:1-5:25[6:7]). In fact, Leviticus 4:1-5:25[6:7] has traditionally been the locus classicus for the doctrine of the atonement. Thus, these literary features raise questions about the relationship between the sin offering and the reparation offering, and their implications. Nevertheless, it is hard to find any research that suggests persuasive studies about these issues. Therefore, this paper summarizes the present writer's doctoral dissertation, which traced this problem in depth, in the form of this short article. This writer uses textlinguistics as the methodology. Especially the pragmatic approach of tracking the author's intention is very beneficial to the task of this work. The contents of this article follows first, presenting the structure of 4:1-5:25[6:7]. And on the basis of this, exegetical studies by divided paragraphes(4:1-35; 5:1-13; 5:14-26[6:7]) are followed. Then it combines the atonement idea in Leviticus by re-arranging the common points and differences between these two offerings. The idea of Leviticus's atonement, which is an integrated view of the two sacrifices, is that the meaning of genuine forgiveness must be reflected in the ethical realm expressed through the motif of reparation(reparation offering). In short, ‘ethics is implied in the ritual’. This study not only explores the relationship between the sin offering and the reparation offering, but also may contribute to the fact that Leviticus presents the true meaning of forgiveness of sin.