A New Look at Atonement in Leviticus: The Meaning and Purpose of Kipper Revisited

In this book, James A. Greenberg examines animal sacrifice in Priestly Torah texts found in Leviticus 1–16, Exodus, and Numbers. Through his analysis, Greenberg identifies a new valence of kipper as a process that produces a positive result between two objects and argues that the Israelite sanctuary exists to facilitate a connection between YHWH, sancta, and the Israelites through the medium of blood.

Rather than beginning with a priori assumptions of what sacrificial terms and symbols mean,...