In | The Priestly Picture of Dorian Gray: Sin Offering or Purification Offering

One influential Bible commentator, Jacob Milgrom, has offered an interesting interpretation for what we often call the sin offering. He suggests that a more accurate translation for this rite is purification offering and that a close examination of this ritual bears this out. To make his point, he chooses an interesting source—a novel by Oscar Wilde called The Picture of Dorian Gray.

In the novel, the sins of Dorian Gray are recorded on a portrait of him painted by a friend. Dorian lives a corrupt life but remains young and beautiful while his image in the portrait bears all the marks and scars of evil. Milgrom suggests a similar dynamic for the sins of Israel and the Tabernacle. While the sins of the Israelites may not have a negative effect on their own lives, they were understood to damage, or pollute, God’s dwelling place—the Tabernacle.

In this view the sin or purification offering didn’t directly purify the person offering the sacrifice but purified the pollution caused to the dwelling place of God. The negative effect of each person’s sin didn’t cling to him personally but defiled the Tabernacle. This would seem to be supported by the fact that the blood of the sacrifice was not applied to the person offering it but to the sanctuary and altar. To illustrate this dynamic, Milgrom refers to the blood in this rite as a ritual detergent used to clean sacred space.

What’s so wrong about polluting God’s dwelling? What’s the worst that can happen? The very worst for Israel—God could leave. Because He is merciful, God will put up with some pollution. But if pollution accumulated, Israel would lose access to the most sacred thing of all, the presence of God.

This evacuation of God from His dwelling place is suggested in Lamentations 2:7: “The Lord has rejected his altar and abandoned his sanctuary. He has given the walls of her palaces into the hands of the enemy.” A similar scene is suggested in Ezekiel 11:22-23: “Then the cherubim lifted up their wings with the wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel hovered over them. The glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city.”

In this reading of the sin offering, the sacrifice purifies God’s dwelling and permits Hs continued residence with His people. This interpretation resonates with the sacrifice of Jesus in the New Testament, as it purified humanity and prepared us to be dwelling places for God.

The early Christian theologian Irenaeus of Lyon said, “The word of God dwelt in man, and became the Son of Man, that He might accustom man to receive God, and God to dwell in man.”

Source: Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, The Anchor Bible vol. 3, 1991, pp. 254-261.