금송아지 이야기(출 32)에 반영된 레위 성전경비대의 이미지 (The Origin of the Violent Levites in Exodus 32:26–29)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국구약학회
· 수록지 정보 : 구약논단 / 27권 / 3호 / 10 ~ 39페이지
· 저자명 : 전재영

초록

시내산에서 금송아지를 만들고 숭배한 아론과 이스라엘의 죄를 레위인들이 죄인들을 살륙하여 처벌하는 출애굽기 32장 26-29절은 레위 서기관 그룹에 의한 후대 삽입으로, 역대기(대상 9; 26)와 느헤미야 (느13)에 묘사된 성전 경비대와 종교경찰의 역할을 그 모티프로 레위인의 성별된 지위에 대한 기원론을 제시하고 있다.

영어초록

This work aims to prove the problematic literary block of Exodus 32:26–29, which describes the Levites’ punishment of the people and consecration, is a late insertion by a Levite scribe or scribal circle. Several features of the present passage support this thesis. In terms of a pentateuchal stratigraphy, the present passage can be dated later than the late Priestly redaction about the Levites in Numbers, namely, almost at the last stage of the formation of the Pentateuch in the mid-/late-Persian period. The passage’s origin and socio-historical context should thus be thought of in that period.
The present passage describes the Levites violent executers of Yhwh’s punishment who kill three thousand Israelites without having mercy. Such a violent image of the Levites has probably been originated from the roles of the Levite temple guards (1 Chr 9; 26) in the Second Temple of Jerusalem and their expanded function as religion police in the city (Neh 13:22). Those Levites are described as an armed organization recognized by the Persian authority, which used their force against their own people to protect the moral and ritual purity of the temple and city. Our passage also provides an alternative etiology of the consecrated Levites as a polemical response, especially to the scribal works from priestly circles, such as Numbers 3–4, 16–18 and Ezekiel 44:10–14, that diminish the status of the non-priestly Levites. In our passage, the Levites remove the sin of idolatry caused by Aaron and gain moral superiority over the latter.
Some peculiar lexical features of our passage such as “the gate (שער) of the camp” (Exod 32:26–27) and a non-priestly “consecration (מלא יד)” is shared by another pro-Levitical text Chronicles (1 Chr 29:5; 2 Chr 29:31). The strong pro-Levitical stance and conceptual and linguistic affinities to Chronicles indicate a Levitical redaction of the present text.

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