Now that we’ve seen a fair amount of evidence that there was editorial work done to the Torah, let’s now consider how consistent the laws are, and how and when they were given.
Questions of Timing
Typically, if you asked a believer where and when Moses received the law, they will tell you Sinai. That’s the famous mountain where man encountered God. However, when you read the details of the Torah, you find that there are actually three main sites that we’re told that law was given to Moses. And much of it was not given on Sinai. The laws of Leviticus were said to be revealed from God’s presence at the Tabernacle, which took several months after their arrival at Sinai to construct; it also seems significant that the laws of Leviticus are largely the ones that emphasize the power of the priesthood. The other largest set of laws, found in Deuteronomy, are said to have been given much later, at the end of their 40 years in the wilderness, in the plains of Moab, on the east side of the Jordan.
Let’s begin at Sinai. Before Sinai, we’re only told of three major laws that Moses had given: the Passover, circumcision, and Shabbat (the command to not work on the Sabbath). Interestingly, the Torah’s own narrative puts the command of circumcision back four centuries, when Abraham was first given a covenant. Yet when Moses comes along, it is presented as new law. At a minimum, the narrative proves that they had not been keeping it. The only indications between Abraham and Moses that suggest they knew anything about circumcision is found in the time of Israel’s sons, at the Dinah incident,[1] and centuries later when YHWH nearly kills Moses because he had not circumcised his son.[2] We’ll get to examples of the people not keeping parts of the law even during the time of Moses, but for now, it should be noted that, even though Moses commanded circumcision on pain of being “cut off” from God’s people, they did not actually keep it by circumcising their own children.[3] The reasoning given is that they had been traveling. But they would stay at certain encampments for months! As we’ll see below, much of the Torah and the subsequent narrative of Joshua contains much later perspectives, such as periods of not keeping the law, including something so fundamental as circumcision.
At Sinai of course we get the Decalogue of Exodus 20, and then a fairly short list of laws found from chapter 21 to 23. This is the extent of the legislation first given at Sinai which would daily affect Israel for the rest of their history. Chapters 25 to 31 cover the design and construction of the Tabernacle, but contain very few laws that would affect Israel after it was completed. These do include, however, how to consecrate Aaron’s sons, and the offering of two lambs, oil, grain, and drink to be performed daily at the Tabernacle, but none of the rest of the sacrificial laws that will be given in Leviticus once the structure is complete and ready for operation.
Why didn’t God just reveal all the laws in a single book? After all, they would have fit onto a single scroll. One thing that should be noticed is that grouping of laws tends to be in the context of the narrative that surrounds it, but not always. For instance, some of the later laws in Deuteronomy, given right before their entrance into the land, provide guidance as to how they should perform sieges, not mentioned anywhere else in the Torah. And as we’ve seen, Exodus does not explain how to make most Tabernacle sacrifices, as it is only just being built. So we see some logic to the groupings, but not always. The giving of some laws does not always fall within the narrative that surrounds them. To be fair, some laws seem sort of miscellaneous and had to be stuck somewhere; however, there are some interesting questions that arise when we start considering what was revealed, and when. Some of the laws revealed at the end of the 40-year period in Deuteronomy would have indeed affected them earlier, and some even modified earlier laws, as we’ll see.
The short first batch of laws given at Sinai, from Exodus 20:19-23:33, is often called the “Covenant Collection”[4], and seems almost to be a token list. It contains some laws affecting personal property and liability, as well as what we would call criminal offenses, such as murder, and just how much you could beat your slave before it became a problem, which was a bar so low that if it was any lower there would be no limit: turns out, beating him to death wasn’t an issue as long as he died the following day. But when compared to the much longer lists of these types of laws in the rest of the Torah, especially Deuteronomy, this list is missing quite a bit. For instance, Exodus mentions the prohibition against bestiality, but we do not get the bulk of the other sexual sin laws until after the Tabernacle is complete, in Leviticus 20.
Who Went up the Mountain?
One interesting note about the narrative context of the giving of the laws at Sinai are the details surrounding who was there, and where they were. If you asked most believers how many times Moses went up the mountain, they would probably remember one time when Moses was given the first tablets, and the second time when he had to get the replacement tablets after breaking the first. I actually asked this question in a class a few days ago, and immediately came the answer: “two!” And he went up by himself, and God spoke only to him, right? After all, it warns several times that anyone, man or beast, who touches the mountain must be killed, except for Moses. Nope.
There are multiple occurrences of Moses going up the mountain and coming back down; this is actually consistent with the story of Exodus, for they were there for several months, during which the Tabernacle was constructed. By the end, Moses would have been a great hiker, if his body wasn’t worn out. (19:3 up, 14 down, 20 up, 21-25 down; 20:21 up, 24:1 up again, 3 down, 9 up, 12-15 up further?, 32:7-15 down, 30 up; 34:2-4 up, 29 down) It is probably no coincidence that there are seven (by my count) occurrences of Moses going up, for certain numbers were very important to the Hebrew writers.[5] However, it is hard to not start to see hints of document seams once we examine the detail of who got to go up and for what purpose, as if some were editorial additions.[6] In some passages, only Moses is allowed up, while the people stand at the base of the mount, but then he’s told to bring his brother Aaron, who goes up with him (19:24). Then he’s told to bring Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and 70 elders to worship from afar, but now it’s only Moses that can come near (24:1,2); what happened to Aaron getting to come? The elders and Aaron and his sons “went up” (v. 9) and saw God, despite God saying that the priests could not come up before; and they even had a meal in the presence of God, from which Moses goes up (further?), at which point Aaron is left, but now Joshua gets to go up with him! (v.13) Finally, we have reached the second period of 40 days and 40 nights, when Joshua apparently is with him, for he goes up with him as well as being with him when he is coming down (32:15-17).
We will consider other ways in which the collections of laws spread across the Torah are disjointed when we compare them below, and see ways in which the different collections of laws often overlap. Sometimes one collection will actually modify another. The key lesson to take away here is that they should not be seen as a unified corpus of law, and were given under very different circumstances and contexts.
Before and after Sinai Law
One such context is whether a law comes before or after Sinai. The laws and practice of sacrifice raise some very interesting observations, even more than the question of when they actually practiced circumcision.
The Passover Lamb
For instance, I once heard a preacher do an entire sermon explaining that individuals were to sacrifice the Passover lamb in their homes initially because the law of Sinai had not yet been given, which ostensibly changed it so that only the priests could perform this sacrifice at the Tent of Meeting. It was a question of timing, whether the rest of the law had been given yet or not. But was it?
Concerning the timing of the law of Sinai, the laws given when they first got there do not even mention the exclusive right of the priest to sacrifice, banning all others from performing them. The timeframe of Leviticus, at least according to its introduction, is at the very end of their time at mount Sinai, after the completion of the Tabernacle.[7] This is actually a logical place to put the requirement that all sacrifices be brought to the Tabernacles, as it had just been built.
Apart from the first giving of the Passover law in Exodus 12, we read another version of it in Leviticus 23, and an account of the celebration of it right before the consecration of the Tabernacle in Numbers 9; Deuteronomy 16 will give a starkly different version. Let’s compare these four books’ versions of this law. Neither the Leviticus nor Numbers passages makes mentions of a “repeal” of the Exodus 12 law that a man from each household is to make the sacrifice in their homes. Even Deuteronomy 16, the only Passover law that specifically mentions that they must go to the priest who will sacrifice the Passover lamb, does not mention that a shift has occurred. None of the accounts of the Passover law found in Leviticus 23, Numbers 9, nor Deuteronomy 16 mention the requirement to put the blood on the doorpost of the home as in Exodus 12, for that was originally the task of the man of the household. Not only that, but there are other differing details for each giving of the law between Exodus 12 and the other places. The bitter herbs and the requirement not to break the bones of the lamb, for instance, are only found in Exodus 12 and Numbers 9. Also, Exodus 12 says that the Passover animal can be a sheep or a goat. Deuteronomy 16 adds cattle as an option. Deuteronomy 16 is the only place in the Torah that describes the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened bread for the next 7 days as a single festival; that they are two festivals in the other passages has led scholars to speculate that these two festivals are of differing origins, one from a pastoral people, the other from a settled agrarian culture.[8] And if the Passover version found in Exodus 12 was going to be changed, why did Moses say in verse 24 that the rite was a statute to be observed by them and their sons forever? Why no anticipation here of the Levitical priesthood eventually getting the exclusive right to make the sacrifice, unless the dropped-complete-from-the-sky-and-once-for-all theory of inspiration simply doesn’t match the evidence?
But perhaps one of the most glaring differences between the Passover laws is how it is to be cooked, a difference which is obscured by modern translations. Exodus 12 specifically says not to boil the Passover lamb, but to roast[9] it. Deuteronomy 16:7 uses the verb bashal[10] for how the Passover is to be cooked, usually translated as “cook” or even “roast”. However, this is the same verb used in Exodus 12 for boil, how they are not to cook it. This is a clear harmonizing bias of modern translators that covers a contradiction (much like the translation bias we saw with the rendering of “wise men” who saw Jesus’ star in Luke, as covered in the previous chapter). In 2 Chronicles 35:13, one of the most fascinating internal interpretations and harmonizations of Scripture, says that, as they had a revival to begin serving YHVH again, they followed Moses’ law by boiling the Passover lamb with fire. Most translations say that they “roasted” it with fire, but again, we are dealing with the verb bashal, meaning to boil.
Other People Performing Sacrifice?
Apart from the various laws concerning the Passover lamb, there is more evidence concerning the timing of sacrifices becoming the monopoly of the priesthood, which Leviticus 23 would place at Sinai. The question we should ask is when do we first see the Aaronic priests in the narrative of the Torah, and when do we see other people making sacrifices? Let’s step through Exodus in chronological order to see what interesting details emerge.
In Exodus 18, Jethro, the priest of Midian and father-in-law of Moses (not of the line of Aaron), brought a burnt offering and sacrificed to God, and Aaron came with the elders of Israel to eat before God. This is curious because Jethro was not a descendant of Aaron, obviously. But Moses had said the law was only for the Israelites. So maybe God had priests elsewhere, with different laws. It’s quite an interesting observation, but let’s return to the laws for Israel, which is our focus.
Aaron’s sons as important for the sacrifice is not yet mentioned in the account,[11] but we are still pre-tabernacle, and pre-Levitical law, as already noted. It’s in this pre-Tabernacle context that we’re told that they’re a “kingdom of priests” in chapter 19, which will be repeated in the New Testament;[12] ironically, it’s those New Testament passages that I’ve heard some Protestant Christians use to show that the New Covenant is not only changed, but also better, for “all Christians” now have access to God, without the need for another priestly intermediary other than Jesus, the high priest; yet here in Exodus we find the same language applied to the Israelites, before the priestly laws are given. Later post-Torah prophets of the Hebrew Bible would also use the same terminology to refer to Israel, not just the Aaronic line.[13]
It is not until Exodus 20, on Sinai, that we see the first Mosaic reference to a place where sacrifice is to be made, on an altar of earth, or unhewn stone. But the wording is interesting. Many Christians could probably tell you that the law of Moses required that all sacrifice be brought to the place that he “caused his name to dwell”, and that initially that was the Tabernacle, and in the time of Solomon it would become the Temple in Jerusalem.[14] However, that terminology is only found in Deuteronomy. Here in Exodus 20, it does not say the place, but every place that God causes his name to dwell. Looking back through history, most people would probably assume that means all the places that the Tabernacle got moved during their wilderness wanderings, and then during the time of the judges once they were in the Promised Land. And that understanding actually fits the context. However, as we’ll see, much of the Torah is from a much later perspective. Why the Tabernacle got moved multiple times after arriving in Canaan is never answered. If they were finally in the land of milk and honey, why did YHVH not choose a place for it to rest until the Davidic dynasty came along to build the Temple? Maybe it was symbolic of their continued “wanderings”, even in the land, as they had not yet secured the promises, until the Davidic Messiah would come to establish God’s permanent, everlasting kingdom—a view depicted by some of the prophets, despite its lack of fulfillment. Or maybe the moving of the Tabernacle within the Promised Land was simply a result of the loose, tribal, political shifts of the period.
Back to Exodus. Now we get a really interesting detail regarding sacrifice. By chapter 24, we’ve had the giving of the short Covenant Collection law from Sinai, and the Ten Commandments. Nadab and Abihu have been mentioned. An altar’s been built to make sacrifice to YHVH. Who does Moses have offering sacrifices? Young men of the people! Not Aaron’s sons. We also see a reading of the book of the law of YHVH before the people. What’s in that book?! Leviticus and Deuteronomy have not yet been given. Numbers nor Exodus, as we have them, could have been completed. As we’ve noted, only the short Covenant Collection and the Ten Commandments have been given, and the big three pre-Sinaitic laws: Passover, circumcision, and Sabbat. Maybe that’s all they read. Maybe it included Genesis, too. But why were Aaron’s sons not the ones performing the sacrifices?! Going back to the preacher I heard do an entire sermon on how Sinai was the turning point for who performed the Passover: this is after the giving of at least some of the law at Sinai! But to be fair to him, the law of Leviticus is depicted, at least partly, as given after these events. Still, such a disjointed giving of the law seems strange.
Perhaps now we can better understand why Korah and 250 men of the Levites were upset with Moses in Numbers 16. Maybe it wasn’t just because Moses would reveal the law that only allowed Aaron’s sons to sacrifice in Leviticus 17, at the end of their stay at Sinai. Maybe it was because the law had changed, which it certainly had, even by the Bible’s own account.
Again, I want to emphasize that I am examining these laws with Western eyes as a thought study. Later we will see even more evidence of biblical authors changing the chronology of events just to create literary devices, and this practice seems to be an acceptable practice among the ancients.[15] In other words, the authors of the Torah could have altered their chronology of the giving of the law just to fit the narrative details, and all this analysis is moot…. The main takeaway perhaps should be that the laws were so different.
Much Later Perspectives
We’ve noted how different Deuteronomy can be from the rest of the Torah, of which we’ll see more examples. And we’ve seen how Leviticus agrees with Deuteronomy’s focus on one central place of worship. However, there are even important distinctions between those two books that should be noted. At least part of Leviticus requires all sacrifice be brought to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting; whereas Deuteronomy is from the perspective of their dwelling in the land, and says sacrifices must be brought to the place that God will choose to make his name dwell. But it is only after approximately seven centuries of living in the land that we read of the first reformer king who took down the high places[16] and required all worship to be performed at Jerusalem.[17] In other words, it appears that the history of YHVH worship, even during most of the time of Solomon’s Temple, was performed all over, not just at the Temple. Before the Temple was built in 1 Kings 3, where there is no mention of the Tabernacle, Solomon made sacrifices at the great high place of Gibeon, and YHVH appeared to him there, not to rebuke him for sacrificing at a high place but to reward him; Chronicles on the other hand adds the explanation that the Tabernacle was at Gibeon,[18] but there is no mention of it having moved from its previous location before this.[19] One could imagine ancient exegetes after David arguing that Jerusalem was not the place of the Tabernacle, and therefore they could sacrifice anywhere, as long as they had a Levitical priest.[20] 1 Kings 3:2 actually says that people were sacrificing at the high places because the Temple had not yet been built! The authors make no such explanation for the instances of high-place worship long after the Temple was built (e.g., 2 Kings 12:3). There is even some suggestion of this “worship-anywhere-as-long-as-you’ve-got-a-Levite” attitude, even while the Tabernacle was ostensibly still standing, at least according to the Bible’s own narratives.[21] Note too that cities all throughout Israel were appointed for the Levites to live in, since they were not to receive a territory; if they were intended to serve a priesthood in a single place, why spread them out? In fact, David had to call them from all over to come down to serve at Jerusalem.[22] But they were also to serve as judges, and their cities for refuge, so these could actually be reasonable explanations for spreading them out. And while we’re on the topic, there appears to be some inconsistency in whether any Levite was allowed to serve as priest, and not just the Levitical sons of Aaron.[23]
In other words, there is very little evidence until Josiah of an actual practice of only going to one place to perform sacrifice,[24] even in the extensive histories of the periods of the judges and the kings. At least in their practice, there is no evidence of the existence of the Deuteronomistic code that required all sacrifice be brought to one central location.
Note one other difference between Deuteronomy and Leviticus, which has not gone unnoticed by scholars: worship is no longer where God himself dwells, as in the rest of the Torah, but where his name dwells. This and other evidence points toward possible later discomfort with the earlier anthropomorphizing of God. It is only in the earliest documents of Genesis that we find people hearing God walking and him asking where they are, as in chapter three; or that God “came down” to see the tower/fortress that men were building in chapter 11; or that God went down to the Jordan Valley to check to see if the report of their sin he had heard was true in chapter 18. The voices of the biblical authors undergo many such major shifts, and apparently their conception of God, whether he was omnipresent and omniscient.
There is another possible reason why the Deuteronomistic school preferred to speak of the place where God’s name dwells, which will be covered in chapter six, in the section on the difference between the first and second Temple periods.
The Ten Instructions
One of the most interesting examples of differences in the Torah, at least to me, relates to the so called Ten Commandments (aka., the Decalogue). As noted above, there are multiple accounts of the same law or event in the Torah. Likewise, there are at least two recitations of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are the only documents that the Bible itself claims that God wrote with his own hand, at least the first set of tablets, anyway;[25] so one would think that it would be preserved in the books of Moses with the same wording as the original. How dare a mere mortal paraphrase any of it, right? Or so goes the thought process of many, some of whom use such differing passages to argue against inspiration. But let’s consider the passages.
First we’ll compare the two accounts of the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5; they are very, very similar, but there are some definite differences. Deuteronomy says to keep the Sabbath day; Exodus says to remember it. Okay, these have a similar meaning, but this is definite paraphrase, not word-for-word. Exodus says that not even your beast is to do work; Deuteronomy lists out ox, donkey, and livestock. Exodus says that you will not covet your neighbor’s wife, manservant, etc. In between these two, Deuteronomy sticks your neighbor’s house and his field. There are a few other differences like this, but the biggest one, as argued by some scholars, is found in the reason given for the Sabbath. In Exodus, the reason for the Sabbath is the length of the Creation week. In Deuteronomy, the purpose of the Sabbath is tied to the Exodus and their liberation from servitude.
To be fair to the fundamentalist view, Deuteronomy is supposed to have been, at least mostly, sermons of Moses as preached to the children of Israel right before he died and they went across the Jordan River to take Canaan. And Deuteronomy 5 is the beginning of one of the most powerful sermons that’s ever influenced humanity: Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is called the Shema, and it’s one of two prayers recited daily by millions of Jews even today, thousands of years later, and it comes from this same sermon; and Christians throughout history as well as the New Testament often cite this sermon, such as the greatest commandment (quoted in all three of the synoptic[26] gospels), the command to bind the word of God on the heart and teach it to your children, and the quote that man does not live by bread alone. The Ten Commandments in that sermon, therefore, should not be viewed as merely a copy of Exodus 20. Preachers can no doubt paraphrase to teach a point. And if God’s spirit moved a prophet to give another reason for the Sabbath, why not? Perhaps it was an intentional tying of God’s creation of the world and man to his creation of his chosen people; John 1 would certainly tie the terminology of Genesis 1 to what Jesus did, which they believed was foreshadowed by Moses’ salvation of Israel. After all, the stories and explanations for God redeeming his people span from Abraham saving his nephew Lot, the Exodus, the various salvations wrought by the judges of Israel, salvation from the Assyrians, Babylonians, and even from Satan and Death when Jesus was executed. The story is told and retold and even remade to reveal things that were not revealed before.[27] The redemption story appears in such incredible literary works as the love story of Ruth and Esther. To require a prophet to use exact words to reveal a concept revealed before is just silly, even in the case of non-poetic, simple laws.
All that said, there are some major differences between Deuteronomy and the rest of the Torah, as we keep noting.
Now let’s compare Exodus 20 to the “original” account of the second giving of the ten commandments, in Exodus 34. Recall that Moses had no sooner received the covenant and come down the mountain with that first set of tablets, and the people had already broken them. Apparently, though, God had already warned them against worshipping other gods before writing it on those tablets that they never got to see before Moses broke them; God certainly held them accountable for breaking it, anyway. No, in Exodus 34, we see that the children of Israel are about to leave Sinai after camping there for several months, and God is giving Moses the second set of tablets, upon which he was to put “the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.” What follows includes a few of the rules that were in the ten commandments of Exodus 20, such as the Sabbath, and the warning against idolatry and making cast metal images (Exodus 20 actually warned against carved images). However, Exodus 34 also includes much that was not in the original ten commandments, such as the three festivals that they were to observe each year. The text is so different that this set of commands is definitely not the same as the first, and is often referred to as the Ritual Decalogue, as it contains rules regarding sacrifice that the first did not; Exodus 20, on the other hand, contains what is often called the Ethical Decalogue, as it prohibits such sins as murder and adultery, which are not mentioned in Exodus 34. In other words, the overall emphasis of each set of commands is also a shift; the first focused on ethical laws, the second on obeying ritual ones.
Since they are so different, one might simply conclude that Exodus 34:10-26 is not intended as a recitation of the original decalogue. After all, even the ancients would have noticed that they were not even remotely the same. There’s just one problem with this: if you read the verses immediately preceding and following this block of text, this “covenant” that God renewed with his people, it appears as if this was in fact intended to represent a recitation of the original decalogue! “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘write these words, for according to them I’ve made a covenant with you and with Israel. So he was there with YHVH forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.”[28] How many students of the Bible have read and reread such passages and never noticed these major differences? Note that we had been comparing Deuteronomy to the rest of the Torah, where most of the differences in the law show up. However, in this last chapter, we see seams in just Exodus alone. Recall that the end of books are common places for later additions, including Exodus as noted above. For the next section on how the laws of the Torah are quite different, check out my book here.
[1] Genesis 34
[2] . Exodus 4. I do not think it an accident that this detail is given right after God’s threat to Pharoah’s firstborn.
[3] Joshua 5:5
[4] “Reading Biblical Law”, The Jewish Study Bible.
[5] There are many places in the Hebrew Bible where a particular word or idea is repeated a special number of times, especially seven or ten; as these numbers have special significance. To cite another example, in Genesis 1, the things that God created are said to be “good”, seven times.
[6] As we’ll see many examples of, some apparent editorial activity tends to support Aaron’s priesthood, while other passages ignore it. Some support Moses, while others do not. Some support the authority of elders/judges, such as the 70 that went up with Moses, and his appointment of judges by the advice of Jethro.
[7] Lev 1:1. However, other references throughout the book speak of Leviticus’ laws being given from Mount Sinai, c.f. 7:37, 38; 25:1; 26:46; 27:34. Note that such laws are not mentioned in Exodus, which appears to detail the law that was given from the mountain as noted above.
[8] See The Jewish Study Bible commentary on Exodus 12.
[9] Strong’s 6748, tsali.
[10] Strong’s 1310
[11] They’re not mentioned as significant to the law until Exodus 24.
[12] I Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:6
[13] E.g., Isaiah 61:6
[14] Ca. 981 BCE
[15] See chapter 8.
[16] Confusion should be avoided by recognizing that sometimes the Bible speaks of idolatrous worship at high places, and other times merely high places where YHVH worship took place. Typically context will help the reader distinguish which is meant.
[17] 2 Kings 18
[18] 1 Chronicles 16; 21; 2 Chronicles 1:3, 13
[19] The Bible is remarkably laconic about the final movements of the Tabernacle in Canaan. After Shiloh was destroyed in the time of Samuel, it was moved back to Gilgal; then we see the priesthood at Nob, where they are slaughtered by Saul for assisting David, but no mention of the Tabernacle there. It is therefore inferred by some that it was moved from Nob to Gibeon after the slaughter of the priests, since Chronicles places it there; yet why does Kings merely call Gibeon a high place, not mentioning the Tabernacle if it was there? Curiously, the ark was in a separate location from the time of Eli until David brought it back some 80 years later, even though it was required to be in the holiest of holies of the Tabernacle for the Day of Atonement ritual. This would have, in theory and according to their own law, been quite a crisis for the nation as they awaited a king anointed by God to usher in a promised era of peace. And yet it would not ultimately be David to do so: the biblical narrative chose to make it the son of David, always foreshadowing something else to come.
[20] Richard Friedman has a compelling argument, in Who Wrote the Bible, that the Tabernacle was actually incorporated into the Temple when it was built, which would possibly have been a fairly effective way to establish priestly authority at Jerusalem. However, it is interesting that the Bible never explains what actually happened to the Tabernacle.
[21] E.g., see Judges 17 and 18.
[22] 1 Chronicles 13:2
[23] During the kingdom years, it is the Levites who are mentioned as the legitimate sacrificers, not the more specific category of sons of Aaron, at least in the book of Kings (e.g., 1 Kings 12:31; 2 Chronicles 35:3-6). Right before the kingdom was established, we see Levites offering sacrifices at Beth-shemesh in 1 Samuel 6:15, while the Tabernacle was at Shiloh, with no word in the text of divine disapproval; although, it might be argued that they had the ark, which they’d just recovered from the Philistines and was also where the presence of God was to dwell. The ark ended up in Kiriath-jearim, we’re told in the next chapter, yet Samuel sets up an alter at Ramah. We also see Samuel making sacrifices at various high places (e.g., 1 Samuel 9:12, 13; see also 11:15).
[24] We are told that Jeroboam was afraid people would continue to go to Judah to sacrifice when the northern kingdom of Israel split off and rebelled against Rehoboam, which is the reason he set up young bull statues, so there’s that. See 1 Kings 12.
[25] Exodus 31:18, cf. Exodus 34:1, 27-28
[26] The synoptic gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke, so called because they are largely parallel accounts.
[27] This will be the major topic of a following book in this series.
[28] Verses 27 and 28; emphasis mine.