Storied Theory

Critical scholarship has made hash of Leviticus. Scholars try to understand the rituals of “P” and “H” without much consideration of the narrative of division, death-sleep, and union that is the creation of Eve. Even the story of Abraham and Isaac is often put to the side as an irrelevancy, and the exodus. 

You can’t really hope to understand Leviticus if you detach it from the narrative context that makes it understandable.

But traditional atonement theories often have an analogous flaw. Atonement theories are spun from the categories and concepts in Paul’s letters, with Hebrews or some other document added. Little attention is paid to the specific details of the gospel accounts that tell the story of the atonement.

For both Leviticus and Paul, we need a storied theory, a theory that is an interpretation of historical events.