One of the bonuses of doing biblical research is that you get to learn all manner of interesting things that you might not have learnt otherwise, especially about parts of the bible that you don’t normally find yourself in. For example, Leviticus is usually the book where the bold plans many Christians have of reading the whole bible come grinding (or crashing) to a halt. Chapter upon chapter of laws about cleanliness and animal sacrifice is on a par with the genealogies at the beginning of Numbers and 1 Chronicles – they tend to put modern readers to sleep as they lack the features of stories that we are used to. Deuteronomy has the problem of being more or less a repetition of what has already been said in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers (much like 1-2 Chronicles is a repetition of 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings). So all in all, Leviticus and Deuteronomy are unlikely to be anyone’s favourite biblical book (but if they are, let me know).
