"the Levite in Your Gates": The Deuteronomic Redefinition of Levitical Authority‪.‬

I. Scholarship concerning the Levites in Deuteronomy The attention given to the Levite in the book of Deuteronomy has always prompted scholars to question the motives of the authors responsible for the book. No other work, save that of the Chronicler, so consistently returns to the question of the social status of the Levite as a central pillar of its discourse. (1) But whereas 1-2 Chronicles define the status of the Levites in the Zadokite cult and political realm, the Levite in Deuteronomy appears rather distant from the cult, though Levitical tradition seems fused into the rhetoric of the book itself. In the first half of the twentieth century, Gerhard von Rad suggested that the form of Deuteronomy reflected a long history of religious exhortations bound to the rural cult that he entitled "Levitical Sermons," arguing for Levitical origins for the book. (2) More recent examinations, however, have provided compelling reasons to question this theory. (3) The idea of an exclusively Levitical origin to the book does little to explain why Deuteronomy moves the Levite away from the cult: (4) Deuteronomy emphasizes the more generic nature of Levitical figurehood as opposed to "priesthood," a status reserved only for those Levites who are active at the central sanctuary. This element, among others, has led many scholars to view Deuteronomy as stemming from the reign of Josiah, when local cults were eradicated in favor of the single, central sanctuary in Jerusalem.