ABSTRACT
Leviticus is quite the shortest of the five–and that how flimsy the idea is that the Torah was transmitted in five units simply because they were the right length for a manuscript scroll. Leviticus and Pentateuch are read by Jews and Christians, by men and women, by religious scholars and literary critics, by vegetarians and carnivores, by mixtures of all these categories who bring their own expectations and prejudices to their reading. They are in the hands of readers who consider that Leviticus or any of its four neighbours is the basic 'reading unit', and of others who know that that basic unit is the whole Pentateuch–not to speak of those who hold to a Primary History stretching from Genesis to Kings. Leviticus is often read, not as something complete in itself, but as part of a larger subsection, Exodus–Numbers. Several teachings of Leviticus–Numbers may have been widely current before being written down, and attributed to Moses' mediation.
