The Rabbi

Privative Preposition min in Purification Offering Pericopes and the Changing Face of ‘Dorian Grey’ by Roy Gane

If that title doesn’t scare everyone away, I would be amazed. Gane, who is a student of Jacob Milgrom, the master of understanding biblical sacrificial system, enters into dialogue with his teacher seeking to better understand the function of the sin offering’s impact upon the offerer.

Milgrom had and continues to propose that in Leviticus while the sacrificer’s sin offering cleanses the altar of pollution, it does not serve a cleansing function for the one bringing the sacrifice as ritual washes, periods of waiting, or other rituals exterior to the tent of meeting had previously cleansed the individual.

Gane counters by proposing with specific notice of situations where the object of the verb “to atone” is governed by the preposition min, that the sacrifice completes the cleansing of the individual and then transfers that pollution to the altar. It remains for the Day of Atonement to cleanse the various altars of a year’s worth of pollution.
Two experts, teacher and student, their interaction only helps us better understand.