Manual of Purity: Chapter 11 begins the third section of Leviticus, which provides instructions on what is clean and what is unclean. Although these chapters are somewhat disparate, this theme unifies them—thus the title “Manual of Purity.” Following these instructions, chapter 16 describes the ritual of the Day of Atonement. Some commentators (e.g., Hartley) treat chapter 16 separately, but while it does allude to the narrative in chapter 10, it also provides a means of removing the effects of the uncleanness discussed in chapters 11–15. Chapters 11–15 were probably inserted as a unit into their present context, but the placement fits the logic of Leviticus in its current form.

The Priestly categories of clean and unclean are central to these texts. An unclean object is not “dirty” in th…