LEVI

Levi

Levi/Levy was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third son of Jacob and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Levi . Certain religious and political functions were reserved for the Levites, and the early sources of the Torah—the Jahwist and Elohist—appear to treat the term Levi as just being a word meaning priest; scholars therefore suspect that "levi" was originally a general term for a priest, and had no connection to ancestry, and that it was only later, for example in the priestly source and Blessing of Moses, that the existence of a tribe named Levi became assumed, in order to explain the origin ...

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