Don't forget the work of the British anthropologist, Mary Douglas, who showed that Leviticus was about categorizing the universe and the deep suspicion of early peoples about things that did not fit easily into clearly defined categories such as shellfish (belonging to both sea and land). Ditto with homosexuality. Don't get her started on the symbolism of women's periods. They banned menstruating women in my church for centuries before they agreed to dump that text as nothing but yahoo superstition. Douglas's thesis was interesting, though: the blood was taboo to early peoples because it meant that the body lacked integrity by losing a piece of itself. This is the root of much misogyny. 

Is this the basis upon which we should make law and act?