Purity: Essays in Bible and Theology

By Pickwick Publications

In ancient religion and societies the concept of purity was of central importance; in many modern societies it is either irrelevant or, when it is used, attached to extremely conservative agendas. This suggests an interesting story to be told within the history of ideas and, at the same time, raises questions about the place, meaning, and use of purity in religious traditions. What does purity mean in different scriptural contexts? Is it synonymous with holiness or different? How has it been used within various strands of theology? What should we make of it today? Have we moderns, by discarding purity as an organizing social form, lost something essential or made a significant moral advance? Or both? This volume begins to address these questions in essays on biblical genres and books, and different theological traditions. Accessibly written and incisive in its scholarship, it will be of interest to both specialists and non-specialists alike.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Nov 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781498226578

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Purity

Essays in Bible and Theology

Edited by

Andrew Brower Latz and Arseny Ermakov

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Purity

Essays in Bible and Theology

Copyright © 2014 Wipf and Stock Publishers. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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ISBN 13: 978-1-61097-943-6

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Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Purity : essays in Bible and theology / edited by Andrew Brower Latz and Arseny Ermakov

xxiv + 272 p. ; 23 cm. Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 13: 978-1-61097-943-6

1. Holiness—Biblical teaching. 2. Holiness—Christianity. 3. Perfection—Religious aspects—Christianity. 4. Purity, Ritual—Biblical teaching. I. Brower Latz, Andrew. II. Ermakov, Arseny. III. Title.

BT767 B769 2014

Manufactured in the U.S.A. 07/13/2015

Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture quotations taken from the Revised English Bible, copyright © Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press 1989. All rights reserved.

Preface

This book was born from the realization that few people have a precise sense of what purity is. It is of course discussed by scholars of the Hebrew Bible, of the Greek and Roman worlds, and of various religions: most of the purity literature comes from those stables. Yet whilst their scholarly debates continue, its place in contemporary culture and Christian theology has become marginal. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this situation but it would be interesting to know how it came about and whether it is an achievement or regression (socially, morally, politically, theologically) or both. To this end the present volume seeks to bring together both biblical and theological essays. No pretension to exhaustive treatment is made; we readily acknowledge the lack of perspectives from other theological angles, religions and parts of the ancient world. Nevertheless we think an accessible yet scholarly serious investigation into purity is worthwhile to further our knowledge of our history and ourselves.

Andrew Brower Latz and Arseny Ermakov,

Manchester and Sydney,

April 2014

Acknowledgments

The editors would like to thank Christian Amondson, Robin Parry, and Matthew Wimer at Wipf and Stock for their patience and willingness to take on the project. Ken Leech provided useful advice early on in the life of this book for which we are grateful. Gratitude is also due to Durham University, UK, and Booth College, Sydney, for their support.

Contributors

Leonard Aldea is working on a Ph.D. (Durham University, UK) on modern Orthodox ecclesiology, and has published articles on the relationship between modern theology and avantgarde art. He is a well-known Romanian poet, and co-editor (with Prof David Morley) of the anthology No Longer Poetry: New Romanian Poetry.

Kevin Anderson is Associate Professor of Bible and Theology at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky. His previous publications include Hebrews: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition, But God Raised Him from the Dead: The Theology of Jesus’ Resurrection in Luke-Acts, articles in the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, and in The Global Wesleyan Dictionary of Theology.

Kent Brower is Senior Research Fellow in Biblical Studies at Nazarene Theological College, Manchester and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. His recent work includes Mark: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition and Living as God’s Holy People: Holiness and Community in Paul.

Andrew Brower Latz is an AHRC-funded Ph.D. candidate at Durham University. His thesis is on Gillian Rose’s social theory and philosophy of religion. He has published articles in The Journal of Theology and Literature, Studia Patristica, The Journal of Theological Interpretation and Political Theology.

Joseph W. Cunningham has a Ph.D. from the University of Manchester (Nazarene Theological College), UK. He is an assistant editor of Wesley and Methodist Studies, published by the Manchester Wesley Research Centre and the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History. He teaches in the department of philosophy at Saginaw Valley State University.

Susan Dowell is the author of They Two shall be One: Monogamy in History and Religion, Dispossessed Daughters of Eve (with Linda Hurcombe) and Bread Wine and Women (with Jane Williams), as well as numerous chapters and articles. She writes regularly for many publications, including The Guardian, The New Statesman, Feminist Review, Theology The Church Times and The Tablet.

Arseny Ermakov is Head of Biblical Studies at Booth College, Sydney. His research interests include the issues of purity and holiness in the ancient world and the Bible. He has published articles in Horizons in Biblical Theology, The Global Wesleyan Dictionary of Theology, and contributed to Torah in the New Testament.

R. Michael Fox has taught courses in Biblical Studies and Biblical Hebrew at Texas Christian University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the editor of Reverberations of the Exodus in Scripture, and his articles, essays, and reviews appear in a variety of scholarly publications.

Mila Ginsburskaya holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, UK. Her research focuses on the questions of identity, ritual and ethics in the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Christianity.

Ben Kautzer is a Ph.D. candidate in theology at Durham University and an Anglican ordinand at Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford. His research develops a liturgical theology of the works of mercy beyond individualistic philanthropy and bureaucratic social welfarism. He is the author of ‘The Liturgical Profundity of the Ethically Mundane’ in Sacramentalizing Human History and ‘Outflanking the Bureaucratic Production of Urgency’ in Lore 7.1 (Summer 2009).

C. E. Shepherd (Ph.D., Durham University) is Diocesan Learning Advisor for the Diocese of Monmouth, and has recently published a monograph on theological hermeneutics, Theological Interpretation and Isaiah 53: A Critical Comparison of Bernhard Duhm, Brevard Childs, and Alec Motyer.

Dwight D. Swanson is Senior Research Fellow in Biblical Studies at Nazarene Theological College, Manchester and Co-Director of the Manchester Centre for the Study of Christianity and Islam. Publications have focused on the nature of ‘Bible’ at Qumran, including The Temple Scroll and the Bible, and on holiness and purity.

Sarah Whittle is Lecturer in Biblical Studies at Nazarene Theological College, Manchester. Her interests are holiness and purity, the relationship between impurity and sin, and the developments of moral and ritual aspects of these in the New Testament and early church, particularly in relation to the impurity of women. She is author of Covenant Renewal and the Consecration of the Gentiles in Romans.

Abbreviations

11QT Temple Scroll

1QIsaa Isaiaha

1QM Milḥamah or War Scroll

1QPsa Psalms Scrolla

1QS Rule of the Community

4QD Damascus Document

4QMMT Miqsat Ma‘ase ha-Torah

AB Anchor Bible

ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by D. N. Freedman. 6 vols. New York, 1992

Apoc. Mos. Apocalypse of Moses

b. Pesaḥ. Bavli Pesahim

b. Šabb. Bavli Shabbat

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CBR Currents in Biblical Research

CD Cairo Genizah copy of the Damascus Document

EBib Études bibliques

EDNT Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament. Edited by H. Balz, G. Schneider. ET. Grand Rapids, 1990–1993

ExpTim Expository Times

Gen. Rab. Genesis Rabbah

HTR Harvard Theological Review

ISBE International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Edited by G. W. Bromiley. 4 vols. Grand Rapids, 1979–88

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History

JEOL Jaarbericht Ex Oriente Lux

JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies

JJS Journal of Jewish Studies

JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism

JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

JSQ Jewish Studies Quarterly

JTS Journal of Theological Studies

Jub. Jubilees

KJV King James Version

LA Liber Annuus

LEB Lexham English Bible

LXX Septuagint

m. Demai Mishnah Demai

m. Menaḥ. Mishnah Menahot

m. Šabb. Mishnah Shabbat

m. Ṭehar. Mishnah Teharot

m. Yebam. Mishnah Yevamot

m. Yoma Mishnah Yoma

m. ’Abot Mishnah Avot

MT Masoretic Text

NASB New American Standard Bible

NIV New International Version

NJB New Jerusalem Bible

NovT Novum Testamentum

NRSV New Revised Standard Version

NT New Testament

NTS New Testament Studies

OT Old Testament

PAPA Philosophy and Public Affairs

PSC Philosophy and Social Criticism

REB Revised English Bible

RSV Revised Standard Version

Sib. Or. Sibylline Oracles

ST Summa Theologiae

T. Levi Testament of Levi

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Edited by G. Kittel and G. Friedrich. Translated by G. W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand Rapids, 1964–76

TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. 15 vols. Edited by G. J. Botterweck, Ringgren, H., Fabry, H.-J., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984–86

TWOT Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Edited by R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke. 2 vols. Chicago, 1980.

VT Vetus Testamentum

WTJ Wesleyan Theological Journal

ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

Introduction

Andrew Brower Latz and Arseny Ermakov

What is purity? Is it synonymous with holiness and/or cleanness, as many people assume? Why was it so prominent in the ancient world—in Greece and Rome, in Judaism and Christianity—and how did it become so marginal in ours? Purity is a central theme in many antique texts and in many parts of Jewish and Christian Scripture relating to the priesthood and liturgy, ethics, and the intellectual and spiritual life. Yet in modern times, purity seems almost wholly associated with various kinds of conservative agendas. At the very least then, there are interesting stories in the history of ideas to be told. Yet the questions naturally arise: what has been lost and gained in this process? Is it worth trying to recover purity as a concept or is it better left where it now is at the edges of discourse?

In order to understand a concept it is not enough to produce a stipulative definition, important though they are for specific argumentative purposes. Attention must be paid to how the concept has been used in different contexts and periods of history. Only this will enable us to see whether that concept can do similar work in our own context or, if not, what other language may be used instead, and what differences result from the change in language, or whether the whole conceptual apparatus is better left behind. Whilst purity is present in many religions, this volume focuses only on Christian theology and biblical interpretation and the ancient Jewish theology of the Hebrew Scriptures. As such it lacks other philosophical and religious perspectives, but it makes a beginning to answering some of these questions about purity by taking soundings from different facets of theology and Scripture. Indeed, various common themes emerge from the essays and, at the same time, various disagreements.

Christianity obviously inherited and transformed purity ideas from ancient Judaism. One of the more notable results of several of the present biblical essays is the distinction between purity and holiness in many biblical texts. It is common to assume holiness and purity are synonyms and read this back into biblical and early ecclesial texts, but several of the essays here show this is mistaken. For the ancients, holiness and purity were certainly linked but they were not the same.

For modern readers, purity may appear intuitively as a metaphor for morality, but in the following biblical essays purity emerges as a category essential to understanding approach to the divine. At this point the question of whether there is any difference between the moral and spiritual becomes central. Whereas some modern thinkers equate the two categories, purity seems to have been one way in which pre-moderns marked their distinction. This difference in intuitions between contemporary and older thought reappears in Ben Kautzer’s discussion of sacraments and Joseph W. Cunningham’s analysis of the theological-ethical life. Whether purity in these later instances functions as a metaphor or whether it describes some kind of ontological relational or moral state (or a combination thereof), remains a question to be pursued. The distinction between metaphor and ontological state drawn in the previous sentence may however be misleading as a way to approach earlier traditions of thought.

One of the central disagreements about purity is its use for either conservative or progressive purposes. This is nicely brought out by the differences between Leonard Aldea and Susan Dowell. Aldea’s gendered language (man rather than humanity, for example) arguably carries the legacy of patriarchal attitudes towards women prevalent in the patristic period, and witnesses to the exclusive uses to which purity can be employed. (The work of Rachel Adler is important in this regard.) Susan Dowell, however, shows that in other contexts purity has been attached to emancipatory or at least progressive movements. One must admit that historically the conservative and exclusive uses dominate the progressive, and are perhaps likely to continue to do so.

The volume begins with two chapters on purity and impurity in the Hebrew Bible generally and the Torah specifically. Mila Ginsburskaya starts the conversation with a systematic and detailed treatment of purity laws and their rationale in the Hebrew Bible. Her typology divides impurity into two main categories: physical impurity that comes from physiological processes of human life and sin-impurity that results from breaking God’s commandments. Both physical impurity and sin-impurity could defile an individual and the sanctuary, while grave sin-impurity pollutes the Land as well. Both types of impurity belong to a single purity system that is void of the dichotomy between ritual and morality, cult and ethics. Ginsburskaya goes beyond Torah in order to explore the rationale behind the purity system from an anthropological perspective. In her view, the notions of sex and cosmic order underpin purity regulations that define boundaries between Israel and her God and the surrounding nations. Thus, the laws of purity serve a dual purpose: (1) to enable relationship between God and people and (2) to define Israel’s identity.

Dwight Swanson continues from the point where Ginsburskaya left off: he touches upon the issue of impurity as an activity of demonic forces and explores the relationship between purity and holiness in Leviticus. Though Leviticus uses the vocabulary of qdš to describe both holiness and purity—highlighting the close relation between the two concepts—they are not identical. Swanson follows the narrative flow of the Pentateuch to demonstrate the difference. Leviticus provides one of the culmination points in the overarching story; it recounts the establishment of Israel’s life with the presence of the holy God in her midst. In such a conceptual universe with the Holy of Holies at the center, holiness was required for anyone to be in the presence of YHWH. Swanson sees purity laws in the context of this priestly concern for holiness. Purity regulations were introduced in order to maintain the holiness of the people; holiness requires purification as a prerequisite.

C. E. Shepherd warns his readers from the outset that purity language is largely absent from the prophetic literature. However, he finds purity issues at the friction point between the law and the prophets. He points out that the prophets reinterpret priestly traditions: categories of im/purity are removed from their cultic contexts and used as social indicators of the community’s holiness. The prophets envisage purity as the practice of social justice towards marginalized groups: the oppressed, the poor, the fatherless, and widows. Shepherd comes to the conclusion that in the overall context of the Hebrew Bible the prophetic vision of purity—though markedly different from cultic—significantly adds to the single picture of YHWH who requires sacrifices and is capable of mercy.

R. Michael Fox observes that the issues of purity do not captivate scholarly attention in Wisdom literature studies. Traces of purity language can nonetheless be found across the corpus. In Proverbs, the underlying purity concerns can be found in the discussion of sexual relations. The language of im/purity and abominations inheres in descriptions of human behavior and its results. Following the logic of the book of Job, Fox suggests that impurity causes suffering, but one cannot observe an instance of suffering and assume it is caused by the impurity of the victim. Psalm 50 provides an example of an understanding that corporate purity is important and that it starts with one’s own repentance and personal purification both externally and internally.

Arseny Ermakov suggests that the Synoptic Gospels are not interested in purity per se; they use the issues of im/purity to illustrate their Christology. Jesus is depicted as the Holy One of God who enlarges the realm of purity and reduces the dominion of uncleanness through inclusion into table fellowship, exorcisms, healings, cleansing, and the forgiveness of sins. In the battle against cosmic powers and uncleanness he constantly crosses the established purity boundaries in a bid to release people from the bondage of evil, restore the holiness and purity of the nation and (re)create the new holy people of God in the last days. Ermakov also notes that purity is a category of restoration in the Synoptics. The Gospels constantly bring the issues of ritual and moral purity together; however, Jesus prioritizes the purity of heart over the purity of hands.

Kent Brower argues that in John issues of purity are redefined in the light of a distinct Christology. Jesus, the Word incarnate, purifies his followers through his very presence with them. Purity is the appropriate condition of the new people of God since the holy triune God dwells in them and they in God. But cleanliness is not an end in itself; they have been cleansed by the word, and set apart for the mission of God in the world. However, the disciples are called to maintain purity as well: to wash each other’s feet, to forgive and be forgiven, confess their sins and be cleansed. Brower concludes that purity is John’s Gospel is Christologically-shaped, community-oriented, and mission-driven.

Sarah Whittle looks at the interplay between sanctification and purification in Paul’s theology. She carefully argues against the conflation of these categories. Sanctification describes the work of God who consecrates and gives the spirit of holiness to his people. Those who are in Christ and being transformed by the Spirit are the holy ones. Paul goes even further by presenting his community of believers as the dwelling place of the holy God himself. The purification language, on the other hand, is used in the framework of moral imperatives: those in Christ should cease immoral and defilement-generating deeds. Those who are sanctified should maintain their purity by avoiding idolatry, sexual immorality and other sins. Paul roots purification from the defilement of sin in Christ’s atoning death and the coming of the Spirit. In this sense, purity is an eschatological rather than a cultic category.

Kevin Anderson notes that, unlike many biblical texts, holiness and purity are used as synonyms in the epistle of Hebrews. Purity/holiness is the key concept for understanding the epistle’s soteriology. In Hebrews, salvation is brought through Christ’s identification with humanity and the victory over the defilement of the devil, death, and sin. Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice definitively purges the innermost, human conscience, so that people can find themselves in the very presence of God. Sanctification/purification also involves God’s paideia—the transformation of the character of God’s children for ultimate participation in divine holiness. In Anderson’s view, Hebrews’ eschatological perspective of purity is about life with God himself in the heavenly Jerusalem; in the meantime holiness is reflected in the offering up of one’s whole life as a liturgy that is pleasing to God.

The ontological implications of purity are pursued by Leonard Aldea. Aldea’s discussion links patristic material with Sergius Bulgakov’s contemporary Orthodox theology, showing a marked consistency across time within the Orthodox tradition on this theme. Rather than asking, what does it mean to be pure? he asks, how is it possible to be pure? and, how is it that we seem to be pure with God’s own sort of purity? Aldea’s investigation has a transcendental form, taking it as read that humanity can achieve purity—in the form of deification—and examining what else must be true about God and humanity for that to be the case. He suggests Orthodox theology regards purity as opening onto the transcendence of the Absolute, towards which humanity should aim.

Ben Kautzer refuses what he regards as the reduction of purity to ethics, a reduction he associates with some earlier liberal Protestant theologians. Instead, he sees purity as relating to the sacramental encounter with God, extrapolated and textured through liturgy and ethics. Purity offers one way of seeing liturgy and ethics as part of a unified whole, a vision common to ancient Judaism as well as more recent theological ethics. Kautzer examines carefully the recent work of Pope Benedict XVI on purity, expanding on his arguments where necessary, in order to explore the connections between sacraments, liturgy, and ethics in the construction of a contemporary Catholic theology of purity.

Joseph W. Cunningham pulls together the disparate references to purity in John Wesley’s corpus and finds it to be of major significance in Wesley’s thinking and practice. Purity could be considered a synonym for perfect love, which was at the core of Wesley’s practical theology. Cunningham reveals the sort of work purity does in Wesley’s theological ethics. He discovers connections between moral agency, intention, vigorous moral practice, and a belief in divine action mediated through the Spirit, all of which is set in relation to early modern debates about determinism and free will. Yet in Cunningham’s reading, Wesley’s modernism is shaped by a deep grounding in the whole history of the Christian tradition. Wesley’s notion of purity articulates the sense of experiencing God in multiple ways and the human response to this in emotion, desire, will, intellect and action.

Susan Dowell weaves together a history of English Anglicanism and Dissent with a personal-political history of involvement in second wave feminism as a radical political project and a stimulus to investigations into church history and theology. Dowell aligns herself with Marilynne Robinson in the attempt to correct the ignorance surrounding the Puritans, a term which has become almost an insult. She traces connections between Puritan politics and ethics and later emancipatory political movements, including Christian Socialism, abolitionism and feminism. She shows that Puritans made radical demands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—for gender equality (including reassessments of marriage), equal political representation, redistribution, and the consent of the governed—much of which we now take for granted, even though they have not yet been fully realized. Although this politics and ethics are no longer directly tied to the Puritans, having been inherited by several other movements (a fact about which Dowell is not nostalgic), its past is important at the very least as a matter of historical record, but also for the way it enables the interrogation of our own conceptions of equality, representation, gender, and so on. Further, the Puritans combined this politics with a belief in God, a combination that continues to inspire many of those active in churches and politics today.

Andrew Brower Latz identifies contemporary uses of im/purity language in secular and theological discourses in order to discover its dominant contemporary meanings. The examples he finds are largely negative, even dangerous, leading him to conclude the theologian should avoid purity language on the whole, at least for the time being. This is somewhat deliberately provocative in light of the preceding chapters, but raises the question about how or whether replacement language for purity could and should be found. Brower Latz does not wish to censor its use as a personal category, but is wary of its consequences when used on social and political scales, including ecclesiologically.

These essays show, naturally enough, both differences and convergences. This book is no call to reinstate or reinvigorate purity as a central social or intellectual category; nevertheless an investigation into purity repays itself in at least three ways: purity systems continue to be important in some religions and cultures; traces of purity concerns remain even in secular, western cultures; it helps us better understand the past. The altered cultural ground between ancient Judaism and early Christianity and our own time causes transpositions in the meanings, connotations and functions of purity language and practices. Even in secularized Western societies purity language is still present, though demythologized and naturalized. In place of ritual and moral uncleanness we are more likely to hear of purity as a category of hygiene, food, or ecology, though it crops up in moral discourse too. Boundaries and behaviors are still influenced by such concerns, shifting us into the realm of Foucaultian biopolitics, anthropology, and ethics. Just as the religious origins and history of many ideas and forms of life are essential to their full comprehension, so we hope this volume provides, in addition to studies of biblical and theological materials in their own right, a historical-theoretical context for wider interests.

Part I

Purity in Scripture

1

Purity and Impurity in the Hebrew Bible

Mila Ginsburskaya

Introduction

Any attempt to describe purity/impurity laws and practices in the Hebrew Bible, or even just in the Torah, comprehensively as a system is fraught with methodological difficulties. First of all, as source-critical studies demonstrate, the biblical texts were consolidated and written down over a span of several centuries. As dating, provenance, and criteria for the identification of material stemming from different editors continue to be debated, it is clear that Hebrew Bible writings do not present us with a homogenous exposition of purity and impurity ideas (and indeed any other laws and practices). Secondly, it is impossible to determine whether and how much of these texts reflect the actual practices and how much should be regarded as theoretical treatises promoting the ideological and theological agendas of their compilers. Even Leviticus—the only book within the Torah corpus that appears to give a systematic account of purity and impurity—presents the same problems. Yet if we proceed, bearing in mind that our interpretation is only an interpretation—the map and not the reality—the enterprise of tentatively constructing the model of a phenomenon can give us tools to better grasp the phenomenon, even if the suggested model were to be subsequently dismantled. This chapter constitutes such an attempt, while some of the methodological concerns will be addressed in the course of discussion.

Classification of impurities

When discussing purity and impurity laws in the Torah it is important to note their relativity: the fact that they operate only within a specific system of references—a fact that the text is aware of. Within a different system of references (such as a religious tradition of other peoples) the assignation of the purity and impurity values might be different (see, e.g., Gen 43:32; 46:34; Exod 8:22/8:26 in RSV). In the Torah, the laws of purity and impurity are given to the people of Israel within the framework of their relationship with God. Their function is to help maintain this relationship. It is envisaged that Israelites throughout their life will periodically become impure and they are provided with the rituals of purification to remove the acquired impurity. Impurities incurred by Israelites can be divided into two main categories:

1. Impurity that does not involve breaking God’s commandments (physical impurity);

2. Impurity that involves breaking God’s commandments (sin-impurity).

The most extensive treatment of the purity and impurity laws is found in the legal material of Leviticus and Numbers, upon which I base my presentation below.

Physical Impurity

To this category belong all impurities resulting from human physiological processes as well as those contracted through physical contact. This type of impurity has been traditionally labeled in scholarship as ritual impurity. I, however, prefer to call it physical impurity since it always has to do something with physical body or touch. Another common characteristic of impurities of this type is that one can purify oneself from them through a designated means of purification. Depending on the complexity of purification rituals, physical impurities can be further sub-divided into major and minor. Purification from both types of impurity involves several steps, such as washing/bathing, shaving, and the period of waiting. However, to purify from a major physical impurity one is also required to bring an expiatory sacrificial offering.¹

Minor physical impurities include impurities that result from:

• touching an unclean object, animal, or person (e.g., Lev 11:26, 39; 15:5–12; 22:4–7);

• eating some unclean things (e.g., Lev 11:39–40; 17:15);

• normal/healthy genital discharges (seminal emission during intercourse or nocturnal pollution and menstrual blood: Lev 15:16–18, 19–24).

Major physical impurities include:

• impurities generated by diseases resulting in anomalous prolonged genital discharges (zb/zbh, Lev 15:2–15, 25–30) and ṣr‘t or leprosy² (in persons: Lev 13:1–46; 14:1–32; in cloth, leather, or house: Lev 13:46–59; 14:33–53);

• impurity of a woman after childbirth (Lev 12);

• human corpse-impurity (e.g., Lev 21:1–3, 11; Num 5:1–4 and esp. Num 19), which constitutes a special case: unlike other major impurities it is contracted through touch (or even proximity to the corpse), and the purifying person is not required to bring a sacrificial offering. Nonetheless, sacrifice is involved since the purifying solution (my ḥṭ’t) has been prepared from the ashes of the sacrificed Red Heifer.³

In the case of diseases or physiological dysfunctions, it is important to differentiate between healing and purification. Only a person that has been healed (or declared healed) can undergo a ritual of purification. In the Torah as well as in the Hebrew Bible as a whole, disease is not equated with impurity and purification is not equated with healing, as may be the case in some other ancient Near Eastern traditions.⁴

It must be noted that there is no general prohibition on becoming physically impure, although physical impurity must be avoided in certain contexts involving holy things (sanctuary premises, holy objects, and holy times, such as festivals). Thus priests, in particular, are forbidden to defile themselves with corpse impurity, unless for the nearest of kin (Lev 21:1–3). They are also forbidden to eat anything which dies of itself or is torn by beasts (Lev 22:8). The failure to abide by the laws of purity, which includes the failure to purify on time according to the prescribed procedure constitutes the breaking of the divine commandment and thus generates sin-impurity, which is then being added to physical impurity. Thus, in the case of minor physical impurities (for example, when a person is unaware that they have touched an unclean thing), the unintentional delay of purification requires an expiatory guilt offering (’šm, e.g., Lev 5:2–3, 5–6).⁵ However, the neglect of purification from major impurities may put the offender beyond the possibility of purification altogether and into the category of sinners that must be extirpated from among the holy community of Israel (e.g., Lev 15:31 and Num 19:13, 20).⁶

Sin-impurity

Sin-impurity is much less clearly defined than physical impurity in the OT texts themselves and, consequently, there is significant disagreement among scholars with regard to the topic. Until recently, the majority of scholars upheld an opinion that this type of impurity is metaphorical as opposed to real.⁷ In the next section I discuss in more detail some of the existing approaches, while here I will only note my own position, which partly corresponds to the point of view of a few other scholars. According to my definition, impurity of this type results from breaking God’s commandments (hence I call it sin-impurity).⁸ Like physical impurities, sin-impurities can be sub-divided into minor and major (or lesser and graver).

Minor sin-impurity results from committing an offence that can be expiated by means of sacrifices (Num 15:22–29; see my discussion in section 2). Examples of such minor sin-impurities include:

• failing to testify as a witness (Lev 5:1; 5:5–13);

• unintentionally delaying purification after unknowingly touching an unclean thing (Lev 5:2–3; 5:5–13);

• unknowingly uttering a rash oath (Lev 5:4, 5–13);

• sinning unwittingly in one of the holy things of the Lord (Lev 5:15–16);

• wronging one’s neighbor in the matter of possessions (Lev 5:20–26/6:1–7 in RSV).

Major sin-impurity results from breaching one of the foundational principles of Israel’s religion, such as:

• prohibition on idolatry, necromancy, and witchcraft (e.g., Lev 19:26, 28, 31; 20:1–6);

• sexual laws (e.g., Lev 18:6–29);

• laws on homicide (e.g., Num 35:33);

• eating unclean animals and blood (Lev 11; Lev 17:10, 14, etc.);

• eating sacrificial offering in a state of physical uncleanness (Lev 7:20–21);

• transgressions committed brazenly, with a high hand (byd rmh, Num 15:30–31).

Unlike major physical impurity, there is no available means of purification from major sin-impurity. The offender must therefore be extirpated from the midst of the holy community of Israel by being put to death (e.g., Lev 20:2, 9–16; 24:17) or by cutting off (krt, e.g., Lev 17:10, 14; 18:29–30; 19:5–8; 20:4–6, 17).⁹

The Case of Eating Unclean Animals

Laws concerning unclean animals (Lev 11; Deut 14:7–19) present many conceptual difficulties and thus necessitate a special caveat.¹⁰ The rationale underlying the division of all animal species into clean and unclean appears to be different from that of other purity and impurity laws. It has been continuously debated by biblical exegetes, ancient and modern, with a particular preference for symbolic and allegorical interpretations. As we cannot delve here into the intricacies of these debates, I will only note that most of the interpreters seem to agree that these laws have to do with promoting the idea of Israel as a priestly holy nation by setting special marks distinguishing it from other nations.¹¹ Animals designated as unclean are branded šqṣ—detestable¹² for Israelites (e.g., Lev 11:10–13, 20, 23, 41–43), who are strictly forbidden to defile themselves and make themselves detestable through eating them (Lev 11:43–44).¹³ There are two instances in the Torah (Lev 7:21 and Lev 11:26) that suggest that touching a living unclean animal renders one impure (ṭm’). However, the term detestable, which has moral connotations, is not used in these cases. Also touching a carcass of an unclean animal appears to impart only minor physical impurity removable by simple purification rites, just as does touching the carcass of a clean animal (cf. Lev 11:2–25 and Lev 11:39–40).

Because of the multiple difficulties involved it has been suggested to single out the laws concerning unclean animals into a special category within the purity-impurity system.¹⁴ Yet it seems to me that the categorization problem can be resolved by admitting that eating unclean animals imparts both physical and sin-impurity. Physical impurity, as in the case of any physical impurity, is conveyed through physical contact and would have constituted no problem if these were not the animals designated as unclean for the people of Israel (cf., e.g., Lev 17:15). Eating these animals would indicate blurring the boundaries between the people of Israel and other nations. In this way it resembles engagement in the acts of idolatry or forbidden sexual practices, which are called abomination and constitute unforgivable sins. For this reason I have grouped impurity resulting from eating unclean animals among major sin-impurities.

Wright points out the fact that Leviticus, contrary to what might have been expected, neither stipulates sacrifice for the removal of impurity acquired through eating an unclean animal nor mentions punishment by cutting off. He thus assigns this impurity to his category of tolerated impurities.¹⁵ One could, however, object that the very absence of the description of purification procedure for eating an unclean animal presupposes that no possibility of purification is envisioned.¹⁶

Defining sin-impurity

Since impurity resulting from breaking God’s commandments continues to be a topic of considerable debate among scholars, I will outline briefly the main issues within these debates as well as my own arguments for considering this type of impurity as real and for including within its scope both removable and irremovable stains.

Metaphorical or Real?

In the beginning of the twentieth century, two