Review: The Purity Texts

SBL Presentation, 2021

Jesus' position with regard to purity has intrigued scholars for some time. His actions seem to both deny and endorse the efficacy of ritual purification. He sends a scale-diseased man to the priest for validation of purification. His disciples, but not Jesus himself, are accused of not washing hands before eating. Still, Jesus makes contacts with many impure persons, and the text never says he purifies himself. He even eats with sinners, crossing the boundary between pure Jew and impure Gentile without concern for contagion. As a result, scholars have labeled Jesus everything from a halakhic Jew to a commoner who ignores ritual purity altogether. The DSS are a critical component in the current debates over Jesus and purity. While the rabbis describe ritual purity concerns in Temple times, these are often dismissed as a retrojection of later norms onto first century Judaism. But the Scrolls, dated within Second Temple times, paint a more contemporary picture. In substance, their concerns are often similar to the Rabbis'.1 Indeed, the Scrolls usually reveal an even greater concern over impurity than the Rabbis.

2025

Purity plays a central role in ancient Judaism. It is relevant in the encounter with the sacred, especially at the Jerusalem Temple but also in the context of sacred communities, for example the Qumran yaḥad. Ancients Jews, however, also strove for purity far away from the Temple, both in the Land of Israel remote from Jerusalem and in the Diaspora. Yet, means, procedures, and conceptualizations in relation to purity and purification varied. While purity therefore seems to be “everywhere” in ancient Judaism, it is not everywhere the same. The present volume explores different texts and material evidence in relation to purity, impurity, and purification, from both the historic land of Israel and the Diaspora. It adduces comparative evidence from Greece, probes and refines concepts of moral and ritual im/purity, and traces the relevance of purity debates into nascent Christianity. Table of Contents: Laura von Bartenwerffer/Lutz Doering/Jörg Frey: Purity in Ancient Judaism. An Introduction - Christophe Nihan/Julia Rhyder: Purity and Pollution in the Hebrew Bible. The State of the Discussion and Future Perspectives - Yitzhaq Feder: Reconstructing the Holy Camp. Qumran and the Evolution of Purity in Ancient Judaism - Roland Deines: Archaeological Finds as Evidence for Everyday Purity Practice in the Hellenistic-Roman Period in Judea and Galilee - Joseph Scales: The Limits of Evidence. The Miqveh as an Indicator of Jewish Purity Practices in Second-Temple Period Galilee - Carsten Claußen: Purity Observance and Ancient Synagogues. Ancient Jewish Water Installations in the Diaspora - Andrej Petrovic: Inner Purity, Ritual Purity, Conscience. Perspective of the Greek Ritual Norms (on LSCG 139) - Thomas Kazen: Purity as Popular Practice. Erasing the Anachronistic Divide between Household and Cult - Cecilia Wassén: Purity, Impurity, and In-Between - Michael DeVries: Purity and Cult in the Qumran War Texts. A Reconsideration - Ruben A. Bühner: Purity and Messianism. Some Observations and Surprises Based on the Contrast Between the Messianic Expectations in Pss. Sol. 17 and the Dead Sea Scrolls - Yair Furstenberg: Principles of Gradual Purification in Qumran Law - Laura von Bartenwerffer: First Day Ablutions in Qumran and Philo - Michael B. Cover: Symbolic Purity and the Temple of the Soul in Philo's Allegorical Commentary - Milena Hasselmann: »Be separate said the Lord and I will receive you«. 2 Cor 6:14-7:1 as an Example of the Connection of Purity and Identity in the New Testament - Christina Eschner: Purity and Impurity of Food and People in Acts 10:1-11:18. Is the Abolition of Jewish Food Laws at the Center of the Cornelian Narrative?

This essay (published Open Access) offers a synthesis of several key issues in the study of purity and pollution in the Hebrew Bible in light of recent research. We start from the premise that current scholarly debates need to (a) better acknowledge the complexity of the sources we have for purity and impurity in the Hebrew Bible, and (b) focus not only on describing the concepts and rituals of pollution and purification in the Hebrew Bible but also on exploring what these texts sought to achieve; that is, the degree to which they encoded power relations, ritual agency, and cosmologies. We argue that the study of purity and pollution in the Hebrew Bible requires a methodology that combines philological and sociohistorical exegesis with the findings of anthropology and ritual theories, while also seeking to position the biblical purity materials within their larger West Semitic and Western Asian context. The first part of the essay identifies the key terms and sources for studying pollution and purification in the Hebrew Bible: the genre of these materials, their processes of textualization, their relationship with ritual performance in ancient Israel, as far as this can be reconstructed, as well as the evidence of their earliest reception. The second part considers broader interpretive issues, such as the differences between “physical” and “moral” impurity in the Hebrew Bible, the forms of power and agency the biblical purity texts encoded, the degree to which concepts of purity in the Pentateuch might be said to form a comprehensive system, and the role of meaning and symbolism within this system. The conclusion considers the implications of this analysis for future studies of purity and pollution in biblical studies.

2020

in: Purity in Ancient Judaism. Texts, Contexts, and Concepts, hg. v. L. Doering, J. Frey, u. L. von Bartenwerffer, WUNT 528, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2025, 85–130.

Purity issues are a complicated field, but a field that is of central importance for discussing matters of identity and practical life in Ancient Judaism and in Early Christianity. During the last decades scholarship has made immense progress with regard to the interpretation of the purity-related texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, to the archaeological investigation of numerous early synagogues, and to the discussion of the concepts and thought patterns behind ancient purity regulations. The present volume presents the contributions of a conference that aimed at a novel and up-to-date discussion of these matters in an international and interdisciplinary context. The conference took place at the Katholische Akademie Schwerte in Germany from 10 to 12 February 2019. It was organized jointly by Jörg Frey (Zürich) and Lutz Doering (Münster) and kindly supported and hosted by the Katholische Akademie Schwerte, as the tenth event in a long series of conferences aimed at spreading knowledge about and promoting dialogue on the Dead Sea Scrolls and related issues. We are grateful to the Katholische Akademie Schwerte, in particular to Dr. Ulrich Dickmann, for the continuing support of these conferences for more than two decades. The collection and editorial preparation of the contributions was done by Laura von Bartenwerffer (Münster / Essen), further support in the preparation of the manuscript was given by Dr. John Dik (Münster). We are grateful to Dr. Zhuen Wei (Zurich / Luxembourg) for compiling the index of ancient sources, and to stud. theol. Hanna Antensteiner (Münster) and stud. theol. Kolja Damm (Münster) for compiling the indexes of subjects and modern authors, respectively. The team of Mohr Siebeck publishers, primarily Elena Müller, Tobias Stäbler, and Rebekka Zech, have accompanied the long production process with all their competence and friendly support. Wie are also grateful to the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) that has generously granted funding for the open access publication, so that the insights and discussions presented in this book can now be accessed anywhere for free. We hope that the volume will promote a deeper understanding, and inspire further studies, of purity and issues related to it in Ancient Judaism and its world.

,, 2013

Intensive concern for the proper observance of the Levitical purity laws was characteristic of various Jewish groups living in Judea during the late Second Temple period. The purity laws, concentrated in the Priestly Code (mostly in Lev 11–15 and Num 19), describe numerous sources of ritual impurity (e.g. dead swarming creatures, male and female genital discharges, human corpses etc.), venues whereby impurity is transferred from one object or person to another, and methods for purifying people, clothing and vessels that have become impure. Rigorous interest in the Levitical purity laws is evidenced in the literature of the period, including the Biblical apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, and the works of Josephus Flavius. Continued interest in ritual purity law, at least within the rabbinic academy, is evidenced by the copious early rabbinic literature devoted to the topic; these laws are the focus of an entire order of the Mishnah and Tosefta (Ṭeharot; lit., “Purities”), and are the topic of many rabbinic pericopes interspersed throughout the Talmudic literature of the Roman and Early Byzantine periods. Of late, the literary sources have been supplemented by a plethora of archaeological finds which provide evidence for the centrality of ritual purity observance in the daily lives of Jews in Judea during the Roman period. Chief amongst these finds are stepped water installations which served as ritual baths (miqwāʾôt) for the purificatory immersion of ritually impure people, clothing and vessels. Another important archaeological phenomenon which indicates observance of ritual purity laws is the widespread use of chalkstone vessels, as stone was regarded to be a material impervious to ritual impurity. Additionally, a marked absence of imported pottery at most Jewish sites throughout the Early Roman period has been explained by numerous scholars as a reflection of concern over the ritual impurity of ceramic vessels produced outside the borders of the Land of Israel.

Journal for the Study of Judaism, 2013

TheDeadSea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture is a superb collection of essays that makes original contributions to the understanding of the scrolls on the 60th anniversary of their discovery. The volume focuses on progress made in research over the last decade and highlights promising areas for fiiture research. The book is highly recommended to all those interested in the DSS, the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, early Christianity, and rabbinic Judaism. It would be especially useful for graduate students in the fields listed above since it provides broad insights into recent research as well as timely advice on which questions might be most promising to pursue in the future. The book is a model for the type of rich, interdisciplinary interactions that many colleges and universities yearn to foster in the humanistic disciplines. Emanuel Tov opens the volume with a review of some aspects of the history and current status of the DfD publication project. The first section addresses "Identity and History of the Community." Florentino Garcia Martinez revisits the Groningen hypothesis and suggests that it can still help us explain the textual data from Qumran. Charlotte Hempel examines lQS 6:2c-4a and suggests that when it is read in light of CD i3:2b-3a, one must conclude that S' s use of the preposition in (indicating the existence of a larger or parent group) is a later development or interpolation in the text. Eyal Regev compares features of the Yahad with modem religious sects such as the Quakers, Shakers, Hutterites, Mennonites, and Amish in order to suggest several likely (and unlikely) characteristics of the Yahad. James VanderKam reassesses the early or prehistory of the people associated with the scrolls. He reaches the sober conclusion that we can know very little about the community described in CD 1 and finds no evidence that the Qumran group began or existed as a splinter group that broke away from the group described in CD 1 (à la the Groningen Hypothesis). Section 2a examines scriptural texts. Jonathan Ben-Dov compares scribal practices for writing the divine name in the Elohistic Psalter (Psalms 42-89) and in the DSS and suggests a common explanation for the phenomenon. Peter Flint provides a carefiil summary of non-masoretic variant readings in lQIsa'' and finds that while the majority of the 622 variants are minor and of little consequence, around ten percent (66) are significant and involve clear changes in the meaning of the text. His results overturn preliminary descriptions of lQIsa"» as an exemplar of the Proto-Masoretic text. Eugene Ulrich summarizes some contributions of the study of the DSS for understanding the Bible. If the reviewer might be so bold, I suggest that Ulrich's essay should be required reading for anyone who presumes to study the