Purity in Ancient Judaism

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 yaad . 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 in nascent Christianity.

Auteur
Born 1966; 1998 Dr. theol.; 2013 habil.; 2004-09 Lecturer in New Testament, King's College London; 2009-14 Reader in New Testament and Ancient Judaism, Durham University; Professor of New Testament and Ancient Judaism and Director of the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum at the University of Münster, Germany. Born 1962; 1996 Dr. theol.; 1998 habil.; 2024 Dr h. c.; Professor of New Testament in the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.