Purity in Early Judaism: Current Issues and Questions

Abstract

The study of purity has become a crucial undertaking in the scholarly quest to understand the social and theological dimensions of early Judaism and the texts that early Jews both formed and were formed by. This article surveys scholarly literature on purity in ancient and early Judaism, in order to identify and address four areas of critical inquiry that ought to be taken into consideration when questions about purity arise in the study of early Jewish writings: (1) the conceptualization of purity as a symbolic system; (2) the distinction between kinds of purity (ritual, moral, and genealogical); (3) the relation of purity to the temple and, more broadly, to space; and (4) the function of purity to construct and maintain social identity. Attention to these critical issues promises to give clarity, direction and depth to scholarship on purity in early Judaism.