Language:
English
Year of publication:
2023
Titel der Quelle:
Jewish Studies Quarterly
Angaben zur Quelle:
30,2 (2023) 109-137; 30,3 (2023) 235-258
Keywords:
Bible. Criticism, interpretation, etc.
;
Dead Sea scrolls. Criticism, interpretation, etc.
;
Purity, Ritual Biblical teaching
;
Purity, Ritual in post-biblical literature
;
Jewish law History
Abstract:
Ancient Israelite and early Jewish texts on ritual purity vacillate between two incompatible conceptual models of pollution. According to the »disease« model, which is non-hierarchic, pollutions from diverse sources differ from one another qualitatively; according to the »temperature« model, pollutions are conceived as differing in degree. While no single text adheres to an unadulterated version of either model, this study demonstrates the explanatory power of a Two Model Theory for understanding biblical and early Jewish literature on pollution. Within Pentateuchal law, pollutions from different sources are nowhere hierarchized. This conception, which follows the disease model, was replaced in several late Second Temple texts by an alternative conception, wherein pollutions are mapped onto a hierarchy. A study of 4Q274 (4QTohorot A) and other late Second Temple texts demonstrates how this theoretical shift was achieved, how »severity« was invented and how the necessary terminology for the temperature model was »unearthed« from within Leviticus.
Abstract:
Ancient Israelite and early Jewish texts on ritual purity vacillate between two incompatible conceptual models of pollution. According to the »disease« model, which is non-hierarchic, pollutions from diverse sources differ from one another qualitatively; according to the »temperature« model, pollutions are conceived as differing in degree. While no single text adheres to an unadulterated version of either model, this study demonstrates the explanatory power of a Two Model Theory for understanding biblical and early Jewish literature on pollution. Mishnah Order Teharot opens with a programmatic exposition of the sources of pollution. The contrast between this exposition's hierarchic rhetoric and the non-hierarchic picture emerging from its contents reflects the tension between the Pentateuchal disease model and the late Second Temple temperature model. By analyzing various features of rabbinic texts, as well as halachic thought-experiments, this article demonstrates that seemingly haphazard alignments between diverse texts reflect coherent theoretical frameworks and points to a system within a multitude of divergences and convergences.
Note:
Two models for pollution, part B: from Qumran to Qirqisani, from the Mishnah to Maimonides
DOI:
10.1628/jsq-2023-0008
DOI:
10.1628/jsq-2023-0014
URL:
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