Purity beyond the Temple in the Second Temple Era

Poirier, John C.

doi:10.2307/3268445

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…The question of the relationship of purity to space, as it was first formulated by Alon (1977) and appropriated by Neusner (1981;1984;, Sanders (1990), Hengel and Deines (1995) and Poirier (2003), has basically been treated as a binary: was concern for purity restricted to the temple and priesthood, or not? As such, the Pharisaic practice of washing one's hands before an ordinary meal has been interpreted as an imitation of priestly purity required for temple service (see , or else a gesture toward quotidian purity unrelated to the temple.…”

Section: The Debate Between Neusner and Ep Sanders On Priestly Puritymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In his essay, ‘Purity beyond the Temple in the Second Temple Era’, Poirier crystallizes the spatial aspect of what is at stake in the debate between Neusner and Sanders, namely, whether ritual purity is a matter significant only in relation to the temple and its priesthood or whether ritual purity was significant in its own right, apart from any theological or practical involvement with the temple and priesthood. Poirier concludes that the idea that ritual purity is connected solely to the temple is ‘a scholarly construct with little basis in reality’ (2003: 265). In favor of the understanding that purity became a concern ‘for its own sake’, Poirier marshals as evidence the levitical laws of purity not explicitly connected to the temple or priesthood, the pervasiveness of mikva’ot and handwashing basins throughout Palestine, and early Jewish texts (e.g., Tobit; Judith; Letter of Aristeas ), which feature purificatory rites before meals, prayer, the reading of Torah, and after contact with a corpse (2003: 253-59; see also Regev 2000).…”

Section: Purity and The Templementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Poirier concludes that the idea that ritual purity is connected solely to the temple is ‘a scholarly construct with little basis in reality’ (2003: 265). In favor of the understanding that purity became a concern ‘for its own sake’, Poirier marshals as evidence the levitical laws of purity not explicitly connected to the temple or priesthood, the pervasiveness of mikva’ot and handwashing basins throughout Palestine, and early Jewish texts (e.g., Tobit; Judith; Letter of Aristeas ), which feature purificatory rites before meals, prayer, the reading of Torah, and after contact with a corpse (2003: 253-59; see also Regev 2000). Poirier advances a convincing argument that ritual purity was not always and everywhere connected to participation in the temple cult.…”

Section: Purity and The Templementioning

confidence: 99%

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Purity in Early Judaism: Current Issues and Questions

Rogan

2018

Currents in Biblical Research

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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.

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Section: The Debate Between Neusner and Ep Sanders On Priestly Puritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Purity and The Templementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Purity and The Templementioning

confidence: 99%

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Purity in Early Judaism: Current Issues and Questions

Rogan

2018

Currents in Biblical Research

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Immersion is the new ritual: themiqvehat Khirbat al-Mukhayyat (Jordan) and Hasmonean agro-economic policies in the Late Hellenistic period

Dolan

Foran

2016

Levant

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Ritual Purity in Daily Life after 70 CE: The Chalk Vessel Assemblage from Shuʿafat as a Test Case

Adler

2020

J. Study Jud.

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Chalk vessels became common at Jewish sites throughout the Southern Levant beginning in the late first century BCE, apparently because Jews considered stone to be impervious to ritual impurity. It is commonly thought that a drastic decline in the phenomenon occurred after 70 CE as a direct result of the temple’s destruction—on the assumption that the central motivation for Jews’ observance of the purity regulations was the temple cult. These notions are reconsidered here in light of an impressive assemblage of chalk vessels recently unearthed at Shuʿafat, occupied during the brief 70–132 CE interwar period. The character of this assemblage, presented here preliminarily, suggests that both use and production of chalk vessels continued unabated for decades after 70 CE, contradicting the notion that the chalk vessel industry was reliant on a functioning temple and that observance of the purity laws was inexorably linked with the Jerusalem cult.

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Purity beyond the Temple in the Second Temple Era

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Purity in Early Judaism: Current Issues and Questions

Purity in Early Judaism: Current Issues and Questions

Immersion is the new ritual: themiqvehat Khirbat al-Mukhayyat (Jordan) and Hasmonean agro-economic policies in the Late Hellenistic period

Ritual Purity in Daily Life after 70 CE: The Chalk Vessel Assemblage from Shuʿafat as a Test Case

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