Two factors help to explain this widespread practice. First, Jews of the first century believed that the biblical laws, including the purity laws, were divine in origin and hence were a requirement. Their concern was not whether to keep the law but how to do so within their own social and cultural context. Second, according to the law, only those who were in a state of purity could have contact with the sacred. Such holiness was associated not only with the temple but also with the biblical scrolls that were read on the Sabbath, and perhaps even the synagogue in which the Torah was read and studied. Jews purified themselves so that they could draw near to that which was holy. (65)
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Susan Haber on purity practices
I've assigned the edited volume, Common Judaism: Explorations in Second-Temple Judaism (Wayne O. McCready adn Adele Reinhartz, eds.; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), for my graduate-level course, The World of the New Testament. I note the late Susan Haber's discussion of the widespread practice of purity rituals (whether immersion in the land of Israel, or sprinkling, splashing, and/or handwashing in the Diaspora) among Second Temple-era Jews in her essay, "Common Judaism, Common Synagogue? Purity, Holiness, and Sacred Space at the Turn of the Common Era" (63–77). She notes, "Jews everywhere performed these purificatory rites whether or not they approached the sacred precincts of the Jerusalem temple" (65). She then goes on to explain this practice in the following terms:
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The study of Jewish purity laws got off to a bad start when it was widely assumed that ritual purity always (or even usually) has something to do with the Temple. We're only now waking up to how wrong that assumption is. (Neusner's theory that the Pharisees co-opted laws that pertained only to the priests has been particularly baneful.)
That's interesting. Haber's right, I think, to link the synagogue with the biblical scrolls as part of the question of the synagogue's holiness (and its relation to the question of purity). That is, how can we imagine that only the Temple was sacred if the synagogue housed the sacred writings and provided the ritual and social occasion for its reading and exposition? I don't see how Jews could hold views regarding the sacred-ness of the holy writings such as that expressed in Josephus, War 2.229–30; Apion 1.42–3 without coming to attribute some special-ness and even holiness to the institution that mediated the texts to the people.
Yes, Haber's right, but she doesn't go far enough when she writes "Such holiness was associated not only with the temple but also with the biblical scrolls that were read on the Sabbath, and perhaps even the synagogue in which the Torah was read and studied." She left out other daily holy activities, like praying. (I haven't read her article. I'm just going by what you've quoted, Rafael.) The hemerobaptists had a problem with the Pharisees because they would say their morning blessings without first purifying themselves by immersion.
It wasn't just the Temple ritual that required purity. It was anything and everything that represented a gesture of approach to God.
The Temple-link mistake has sometimes caused historical Jesus scholars to go off in wrong directions, as when Marcus Borg saw an anti-Temple view driving Jesus' apparent relaxations of purity concerns.
It wasn't just the Temple ritual that required purity. It was anything and everything that represented a gesture of approach to God.
This is really interesting. The example you cite (conflict between hemerobaptists [is that a commonly used term?] and Pharisees) raises the question for whom "it" (= purity) was anything and everything that represented a gesture of approach to God. And even if this is generally true, were there debates regarding what constituted gestures of approach to God?
I'm interested in these questions because I wonder if Jesus and/or the early Christians would have accepted the term relaxation for their views on purity, or if they saw themselves as advocating a more rightly structured practice of purity.
Good questions.
As for the disagreement between the hemerobaptists and the Pharisees, it was not a disagreement over *whether* one needed to be pure, but rather over *how* one becomes pure. The hemerobaptists required full bodily submersion, while the Pharisees were content merely to wash their hands.
I also happen to believe that the early Christians--including Paul (!)--believed in ritual purity. That's why Paul instructs couples to withhold from one another for the sake of prayer (1 Cor 7:5). But in the case of Paul, the practice of purity doesn't necessarily mean that we are dealing with a survival of Jewish practices. Rather, the whole religious world at that time--Jewish as well as pagan--followed purity practices, and so it would be really surprising if Paul didn't follow them.
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