Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (Hardback)

Jonathan Klawans (author)

£120.00

Hardback 256 Pages / Published: 14/12/2000

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Synopsis

Much has been written about ritual impurity in ancient Judaism, but the question of how the ancient Jews understood the relationship between defilement and sin has largely been ignored. This book offers the first systematic exploration of the important topic to be published in the last seventy years. Jonathan Klawans takes the results of current research on the Hebrew Bible and applies them to early Jewish and Christian groups. The Bible, he shows, considers the moral impurity generated by sin to be entirely distinct from (but no less real than) the ritual impurity generated by bodily function such as menstruation. Klawans then traces the relationship between ritual and moral impurity from early Jewish sects through the New Testament and the theology of Saint Paul and shows how Christian theology arrived at the point where the need for ritual purity was entirely rejected.

Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
ISBN: 9780195132908
Number of pages: 256
Weight: 543 g
Dimensions: 242 x 162 x 22 mm

MEDIA REVIEWS

Will shape the ways in which scholars view and discuss the role of purity in early Judaism and Christianity ... makes a distinct and complementary contribution to the study of purity in ancient Jewish and Christian communities * Journal of Jewish Studies *
Klawans has offered some very helpful illumination, particularly to the study of the New Testament. The clarity and simplicity of his thought is very attractive, and throws light into some very obscure corners of ancient thought * Journal of Theological Studies *