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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Sexual Pollution in the Hebrew Bible

Sexual Pollution in the Hebrew Bible

Feinstein, Eve Levavi

Hardcover

Religion General JudaismBible Studies

ISBN10: 0199395543
ISBN13: 9780199395545
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Sep 29 2014
Pages: 312
Weight: 1.20
Height: 1.30 Width: 6.20 Depth: 9.40
Language: English
The concepts of purity and pollution are fundamental to the worldview reflected in the Hebrew Bible, yet the ways biblical texts apply these concepts to sexual relationships remain largely overlooked.

Sexual Pollution in the Hebrew Bible argues that, when applied to sexual relations, pollution language usually reflects a conception of women as sexual property susceptible to being ruined for particular men through contamination by others. In contrast, however, the Holiness legislation of the Pentateuch applies such language to men who engage in transgressive sexual relations, conveying the idea that male bodily purity is a prerequisite for individual and communal holiness.

This understanding of sexual pollution, found in Leviticus 18, has a profound impact on later texts. In the book of Ezekiel, it contributes to a broader conception of pollution resulting from Israel's sins, which bring about the Babylonian exile. In the book of Ezra, it figures in a view of the Israelite community as a body of males contaminated by foreign women. Drawing on psychological and cross-cultural studies as well as philological and historical-critical analysis of biblical texts, Eve Feinstein's study illuminates the reasons why the idea of pollution adheres to particular domains of experience, including sex, death, and certain types of infirmity.

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