Sexual Pollution in the Hebrew Bible
Eve Levavi Feinstein
Abstract
The concepts of purity and pollution are fundamental to the worldview reflected in the Hebrew Bible, yet this is the first book to examine the ways biblical texts apply these concepts to sexual relationships. Drawing on psychological and cross-cultural studies as well as on philological and historical-critical analysis of biblical texts, this book argues that the concept of pollution is rooted in disgust and that pollution language applied to sexual relations expresses a sense of bodily contamination resulting from revulsion. Most texts in the Hebrew Bible that use pollution language in sexual ... More
The concepts of purity and pollution are fundamental to the worldview reflected in the Hebrew Bible, yet this is the first book to examine the ways biblical texts apply these concepts to sexual relationships. Drawing on psychological and cross-cultural studies as well as on philological and historical-critical analysis of biblical texts, this book argues that the concept of pollution is rooted in disgust and that pollution language applied to sexual relations expresses a sense of bodily contamination resulting from revulsion. Most texts in the Hebrew Bible that use pollution language in sexual contexts characterize women as polluted and reflect a conception of women as sexual property susceptible to being “ruined” for particular men through contamination by others. In contrast, the Holiness legislation of the Pentateuch applies pollution language to men who engage in transgressive sexual relations, conveying the idea that male bodily purity is a prerequisite for individual and communal holiness. Sexual transgressions contaminate the male body and ultimately result in exile when the land vomits out its inhabitants. This latter conception of sexual pollution, found in Leviticus 18, had a profound impact on later texts. In Ezekiel, it contributes to a broader conception of moral pollution that leads to exile. In Ezra, it figures in a view of the Israelite community as a body of males contaminated by foreign women.
Keywords:
Hebrew Bible,
purity, pollution,
Holiness legislation,
women,
disgust,
Leviticus 18,
Ezekiel,
Ezra
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2014 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199395545 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2014 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199395545.001.0001 |
