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“They Shall Purify Themselves”: Essays on Purity in Early Judaism
by Susan Haber
Early Judaism and its Literature. Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta, 2008. 240 pp. $32.95. ISBN 978-1-58983-355-5.
Susan Haber was a doctoral student at McMaster University when she died in 2006 after a brief illness. The quality and insightfulness of the work she left behind, collected here under the editorship of Adele Reinhartz, suggests the loss the academy suffered as a result of her untimely death. Haber examines conceptions of impurity and the application of the laws of cultic cleanness in antique Judaism. The issues are of central and growing interest and importance in contemporary study, and this book provides an excellent point of entry, both in Haber’s reviews of past scholarship (part 1) and in her own synthetic studies of the meaning of purity in ancient Judaism (parts 2–3).
The three bibliographic studies that comprise the book’s first section cover “Ritual and Moral Purity and Impurity” in the HB, Second Temple Judaism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The question Haber examines is whether sin was understood to lead to defilement in the same way as contact with physical sources of uncleanness. Study of this relationship between sin and uncleanness has recurred over the last decades, and interest has grown in the face of recent scholarly concern for the construction of the body in ancient cultures. Here, Haber largely reviews the approaches and conclusions of the many scholars who have addressed this ques- tion, offering an initial critique but not, in this setting, attempting her own synthesis of the diverse and often ambiguous evidence. Her work is a valuable point of entry into this current and ongoing debate.
Section Two examines the role purity played in selected Second Temple and early Christian pericopae: the martyrdom of the mother and seven sons in 2 Maccabees, the language of purity and temple in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the story of the hemorrhaging woman in Mark 5:24–34, and the rejection of Jewish purity law as a central aspect of Hebrews’ polemic against Judaism. The final section, “Historical Studies,” concerns the role of purity in first-century Jewish life, reflecting on whether the early synagogue was considered a place of sanctity that required ritual purification before entering, comparable to the Jerusalem temple, and considering Jesus’ possible participation in purity rituals upon his arrival in Jerusalem, and prior to his entry into the temple. In both of these instances, recognizing purity as a central concern of biblical and post-biblical Judaism, Haber finds good evidence to assume the application of the purity regimen. Throughout the essays in the second and third sections of the book, she heightens our awareness of the need to confront the centrality of purity in early Judaism if we are to understand either the context of Jesus’ early ministry or the self-definition of Christianity as Christians broke from Jewish theology and practice.
In all of these essays, Haber offers close and critical analyses of texts that bring us directly to a central concern of classical Judaism. These studies are of value to anyone who wishes to grasp how within the temple and, especially after its destruction, Jews, and then early Christians, struggled with the meaning and purpose of the Levitical purity laws, which we see here in their central role within early Judaism.
Alan J. Avery-Peck
College of the Holy Cross
Worcester, Massachusetts
God’s Tapestry: Reading the Bible in a World of Religious Diversity
by W. Eugene March
Westminster John Knox, Louisville, 2009. 113 pp. $16.95. ISBN 978-0-664-23360-0.
How to adapt to our religiously diverse and pluralistic world is the issue that Eugene March explores in God’s Tapestry: Reading the Bible in a World of Religious Diversity. He says that in order to do so, Christians must address two crucial issues. First, we must reexamine many long held assumptions about the Bible; and second, American Christians must become educated about our new historical context. March uses the metaphor of a tapestry to describe God’s work in the world, contending that the “rich tapestry of religious tradition . . . is God’s gift to us, intended to help us better understand God’s graciousness” (p. 93). March argues that instead of the exclusivist and condescending view toward other faiths that Christians have held for centuries, God wants us to become better informed about our own religion and to engage in honest, open dialogue with those of other faiths.
March questions whether the view that Christian faith is the only way to have a relationship with God is what the Bible really teaches. He shows that the Bible records various instances in which our forbearers also confronted religious diversity and pluralism, often learning and adapting from others. March quotes Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who says that every great faith has both abrasive, harsh texts that endorse particularism, suspicion of strangers, and intolerance of others, and generous texts that emphasize kinship, empathy, and the courage to extend a hand across boundaries of estrangement or hostility. March wants us to emphasize the latter.
March also addresses ways that American congregations can understand and adapt to the new religious diversity. He emphasizes that the language we use and the approach we take to relating to other faiths should be respectful and inclusive. He makes many practical suggestions for congregations, such as inviting those of other faiths into mutual conversation, doing joint work projects, and establishing an inter-faith council or forum in their local community.
In a post–9/11 world, it is crucial that Christians find positive ways to relate to and engage those of other faiths. If we cannot, violent expressions of faith threaten to create more terrorism and xenophobia. Congregations would benefit greatly from reading March’s book, discussing the questions included at the end of every chapter, and implementing his suggestions for reaching out to those of other faiths.
Hampton Deck
First Presbyterian Church
Vallejo, California
Not God’s People: Insiders and Outsiders in the Biblical World
by Lawrence M. Wills
Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Md., 2008. 257 pp. $26.95. ISBN 978-0-7425-6250-9.
This book examines the vision of the “Other” as constructed by texts from the biblical world, including the HB, 1 and 2 Maccabees, the Gospels of Matthew and John, the letters of Paul, and the Acts of the Apostles. While the main emphasis is on how and why biblical texts construct their visions of the Other, Not God’s People also reflects a concern with how these constructions affect the ideas, attitudes, and sensibilities of modern Christians and Jews. Drawing on theoretical approaches to identity and the Other, Lawrence Wills proposes nine theorems that apply not only to biblical texts, but also to a wide range of contexts. Theorem 1, for example, called “From Other to We,” posits that the construction of the Other can serve to construct the We. The theorems provide a useful matrix for the analysis of specific texts and help to unify a large and diverse body of material. Wills shows conclusively that biblical texts exhibit little if any continuity with regard to the vision and construction of the Other, even when they claim to do so. The close triangular relationship between constructions of the Other, prejudice, and violence suggests that the damage of violence and prejudice can be un done only by perceiving the construction of the Other in all cultures and recognizing its relationship to power.
This important book can help us to understand the complex role that the construction of the Other can play in identity formation. Along the way, numerous difficult exegetical issues are dealt with in a responsible and nuanced manner. For example, Wills provides an excellent and succinct discussion of the thorny question of the Johannine use of “the Jews” (hoi Ioudaioi). He concludes, correctly in my view, that “the Jews” serve as a cipher for the Other within the narrative world of the text, and that this narrative role expresses the alienation that the Johannine community may have felt with regard to the Jews among whom they lived.
This well-written and engaging book will be of interest to scholars and general readers alike. It is not only an excellent study in biblical exegesis and thought, but also has implications for the ongoing relationship between identity and the Other in our own times.
Adele Reinhartz
University of Ottawa
Ontario, Canada
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