Purity, anti-Judaism and contemporary biblical interpretation

This thesis is concerned with problems arising from liberationist approaches to scriptural interpretation, both in the academy and in religious communities. In recent years the depiction of Jesus as freeing persons from oppressive Jewish purity laws has enjoyed attention in Christian theology and biblical criticism. Of late, however, a growing number of Jewish and Christian scholars has questioned this depiction, arguing that Jewish purity practices are generally misrepresented in contemporary New Testament interpretation. They contend that such misrepresentations are anti-Jewish. In this thesis I argue that, contrary to popular thought, there is no conclusive evidence that ritual impurity bore a distinct stigma or solely lead to oppression and marginalization. I also argue that Jesus’ attitude to purity law is in line with the Jewish thinking of this time. The thesis examines two case studies which are commonly understood in modern biblical interpretation to illustrate Jesus’ liberating rejection of Jewish purity practices: the healing of the leper in Mk. 1. 40-45 and the healing of the bleeding woman in Mk. 5. 25-34. Each text is analyzed in light of the broader context of Jewish purity practice and Greco-Roman ideas of purity in 1st century, as well as notions of illness and human physiology evident in ancient medical literature. The analysis reveals that in many readings of the Markan texts there is an overstating of the laws of purity and, at worst, a distortion of the laws for a contemporary Christian theological agenda. I also argue, however, that it is possible to interpret both texts in ways that are historically plausible and theologically powerful for the 21st century reader. Reading the texts from the view of the human body provides such a way. This is demonstrated when both texts are read in light of Greco-Roman notions of the human body as well as the broader Markan narrative framework and Christology. This thesis reveals an anti-Jewish bias in many liberationist readings of the texts concerning the leper and the bleeding woman. Concomitantly, it offers a new way to approach these texts that overcomes this bias. When the interpreter attends carefully to the multiplicity of ancient voices that constitute the 1st century landscape as well as to contemporary voices that are sensitive to the dignity of 1st century Judaism, new light is shed on how the gospels, texts of the past, are potentially transformative texts for the contemporary world.