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329 23 / Pollution, Purification, and Purgation in Biblical Israel 1983 MAJOR AND MINOR POLLUTIONS The ideas of pollution, purity, and purification were fundamental concepts of biblical Israel. The desire for purity was so intense that a major social class, the priesthood, was entrusted with the task of determining and giving instruction about purity and impurity. Pollution, the lack of purity, could affect individuals, the Temple, the collectivity of Israel, and the land of Israel itself. Some forms of pollution could be eradicated by rituals; the performance of these purifications and expiations was a major function of the priesthood. The pollution caused by the performance of certain deeds, however, could not be eradicated by rituals; Israel believed that the person intentionally committing these acts would suffer catastrophic retribution. Wrongful acts could cause the pollution of the nation and of the land of Israel, which could also not be “cured” by ritual. There was therefore an ultimate expectation of catastrophic results for the whole people, the “purging” of the land by destruction and exile. Pollution was thus thought to be one of the determinants of Israel’s history, and the concepts of pollution and purgation provided a paradigm by which Israel could understand and survive the destruction of the Temple. The idea of pollution was such an important part of Israel’s worldview that its primeval history, its story of origins, was also seen as a story of cosmic pollution and purgation. The simplest type of impurity is the impure state of the Levitical laws.1 If an individual comes in to contact with a polluting substance, that person becomes impure for seven days or more, in the case of major pollutions, or until evening, for minor pollutions. During the period of his impurity, the polluted individual is highly contagious. He must avoid 330 Theologies I contact with others and must take care to avoid coming into contact with the sacred. External causes (things) normally cause only minor contamination. The chief exception to this is death. Corpse-contamination is a most virulent pollution. Contamination for seven days results not only from contact with a corpse but also from being in a tent when someone dies, and even from contact with the human bones or graves of a corpsedefiled person (Num 19:11, 14, 16); everyone involved in purification rituals suffers minor contamination. In the ideal camp of the desert, therefore, corpse-defiled people were to stay outside the camp for seven days (Num 31:19). The other major external pollutant is the disease of leprosy (Lev 13–14). The leper’s contamination is considered so intense that he must dwell outside the camp, alone, and he must indicate his condition by tearing his clothes, growing a mustache, leaving his hair disheveled, and calling out, “Unclean, unclean” (Lev 13:45–46). He remains impure for seven days after the leprosy is pronounced healed. We are not informed what happens to an individual who comes into contact with a “leper” (assuming of course that he does not contract the disease from casual contact); we might speculate that he would become impure, perhaps for the major period of seven days. Other external causes of pollution (see chart below) cause only minor pollution. The extremely defiling nature of corpses has been explained as an attempt to avoid a cult of the dead (Wold 1979, 18). However, there may be a more fundamental reason: in Israelite cosmology it was considered vitally important to maintain the structure of the universe by keeping all distinctions (boundaries) firm (Douglas 1966, 53). The boundaries between life and death are crucial and no individual who has had contact with the world of death can be part of life. He must therefore sit in limbo—outside the camp—for seven days and undergo a special ritual (sprinkling with the “waters of impurity,” Num 19) to enable him to rejoin the life-group. Before he has spent his time in limbo and been readmitted to the group he belongs at least partially to the world of death. The severe isolation of the leper may also be related to this distinction between life and death (in addition to its value as a medical quarantine). If the disease was at all similar to modern leprosy, its affect in an advanced state was similar to the decomposition of a corpse; the biblical association of leprosy and corpses is expressed in Numbers 12:12, where the leprous Miriam is compared to one born dead and half decomposed. The...

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