Who was the “historical” Jesus? For some recent New Testament scholars, he was a reformer who, in mingling with the poor, healing lepers and preaching to the outcast, deliberately flouted Jewish purity laws—and the Temple system associated with them—attacking these laws as perpetuating social, economic and gender distinctions. Instead of a “politics of purity,” Jesus brought a “politics of compassion.” But that argument is flawed, according to Paula Fredriksen in “Did Jesus Oppose the Purity Laws?” The scholars who subscribe to this theory completely fail to understand the Jewish purity system, she points out, for neither sin nor social […]
