Jesus and Ritual Impurity - The BAS Library

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Readers of the Gospels have frequently concluded that Jesus was opposed to the Jewish ritual purity system. But this was not the case.

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Footnotes

1. See Yonatan Adler, “Watertight and Rock Solid,” BAR, Spring 2021. For another perspective, see Cecilia Wassén, “Stepped Pools and Stone Vessels: Rethinking Jewish Purity Practices in Palestine,” BAR, July/August/September/October 2019.

Endnotes

1.
b. Berakhot 52b. See the important article of Yair Furstenberg, “Defilement Penetrating the Body: A New Understanding of Contamination in Mark 7.15,” New Testament Studies 54 (2008), pp. 176–200.

2.
For more, see Matthew Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels’ Portrayal of Ritual Impurity within First Century Judaism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020)