Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The sources of impurity: the human corpse
- 2 The corpse in the tent: an excursus
- 3 The sources of impurity: menstruation
- 4 The sources of impurity: childbirth: the zabah and zab
- 5 Normal emission of semen
- 6 Animals and purity
- 7 Impurity and sacrifices
- 8 The Red Cow: the paradoxes
- 9 The Red Cow and niddah
- 10 Leprosy
- 11 The purification of the leper
- 12 Corpse and leper: an excursus
- 13 Ritual purity in the New Testament
- 14 Milgrom on purity in the Bible
- 15 From demons to ethics
- 16 Ritual purity and morality
- Appendix A The haberim
- Appendix B The rabbinic system of grades of impurity
- References
- Index of quotations
- General index
3 - The sources of impurity: menstruation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The sources of impurity: the human corpse
- 2 The corpse in the tent: an excursus
- 3 The sources of impurity: menstruation
- 4 The sources of impurity: childbirth: the zabah and zab
- 5 Normal emission of semen
- 6 Animals and purity
- 7 Impurity and sacrifices
- 8 The Red Cow: the paradoxes
- 9 The Red Cow and niddah
- 10 Leprosy
- 11 The purification of the leper
- 12 Corpse and leper: an excursus
- 13 Ritual purity in the New Testament
- 14 Milgrom on purity in the Bible
- 15 From demons to ethics
- 16 Ritual purity and morality
- Appendix A The haberim
- Appendix B The rabbinic system of grades of impurity
- References
- Index of quotations
- General index
Summary
The bodily discharges that cause serious impurity are menstruation, childbirth, and ‘running issues’ from either male or female (i.e., abnormal discharge of semen, in the case of the male, and abnormal uterine bleeding, in the case of the female). Another discharge that causes less serious impurity is normal discharge of semen, whether by involuntary nocturnal emission, or by voluntary sexual activity.
How do these discharges relate to the greatest source of impurity, the human corpse? Is there a common theme here? Jacob Milgrom argues that there is.
Moreover, in the Israelite mind, blood was the archsymbol of life … Its oozing from the body was no longer the work of demons, but it was certainly the sign of death. In particular, the loss of seed in vaginal blood … was associated with the loss of life. Thus it was that Israel – alone among the peoples – restricted impurity solely to those physical conditions involving the loss of vaginal blood and semen, the forces of life, and to scale disease, which visually manifested the approach of death … All other bodily issues and excrescences were not tabooed, despite their impure status among Israel's contemporaries, such as cut hair or nails in Persia and India and the newborn child as well as its mother in Greece and Egypt. Human feces were also not declared impure (despite Deut. 23:12; Ezek. 4:12). Why, wonders Dillman, does not the Bible label human feces impure, as do the Indians (Manu 5.138ff), Persians (Vend. 17.11ff) and Essenes (Jos. War 2.8,9; cf 11QT46:15)? The answer is clear. […]
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- Information
- Ritual and MoralityThe Ritual Purity System and its Place in Judaism, pp. 30 - 46Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999