¹ This is not to equate the views of these two scholars, for indeed, there are many differences between them. However, in Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (3 vols.; 4th ed.; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1901–1909),Google Scholar Emil Schürer wrote “Die Trennung wurde noch verschärft durch die Anschauung, dass der Heide, weil er die Reinheitsgesetze nicht beobachtet, unrein sei; daher aller Verkehr mit ihm verunreinige. … Wenn es in der Apostelgeschichte heisst, dass ein Jude nicht mit einem Heiden verkehren dürfe, 10,28, so ist dies zwar nicht dahin misszuverstehen, als ob der Verker schlechthin verboten gewesen wäre; wohl aber ist damit desagt, dass jeder solche Verkehr eine Verunreinigung bewirkte” (2. 91). The translation in A History of the Jewish People in the Times ofJesus Christ (ed. Taylor, Sophie and Christie, Peter; New York: Scribner's, 1891)Google Scholar is a faithful representation of the original German: “The separation of Judaism from heathenism … was still further inculcated by the notion, that a Gentile—as a non-observer of the laws of purification—was unclean, and that consequently all intercourse with him was defiling; … when it is said (Acts 10:28), that a Jew might have no intercourse with a heathen … this must not indeed be misunderstood to the extent of supposing that there was an absolute prohibition of all intercourse, yet it does mean that ceremonial uncleanness was incurred by such intercourse” (2. 54). Compare the revised and edited English version by Geza Vermes et al. in The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 BC-AD 195) (Edinburgh: Clark) 1973-1987, in which the phrase “all intercourse with him was defiling” (“daher aller Verkehr mit ihm verunreinige”) is modified to “certain contacts with them were thought to defile” (2. 83). That the basic principle of a Gentile ritual impurity informs biblical legislation, is assumed by Schürer (see, for example,Google Scholar, Taylor and , Christie, History of the Jewish People, 300 n. 269Google Scholar; compare Vermes et al., History of the Jewish People, 310 n. 62).

Alon, Gedaliah (“The Levitical Uncleanness of Gentiles,” in Jews, Judaism and the Classical World: Studies in Jewish History in the Time of the Second Temple and Talmud [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1977] 187)Google Scholar argues for an intrinsic and permanent ritual impurity of Gentiles as an established halakic principle, “an ancient national concept that finds expression in prophetic utterances and is discernible even in the teaching of the Samaritans and Falashas, concerning the uncleanness of idols and their worshippers.” His claim that the talmudic rabbis sought to weaken the principle of Gentile ritual impurity by declaring it to be rabbinic rather than Pentateuchal (149) suggests that in his view Gentile ritual impurity is a biblical postulate.

² Again, this is not to equate the views of these scholars in all respects. However, Biichler, Adolf states in “The Levitical Impurity of the Gentile in Palestine Before the Year 70” (JQR 17 [1926] 80),Google Scholar“As to the levitical impurity of the Gentile, it was instituted by the rabbis about the year 1 as a novelty going beyond the law in Lev 15.” In “Notions of Gentile Impurity in Ancient Judaism” (AJS Review 20 [1995] 285–312),Google Scholar Jonathan Klawans states succinctly: “no biblical text considers Gentiles to be ritually impure” (291).

³ Epstein, Louis, Marriage Laws in the Bible and Talmud (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942).Google Scholar

⁴ See for example, Steinfeld, Zvi Arie, “The Decrees Against Gentiles and their Daughters According to R. Nahman bar Yitshak”, Annual of Bar-Han University 20/21 (1983) 25–42 [Hebrew];Google Scholar and Werman's, Cana doctoral dissertation Hayahas lagoyim beSefer haYovlim uvesifrut Kumran behashvaah lahalakhah hatanait hekedumah ulesifrut hitsonit bat hatekufah (Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1995).Google ScholarEndres, John C. (Biblical Interpretation in the Book of Jubilees [CBQS, Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1987] 75 n. 49)Google Scholar cites ritual impurity of Gentiles as the reason for Jubilees' (second century BCE) prohibition of intermarriage. In The Alien in Israelite Law (JSOTSS 107; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,1991), Christiana van Houten writes: “The reasons given in the [biblical] text for the [prohibition of intermarriage with] the Ammonite, Moabite, Edomite, and Egyptian (Deut. 23.3-8) are not accepted at face value by most commentators. Von Rad claims that the determining factor for excluding anyone is cultic, and not political or historical” (100). It may be supposed that von Rad's cultic factor is ritual impurity.

⁵ For a full discussion of levitical terminology see David P. Wright, “Holiness (OT),” ABD (1992) 3. 237-49 (esp. pp. 246-47 [Dl]); and Jacob Milgrom, “Priestly (“P”) Source,” ABD (1992) 5. 454-61.

⁶ Though for the debate on this point, see below.

⁷ On this, see Weinfeld, Moshe, “Universalism and Particularism in the Period of Exile and Restoration,” Tarbiz 33 (1964) 228–42 [Hebrew]Google Scholar.

⁸ Cohen, Shaye, “From the Bible to the Talmud: The Prohibition of Intermarriage,” Hebrew Annual Review 7 (1983) 23–39.Google Scholar

⁹ , Epstein, Marriage Laws, 158.Google Scholar

¹⁰ The call for the destruction of the Canaanites is paralleled by a call for the utter destruction of their idols and sacred sites, and for much the same reason: their existence threatens to entice the Israelites away from their God. “You shall consign the images of their gods to the fire; you shall not covet the silver and gold on them and keep it for yourselves, lest you be ensnared thereby; for that is abhorrent to the Lord your God” (Deut 7:25).

¹¹ Deut 7:2b-4; emphasis added. According to the Deuteronomistic historian it is precisely because the Israelites did not carry out the command utterly to proscribe the Canaanites and were drawn continually to acts of idolatry and various moral crimes that the great national odyssey that began so auspiciously in Genesis ended in tragedy. The historical narrative that concludes in Kings is written in terms of this dire vision.

¹² Here we can bring greater precision to Shaye Cohen's statement that “since the scriptural reason for the prohibition [in Deuteronomy 7] applies equally to all Gentiles … [later exegetes concluded] that the prohibition itself applies equally to all Gentiles” (“From the Bible to the Talmud,” 27; see also 29). In other words, a universal prohibition of intermarriage can be derived from the moral-religious rationale found in Deuteronomy 7. To be precise, however, one must say that the moral-religious rationale serves to broaden the scope of the law so as to include any Gentile who leads the Israelite partner into idolatry, but it does not necessarily render the law universal. On the contrary, the implication of this rationale is that exogamous unions that do not result in moral or religious alienation of the Israelite partner (that is, unions in which the Gentile assimilates or converts) are permitted. This rationale applies only to unassimilated or “unconverted” Gentiles. Accordingly, when Philo and Josephus assume that a universal ban on intermarriage is Mosaic and derive this ban from Deuteronomy 7, they do so (as Cohen is aware) only because the phenomenon of conversion exists in the late Second Temple period. By the time of Philo and Josephus, the possibility existed for a Gentile formally to convert and to marry a Jew. By definition, intermarriage at this time would connote marriage with an unconverted Gentile. The latter would be perceived as a threat to the moral and religious integrity of the Israelite partner precisely because he or she has rejected the option of conversion. In short, it is only because marriages between Jews and converted Gentiles do not fall under the rubric of intermarriage at all (intermarriage being the marriage of a Jew and unconverted Gentile) that Philo and Josephus can understand the moral and religious rationale for the ban on intermarriage as extending the ban so as to cover all (that is, all unconverted) Gentiles.

Cohen is correct to assert that R. Simeon b. Yohai derives a universal ban on intermarriage from Deuteronomy 7 and that this derivation has to do with the rationale provided by the passage. R. Simeon b. Yohai employs a midrashic technique to arrive at his ruling, however, and this is not at all the same as deriving the ban from the rationale qua rationale in the manner of Philo or Josephus.

¹³ For example, Moses' marriage to a Midianite woman. Joseph's marriage to an Egyptian (Gen 41:9) and some royal marriages, particularly in the northern kingdom, are also accepted in the biblical context. More remarkable are those narratives in which a woman from a nation specifically prohibited by Torah law not only joins the community through marriage but is recognized as something of a moral giant, such as the Canaanite (!) Tamar in Genesis 38 who teaches Judah a lesson in righteousness and family obligation, and Ruth the Moabite who is determined to throw in her lot with the Israelite community and who is ultimately praised for her steadfast loyalty (hesed).

¹⁴ Actually, as Cohen points out (“From the Bible to the Talmud,” 157) the exclusion of Canaanites from the law of Deut 20:14 is explicit, but their exclusion from Deut 21:10-14 is not. Perhaps even beautiful Canaanite captives were permitted to convert by means of the ritual detailed in Deuteronomy 21.

¹⁵ Epstein views Deuteronomy 7 as wartime legislation that had little application in peacetime except in prohibiting alliances and covenants (including intermarriages) that would lead to the alienation of the Israelite partner. Presumably alliances that did not result in such alienation are not prohibited by Deuteronomy 7. Further, Epstein argues (Marriage Laws, 158-59) that war captive wives and foreign slave wives are permitted because the Gentile partner is clearly in an inferior position and thus not able to impose her idolatrous practices upon her captor or master, but must accept Israelite religion.

¹⁶ , Cohen, “From the Bible to the Talmud,” 31–32.Google Scholar

¹⁷ This interpretation is found in I Kgs 11:1-2 and Neh 13:23-28. Other biblical passages interpret the phrase as banning entry into the sanctuary itself (Lam 1:10). It may be that both interpretations appear simultaneously in Neh 13:1-9, where the reading of Deut 23:4-6 prompts Nehemiah to take two actions: he separates the alien admixture from Israel (the first interpretation) and throws Tobiah the Ammonite out of the Temple (the second interpretation).

¹⁸ , Epstein (Marriage Laws, 159–60)Google Scholar explains the prohibitions in Deuteronomy 23 in relation to the prohibition in Deuteronomy 7. The latter text marked the seven Canaanite nations for extinction because of the extreme danger they posed to the Israelites. No covenant, including a marriage alliance, was to be permitted since the Canaanites were to be completely destroyed. Ammon and Moab were traditional enemies but they were not such a threat as to warrant destruction—a ban on intermarriage was sufficient. The hostility to and threat from Egypt and Edom were less again, and thus the prohibition on intermarriage is temporary.

¹⁹ To be precise, Epstein does state that, according to Ezra, Jews are holy seed, that heathens belong to the uncleanness of the nations, and that intermarriage is defilement (Marriage Laws, 162; I shall assess these claims anon). The bulk of Epstein's discussion, however, describes the issue in terms of racial purity and the purity of blood. This is inaccurate because the holy status of the Israelites is not racially but religiously based. That is, their higher (and holy) status is not intrinsic to their race per se; it is not the result of a perceived biological superiority or racial virtue. Rather, it is the result of God's separation of the seed of Abraham to himself, an act that conferred upon that seed a holy status. To use the term “racial” obscures the element of accident involved initially. See Weinfeld, “Universalism and Particularism,” 238, who speaks of a biological-religious concept underlying the Ezran ban on intermarriage.

²⁰ And possibly from Neh 13:26. This passage, referring to Solomon, states that foreign women caused him to sin. Whether this is the moral-religious rationale (they caused him to commit or at least to tolerate or support idolatry) or the holy seed rationale (they caused him to profane holy seed) is not clear, but verses 23–24 would suggest that the former rationale is assumed.

²¹ , Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 359–61.Google Scholar

²² For D's conception of the contrast between the nation of God and the other nations of the world, see Weinfeld, Moshe, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic World (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972) 225–32Google Scholar.

²³ In this connection it is instructive to compare Nehemiah 13. Neh 13:1-3 refers to a separation of the alien admixture from Israel. Only in regard to the intermarriage of the priests and Levites does Nehemiah use terms that imply a desecration of sancta (see Neh 13:30 for ΠΠΟ to describe not so much a state of ritual purity but a purging of all admixture; compare English “pure,” which can also mean unalloyed or free of admixture as well as connoting a state of ritual fitness). It is possible that in Nehemiah's view intermarriage descrates holy seed only in the case of priests and Levites and not necessarily in the case of Israelites. If so, Nehemiah relies on the premise of P (rather than H or D), which assigns holy status to priests and Levites only. Josephus follows Nehemiah closely; in his description of the Ezran ban, he does not elide the differences between Israelite and priest and does not apply the law against profaning the holy seed to the lay Israelite. In Ant. 11.3.139-53, Josephus presents his version of the intermarriage that occurred in the time of Ezra. According to Josephus, certain men—commoners, Levites, and priests—were accused of “having violated the constitution and broken the laws of the country by marrying foreign wives and mixing the strain of priestly families.” Notice that only the priests' intermarriage is described by Josephus in genealogical terms (“mixing the strain” or seed), while the intermarriage of the Israelites is described as merely illegal, a breach of the constitution or covenant. Apparently, he does not hold with the literalization of the rhetoric of D and the democratization of the priestly concern with genealogy and the preservation of the holy line unalloyed that follows from that literalization.

A further correspondence between Nehemiah and Josephus appears in the nontechnical use of the term “pure” (Hebrew ΠΠΟ and Greek katharon). Biblically, tahor has a primary levitical usage denoting ritual fitness for contact with sancta, as well as a nontechnical, nonlevitical usage denoting a moral value (for example, Ps 51:12: “create in me a clean/pure heart, O God”). Josephus also uses the term in this way in Ant. 1.8, where he notes that one must keep oneself “pure” from the shedding of blood (compare also T. Joseph 4:7, “a pure heart”). Yet, the Greek term katharon commonly used to translate Hebrew tahor bears the additional meaning “free of admixture” (like English “pure;” see for example Letter of Aristeas 139), and Josephus uses the term katharon to mean “free of admixture” in a genealogical sense denoting a “pure” seed or line of descent. The term “pure” is never used biblically to denote an unmixed or unalloyed genealogical line or seed—with the possible exception of the verb form in Neh 13:30—but Josephus uses the term this way, in reference to priests. In Ap. 1.7, he speaks of the priestly lineage of the Jews which has been kept “unmixed and pure” (ἄμικτον καί καθσρόν). It is interesting to note that in Ant. 4. 20. 228-30, he uses the same two terms to describe the Torah's prohibition against sowing seeds of diverse kinds. “The seeds are also to be pure and without mixture (καθαρά & llip; καί άνεΠίμικτα), and not to be compounded of two or three sorts, since nature does not rejoice in the union of things that are not in their own nature alike: nor are you to permit beasts of different kinds to gender together.” The linguistic similarity suggests a conceptual identity. Diverse human seeds, like diverse vegetable and animal seeds, are to remain unmixed and “pure.” Nevertheless, according to Josephus it is the priestly seed that is in need of preservation and not that of the ordinary Israelite, who could, for example, marry a convert.

²⁴ The debate over the scope of Ezra's prohibition centers on the terms 'amme ha'arets (local non-Israelites) as opposed to 'amme ha'aretsot (foreigners), regarding which see Ginsberg, H. L., The Israelian Heritage of Judaism (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1982) 8–16Google Scholar.

²⁵ Milgrom notes that Ezra 9:1's list of peoples involved in intermarriage originally may have included only local aliens (Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, and Jebusites) and not the four groups prohibited in Deuteronomy 23—Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Edomites (the latter term following LXX manuscripts and 1 Esdr 8:68, instead of “Amorites”). It was the innovation of Ezra or a later tradent to add the four nations of Deuteronomy 23 to the list of local peoples subject to the ban (herem) in Deuteronomy 7 (, Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 360).Google Scholar The verse can be understood differently, however: Ezra prohibits the peoples of the land (that is, local inhabitants) because their practices are as abhorrent as the practices of the Canaanites. The eight parties listed do not actually figure in Ezra's prohibition. They are invoked for purposes of comparison only so as to justify the prohibition of local inhabitants. The latter are as abhorrent in their behavior as these well-known abhorrent peoples and must be avoided. Nevertheless, verses like Ezra 10:11 “Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign women.…” imply that even nonlocal foreign women are prohibited. In any event, even if Ezra's ban on intermarriage were not universal, it was later construed to be in some circles.

²⁶ , Epstein, Marriage Laws, 163.Google Scholar

²⁷ Philo Spec. leg. 3.29.

²⁸ Josephus Ant. 4.8.2 and 8.5.191-93.

²⁹ Nevertheless, Josephus misrepresents the biblical record when he refers to a law prohibiting marriage with a foreign woman (Ant. 11.6.187; also 8.6.345). As we have seen, except for certain permanently disqualified groups, intermarriage resulting in the assimilation of the non-Israelite partner into the Israelite community is not forbidden by the Torah, nor spoken of disparagingly. (Josephus himself knows that “converted Gentiles” can marry Israelites [see Ant. 20.7.1,139]). Thus, in all likelihood Josephus understands the ban to refer to unconverted Gentiles (see n. 12 above).

³⁰ Tob 4:12a.

³¹ Tob 4:12b. From the same period, the book of Judith describes the rape of Dinah in terms that extend beyond the debasement of the individual woman (an idea already found in Gen 34:5, 27) to the debasement of her offspring (surely the meaning of “womb” in Jdt 9:2) and Israel generally. The language is again in keeping with the idea of distinct seeds, one of which has a negative effect upon the other.

³² Perhaps “outsiders,” “foreigners” (as in T. Levi 9.9-10; see next note), or merely “women with whom marriage is prohibited.” For the difficulties in translating this term see the discussion of 1131 below.

³³ See also T. Levi 9.9-10 “Beware of the spirit of fornication; for this shall continue and shall by thy seed pollute the holy place. Take, therefore, to thyself a wife without blemish and pollution, while yet thou art young, and not of the race of strange nations” (in Charles, R. H., ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English [Oxford: Clarendon, 1913] 310). Here, marriage with a foreign woman is said to constitute fornication and to result in seed unfit for the holy placeGoogle Scholar.

³⁴ Lev 21:7, 14. In Leviticus 21 prohibitions for the priestly class regarding contact with corpses and marriage are sandwiched between exhortations to them to remain holy and not defile themselves (verse 1) or profane their seed (verse 15) among their people. A priest's marriage with unsuitable persons is thus explicitly linked with defilement and profanation in this chapter (though the latter is the most proximate rationale for the marriage restrictions).

³⁵ Werman, Cana, “Jubilees 30: Building a Paradigm for the Ban on Intermarriage,” HTR 90 (1997) 1–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarJubilees bans sexual intercourse between Gentiles and Israelites, whether marital or nonmarital, in equal terms. In the present discussion of Jubilees, the term “intermarriage” should be understood to include even nonmarital intercourse.

³⁶ One difference concerns a point made tangentially in Werman's article. Werman does not view Jubilees 30 and 4QMMT as sharing a common view of intermarriage (see especially Werman, “Jubilees 30,” 14 n. 60).

³⁷ Ibid., 14.

³⁸ Ibid., 16.

³⁹ Werman's reliance on AJon's notion of an intrinsic Gentile ritual impurity is implied throughout (ibid., 17 and n. 75) and is explicit in her larger work (Hayahas lagoyim).

⁴⁰ The apparent exception in Jub. 30.10 only proves my claim that Jubilees does not assume ritual impurity of Gentiles communicated by physical contact in its ban on intermarriage, since the verse attributes the defilement of the Israelite woman to her father, that is, her father has defiled her. Precisely what kind of defilement is intended will be discussed below.

⁴¹ Further, precisely how the ritual defilement of the individual Israelite is transferred to the entire nation is not adequately explained by Werman. She states (“Jubilees 30,” 15) that Jubilees conflates two types of impurity, one imparted by physical contact and the other generic, inclusive, and unbounded. In other words, she appears to hold that the defilement of intermarriage is in the first instance a ritual impurity contracted through physical contact with Gentiles, but which, unlike other instances of ritual impurity, extends so as to pollute the entire nation (rather than the sanctuary). Such a description, however, counters much of what we know about the dynamics of ritual impurity which, according to P, can defile the sanctuary from afar but does not defile the entire nation. Only moral impurity as described in H can defile the nation. Although Jubilees may be innovating here, an explanation of the impurity associated with intermarriage in Jubilees that is consistent with P's representation of the nature and dynamics of ritual impurity and H's representation of the nature and dynamics of moral impurity is to be preferred. I believe my analysis provides just such an explanation.

⁴² These distinctions are not, of course, new and Klawans himself acknowledges his debt to the work of Jacob Neusner, Jacob Milgrom and Tikva Frymer-Kensky (Klawans, “Notions of Gentile Impurity,” 288 nn. 13-14). Klawans's contribution lies in his application of these concepts to the specific case of Gentile impurity.

⁴³ Ibid., 289.

⁴⁴ Ibid., 288.

⁴⁵ Compare , Werman, “Jubilees 30,” 11–14,Google Scholar for a somewhat different assessment of Jubilees' interpretation of Scripture.

⁴⁶ “Now then, if you will obey me faithfully and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples. Indeed, all the earth is mine, but you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

⁴⁷ We may assume also the influence of D's 'am qadosh (“holy people”). However, Jubilees explicitly cites Exod 19:5–6 in a passage that will be examined below.

⁴⁸ See Berger, Klaus, Das Buch der Jubiläen (JSHRZ 2.3 [Gütersloh: G. Mohn, 1981][) 471 n. 7gGoogle Scholar; cited in , Endres, Biblical Interpretation, 1988, 140 n. 62: “The priestly prescriptions were made obligatory for the entire people because of the emphasis on the holiness of Israel.” Endres also mentions the extension of some aspects of priestly holiness to all Israel: “Rather than establishing different standards for the laity and the priest, the author of Jubilees imposed on the entire community a higher and more rigorous standard of ritual purity than that originally prescribed for the priests” (141).Google ScholarSee also Milgrom, Jacob (“Scriptural Foundation and Deviations in the Laws of Purity of the Temple Scroll,” in Schiffman, Lawrence H., ed., Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls [Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990] 86–87)Google Scholar for a description of the Temple Scroll as adopting a maximalist position in its purity demands for ordinary Israelites dwelling in the Temple city, who must lead priestly, celibate lives.

⁴⁹ Jubilees contains the first literary appearance of the sexual exegesis of this verse, though Vermes assumes that it is probably older. For the ambiguity of this verse and its history of interpretation see Vermes, Geza, “Leviticus 18:21 in Ancient Jewish Bible Exegesis,” Petuchowski, Jakob and Fleischer, Ezra, eds., Studies in Aggadah, Targum and Jewish Liturgy in Memory of Joseph Heineman (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1981) [Hebrew].Google Scholar In some sources (m. Meg. 4.9 [ms. readings], Tg. Neof. to Lev 20:2 [marginal gloss], Tg. Ps.-J. to Lev 20:2) the verse is interpreted as referring specifically to intercourse between a Jewish man and a Gentile woman, probably because of the verb leha'abir which is taken to mean “impregnate.”

⁵⁰ See Lev 18:28 and 20:22. It may be that a similar line of interpretation was behind Ezra's claim in Ezra 9 that the fate of the nation depends on its obedience to the prohibition on intermarriage. After asserting that the first destruction was the result of the Israelites' failure to separate themselves from the Canaanites, Ezra asks in verse 14 “shall we once again violate your commandments by intermarrying with those people who follow such abhorrent practices? Will you not rage against us till we are destroyed without remnant or survivor?”

⁵¹ Werman (“Jubilees 30,” 14) seems to see the term as denoting a ritual impurity even in its biblical context (but see ibid., 4 n. 14).

⁵² It should further be noted that some sectarian writings conflate the terms for defilement/ impurity with terms for “profanation/desecration” as in fact the Holiness Code already does (, Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 37). At times, the more severe term (אמם), “defile,” is used in cases of mere profanation (ללח). So Jubilees' claim that intermarriage not only profanes but defiles the holy seed may be a symptom of its imprecise usage of the terms. For an alternative explanation, see belowGoogle Scholar.

⁵³ Jub. 16.17-18; emphasis added. Translations of Jubilees are those of Wintermute, O. S. in OTPGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁴ For example, Jub. 25.3, where Rebekah admonishes Jacob not to marry a Canaanite woman because of their unclean deeds; rather “thou shalt take thee a wife of the house of thy father … and thy children shall be a righteous generation and a holy seed.”

⁵⁵ Or “fornication,” reading zenut instead of zonah or zonot. See Vanderkam, James C., The Book ofJubilees: A Critical Text (CSCO; Louvain: Peeters, 1989) 2. 193.Google Scholar According to Vanderkam, the Latin text has “adulteress,” while the Ethiopic text has “adulterer.” For the second term, the Latin gives an abstract noun (abomination) while the Ethiopic could contain either an abstract noun or “a male abominator.” Vanderkam notes that “both texts may be employing abstract nouns here” though he ultimately rejects the idea without clear reason.

⁵⁶ Note the assertion (similar to that of Josephus) that intermarriage with Gentiles is explicitly prohibited by God in the code delivered to Moses. While intermarriage with certain specific non-Israelites (for example, Canaanites) is prohibited, there is, of course, no general prohibition against intermarriage with all Gentiles.

⁵⁷ Jub. 30.8. See n. 48 above. Here, Jubilees picks up on Gen 34:31 “should he treat our sister as a zonah (whore)?” in order to label the miscegenation in this chapter as zenut (, Werman, “Jubilees 30,” 156)Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ , Werman, “Jubilees 30,” 14.Google Scholar See also T. Levi 14.5-7, which compares priestly intermarriage with the sexual relations of Sodom and Gomorrah: “You take Gentile women for your wives and your sexual relations will become like Sodom and Gomorrah.”

⁵⁹ See , Endres, Biblical Interpretation, 1383-1389; andGoogle Scholar, Suter, “Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1 Enoch 6-16,” HUCA 50 (1979) 125.Google Scholar Suter cites CD's discussion of zenut (one of the three nets of Belial) as including bigamy and incest (CD 4.20).

⁶⁰ For example, presumably Reuven and Bilhah are both ritually pure; yet they engage in incest and hence generate moral impurity.

⁶¹ See , Endres, Biblical Interpretation, 75 n. 49, 145; andGoogle Scholar, Werman, “Jubilees 30,” 11, 14–15Google Scholar.

⁶² Ezra's insistence on Israel's separation from the “uncleanness” (tum'at) of the peoples of the land, though referring in its original context to the idolatrous and abominable practices of the peoples of the land, injects the terminology of impurity into the ban on intermarriage and may be the occasion for Jubilees' shift (via H) from mere profanation to defilement.

⁶³ , Endres, Biblical Interpretation, 129.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Ibid., 120.

⁶⁵ Endres, Biblical Interpretation, 150. The connections among the stories of Phineas in Numbers 25, the Levites in Exodus 32 and Simeon and Levi in Genesis 34 particularly as reinterpreted in Jubilees 30 have been discussed in Martin Hengel, The Zealots: investigations into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I until 70 A.D. (Edinburgh: Clark, 1989) esp. 149-90; and Sharp, Carolyn, “Phinehan Zeal and Rhetorical Strategy in 4QMMT,” RevQ 70 (1997) 207–22Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ See , Hengel, Zealots, 149–90;Google Scholar, Endres, Biblical Interpretation, 150–52,Google Scholar and Farmer, William R., “The Patriarch Phinehas” in ATR 34 (1952) 26–30.Google Scholar Hengel argues that Phineas was a model for both Maccabees and Zealots who, like him, directed their struggle “in the first place against their own compatriots who had, in their view, broken the law of God and had therefore become defectors” and then against “the pagan occupying power” (172). Farmer writes that “the author of I Maccabees saw a special connection between the early Maccabean heroes and the figure of Phineas is clear from 2:26, ‘thus he [Mattathias] showed his zeal for the law, as Phineas had done toward Zimri, son of Salom’” (28).

⁶⁷ Here, the writer lists the abominable and unclean works of Gentiles: the worship of evil spirits, ancestor worship, and idolatry.

⁶⁸ Compare 1 Mace 2:49-55 where Abraham is explicitly coupled with Phineas in connection with zeal for the law. The last words of Mattathias, who “rescued the law out of the hand of the Gentiles” (2:48) are presented as follows: “And now (my) children, be zealous for the Law, and give your lives for the covenant of your fathers. And call to mind the deeds of the fathers which they did in their generations; that ye may receive great glory and an everlasting name. Was not Abraham found faithful in temptation, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness? Joseph, in the time of his distress, kept the commandment, and became lord of Egypt. Phineas, our father, for that he was zealous exceedingly, obtained the covenant of an everlasting priesthood.” The passage makes it clear that zeal—rescuing Israel or God's law out of the hand of the Gentiles—takes many forms, the faithfulness of Abraham, the violence of Phineas, and so on. Abraham and Phineas are thus united in this, that the righteousness of each is an expression of a zeal that is none other than a vigilant preservation of Israel's seed as the possession of God as distinct from Gentiles.

⁶⁹ Jubilees picks up, perhaps, on Isa 41:8's reference to Abraham as God's friend. Indeed, Isa 41:8 juxtaposes three key elements: Abraham, seed, and friend (of God). Compare CD 3. 2-4 where Abraham is accounted a friend (Ὀheb) of God and party to his covenant for ever because he did not go astray after zenut—unlike the Watchers of heaven. Thus, in CD the epithet “friend of God” is attributed to Abraham because he guarded against miscegenation and so preserves the seed of Israel intact. It would appear that both traits associated with Abraham in the book of Jubilees—fulfilling the law of circumcision (see Jub 15.1-34) and opposition to intermarriage (Jubilees 20; CD 3:1-3)—are perceived as critical for the preservation of the distinct identity of Israel. They are also the basis for praising Abraham as both righteous and a friend of God. Thus Abraham, like Phineas, acted zealously for God.

⁷⁰ See Jub. 25.3, where, after exhorting Jacob not to intermarry, Rebekah declares “and thy children shall be a righteous generation and a holy seed.” In Jub. 35.13-14, Isaac informs Rebekah that he now loves Jacob more than Esau because there is no righteousness in the latter. This lack of righteousness is then explained as forsaking the God of Abraham and going after his wives and their uncleanness and error (idolatry). Esau's unrighteousness is his idolatry effected through intermarriage.

⁷¹ Compare Jubilees 41, which recounts the story of Judah and Tamar. Their union is a violation of the laws against incest in Leviticus 18 and 20. Therefore, it generates an impurity—the moral impurity decried in Leviticus 18 and 20. The rhetoric is very similar to that employed in Jubilees 30, suggesting that the moral impurity of Leviticus 18 and 20 is likewise the focus of concern in Jubilees 30.

⁷² , Werman, “Jubilees 30,” 14, 16Google Scholar; and , Endres (Biblical Interpretation, 75 n. 49),Google Scholar who states that the prohibition of mixed marriages “results from the ritual impurity of all Gentiles” and then cites Jub. 25.1. Jub. 25.1, however, refers to moral impurity. Again, nowhere is the Gentile partner ever said to be ritually impure. The antecedent for the term uncleanness in Jubilees 30 is always the act of sexual union and not the Gentile partner himself or herself.

⁷³ My interpretation of Jubilees 30 differs from that of Joseph Baumgarten (“Halakhic Polemics in New Fragments from Q Cave 4,” in Amitai, J., ed., Biblical Archaeology Today, [Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1985] 390-99)Google Scholar, who assumes that only priests and their daughters are addressed in Jubilees 30 because both the penalty and the phraseology are borrowed from Lev 21:9. This interpretation cannot be sustained. Verse 7 “and if there is any man who wishes in Israel to give his daughter” explicitly addresses all Israel. The prohibition and its penalty for the father (stoning) are explicitly tied to the Molech prohibitions of Leviticus 18 and 20, laws addressed to all Israel. That the penalty applied to the daughter is taken from Lev 21:9 is no proof that Jubilees 30 is directed to the priestly aristocracy, since the transference of priestly standards to the entire “holy” community of Israel is explicit in Jubilees, as I have argued. For an identical transfer of priestly standards to lay Israelites, see Jub. 20.3-4 where Abraham's final words to his children and grandchildren include a prohibition of fornication on pain of death by fire for a female.

⁷⁴ See , Werman, “Jubilees 30,” 14 n. 60.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Qimron, Elisha and Strugnell, John, Qumran Cave 4, V: Miqsat Ma'ase Ha-Torah (DJD 10; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994).Google Scholar For a discussion of the date of the text and its possible addressee, see ibid., 109-22. See also Eshel, Hanan “4QMMT and the History of the Hasmonean Period,” in Kampen, John and Bernstein, Moshe J., eds., Reading 4QMMT: New Perspectives on Qumran Law and History (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996) 58–66;Google Scholar and Schwartz, Daniel R. “MMT, Josephus and the Pharisees” in Kampen and Bernstein, Reading 4QMMT, 67–87Google Scholar.

⁷⁶ The translation of lines 80-82 will be discussed below.

⁷⁷ , Qimron and , Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4, 55 n. 75.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ See also Sharp, “Phinehan Zeal,” esp. 216-17. In her important paper, Sharp argues that the larger polemical concern of 4QMMT is intermarriage of Israelites, even nonpriests, with Gentiles.

⁷⁹ , Qimron and , Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4, 55 n. 75.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Jubilees testifies to the designation of Israel as holy and therefore subject to higher priestly standards in some matters, including marriage. 1QS 8:5-12 also speaks of a house of holiness (the Israelites) and a most holy congregation (the Aaronide priests) (, Qimron and , Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4, 173).Google ScholarThus, Kampen's, John assertion (“4QMMT and New Testament Studies,” in Kampan and Bernstein, Reading 4QMMT, 135–36)Google Scholar that terms of holiness in B76 and B79 support the hypothesis that the sons of Aaron are the subject of the prohibition cannot be sustained. This assertion ignores two important facts. First, it is axiomatic for the sectarians that Israel is holy seed. Second, the text in question clearly distinguishes between holy seed and most holy seed—only the latter refers to priests.

⁸¹ Nevertheless, Qimron wants to take it in the broad sense of the entire nation (even though below it refers to lay Israelites only; see , Qimron and , Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4, 171 n. 178)Google Scholar in order to read the law as a condemnation of marriage between ordinary Israelites and priests. For a different view see Schwartz (“MMT, Josephus,” 79-80), who takes rob ha'am later in the passage to refer to the Saduccean temple establishment.

⁸² See CD 4. 17, 20-21, 7.1.

⁸³ Compare T.Levi 34. 14-21, cited by , Qimron and , Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4, 174.Google Scholar A final, though admittedly not decisive, consideration is the fact that the subsequent examples of prohibited mixtures involve radically diverse kinds or species, more analogous to the mixture of profane (Gentile) and holy (Israelite) seeds than the mixing of different gradations of holy seed. The Zadokite fragments also compare forbidden mixtures with inappropriate marriage but the nature of the inappropriate marriage is not clear. SeeSchiffman, Lawrence, “The place of 4QMMTin the Corpus of Qumran Manuscripts,” in Kampen and Bernstein, Reading 4QMMT, 91–92 (citing 4Q271).Google Scholar To my knowledge, the analogy is not utilized in rabbinic texts (though the metaphor of oil and water appears in Song of Songs Rabbah 1.21: “just as oil will not mix with other liquids, so Israel does not mix with the other nations of the world, as it is written ‘Neither shalt thou make marriages with them’ (Deut 7:3).”

⁸⁴ Ibid., 171 n. 178a; emphasis mine.

⁸⁵ Compare Ezra 9:1-2 which also groups together the people of Israel, the priests and the Levites in its charge of failure to separate from the peoples of the land. The importance of Ezra as a model for 4QMMT will be discussed below.

⁸⁶ I assume no disjunction among the three verbs. The reconstruction of vehem after mit'arebim would constitute such a disjunction. However, an examination of 4Q396 col iv (Plate IV in , Qimron and , Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4)Google Scholar shows that there is no textual basis for this reconstruction. Even so, it would not constitute an insurmountable semantic obstacle to this interpretation. It would simply render everything between mit'arebim and 'im hazzonot a parenthetical explication of the verb mit'arebim: “you know that some of the priests and the people mingle (that is, they unite and defile the holy seed and also their own seed) with outsiders.” See Sharp (“Phinehan Zeal,” 217 n. 12), who makes the important point that hit'areb always takes a prepositional object in related texts. Her brief syntactic analysis of the term suggests that “were priests and people mixing with each other in MMT B 80, as per the editors, we might have expected a formulation such as

⁸⁷ See Sharp, “Phinehan Zeal,” 217.

⁸⁸ We have already noted that a contrary view in which only the priestly line is holy and therefore profaned by intermarriage, is apparent in other Second Temple sources (see n. 23 above regarding the differences between Ezra and Nehemiah in describing the intermarriage of Israelites, and Josephus's precision in his account).

⁸⁹ , Qimron and , Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4, 131.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Sharp (“Phinehan Zeal,” 211-12), proposes to read (= foreign women) on the model of Ezra 10:2 and Neh 13:27.

⁹¹ , Schwartz, “MMT, Josephus,” 76.Google Scholar

⁹² It is not clear why Qimron takes zenut here to mean incest, when elsewhere he takes it to mean illicit marriage generally or marriage with outsiders.

⁹³ However, see Bernstein, Moshe (“The Employment and Interpretation of Scripture in 4QMMT: Preliminary Observations,” in Kampen and Bernstein, Reading 4QMMT, 33–35),Google Scholar for caveats regarding present scholarly ability to assess the employment of Scripture and scriptural language in MMT.

⁹⁴ The citation of Deut 7:26 as the source for the ban on intermarriage raises the interesting possibility that the sacrilege spoken of here is the sacrilege of herem violation. Such a reading would be supported by the reconstruction of in line 5 suggested by Sharp (“Phinehan Zeal,” 211) signifying a trespass against God (specifically God's herein). This interpretation corresponds with the second of the two explanations provided by Milgrom for Ezra's use of the term ma'al to describe intermarriage (see above). Might we suppose, then, that MMT preserves one ancient tradition of interpretation that fueled Ezra's prohibition of intermarriage?

⁹⁵ See also , Sharp, “Phinehan Zeal,” 211–12;Google Scholar, Qimron and , Strugnell who state that “the restored word n3fT3 may refer to the Temple” (Qumran Cave 4, 58 n. 6)Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ An alternative interpretation is indicated by , Schwartz (“MMT, Josephus,” 76),Google Scholar who compares C4-9's reference to crimes of fornication (zenut) and ma'al (misappropriation of holy property) to CD3-5's objection to priests' polluting the sanctuary through iniquities with women, and to lQpHab's attacks on the wicked priest and last priests of Jerusalem for crimes of ma'al and hamas. The analogy is not perfect. The iniquities involving women are explicitly detailed in CD as incest, polygamy, and intercourse with a niddah, and the objection is simple defilement rather than profanation of holy seed. While it is possible, as Schwartz believes, that C reverts to the priests and that line 7's rob ha'am (from whom the author's community has separated) refers to the Saduccean priests of the Temple establishment, it is not necessary. In any event, Schwartz's construction does not affect in any way the arguments for viewing B75-82 as a condemnation of intermarriage between Israelites and Gentiles.

⁹⁷ , Qimron and , Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4, 58.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Ibid., 98.

⁹⁹ Referring to Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai, m. Yeb 1.4 states “Though these forbade what the others permitted and these regarded as unfit what the others declared fit, Bet Shammai did not refrain from marrying women from [the families of] Bet Hillel, nor did Bet Hillel [refrain from marrying women] from [the families of] Bet Shammai. Regarding all matters of purity and impurity which the one declared pure and the other declared impure (lo nimna'u 'osin tohorot 'elu 'al gav 'elu).” This point was also discerned by , Sharp, “Phinehan Zeal,” 212 n. 5Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁰ I am grateful to Carolyn Sharp for drawing my attention to the significance of this passage, though ultimately my interpretation differs somewhat from hers (“Phinehan Zeal,” 209-11).

¹⁰¹ See ibid.: “There can be little question that the ideological content of the Phinehas tradition as it has been preserved biblically (Ps 106:31) and intertestamentally is what underlies C 31 in MMT” (211). Sharp does not, however, see the relevance of the Abrahamic model, which is only apparent upon comparison with Jubilees.

¹⁰² Sharp (ibid., 217) notes that the Hitpa'el of appears in Ps 106:35, a few short lines after the praise accorded to Phineas, and describes the mixing of Israelites and Gentiles as a transgression of herem. Section C thus combines the terms nashim, ma'al, mit'areb and a phrase alluding to Phineas as represented in Ps 106. The likelihood is great that we are dealing with a condemnation of intermarriage as a trespass against herem, and an exhortation to resist such acts with a Phinehan zeal.

¹⁰³ So Bernstein, “Employment and Interpretation of Scripture,” 37. The point of the passage may be a dispute over the interpretation of Deuteronomy 23. Other groups apparently read that text as prohibiting only intermarriage and only with male members of the groups mentioned. (Indeed, this is the interpretation found later in rabbinic halakah). The dual interpretation of Deuteronomy 23 is probably reflected in Nehemiah 13 (ibid., 38).

¹⁰⁴ These laws are set out in a table by , Qimron and , Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4, 146.Google Scholar In terms of sacred space, a distinction is drawn between the Temple and Jerusalem, and between Jerusalem and other places. Foreigners and impure persons are excluded from the Temple; only impure persons (not foreigners) are prohibited from Jerusalem. In terms of the sacred nation, we find an analogous gradation according to intensity or intimacy of contact. See ibid., 142-45, for a discussion of the gradations of purity and holiness according to Q texts. The editors conclude (145) that MMT distinguished at least four degrees of spatial holiness—Temple, Jerusalem, other settlements and areas outside the settlements—and cite Milgrom (“The Temple Scroll,” BA 41 [1978] 114) to the effect that the Temple Scroll further distinguishes degrees of holiness within the Temple. But see Schiffman (“Place of 4QMMT,” 88-89), who argues that the Temple Scroll differs from MMT and identifies the levels of sanctity of the Torah's wilderness camp with the levels of sanctity within the Temple.

¹⁰⁵ The prohibition of intermarriage in Deuteronomy 7 is said to be limited to the seven nations (despite the minority opinion of R. Simeon bar Yohai in b.Qidd 68b and b. Yebamot 23a that it applies to all nations). Deuteronomy 23's prohibition on certain ethnic groups entering the congregation of the Lord is interpreted as a prohibition on intermarriage, but only with the groups mentioned and in the case of Ammon and Moab only the males (thus m. Yebamot 8.3 is a clear effort to legitimate the marriage of Boaz to Ruth and Solomon to Ammonite and Moabite women, see , Cohen, “From the Bible to the Talmud,” 32)Google Scholar so that female Ammonite and Moabite converts can marry a Jew immediately following their conversion. Since Ammo-nites and Moabites can no longer be identified with certainty, the ban on them is to all intents and purposes defunct (m.Yad. 4.4). For the rabbis, only these two verses (and related verses) establish a ban on intermarriage of some kind and the moral-religious rationale for the prohibition provided by these verses is the rationale adopted by the rabbis. When intermarriage is banned, it is banned because of the danger of idolatry. This is not to say that the holy seed rationale plays no role in rabbinic law—it does, but it is deemphasized. In a future study, I plan to examine rabbinic views of intermarriage and the impurity of Gentiles in great detail.

¹⁰⁶ Alon (“Levitical Uncleanness,” 187 and passim) infers an ancient principle of Gentile ritual impurity from the existence of various prohibitions of interactions with Gentiles dating to an early period. All of these prohibitions are, however, more economically explained on the basis of known principles, for example, the laws of kashrut, the prohibition of idols and idolatry, and there is no need to resort to an otherwise unknown and unproven principle of Gentile ritual impurity.

¹⁰⁷ Compare , Klawans, “Notions of Gentile Impurity,” 302, 309–12.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ , Werman, “Jubilees 30,” 160–62.Google Scholar