Two Models of Biblical Purity: The Science of Ritual (The Bible and the Humanities)

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence.It is free to read on Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Two Models of Biblical Purity investigates the ancient Israelite and early Jewish purity system, proposing a framework that distinguishes between two conceptual approaches to ritual pollution: the qualitative and quantitative models.In the qualitative model, forms of pollution differ fundamentally by type, like distinct illnesses with unique symptoms and treatments.The quantitative model, on the other hand, views pollution as varying in intensity or degree, similar to temperature, where different sources simply make one “more” or “less” impure.The book argues that the Hebrew Bible primarily reflects a qualitative model, where impurities are categorized by nature rather than severity.Through careful philological analysis, the study develops “litmus tests” to detect these mod