List of Appendices
4.11. Moral purity and ritual purity: Jesus attitude to purity laws
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which is enjoined on them, its classification, definitions and evaluations. For example the Sadducees, as guardians and exponents of the Jewish purity system experienced a strong fit between the system’s aims and their life, hence a high grid. But the Pharisees attempted an extension of the system to non-priests acting as defining points, hence had a lower grid compared to the Sadducees. Jesus is portrayed as a reforming figure who contested many of the basic classifications, definitions and evaluations of the system and since his degree of dissent from the mainstream is greater than that of the Pharisees, his grid is lower.
Looking at the Jewish system of purity and Jesus’ standard of purity some differences could be highlighted generally. The core value of the Jewish purity system is God’s holiness. “Be ye holy as I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44), but Jesus points to God’s
‘mercy’ as the core value, “The Lord, the Lord, merciful and kind …. “ (Exodus 34:6-7).
For the Jewish purity system, holiness is symbolized in God’s act of creation (fundamental act of ordering) but for Jesus, God’s mercy is symbolized in God’s free election and God’s unpredictable gift of covenant grace (Deuteronomy 7:7-8, Exodus:
33:19). The structural implications of God’s holiness as ordering led the Jewish system to a strong purity system with a particularistic tendency, whereas God’s mercy as election leads to a purity system with an inclusive tendency. A defensive strategy flows from holiness as order, whereas a strategy of mission, hospitality and inclusiveness represent the appropriate strategy where mercy as election constitutes the core value. On the whole, the scriptural legitimations for holiness as order are found primarily in the Pentateuch, whereas election and covenant is found both in pre-Mosaic tradition and in the prophetic criticisms of Israel’s cult (Neyrey, 2002).
On the whole, from the view point of the religious, social and political context of Jesus’ time i.e. the Jewish context, the theological concerns of Jesus went beyond the interest and influence of the Jewish life of his time. Although Jesus disregarded the maps and bodily boundaries of Judaism, Jesus did not abrogate the idea of purity, he only revived the same in the context of love, mercy and justice of God.
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Jonathan Klawans indicates that moral impurity is a phenomenon to be found in Jewish writings from the Second Temple period (Klawans 2001:143). Whereas the sources of ritual impurity are either natural phenomena (child birth, scale disease, menstrual and seminal emissions) or certain cultic procedures (Leviticus 16:28, Numbers 19:8), moral impurity results “from heinous acts, offensive to social life such as sexual sins, bloodshed, idolatry and deceit” (Klawans 2001:144). Moreover, while ritual impurity may be unintentional, moral pollution is the result of deliberate act and thus testifies to the offenders own character; however the character of such moral defilement may vary from metaphorical blemishing to a substantive impurity that is quite similar to ritual impurity. From a religious perspective, the rationale of moral impurity is that sin and offence cannot come close to the sacred (Jeremiah 7:3-15), while a socio cultural perspective looks at moral pollution as a disruption of the perfect social or cosmic order (cf. Regev 2004).
Klawans also discussed the New Testament attestations of the belief that sin defiles in its Jewish context, arguing that this underlying belief is central to the understanding of the cultural ethos of the early Christians (Klawans 2001:136-157).
Several N. T. passages have been interpreted as proofs that the historical Jesus taught that moral purity was a more important concern than ritual purity, not that ritual impurity was unimportant. A number of scholars (Sanders: 1985, Crossan 1991 and Borg 1984) portray the historical Jesus as an opponent of the Levitical purity system. Marcus Borg for example focused on the traditions about Jesus’ response to those Pharisees who criticized his disciples for neglecting to observe the handwashing ritual as well as Jesus’
relationship with sinners (Mark 7:1-23, Mark 2:13-17). Borg sees Jesus advocating compassion rather than purity, and argues that Jesus understood holiness as an active rather than a passive force needing to be defended (Borg 1984:87, 1987:49, 1994:97).
The relationship between ritual impurity and moral impurity appears to be the focus of Luke 11:38 – 41 when the Pharisees were astonished that Jesus and his disciples did not wash their hands before eating. Jesus’ response about what goes into a man and what comes out of him defiling him. It is from within, from the human heart that evil intentions come: fornication and the like. All these evil things come from within and they defile a person. Scholars were of the opinion that “not what goes inside, but what goes outside defile” as saying that impurity of what goes out is more important than what goes
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in. Hence, attest to the fact that Jesus knew that moral impurity is more severe and harmful to society than ritual purity (Klawans 2001).
Traditions of the first century Jewish community often place Jesus in the company of sinners, who they regarded as the generators of moral impurity. The sinners were people not concerned with religious piety or those rejected by the purity laws of the time (e.g. tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, etc). Jesus, however, was ready to consider the sinners as made righteous by their faith even before the traditional redemption and atoning sacrifice or rite had been made (see Luke 3:12-13). According to McKnight (1999:91-98) Jesus’ table fellowship with sinners was a sign of God’s forgiveness and a symbol of the eschatological kingdom. He also connects this treatment of sinners with a call for righteousness and a need for moral reform. The followers of Jesus like Peter in Acts of the Apostles did not screen those who were baptized in the name of Jesus (Acts 2:
38 – 41), Phillip baptized Samaritans and Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8: 5 – 40, 10: 1 – 8).
The Christian Church displayed, an open attitude towards the gentiles, in effect, lowering the barriers of the new gospel”.
On the whole, the acceptance of sinners and tax collectors in the Jesus tradition / movement may seem to indicate non-conformity in matters of ritual purity, since adherence to the bodily purity characteristic of many Jews is not emphasized. However we can see evidence for the observance of ritual purity by the earliest Christians in Luke – Acts. In Acts 18:18-26, Paul and four others took a Nazirite vow; James and others forbade shared table fellowship and Peter was reluctant to dine with gentiles (See Acts 10:15-11:3). Luke is at pain to demonstrate that it is legitimate for Jewish Christians to dine with fellow gentiles. According to Klawans (2001:154), moral impurity led to expulsion from the land, because immoral behaviour defiled the temple and the land of Israel. Jesus’ attitude to the ritual purity laws of his time can be said to be that of spiritual revolution prioritizesb moral purity over ritual purity, although moral purity did not displace ritual purity, nor did it cause a rejection of the temple cult. Infact, all through Luke-Acts, Luke portrays members of the community of faith as taking part in prayers and sacrificial rites in the Temple (Esler, 1987:131-165).
Like the Jews, each culture has a purity system, whether they are aware of it or not, that organizes matter as in place (pure) and as out of place (impure), and it applies to objects, people, times and places (Craffert 2008:290), hence the concerns for purity
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systems as in the context of Jesus time applies to the Yoruba purity system. Malina (2001a:161) argues that impurity in this sense is the description of a visible condition that could have been caused by a variety of factors. What during his mission, did Jesus actually do? Purity codes are about distinction, divisions and separation, but Jesus proclaimed and lived out a vision of a new social life in the Kingdom of God.