Purity and Identity in Ancient Judaism : From the Temple to the Mishnah / Yair Furstenberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Furstenberg, Yair, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Judaism--History--Post-exilic period, 586 B.C.-210 A.D.

Judaism.

Dead Sea scrolls--Relation to the Old Testament.

Dead Sea scrolls.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (286 pages)

Place of Publication:

Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 2023.

Language Note:

Translated from the original Hebrew.

Biography/History:

Yair Furstenberg is Associate Professor of Talmud at Hebrew University, where he serves as chair of the department.

Summary:

The concern for purity was the cornerstone of the religiousculture of ancient Judaism. <em>Purity and Identity in AncientJudaism</em> explores how this concern shaped the worldview of Jewsduring the Second Temple period as well as their daily practicesand social relations. It examines how different groups offeredcompeting visions and methods for living a life of purity, whichembodied a promise for personal and cosmic salvation and at thesame time determined the degree of sectarian separation.</p><p><em>Purity and Identity in Ancient Judaism</em> offers acomprehensive description of the world of purity among the Jews ofthe Second Temple period in general and within the tradition of thePharisees in particular. Yair Furstenberg explores the language ofpurity that provided Jews in antiquity a powerful tool fororganizing legal, social, and ideological boundaries, and its studyis therefore pertinent for understanding the powers that shaped thevarieties of Second Temple Judaism and their later offshoots: EarlyChristianity and Rabbinic Judaism.</p><p><em>Purity and Identity in Ancient Judaism</em> offers newmethods for carefully integrating the New Testament, Qumranliterature, and early rabbinic sources into a comprehensive historyof purity laws from the world of the Second Temple and thePharisees to the later rabbinic movement, allowing the reader totrace the emergence of new religious sensibilities within changingsocial and cultic circumstances.

Contents:

Introduction: From Pharisees to Rabbis

Part I. The Varieties of Purity. 1. Biblical foundations, new conceptions

2. Exclusive paths to purity from Qumran to Jesus

Part II. Communal Identities. 3. The purity of the Pharisees

4. Outsider impurity and the forms of Judean sectarianism

5. Inclusion and marginalization

Part III. Tradition and Invention. 6. Changing social contexts: Purity after 70 CE

7. The end of purity

Epilogue: The Rabbinic Movement within shifting religious cultures.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780253067746

025306774X