Hermeneutics of Holiness

"Committed first-century sectarians, apocalyptic ascetics, Persian Christians, and Babylonian Jews: Koltun-Fromm ranges across a vast historical terrain as she seeks to understand how these various ancient peoples enacted holiness by hearing in the Bible a call to sexual renunciation. This is a riveting story, and a historical tour de force." --Paula Fredriksen, author of Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism "From the Hebrew Bible to Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity, Naomi Koltun-Fromm carefully analyzes how sexuality, by being either denied or restrained, is transformed into a means of holiness, whether private or communal. In spite of obvious differences, she finds significant correlations between the approaches of Aramaic-speaking Rabbis and Syriac Christian authors of Mesopotamia. Her book opens new and promising avenues for the study of Jewish-Christian interaction in Late Antiquity." --Lucas Van Rompay, Professor of Eastern Christianity, Duke University "Naomi Koltun-Fromm has made an important contribution to the study of rabbinic Judaism by highlighting and clarifying the role of sexuality in the rabbinic construction of holiness. She also masterfully demonstrates how the existence of commonly held exegetical traditions connects post-biblical Judaism's ambivalence toward sexual asceticism and the privileging of sexual renunciation in Syriac Christianity." --Eliezer Diamond, author of Holy Men and Hunger Artists: Fasting and Asceticism in Rabbinic Culture