Purity and Defilement in Early Christian Ritual and Discourse

By: Moshe Blidstein

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Hardcover | 14 February 2017

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Hardcover
368 Pages

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24.1 x 16.1 x 2.6

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Purity, Community, and Ritual in Early Christian Literature investigates the meaning of purity, purification, defilement, and disgust for Christian writers, readers, and listeners from the first to third centuries. Anthropological and sociological work over the past decades have demonstrated how purity and defilement rituals, practices, and discourses harness the power of a raw emotion in order to shape and manipulate cultural structures. Moshe Blidstein builds on such theories to explain how early Christian writers drew on ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions on purity and defilement, using them to create new types of community, form Christian identity, and articulate the relationship between body, sin, and ritual.

Blidstein discusses early Christian purity issues under several headings: dietary law, death defilement, purity of the heart, defilement of outsiders, and purity of the community. Analysis of the motivations shaping the development of each area of discourse reveals two major considerations: polemical and substantive. Thus, Christian writing on dietary law and death defilement is essentially polemical, constructing Christian identity by marking the purity practices and beliefs of others as false. Concerning the subjects of baptism, eucharist, and penance, however, the discourse turns inwards and becomes more substantive, seeking to create and maintain theories of ritual and human nature coherent with the theological principles of the new religion.

Industry Reviews

This book will prove to be an exceptional resource on the topic of purity and defilement in the early Christian community. Each chapter is clearly laid out and traces a specific theme through its historical development, presenting a compendium of key primary sources. The chapters can also serve as standalone discussions, making the book a useful resource for specific research on the particular issue. * Adam G. White, Alphacrucis College, Religious Studies Review *
Blidstein's oeuvre synthetizes ideas clearly and is a helpful work in the continuous debate about purity in Christianity... The highlight of the book is the notion that purity and impurity need to be understood as a discourse shaped by cultural assumptions. * Rodrigo Galiza, Andrews University Seminary Studies *
In short, the texts discussed in this volume, along with careful commentary and analysis, are a terrific assist to scholars reconsidering the relationship between Jewish and Christian ritual practices. * Matthew Chalmers, Reading Religion *

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