Intermarriage and impurity in ancient Jewish sources

Harvard Theological Review

Volumn 92, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 3-36

  Hayes, Christine ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 60950059093     PISSN: 00178160     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0017816000017831     Document Type: Article

References (34)

1. Again, this is not to equate the views of these scholars in all respects. However, Adolf Büchler states in "The Levitical Impurity of the Gentile in Palestine Before the Year 70" (JQR 17 [1926] 80),
2. "As to the levitical impurity of the Gentile.it was instituted by the rabbis about the year 1 as a novelty going beyond the law in Lev 15." In "Notions of Gentile Impurity in Ancient Judaism" (AJS Review 20 [1995] 285-312),
3. Louis Epstein, Marriage Laws in the Bible and Talmud (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942).
4. See for example, Zvi Arie Steinfeld, "The Decrees Against Gentiles and their Daughters According to R. Nahman bar Yitshak", Annual of Bar-Ilan University 20/21 (1983) 25-42 [Hebrew];
5. On this, see Moshe Weinfeld, "Universalism and Particularism in the Period of Exile and Restoration," Tarbiz 33 (1964) 228-42 [Hebrew].
6. Shaye Cohen, "From the Bible to the Talmud: The Prohibition of Intermarriage," Hebrew Annual Review 7 (1983) 23-39.
7. Epstein, Marriage Laws, 158.
8. Cohen, "From the Bible to the Talmud," 31-32.
9. See Weinfeld, "Universalism and Particularism," 238, who speaks of a biological-religious concept underlying the Ezran ban on intermarriage.
10. For D's conception of the contrast between the nation of God and the other nations of the world, see Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic World (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972) 225-32.
11. The debate over the scope of Ezra's prohibition centers on the terms 'amme ha'arets (local non-Israelites) as opposed to 'amme ha'aretsot (foreigners), regarding which see H. L. Ginsberg, The Israelian Heritage of Judaism (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1982) 8-16.
12. Take, therefore, to thyself a wife without blemish and pollution, while yet thou art young, and not of the race of strange nations" (in R. H. Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English [Oxford: Clarendon, 1913] 310). Here, marriage with a foreign woman is said to constitute fornication and to result in seed unfit for the holy place.
13. Cana Werman, "Jubilees 30: Building a Paradigm for the Ban on Intermarriage," HTR 90 (1997) 1-22. Jubilees bans sexual intercourse between Gentiles and Israelites, whether marital or nonmarital, in equal terms. In the present discussion of Jubilees, the term "intermarriage" should be understood to include even nonmarital intercourse.
14. Compare Werman, "Jubilees 30," 11-14, for a somewhat different assessment of Jubilees' interpretation of Scripture.
15. See Klaus Berger, Das Buch derJubiläen(JSHRZ 2.3 [Gütersloh: G.Mohn, 1981]) 471 n. 7g;
16. See also Jacob Milgrom ("Scriptural Foundation and Deviations in the Laws of Purity of the Temple Scroll," in Lawrence H. Schiffman, ed., Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls [Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990] 86-87) for a description of the Temple Scroll as adopting a maximalist position in its purity demands for ordinary Israelites dwelling in the Temple city, who must lead priestly, celibate lives.
17. Jubilees contains the first literary appearance of the sexual exegesis of this verse, though Vermes assumes that it is probably older. For the ambiguity of this verse and its history of interpretation see Geza Vermes, "Leviticus 18:21 in Ancient Jewish Bible Exegesis," Jakob Petuchowski and Ezra Fleischer, eds., Studies in Aggadah, Targum and Jewish Liturgy in Memory of Joseph Heineman (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1981) [Hebrew]. In some sources (m. Meg. 4.9 [ms. readings], Tg. Neof. to Lev 20:2 [marginal gloss], Tg. Ps.-J. to Lev 20:2) the verse is interpreted as referring specifically to intercourse between a Jewish man and a Gentile woman, probably because of the verb leha'abir which is taken to mean "impregnate."
18. Or "fornication," reading zenut instead of zonah or zonot. See James C. Vanderkam, The Book of Jubilees: A Critical Text (CSCO; Louvain: Peeters, 1989) 2.193. According to Vanderkam, the Latin text has "adulteress," while the Ethiopic text has "adulterer." For the second term, the Latin gives an abstract noun (abomination) while the Ethiopic could contain either an abstract noun or "a male abominator." Vanderkam notes that "both texts may be employing abstract nouns here" though he ultimately rejects the idea without clear reason.
19. Werman, "Jubilees 30," 14.
20. See Endres, Biblical Interpretation, 1383-89;
21. and Suter, "Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1 Enoch 6-16," HUCA 50 (1979) 125. Suter cites CD's discussion of zenut (one of the three nets of Belial) as including bigamy and incest (CD 4.20).
22. See Endres, Biblical Interpretation, 75 n. 49, 145;
23. and Werman, "Jubilees 30," 11, 14-15.
24. The connections among the stories of Phineas in Numbers 25, the Levites in Exodus 32 and Simeon and Levi in Genesis 34 particularly as reinterpreted in Jubilees 30 have been discussed in Martin Hengel, The Zealots: Investigations into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I until 70 A.D. (Edinburgh: Clark, 1989) esp. 149-90;
25. and Carolyn Sharp, "Phinehan Zeal and Rhetorical Strategy in 4QMMT," RevQ 70 (1997) 207-22.
26. See Hengel, Zealots, 149-90;
27. and William R. Farmer, "The Patriarch Phinehas" in ATR 34 (1952) 26-30.
28. See also Hanan Eshel "4QMMT and the History of the Hasmonean Period," in John Kampen and Moshe J. Bernstein, eds., Reading 4QMMT: New Perspectives on Qumran Law and History (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996) 58-66;
29. and Daniel R. Schwartz "MMT, Josephus and the Pharisees" in Kampen and Bernstein, Reading 4QMMT, 67-87.
30. Thus, John Kampen's assertion ("4QMMT and New Testament Studies," in Kampan and Bernstein, Reading 4QMMT, 135-36) that terms of holiness in B76 and B79 support the hypothesis that the sons of Aaron are the subject of the prohibition cannot be sustained. This assertion ignores two important facts. First, it is axiomatic for the sectarians that Israel is holy seed. Second, the text in question clearly distinguishes between holy seed and most holy seed - only the latter refers to priests.
31. See Sharp, "Phinehan Zeal," 217.
32. Schwartz, "MMT, Josephus," 76.
33. However, see Moshe Bernstein ("The Employment and Interpretation of Scripture in 4QMMT: Preliminary Observations," in Kampen and Bernstein, Reading 4QMMT, 33-35), for caveats regarding present scholarly ability to assess the employment of Scripture and scriptural language in MMT.
34. Compare Klawans, "Notions of Gentile Impurity," 302, 309-12.