Classics

The volume explores different texts and material evidence in relation to purity, impurity, and purification, from both the historic land of Israel and the Diaspora. It adduces comparative evidence from Greece, probes and refines concepts of moral and ritual (im)purity, and traces the relevance of purity debates into nascent Christianity.

In this volume, the contributors focus on ritual and law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East. The studies included treat various texts and material culture, cultic ritual, and comparative mythology.

Anna Malomud's in-depth study introduces the reader to the works of the Greek teacher-poet Nicander of Colophon (second century BC). These works represent a peculiar combination of medical expertise and extremely sophisticated artistic language. The volume considers geographical space as the key to a complex interpretation of Nicander's works.

The precise nature of the σῶμα πνευματικόν (the enspirited body) remains a mystery. John Granger Cook shows that the context of the expression in Paul warrants the following conclusion: the contention in some of modern scholarship that the enspirited body is entirely non-physical is unjustified.