Moral Impurity and the Temple in Early Christianity in Light of Ancient Greek Practice and Qumranic Ideology

Eyal Regev

doi:10.1017/S0017816004000768

Moral Impurity and the Temple in Early Christianity in Light of Ancient Greek Practice and Qumranic Ideology

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 March 2005

Eyal Regev

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Eyal Regev: Affiliation:
Bar-Ilan University

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Abstract
Moral Impurity in Early Christian Traditions
Moral Impurity in Ancient Greece and Qumran
The Cleansing of the Temple and the Defiling Force of Money
The Paradox of the Acceptance of Sinners
Conclusion: Patterns of Moral Impurity and Social Action

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Type: ARTICLES
Information: Harvard Theological Review , Volume 97 , Issue 4 , October 2004 , pp. 383 - 411

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816004000768 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: © 2004 Cambridge University Press

The relationship between ritual purity and moral purity is of great importance for understanding the emergence of Christianity within its Jewish matrix. In his recent monograph, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism, Jonathan Klawans demonstrates that moral impurity is a phenomenon to be found in various forms in the Hebrew Bible as well as in Jewish writings from the Second Temple period.¹

Jonathan Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), following Adolf Büchler, Studies in Sin and Atonement (London: Oxford University Press, 1928) 212–374.

Whereas the sources of ritual impurity are either natural phenomena (e.g., childbirth, scale disease, and menstrual and seminal emissions) or certain cultic procedures (e.g., Lev 16:28; Num 19:8), moral impurity results from heinous acts, particularly offenses that pertain to social life such as sexual sins, bloodshed, idolatry, and deceit. Moreover, while ritual impurity may be unintentional, moral pollution is the result of a deliberate act, and thus testifies to the transgressor's own character.²

Klawans, Impurity and Sin, 21–42. See, e.g., Lev 18:27–30. The character of such moral defilement may vary from metaphorical blemishing to a substantive impurity that is quite similar to ritual impurity. From a religious perspective, the rationale of moral impurity is that sin and offense cannot come close to the sacred (see Jer 7:3–15). From a sociocultural perspective, moral pollution is a disruption of the perfect social or cosmic order. See Robert Wuthnow, Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations in Cultural Analysis (Berkeley: University of California, 1987) 97–144.

As a result of moral defilement, the sinner experiences a degradation in status, but does not defile those with whom he comes into contact. The Priestly traditions in the Pentateuch prescribe a complicated process for eliminating the impurity that results from sin: repentance, restitution, and an atoning sacrifice, through which repentance is publicly performed. Neglecting this process leads to the metaphorical pollution of the sacrificial altar and punishment for the transgressor.³

Jacob Milgrom, “Israel's Sanctuary: The Priestly ‘Picture of Dorian Gray,’” RB 83 (1976) 390–99.

Klawans also discusses the New Testament attestations of the belief that sin defiles in light of its Jewish context, showing that this belief is central for understanding the cultural ethos of the early Christians.⁴

Klawans, Impurity and Sin, 136–57.

Several New Testament passages have been interpreted as evidence that the historical Jesus taught that moral purity was a more important concern than ritual purity, or that ritual impurity was unimportant. A number of studies portray the historical Jesus as an opponent of the Levitical purity system, decades before Paul challenged it (Rom 14:14).⁵

See the studies cited in E. P. Sanders Jesus and Judaism (London: SCM, 1985) 396–97 nn. 6–7. Recently, John D. Crossan (The Historical Jesus: A Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant [New York: HarperCollins, 1991] 322–23, 355) also followed this approach.

In his Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teaching of Jesus, Marcus J. Borg focuses on the traditions about Jesus' response to those Pharisees who criticized his disciples for neglecting to observe the handwashing ritual (Mark 7:1–23 and parallels), as well as the traditions about Jesus' relationship with sinners (Mark 2:13–17 and parallels). He argues that Jesus challenged the traditional Jewish holiness system and articulated an alternative paradigm of morality and compassion, in which he redefined and spiritualized the contemporary concept of holiness.⁶

Marcus J. Borg, Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teaching of Jesus (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 5; New York: Edwin Mellen, 1984). See also idem, Jesus: A New Vision (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), esp. 129 ff.; and idem, Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship (Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1994) 26–28, 108–17.

According to Borg, “No longer was holiness understood to need protection, rather, it was seen as an active force which overcame uncleanness.”⁷

Borg, Conflict, Holiness and Politics, 136.

Scott McKnight proposes a more moderate formulation along these lines, suggesting that Jesus advocated a reform of moral purity that disregarded the Temple but emphasized the moral purity of the people and the importance of table fellowship.⁸

Scott McKnight, “Jesus and James on Israel and Purity,” in James the Just and Christian Origins (ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans; SNT 98; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 91–98, esp. 97–98. Note that McKnight (A New Vision for Israel: The Teachings of Jesus in National Context [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999] 228) rejects Borg's dichotomy between holiness and mercy. For a survey of opinions regarding ethics and holiness in the teachings ascribed to Jesus, see, e.g., Bruce Chilton, Pure Kingdom: Jesus' Vision of God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1996).

Indeed, Borg and others have seen in Mark 7:19c (“thus he declared all foods pure”) proof for the view that Jesus rejected the traditional purity laws. That clause, however, is surely a later explanatory gloss, and thus it seems that there is no explicit attestation in the Synoptic Gospels of a denial of the Levitical purity system.⁹

Roger P. Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity: Tradition, History and Legal History in Mark 7 (JSNTSup 13; Sheffield: JSOT, 1986) 46–47, 49–50, 53, 68; and Paula Fredriksen, “Did Jesus Oppose the Purity Laws?,” BRev 9.3 (1995) 25. See also the studies cited in Eyal Regev, “Pure Individualism: The Idea of Non-Priestly Purity in Ancient Judaism,” JSJ 31 (2000) 200 n. 75. James D. G. Dunn (“Jesus and Ritual Purity: A Study of the Tradition-History of Mark 7:15,” in Jesus, Paul, and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians [Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox, 1990] 37–60) accepts this view and also concludes that Mark 7:15 (“nothing from outside can render a man unclean”) is an alteration of the less radical Matthean “Not what enters into the mouth defiles a man but…” (Matt 15:11). Joel Markus (Mark 1–8 [AB 27; New York: Doubleday, 2000] 455) considers v. 19c to be a Markan insertion. For interpretations of Mark 7:15 as questioning the relevance of traditional purity laws, see H. Räisänen, “Jesus and the Food Laws: Reflections on Mark 7:15,” JSNT 16 (1982) 79–100 (Räisänen is not claiming that the core tradition rejected them); and Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996) 365–66, 394.

Moreover, the statement that no food is defiling, attributed to Jesus in Mark 7:15//Matt 15:11, is in fact almost entirely in accord with rabbinic halakhah. The rabbis maintained that according to Scripture, impure food cannot defile one who eats it, with the exception of the carcass of a clean (i.e., kosher) bird.¹⁰

See Menahem Kister, “Law, Morality, and Rhetoric in Some Sayings of Jesus,” in Studies in Ancient Midrash (ed. James L. Kugel; Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies: Cambridge, 2001) 151–54. As Kister pointed out, nonkosher food defiles by touching, not by eating per se, but the rabbis decided upon a nonbiblical decree that declares eating of impure (but kosher) food as defiling.

Other scholars have pointed to traditions that suggest Jesus himself observed the laws of ritual purity. For instance, Paula Fredriksen notes that Jesus ordered the leper he cured to show himself to a priest, in accordance with the Priestly legislation (Mark 1:40–44; compare Leviticus 14). She also argues that Jesus' endorsement of the sacrificial system—and consequently of the related purity laws—is implied by his teaching about the moral requirements for one who offers a gift on the altar (Matt 5:23–24), by his celebration of the Passover, and especially by his visits to the Temple and his activities there.¹¹

Fredriksen, “Did Jesus Oppose the Purity Laws?,” 42–47, 120–25. Also, members of the Jerusalem church scrupulously avoided contact with Gentiles (Acts 10:28; 11:3; Gal 2:12–13).

In the present essay, I presume Klawans's presentation of the co-existence of the concepts of ritual and moral impurity in Second Temple Jewish thought. Hence, I am throughout concerned to demonstrate that the stress on moral impurity in early Christian traditions does not necessarily imply a rejection of either the traditional Jewish Temple cult or the ritual purity laws, as Borg and, to a much lesser degree, McKnight have claimed. In contrast to those authors, I have no special interest in the historical Jesus per se, but rather in general patterns of belief and behavior characteristic of the Jesus movement and of first-century Christian communities, insofar as those patterns are reflected in the Synoptic Gospels (where they are expressed through the figure of Jesus), the Book of Acts, and the letters of Paul. Reference to the figure of Jesus (“Jesus aimed,” etc.) or of individual apostles is therefore only made for the sake of illustration or convenience.

My specific concern in this essay is to attempt to recover some of the social and religious implications of the concept of moral impurity as they may be reflected in early Christian traditions. How did a belief in the defiling power of sin affect the religious beliefs and social behavior of early Christians? More particularly, how did that belief influence early Christian attitudes toward the Temple and toward “sinners” (

)? Unfortunately, the New Testament sources do not provide direct answers to these questions, and it is necessary to approach the problem obliquely. Hence, it will be useful to enrich our understanding of the socioreligious aspects of moral impurity by looking elsewhere, to ancient Greece and the scrolls of the Qumran sectarians. Both the Greeks and the Qumran sectarians maintained a belief in moral impurity, and we are able to trace in both cultures how that belief was reflected in certain institutions and practices. The process of comparison will indicate some of the religious and social modes through which we might expect early Christian belief in moral impurity to be expressed.

Ultimately, I would like to propose how the concept of moral impurity may illuminate two problematic topics: Jesus' “cleansing of the Temple” (Mark 11:15–19 and parallels); and the acceptance of sinners, and later on of Gentiles, within early Christianity. I shall proceed by presenting a brief analysis of early Christian traditions regarding moral impurity, with special attention to the problems raised by the account of the handwashing controversy in Mark 7:1–23. Next, I shall give a short account of the social and religious implications of moral impurity in ancient Greece and Qumran. Then, I shall examine both the cleansing of the Temple and the early Christian willingness to embrace sinners in light of questions suggested by the comparative data.

Moral Impurity in Early Christian Traditions

The relationship between ritual impurity and moral impurity appears to be the focus of Mark 7:1–23. Some Pharisees ask Jesus why his disciples do not wash their hands before they eat. Jesus' response includes the statement, “There is nothing outside a person that, by going in, can defile (

); but the things that come out are what defile” (Mark 7:15). A little later, Jesus explains, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles; for it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:20–23).

¹²

For the authenticity of Mark 7:4, 15, see Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity, 49–53, 67–114. For the literary development of Mark 7:1–23 and the view that vv. 21–23 are a later Markan insertion, see Markus, Mark 1–8, 443, 447–48, 460–62. The passage is paralleled in Matt 15:11, 17–20. In Matt 15:11, Jesus states: “For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.”

Parallels to Mark 7:15 are found in Q (Luke 11:38–41//Matt 23:25–26) and the Gospel of Thomas (“For what goes into your mouth will not defile you: rather, it is what comes out of your mouth that will defile you,” logion 14). Thus, Jesus' remark about moral impurity is already embedded in the two earliest layers of the synoptic tradition, a pre-Markan source and Q/Gos. Thom.¹³

For the Gospel of Thomas, see Marvin Meyer, The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1992) 28–29. See also Gos. Thom. 89 (ibid., 88–89). On Luke 11:38–41 and its relationship to Matt 23:25–26, see John K. Kloppenborg (The Formation of Q [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987] 139–40, 147), who views Luke's version as original.

In Mark 7 (followed by Matthew 15) and Q, this saying is framed as Jesus' reply to the Pharisees' rebuke of Jesus or his disciples. This is very interesting, since it seems that the Pharisees did not hold the view that unrighteous behavior produces impurity; thus, it is quite possible that the context of the saying is authentic.¹⁴

Although there is no direct evidence regarding the Pharisees' view on this subject, later rabbinic sources “compartmentalize” impurity and sin. See Klawans, Impurity and Sin, 92–117.

Roger P. Booth, James D. G. Dunn, and Klawans interpret “not what goes inside, but what goes outside defiles” (Mark 7:15) as implying that the impurity of what goes out of the mouth is more important than that of what goes into the mouth. A similar rhetorical pattern is also attested in the statement, “I come not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). Consequently, this well-attested tradition attributes to Jesus the view that moral impurity is more severe and harmful to society than ritual impurity. (This view is also reflected in Matt 23:25–26, when Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for focusing on the purity of the outside of cups and bowls, whereas their interiors are full of greed and self-indulgence.)¹⁵

For Matthew's general conflict with the Pharisees on matters concerning morality, see Anthony J. Saldarini, Matthew's Christian-Jewish Community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) 46–52, 115. Saldarini viewed the conflict as reflecting the post-70 C.E. community that competed with the rabbis. However, Newport has argued convincingly that Matt 23:2–31 is a pre-Matthean source that has close connections with the Sermon on the Mount. See Kenneth G. C. Newport, The Sources and Sitz im Leben of Matthew 23 (JSNTSup 117; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). It is important to note several traditions that witness the idea of the relative severity of moral impurity. A contrast between ritual purity and moral behavior is concealed in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Borg, Conflict, Holiness & Politics, 102–5). An explicit and sharply worded expression of the severity of moral impurity is found in Oxyrhynchus fragment 840, where Jesus (“the Savior”) is rebuked by a Pharisee and chief priest named Levi (?) for entering the Temple and seeing the holy vessels without the necessary purification. Jesus' harsh response juxtaposes ritual purity to filth and wickedness: “You have washed yourself in these running waters where dogs and pigs have wallowed night and day and you have cleansed and wiped the outside skin which the prostitutes and flute-girls anoint … but inwardly these women are full of scorpions and wickedness” (lines 32–41, as translated by François Bovon in “Fragment Oxyrhynchus 840, Fragment of a Lost Gospel, Witness of an Early Christian Controversy over Purity,” JBL 119 [2000] 715–28). Although the fragment contains several accurate details concerning the Temple and the cult, Bovon has recently argued that it reflects a second- or third-century Gnostic or Manichaean polemic against baptism. If this is indeed the case, the passage testifies that certain Christians believed that Jesus prioritized moral purity over ritual purity, and used this belief for their own purposes. Note that the poorly preserved beginning of the fragment (lines 1–7) also deals with the polemic against unrighteousness. See Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri V (London: Oxford University Press, 1908) 1–10; and Bovon, “Fragment Oxyrhynchus 840,” with bibliography.

The tradition does not, however, imply that Jesus rejected the observation of ritual purity; it indicates, rather, that Jesus ranked moral purity as more important than ritual purity.

A further indication that Jesus did not reject the Levitical purity laws is found in the subject of the controversy between the Pharisees and Jesus—namely, handwashing. Handwashing was not a traditional Levitical practice but an innovation of the late Second Temple period.

¹⁶

Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity, 69–71 with bibliography; Dunn, “Jesus and Ritual Purity,” 51, with bibliography; and Klawans, Impurity and Sin, 147–48. If this interpretation is adopted, E. P. Sanders (Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah [London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990] 28) agrees that Mark 7:15 “can be saved as an authentic logion.” For handwashing in general, see Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity, 155–203.

Thus, dining with unclean hands could hardly be considered a transgression of biblical law. The same is true, incidentally, of dining with sinners and tax collectors, the subject of Mark 2:15–17. Even if the sinners and tax collectors with whom Jesus dined were ritually impure, so that congregating with them might have led to contamination, the resultant impurity would not have broken any biblical law. In early rabbinic halakhah, there was no absolute interdiction on being impure unless one entered the Temple or touched holy things. With regard to meals, as long as the food being consumed was ordinary food and not sacred (e.g., a sacrifice, such as the paschal lamb, or a prescribed offering), eating it in a state of purity was a voluntary religious practice, not a biblical command. Therefore, eating with impure people, whether they belonged to the social stratum derogatorically called עam-ha

aretz (“the people of the land”), or sinners,

¹⁷

Craig A. Evans (“ ‘Who Touched Me’? Jesus and the Ritually Impure,” in Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans, Jesus in Context [AGAJU 39; Leiden: Brill, 1997] 353–76) has collected the cases in which Jesus had physical contact with defiled persons.

or even with Gentiles would not be considered a severe offense—if indeed it could be counted as an offense at all.¹⁸

Sanders (Jewish Law, 28, 39–40) argued that Jesus did not violate obligatory laws, even in the view of the Pharisees. Fredriksen (“Did Jesus Oppose the Purity Laws?”) asserts that violation of purity laws occurs only when one enters the Temple in a state of impurity; to this should be added the eating of holy offerings when in a state of impurity. Such is the position of rabbinic law. According to the Priestly schools (P and H), however, ritual impurity can defile the sanctuary from afar, not only by direct contact, and thus biblical law is more stringent regarding the need for purification. See Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991) 307–18. For a possible application of this notion in the Temple Scroll and other writings from Qumran, see ibid., 968–76.

What, then, was the socio-halakhic background of the handwashing debate in Mark 7? The handwashing controversy is usually understood as reflecting Jesus' rejection of a Pharisaic practice.

¹⁹

Booth (Jesus and the Laws of Purity, 198, 202–3) concluded that the pharisaic

aberim (members of the fellowships) rebuked Jesus because he did not observe

ullin (ordinary food) purity.

Although Mark's comment that Pharisees used to wash their hands before the meal seems correct, this is by no means a satisfactory background to the episode in Mark 7. Handwashing was part of a system of purity practices that applied to non-sacred food in particular; it was not connected to the Temple cult or to holy things in general. This system may be termed “non-priestly purity.”²⁰

For more detailed discussion, see Regev, “Pure Individualism.”

Beginning in the Hellenistic period, certain Jews observed ritual purity when participating in secular meals, prayer, and the public reading or study of Scripture. They washed their hands or immersed before dining, praying, or entering the synagogue. Such practices were widespread not only among the early rabbis (and apparently also among Pharisees such as Yose ben Yoעezer) but also among the Qumran sectarians and Diaspora Jews. These rituals are archaeologically attested by ritual baths and by stone vessels, which are not susceptible to impurity. Mark was indeed correct in explaining that handwashing is typical not only of Pharisees (7:3); however, he was wrong in claiming that all Jews maintained the custom. Non-priestly purity, and handwashing in particular, was practiced by many Jews, especially those belonging to religious movements and elite groups. Presumably the customs of non-priestly purity were also kept by many common people. Many others, however, especially those that the rabbis called the עam-ha

aretz, did not observe them, and they are therefore criticized in rabbinic sources. Failure to observe non-priestly purity was considered to be impious behavior, but was not necessarily sinful.

Nevertheless, it is still puzzling that in Mark 7:1–5, the Pharisees criticize Jesus and his disciples for failing to observe non-priestly purity, while Jesus responds by rebuking them for their strict observance of ritual purity and insisting on the priority of moral purity. Even if these episodes are not authentic but reflect a later Christian polemic against Pharisaic or early rabbinic circles, why should the Pharisees be condemned for a practice that is by no means exclusively Pharisaic or rabbinic? In light of other passages where Jesus rebukes the Pharisees' behavior (Matt 23:25–26//Luke 11:38–41), it may be that in Mark 7 and its parallels, the Pharisees are criticized not only for their observance of non-priestly purity itself (i.e., handwashing), but especially for the social implications of their observance. That is, it is possible that Jesus or his followers protested against the phenomenon precisely because some Pharisaic or early rabbinic sages boasted of their strict adherence to purity practices (as in Mark 7:5) in order to demonstrate their religious piety and to establish their reputation as religious leaders. As rabbinic traditions that reflect the late Second Temple period show, such sages demonstrated their religious scrupulousness through the public performance of purity.²¹

Two cases disclose that pharisaic/rabbinic separation from the עam-ha

aretz indeed derived partly from their aim to gain public authority. (1) The members of the school of Shammai asserted that a

aber who has a seminal discharge (zab) should not eat with an עam-ha

aretz who has a seminal discharge. See t. Sab. 1:15 (ed. Saul Lieberman; Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962) 4. (2) According to the rabbis, the impurity of the עam-ha

aretz expired at the time of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but only partly. If the עam-ha

aretz touched dough (עissa) during the festival, it was at first regarded as pure, but immediately after the festival the dough was considered impure. See m. Hag. 3:7. For a detailed halakhic and sociological discussion, see Regev, “Pure Individualism,” 192–99.

This socioreligious phenomenon seems to have troubled those who competed for religious authority with late Second Temple Pharisees or early rabbis. These competitors may have been the “pre-Markan,” “pre-Matthean,” or Q-associated Jewish-Christian communities that developed the traditions in Mark 7 and Luke 11:38–41//Matt 23:25–26. The competitors' rejection of the Pharisaic exploitation of bodily purity as a source of prestige, however, does not imply that they themselves neglected to observe ritual purity.²²

For a similar general overview regarding Matthew's relationship with the early rabbis, see Saldarini, Matthew's Christian-Jewish Community, esp. 52, 115 (but see n. 15, above, regarding Newport's theory of a pre-Matthean source). For the confrontation of the Q community with the Pharisees and its adherence to Jewish law, see John S. Kloppenborg, “Literary Convention, Self-Evidence and the Social History of the Q People,” Semeia 55 (1992) 77–102, esp. 97, 99–100. For Q and pre-Mark, see Richard A. Horsley, “Q and Jesus: Assumptions, Approaches, and Analyses,” Semeia 55 (1992) 192–93, 200–2. For pre-Markan evidence of such competition, see Mark 12:38–40. My proposal, however, may not be relevant if the Markan community was unobservant. See, e.g., Howard Clark Kee, The Community of the New Age: Studies in Mark's Gospel (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977), esp. 148–49.

Attestations of the concept of moral impurity in the New Testament are not confined to the Jesus traditions alone. This idea had a special place in the theology of both John the Baptist and Paul. John called for and pursued a combination of ritual baptism in the Jordan together with moral repentance. David Flusser and Joan E. Taylor, following Josephus's account (A.J. 18.117), argue that John demanded moral purity— namely, repentance for one's sins—as a prerequisite of the final ritual purification by water.²³

For the baptism of John, see Matt 3:2//Luke 3:3; Matt 3:6//Mark 1:5; Matt 3:8//Luke 3:8; Matt 3:11. John P. Meier (Mentor, Message, and Miracles [vol. 2 of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus; New York: Doubleday, 1994], esp. 49–56) emphasizes the penitential and eschatological character of John's baptism as well as its distinctiveness from the ablutions at Qumran. For the relationship between the ritual and the moral/spiritual components, see David Flusser, “The Baptism of John and the Dead Sea Sect” (in Hebrew), Jewish Sources in Early Christianity (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Ha-poalim, 1979) 84–89; idem, “The Dead Sea Sect and Pre-Pauline Christianity,” in Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magness, 1988) 50–54; and Joan E. Taylor, The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1997) 88–100.

Klawans, however, understating the role of ritual impurity in baptism, concludes that “John's baptism worked as a moral purification, effecting atonement by purifying individuals from moral defilement.”²⁴

Klawans, Impurity and Sin, 139–43 (quotation from p. 143). Klawans viewed the immersion itself as a ceremonial act without any actual ritual purification.

In any event, the early Christians believed that Jesus' forerunner called for both ritual (or rather, symbolic) purification by immersion, on the one hand, and repentance for sins, on the other hand. Indeed, Jesus did not baptize his own disciples, and his conception of the relationship between impurity and sin may have been different from John's. Notwithstanding the possible differences between the two figures, it is striking that early Christian traditions portrayed both John and Jesus as struggling with the same problem, namely, the connection between sin and impurity.

The idea that immoral behavior produces metaphorical defilement is frequent in the letters of Paul. As is true of the other references to moral impurity in the New Testament, its exact character and implications are not as clear in Paul's letters as we would like them to be. Klawans argues convincingly that many of Paul's references to purity and impurity involve not ritual (im)purity, but rather moral (im)purity.

²⁵

Ibid., 151–56.

In Rom 1:18–30, Paul states that “God gave up in the lusts of their hearts to [moral] impurity (

)” those “who by their wickedness suppress the truth,” and as a result they became defiled by “every kind of wickedness.”

²⁶

Paul is probably referring to the Gentiles. See Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans (AB 33; New York: Doubleday 1993) 270–77.

In 1 Cor 6:9–11, Paul claims that baptism purifies from moral impurity: adulterers, thieves, the greedy people—all kinds of wrongdoers— are washed (the verb is

), sanctified, and justified in the spirit of God.

²⁷

Michael Newton, The Concept of Purity at Qumran and in the Letters of Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) 81–84. Compare Alan F. Segal, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990) 169–70, 177.

“Pure” or “clean” is Paul's metaphorical synonym for “behaving properly.” Hence, Paul introduces a special elimination rite that purifies the individual from moral defilement.²⁸

See Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians. The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven, Conn.; Yale University Press, 1983) 153–54; Meeks writes that in 1 Corinthians 5–6, Paul “takes as self-evident that pure/impure can be a metaphor for moral/immoral.” Paul connects between immoral behavior and impurity in other passages as well. In Gal 5:19–21, Paul mentions impurity in relation to fornication, jealousy, anger, envy, and other kinds of misbehavior. See Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul's Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 281–90. In 2 Cor 12:21, Paul associates impurity with fornication and lasciviousness, while in Rom 6:19, impurity is mentioned in relation to wickedness. See also 1 Thess 4:7; Phil 2:15. For further non-Pauline evidence, see Eph 5:3–5; Jas 3:6 (compare 3:17); 4:8; 1 Pet 1:12; 3:21.

Paul thus believed that immoral behavior produces impurity both inside and outside the community. The sins that cause this defilement vary from greed and malice to adultery and murder. Moral impurity (

) is grouped with other vices in 1 Cor 6:9–11, as well as in the list in Gal 5:19–21. Such catalogues of vices (and virtues) are well known from Hellenistic sources.

²⁹

For instance, Betz (Galatians 281–83) pointed to a connection between Paul's list in Galatians 5 and lists of vices in Greco-Roman philosophical literature. He notes that “some of the concepts indicate that the material has passed through Hellenistic-Jewish adaptation” (ibid., 281).

We should bear in mind, however, that there are extensive attestations to the concept of the danger of moral impurity to the community in biblical and Second Temple writings, including the Qumran scrolls, as we shall see. Thus, a profound legacy of Jewish thought about moral impurity was inherited by early Christian communities.

This survey shows that the phenomenon of moral impurity was emphasized in several phases of early Christian teaching: traditions about John the Baptist preserved in both Josephus and the synoptic tradition; Jesus' sayings in Q/Thomas, (pre-)Mark, and (pre-)Matthew; and Pauline theology. There is no doubt that this phenomenon underlies the moral exhortations and admonitions in early Christian texts,³⁰

See 1 Thes 4:3–8. For shunning of or estrangement from sinners within the community (after their almost unconditional acceptance), see Matt 18:15–18; 1 Cor 5; see also n. 74, below. For the moral discipline among first century Christians, see Wayne A. Meeks, The Origins of Christian Morality (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993) 66–90, 96–98, 102–3, 118–26, 213–14. Although the traditions of moral impurity cannot be separated from ethics in the Jesus traditions, this subject cannot be treated here. See the discussion and bibliography in Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 350, 361–400; and McKnight, A New Vision for Israel, 65–68, 197–233.

and perhaps other features of Christian theology as well.³¹

It may be interesting to explore in what manner the adherence to moral purity influenced the Christian concept of the pure heart/soul. On this concept, which combines morality and belief, see Hanz Dieter Betz, The Sermon on the Mount, Including the Sermon on the Plain (Matthew 5:3–7:27; Luke 6:20–49) (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995) 134–37 and the passages cited in 136 n. 350; and McKnight, “Jesus and James on Israel and Purity,” 93–94, 96.

Moral Impurity in Ancient Greece and Qumran

We have seen that first-century Christian literature reflects a lively debate over the relative importance of moral purity, ritual purity, and what I have called non-priestly purity. Moreover, we have seen that in the early Jesus traditions, if moral purity is more important than ritural purity, it certainly does not displace the latter: the traditions show that Jesus and early Christians alike were concerned to observe both moral and ritual impurity.

Those traditions, however, are less than forthcoming about the cultic and social repercussions of early Christians' observance of moral purity. I mentioned at the beginning of this essay that the Priestly traditions in the Pentateuch assume that moral impurity can cause a metaphorical pollution of the sacrificial altar, and that those who are morally impure—sinners—must undergo a complicated process of atonement to prevent the defilement of the altar. Thus, in the Hebrew Bible, we can trace some of the cultic and social repercussions of moral impurity in Israelite religion.

Did the earliest Christians have a similar understanding of the repercussions of moral impurity—namely, that the altar or Temple must be protected from moral impurity, and that the actions of sinners must be effectively neutralized in order to prevent the spread of moral impurity? It would be surprising indeed if the New Testament traditions about Jesus preserved only his remarks about moral impurity, without giving any indication of what action should be taken to thwart its effects. In the following sections of this essay, I shall suggest that the Jesus traditions do indeed reflect—though obliquely—concerns about the cultic and social repercussions of moral impurity. First, however, by way of comparison, I shall describe some of the clearly attested cultic and social consequences of moral impurity in ancient Greece and Qumran. Along the way, I shall point to certain parallels—as well as some telling contrasts—between the remedies for moral impurity practiced by these cultures and the behavior of early Christians. I hope to offer sufficient preparation for an understanding of both Jesus' cleansing of the Temple and the early Christian embrace of sinners as strategies intended to remove or curtail the contamination produced by moral impurity.

I begin with ancient Greece. Robert Parker has shown in his monograph on miasma (“pollution, defilement”) that the concept that sin produces impurity was very common in ancient Greek religion. Disgraceful acts such as murder, male prostitution, and female adultery had a defiling force, and society responded to such acts with moral condemnation. Sin and guilt sometimes led to a collective need for the purification of the entire city. Parker characterizes the impurity of incest as disgraceful, that is, outside the limits of the essential Greek values of social behavior, and as “metaphorical moral [pollution].” The bearers of such impurity were deprived of “honor” or of rights of full citizenship, and thus could not partake in prayer on behalf of the city.³²

Robert Parker, Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983) 94–100, 120. For models of the social function of impurity, see Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications (trans. Mark Sainsberg, Louis Dumont, and Basia Gulati; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), esp. 48–49; and Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966).

In the case of the pollution resulting from homicide—in which the actual source of pollution was the wrath of the victim—impurity exerted a coercive and dynamic force. Its effects might threaten the killer, his family, and even the entire community. Hence, unless the blood of the victim was cleansed from the hands of the murderer, the murderer's removal from society was demanded. In such cases the expulsion of the source of pollution was legally prescribed, and the concept of impurity was used to illustrate or justify the severity of the transgression and the corresponding need for punishment.³³

Parker, Miasma, 104–43.

Ancient Greek texts, as well as epigraphic evidence from Hellenistic Egypt and Asia Minor, testify to the exclusion of sinners from Greek and Hellenistic temples. For instance, an inscription that prohibited those who stole, murdered, or committed adultery from entering was found in a private Temple in Philadelphia (Asia Minor). Temples in Hellenistic Egypt also forbade entrance to sinners and evil people. In these cases, moral miasma seems to have been acknowledged as endangering the sacred.³⁴

For Egypt, see Moshe Weinfeld, “Instructions for Temple Visitors in Ancient Israel and in Ancient Egypt” (in Hebrew), Tarbiz 62 (1992) 5–15. For Philadelphia, see idem, “The Decalogue: Its Significance, Uniqueness, and Place in Israel's Tradition,” in Religion and Law: Biblical-Judaic and Islamic Perspectives (ed. Edwin B. Firmage et al.; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990) 34–38. For inscriptions in Delphi and Epidaurus that call the righteous or pure-minded to enter, see Betz, The Sermon on the Mount, 135; and Parker, Miasma, 322–24. Psalms 15 and 24:3–5, declare that only the honest and righteous who have not committed evil are wanted in the Temple. See Weinfeld, “Instructions for Temple Visitors”; and Eckart Otto, “Kultus und Ethos in Jerusalemer Theologie: Ein Beitrag zur theologischen Begründung der Ethik im Alten Testament,” ZAW 98 (1986) 161–79. This phenomenon is of particular relevance to Jesus' cleansing of the Temple, as will be shown below.

How can the ancient Greek evidence contribute to our understanding of moral impurity in early Christianity? In Greece, the concept of moral defilement generated in turn specific means of eliminating impurity. Institutional means of coping with the problem included purification rites and legal procedures, such as purifying the entire city, depriving offenders of the rights of full citizenship, and secluding offenders from society. In the Jesus traditions, however, and perhaps even in the letters of Paul, one finds only the basic notion that sin defiles: there is no explicit prescription for the purification of the sinner. Institutional remedies are absent from the Jesus traditions and Paul's letters, perhaps because in contrast to the Greek city, membership in the early Christian communities was voluntary and lacked hierarchical leadership and coercive institutions.³⁵

Compare, for instance, the discussions of early Christian communities as

or, to a lesser degree, as voluntary associations: Meeks, The First Urban Christians, 78–86; Wane O. McCready, “Ekklesia and Voluntary Associations,” in Voluntary Associations in the Greco-Roman World (ed. John S. Kloppenborg and Stephen G. Wilson; London and New York: Routledge, 1996) 58–73; and Philip F. Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts: The Social and Political Motivations of Lucan Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) 54, citing Hans von Campenhausen, Ecclesiatical Authority and Spiritual Power in the Church of the First Three Centuries (trans. J. A. Baker; London: Adam & Charles Black, 1969) 76, 84.

In Greek religion, furthermore, moral impurity affected the cult in the temples and the civil prayer, since the morally defiled were excluded from these religious activities. Yet the remedy of exclusion is not common in first-century Christian texts.³⁶

Admittedly, exclusion is recommended in 1 Cor 5:5 and Matt 18:15–17, but as I shall explain (following Sanders) below, these passages relate to the morality of those remaining in the community and not of those entering it. The social boundary drawn in 2 Cor 6:14–7:1 (a non-Pauline passage) refers not to potential members, but to nonbelievers and idolaters—and not to the unrighteous per se. The separation from sinners prescribed in the later text of Barn. 4.2 (“Let us give no freedom to our souls to have power to walk with sinners and wicked men, lest we be made like to them”) may reflect a process of social and moral strengthening that is described as a flight “from all the works of lawlessness” (Barn. 4.1).

The alternative means of moral purification available in early Christianity were various types of baptism: John's baptism, the apostles' baptism in the name of Jesus (Acts 2:38), and Paul's theology of baptism in the Holy Spirit.³⁷

For the baptism of John, see nn. 13–14, above. For Paul's doctrine of baptism, see Segal, Paul the Convert 132–138, and compare nn. 17–18, above. For the baptism in Acts, see n. 69, below.

The function of these rituals differed from that of the early Greek rites, however, in that baptism was first and foremost a rite of initiation. In most cases, an individual was baptized only once when joining the Christian community, no matter how sinful or righteous he or she had been in previous life. Baptism was not a remedy available to members of the community who became impure after their initial baptism.

I turn now to the practices of the Qumran sectarians. The writings from the Qumran caves detail a rigorous concern for moral impurity. Members of the sects withdrew from the rest of Jewish society and did not participate in the Temple cult in Jerusalem, because they accused the Jewish leaders of being morally corrupt and morally defiled. The Qumran sectarians believed that the Temple itself was also polluted.³⁸

See Eyal Regev, “Abominated Temple and a Holy Community: The Formation of the Concepts of Purity and Impurity in Qumran,” DSD 10 (2003) 243–78.

Pesher Habbakuk condemns the Hasmonean high priest and leader, the “Wicked Priest,” because he was “arrogant, abandoned God, and betrayed the laws for the sake of wealth. He stole and amassed the wealth of men of violence who had rebelled against God, and he took the wealth of people to add to himself guilty sin. And abominated ways he practiced, with every sort of unclean impurity.”³⁹

1QpHab VIII, 8–13 (pesher to Hab 2:5–6).

The Wicked Priest was also accused of having “committed abominable deeds and defiled God's sanctuary. … He stole the wealth of the poor ones.”⁴⁰

1QpHab XII, 7–10 (pesher to Hab 2:17). For the moral dimension of the impurity discussed in this passage, see also Klawans, Impurity and Sin, 69–72. For the association of arrogance and wickedness with wealth here and in other passages in the pesharim and the Damascus Document (on which see below), see Catherine M. Murphy, Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Qumran Community (STDJ 40; Leiden: Brill, 2002) 235–41.

Interestingly, in both passages, the Wicked Priest is charged with the misappropriation or seizure of public wealth, an act that produced moral impurity.

Similar condemnations were directed towards another group, “the sons of the pit,” in the Damascus Document VI, 11–17. Here the members of the community are called to “separate [themselves] from the sons of the pit and to refrain from the wicked wealth [which is] impure due to oath[s] and dedication[s] and to [its being] the wealth of the sanctuary, [for] they [i.e., the sons of the pit] steal from the poor of his people, preying upon wid[ow]s and murdering orphans.” The “wicked” stolen money was contaminated by impurity, and when it was donated to the sanctuary (that is, to the Temple's treasury), it caused the pollution of the cult.⁴¹

For the interpretation of this passage, see Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, “The Translation of Damascus Document VI 11–14,” RQ 7 (1969–1971) 553–56. The paragraph actually begins with a citation of Mal 1:10 and a reference to the correct sacrificial rites. Moral defilement of the Temple by judges who accept bribes is mentioned in the Temple Scroll 51, 11–15 (compare Klawans, Impurity and Sin, 49–51).

But the threat of moral pollution was not only external. According to the Community Rule, the members of the Qumran community aspired to be purified from all sins, and they practiced rituals and ablutions in order to maintain their state of moral purity. Consequently, novices were accepted after a long period of probation in order to make sure that they were entitled to join the sect and would not contaminate the communal meals and “liquids” with their wickedness. Transgressing members who lied about financial issues, gossiped about other members, bore a grudge, answered other members stubbornly, or addressed them impatiently were punished by exclusion from the community's pure “liquids” and meals. In the case of grave sins such as transgressing the Sabbath laws, offenders were expelled from the sect.⁴²

Lawrence H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls (Philadelphia: JPS, 1994) 97–104, 299; idem, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts, Testimony, and the Penal Code (BJS 33; Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1983) = Law, Custom and Messianism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar, 1993) 136–267. For the view that these regulations were meant to guard against moral (and not ritual) impurity, see ibid., 252, 267. Compare Klawans, Impurity and Sin, 79–85. For purification rites, see 1QS III, 6–12; and Joseph M. Baumgarten, “The Purification Liturgies,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years (ed. Peter W. Flint and James C. Vanderkam; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 2:200–12. Klawans (Impurity and Sin, 85–91) concluded that only in Qumran was moral impurity considered ritually defiling, so that repentance also required ritual purification. In all other cases, including the New Testament (ibid., 150), moral defilement only violated holiness and thus required atonement, but not ritual purification.

In Qumran, wickedness and sin had a defiling and dynamic force that was overcome by prayer, study of Scripture, and moral behavior. Total triumph over evil and moral impurity would be won only on the eschatological day of judgment.⁴³

See Francis Schmidt, La pensée du Temple, de Jérusalem à Qoumrân (Paris: Les Éditions du Seuil, 1994) 134–41.

The Qumran sectarians withdrew from nonmembers and rejected the morally defiled people of outside society. But John the Baptist, Jesus, the apostles, and Paul chose an opposite approach to the problem of sin and impurity. John, Jesus, Peter and Philip (according to Acts), and Paul were ready to accept outsiders who were interested in their message without subjecting them to a careful examination or a lengthy probation, and none of them excluded sinners from their communities.⁴⁴

On John, see nn. 23–24, above. On Jesus' acceptance of sinners, as well as their acceptance by Peter, Philip, and Paul, see the following section. Interestingly, the accusations against Judean society regarding the rejection of Jesus and responsibility for his death, which condemn the Jewish people or their leadership for immorality and wickedness, contain no such fundamental accusations of moral impurity. See, e.g., Matt 21:33–46 (Saldarini, Matthew's Christian-Jewish Community, 58–63); Matt 23:32–39 (Newport, Sources and Sitz im Leben of Matthew 23); and Jon A. Weatherly, Jewish Responsibility for the Death of Jesus in Luke-Acts (JSNT 105; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994).

Thus, the early Christian perception of the danger of moral impurity was qualitatively different from that of the Qumran sectarians, as well as that of the ancient Greeks.

We have seen that according to the Qumran writings and the inscriptions recovered at Greek and Hellenistic temples, moral impurity has acute implications for cult. In the New Testament, however, there is no explicit indication that moral impurity has any bearing on the Temple and its cult. Bearing in mind that some early Christians—especially those of the Jerusalem church⁴⁵

For traditions regarding the attitude of the Jerusalem church towards the Temple, see Acts 2:46; 3:1; 5:12; and Paul's words and deeds in 21:22–26. Compare Craig C. Hill, Hellenists and Hebrews: Reappraising Division within the Earliest Church (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992) 41–102. For Q, see Luke 4:9–12//Matt 4:5–7. See also Matt 5:23–25.

—were not indifferent to the Temple, it is indeed surprising that early Christian traditions would overlook the obvious implications of moral impurity for the temple cult. I would like to propose that the danger of moral contamination of the Temple cult is the context for Jesus' “cleansing” of the Temple.

The Cleansing of the Temple and the Defiling Force of Money

According to the tradition in Mark, Jesus expelled from the market on the Temple Mount those who were selling and buying, overturning the tables of the money changers who exchanged other currency for the half-shekel tribute and the chairs of those who were selling doves for sacrifices, and he did not allow anyone to carry vessels through the Temple. His zealous act was directed towards the commercial aspect of the Temple cult, which was located not in the Temple court itself, but on the margins (both spatial and religious) of the Temple Mount. His protest was directed against the money that was involved in the public buying and selling of sacrifices.⁴⁶

Mark 11:15–17. Both Matt 21:12–13 and John 2:13–22 omit the carrying of the vessels, and Luke 19:45–46 mentions only the action against the merchants. For a general contrast between the merchants and the Temple cult, see Gos. Thom. 64. Jesus' prohibition of carrying vessels through the Temple may perhaps be unrelated to his disruption of the merchants and money changers (m. Ber. 9:5 prohibits entering the Temple area while carrying a staff, sandals, a money belt, or even “the dust on one's feet”); on the other hand, the vessels may have contained coins (which belonged to the money changers?) or donations to the Temple. See Jostein Ådna, “Jesus' Symbolic Act in the Temple (Mark 11:15–17),” in Gemeinde ohne Tempel/Community without Temple (ed. Beate Ego et al.; WUNT 118; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999) 465–66. Sanders (Jesus and Judaism, 363–64) rejected the authenticity of the prohibition regarding vessels since it is not attested in John, but other scholars almost unanimously hold Jesus' prohibition to be authentic. See Rudolf Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition (trans. John Marsh; New York: Harper & Row, 1963) 36, 120; and Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, passim. Compare Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 356–60. See also the studies cited below. On Jesus' saying (“ I will destroy the house”), see n. 53, below.

This scene, the only episode in which Jesus was driven to act violently, has always puzzled scholars, who have proposed a range of interpretative solutions may be classed in two categories. Some scholars, following the lead of John 2:16, see Jesus addressing a religious or halakhic problem—namely, the contamination of the sacrificial cult by money.⁴⁷

Ezra P. Gould, Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Mark (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1896) 213. Compare Bruce Chilton, The Temple of Jesus: His Sacrificial Program within a Cultural History of Sacrifice (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992) 100–59; and Hans D. Betz, “Jesus and the Purity of the Temple (Mark 11:15–18): A Comparative Religion Approach,” JBL 116 (1997) 455–72. Borg (Conflict, Holiness and Politics, 176; and idem, Jesus: A New Vision, 175) suggested that since the money changers exchanged profane money for sacred money, they symbolized the distinction between sacred and profane that was at the base of the resistance against Rome, a resistance to which Jesus himself was opposed. See also the bibliography in Adela Yarbro Collins, Jesus and the Jerusalem Temple (International Rennert Guest Lectures Series 5; Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1999) 1–4. Yarbro Collins's own suggestion is that Jesus objected to the profanation of the Temple by unholy vessels and the use of Tyrian tetradrachmas on which the image of Melqart/Heracles was stamped. See also Peter Richardson, “Why Turn the Tables? Jesus' Protest in the Temple Precincts,” SBL Seminar Papers 31 (1992) 507–23 with bibliography.

Other scholars understand the cleansing as a symbolic (“prophetic”) act that may have expressed one of the following:(1) a prediction that the Temple would be destroyed before the coming of the kingdom of God;⁴⁸

Richard H. Hiers, “Purification of the Temple: Preparation for the Kingdom of God” JBL 90 (1971) 82–90 with bibliography; Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 31, 69–71, with bibliography; and James D. G. Dunn, The Parting of the Ways (London and Philadelphia: SCM and Trinity, 1991) 47–49. For critical observations on Sanders's thesis, see Yarbro Collins, Jesus and the Jerusalem Temple, 4–7; and Craig A. Evans, “Jesus' Action in the Temple: Cleansing or Portent of Destruction,” CBQ 51 (1989) 237–70.

(2) a desire that the Temple cult should be open to non-Jews;⁴⁹

Borg, Conflict, Holiness and Politics, 174–76. Elsewhere (Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship, 112–16), Borg suggested a less specific interpretation: protest against the purity system and the elites.

(3) a protest against the greed of the priests;⁵⁰

Evans, “Jesus' Action in the Temple”; and Craig A. Evans, Jesus and His Contemporaries: Comparative Studies (AGAJU 25; Leiden: Brill, 1995) 319–80. See also Martin Hengel, The Zealots (T&T Clark: Edinburgh, 1989) 216, with bibliography in n. 366.

or (4) a protest against the politicization of the Temple by the Herodian dynasty.⁵¹

Jonathan Knight, Luke's Gospel (London and New York: Routledge, 1998) 182–83; and Betz, “Jesus and the Purity of the Temple.” Richard A. Horsley (Jesus and the Spiral of Violence [New York: Harper & Row, 1987] 289–91, 298–317) integrates messages 1, 3, and 4.

Both alternatives, however, raise difficulties. The first type of interpretation is problematic because there is no suggestion in Jewish sources that any impropriety is attached to the use of money to purchase sacrifices.⁵²

Israel Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels [First Series] (1917; repr., New York: Ktav, 1967) 85–89; and Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 63–64.

Moreover, there is no attestation in the New Testament of opposition to commerce on the Temple Mount. Thus, if something about the use of money roused Jesus' fury, it was not simply the general combination of trade and worship, but a more particular problem.

The symbolic interpretations included in the second category lack direct support from the early Jesus traditions. Moreover, there is scarcely an indication in other early Christian traditions (such as Q) that Jesus held such views.⁵³

According to Crossan (The Historical Jesus, 355–60), the action of cleansing the Temple was “originally … accompanied by some saying about ‘house’ ” (p. 358). Yet “that original saying was replaced by positive but divergent biblical references attached to and explaining the action” (p. 359). Crossan concludes that “an action and equal saying involving the Temple's symbolic destruction goes back to the historical Jesus himself but that any biblical references or applications to the Temple's actual destruction, the resurrection, or the parousia are later explanations of an action considered enigmatic to begin with and rendered even more so by the Temple's actual destruction in 70 C.E.” (ibid.). He also notes that the the Markan tradition tries to dissociate Jesus' return from the actual destruction of the Temple. Crossan considers Gos. Thom. 71 (“I shall [destroy this] house and no one will be able to built it”) to be authentic and thus concludes that Jesus did show some resentment towards the Temple.

Indeed, most of the general cultic or political ideologies that are read into this short description in Mark could have been characteristic of certain radical Jewish groups, such as the Zealots, or of later Christian circles. Furthermore, the symbolic interpretations invariably presume an indirect relationship between Jesus' act and its religious or political meaning: the money symbolizes the cult, which in turn symbolizes the acceptance of Roman/Herodian rule or the exclusion of gentiles. Such interpretations do not explain why Jesus would choose to communicate a religious or political message by attacking commerce. Most of the explanations mentioned above are not grounded in actual traditions about Jesus' teachings. Is it possible that such a climactic moment in Jesus' career was so remote from the themes of his own preaching?

Indeed, I think that the fact that Jesus' act was directed against the financial aspect of the Temple cult is merely a misleading coincidence. Early Christian traditions indicate that giving money to the Temple was recognized as an expression of piety: this is presumed in Jesus' sympathetic reaction to the poor woman who offers a single small coin (Mark 12:41–44//Luke 21:1–4). I would like to propose a new interpretation that avoids the difficulties I enumerated above. The object of Jesus' wrath was the money itself, before it was used for financing the sacrifices and offerings, before it was delivered to priestly officials. Jesus' actions were directed towards the lay people who were selling and buying, the money changers and the sellers of doves: there is no hint of any hint of anti-priestly polemic in the episode.⁵⁴

Note that whereas Mark 12:40 rebukes the scribes' treatment of the widows, Jesus' exhortations are general, with no specific rebuke of priestly immorality. Even the accusations concerning the rejection of Jesus and the responsibility for his death do not specifically refer to the high priests (see n. 44, above). I think that Evans (“Jesus' Action in the Temple”) exaggerates the relevance of the Jewish polemic against the corruption of the high priests to an understanding of the Jesus traditions. For the lack of evidence for Jesus' criticism of the priesthood, see Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 66. Note also that in other Second Temple sources there is evidence of the priests' piety. See E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 B.C.E.–66 C.E. (London: SCM, 1992) 91–92, 182–99. The view of Jesus' protest against the high priests' behavior is usually based on the parable of the wicked tenants (Mark 12:1–12 and parallels, including Gos. Thom. 65). The allegory, however, pertains to the leaders' rejection of Jesus and not to their general immorality. The argument that the parable's anti-priestly stance was grounded in first-century targums is unsound; compare J. C. de Moor, “The Targumic Background of Mark 12:1–12: The Parable of the Wicked Tenants,” JSJ 29 (1998) 63–80.

According to my interpretation, the Markan tradition actually reflects an act that was directed not just against the trading outside the Temple, but specifically against money that was tainted by injustice and corruption. The corrupted wealth was morally impure, in a metaphorical sense, and had a blemishing effect on the sacrificial rite. It therefore violated the sanctity of sacrifices and rituals that were financed by this money. This interpretation is supported by the early traditions concerning Jesus' teachings about the corruption of wealth and moral impurity. It gains additional support from the Qumranic notion that corrupted wealth polluted the Temple in Jerusalem.

Thus, this tradition actually presents Jesus as protesting against neither the Temple itself nor the priests, but against the unrighteous activity that employed or generated corrupted money. Indeed, this seems to be the same abstract immorality against which Jesus preached over and over again, without singling out any specific group or class. The reason for his protest on the Temple Mount was that when this money was used for buying sacrifices, it threatened the moral—and not the ritual—purity of the Temple cult.⁵⁵

I admit that it is not clear to me whose money is involved in this “cleansing,” and how many people are considered corrupt. I also agree with other interpreters of this scene that it is not clear how the people in the Temple were supposed to understand the message behind the act. For a different approach that also links cult, money, and righteousness, see Chilton, The Temple of Jesus. My interpretation stands in contrast to those who would see in Jesus' actions a criticism of the priests: see Victor Epstein, “The Historicity of the Gospel Account of the Cleansing of the Temple,” ZNW 55 (1964) 42–58, on which Evans (“Jesus' Action in the Temple”) and Chilton (The Temple of Jesus, 100–54) have built their theories. It should also be noted that Epstein's theory itself is based on an idiosyncratic exegesis of a very late rabbinic source. Chilton (ibid., 128–130) suggested that Jesus argued that the sacrifice should be one's own property and not bought with money, but this is highly hypothetical, since the issue of personal ownership of the sacrificed animal is not attested in early Christian sources (for an account of Chilton's search for such hints, see ibid., 127–29). One may also wonder why this problem would have been a major concern for Jesus or his followers.

As Mark 11:15 testifies, Jesus' action pertained to both the sellers and money changers and the buyers. I suggest that the reason why he attacked the sellers was that it was easier to overturn their tables and chairs than to disperse the coins of the individual buyers, and also because he was more concerned with the moral pollution of the Temple than with the unrighteousness of the buyers.

Throughout the traditions about Jesus, and especially in the Sermon on the Mount, Q, and the parables, two substantial problems are intertwined: immorality and money. In these traditions, Jesus preaches about moral behavior,⁵⁶

In addition to the passages discussed in the section on “Moral Impurity in Early Christian Traditions,” above, see also Luke's parables of mercy (7:41–43, 10:30–37; 13:6–9; 15:3–7; 15:8–10 [//Matt. 18:10–14]; 15:11–32; 18:9–14) and Borg, Conflict Holiness & Politics, 105ff. Crossan (The Historical Jesus, 292, 294) characterized Jesus' message as the “ethical Kingdom.”

emphasizing that immorality produces impurity. He also speaks of the destitute as potentially more righteous than the rich and treats wealth unfavorably.⁵⁷

See, e.g., Q 12:16–20, 22–31; Matt 5:3–6//Luke 6:20–31; Matt 6:19–21//Luke 12:33–34; Matt 23:23//Luke 11:42; Mark 10:17–25//Matt 19:16–24//Luke 18:18–25 (on the difficulty of the rich man in entering the kingdom); Mark 10:21; Luke 14:33; Gos. Thom. 63–65; and Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 268–82.

These two teachings lead to an obvious conclusion: wealth and materialism lead one astray from the true worship of God and from moral behavior. In other words, “No one can serve two masters. … You cannot serve God and Mammon” (Matt 6:24//Luke 16:13).⁵⁸

See Betz, The Sermon on the Mount, 454–59. For the moral corruption associated with money, see 1 Tim 6:10; Richard H. Hiers, “Friends by Unrighteous Mammon,” JAAR 38 (1970) 30–36; and Pieter W. Van der Horst, “Mammon,” Dictionary of Deities and Demons (Leiden: Brill; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999) 542–43 with bibliography. This idea is attested in Qumranic and rabbinic teachings. See Shmuel Safrai and David Flusser, “The Slave of Two Masters,” Immanuel 6 (1976) 30–33; repr. in David Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988) 169–72. Its roots can be found in wisdom literature; see Patrick W. Skehan and Alexander A. Di Lella, The Wisdom Of Ben Sira: Introduction and Commentary (AB 39; New York: Doubleday, 1987) 88–90; 4QInstruction^b–c (4Q416 2 II, 4–5, 10–15, 17–18; 4Q417 1 I, 21–24); and Daniel J. Harrington, Wisdom Texts from Qumran (London: Routledge, 1996) 40–52.

The perception that wealth corrupts is reflected in the Epistle of James and the Gospel of Luke (and possibly also Q); it affected the Jerusalem community, led to resentment of the rich due to their unjust behavior, and even prompted a certain idealization of poverty.⁵⁹

For communalism and the collection for the poor in the Jerusalem community as reactions against commercialism, see John D. Crossan, The Birth Of Christianity (New York: HarperCollins, 1998) 469–76. For the Epistle of James's moral contrast between rich and poor as well as its egalitarian outlook, see Jas 1:9–11; 2:5–7; 5:1–3; and Luke Timothy Johnson, The Letter of James (AB 37A; New York: Doubleday, 1995) 82–83, 224. On Luke, see Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts, 164–200. For Q, see Luke 6:20b–21; 14:16–24; and compare John S. Kloppenborg Verbin, “Discursive Practices in the Saying Gospel Q and the Quest of the Historical Jesus,” in The Sayings Source Q and the Historical Jesus (ed. A. Lindemann; Leuven: Peters, 2001) 179–86 with bibliography (also regarding Thomas). See also 1 Cor 1:27–29. For the reordering of possessions on behalf of the poor, see Did. 13:4–7, and Michael H. Crosby, House of Disciples: Church, Economics, and Justice in Matthew (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1988), esp. 42–43, 205–8. Note, however, that such ideological assertions do not necessarily indicate the actual economic situation within these communities. In Luke's community, for example, there were both rich and poor members; see Esler's comment in Community and Gospel, 183.

I propose that in the cleansing of the Temple, this concept of wealth as a vehicle of corruption was interwoven with the other idea of the defiling force of sin. Although there is no direct attestation to the combination of the two ideas, or any clear statement that the money of the wicked is metaphorically defiled with their moral impurity, I maintain that the two ideas are logically related. If wickedness is defiling, then money used to accomplish wickedness, or money earned by wickedness, may be contaminated. It is also possible that Mark's association of the cleansing of the Temple with the “den of robbers” of Jer 7:11 derives from a moral interpretation close to the one proposed here.⁶⁰

For Jer 7:11, see Mark 11:17//Matt 21:13//Luke 19:46. Sanders (Jesus and Judaism, 66) and Crossan (The Historical Jesus, 355–60) consider the saying to be inauthentic. Joel Markus (“The Jewish War and the Sitz im Leben of Mark,” JBL 111 [1992] 448–49) considers Mark 11:17 to be a Markan composition and connects it to the zealots-robbers of the Jewish revolt against Rome, but overlooks the scriptural context of the verse.

The context of Jeremiah's remark also relates to the moral corruption of the cult, inasmuch as Jer 7:3–16 deals with the contamination of the Temple by wickedness, including stealing and exploiting the orphan and the widow.

The idea that wealth is not only corrupting but can also be defiled by wicked deeds is supported by several texts from Qumran (although it must be stated that in Qumran, money itself bears substantive—not just metaphorical— pollution and is ritually defiling). In these texts, wealth (hôn) is contaminated by the evil deeds of its possessor, as emphasized in the Community Rule (1QS), in two passages in Pesher Habbakuk (1QpHab), and in the Thanksgiving Hymns (1QH^a).⁶¹

1QpHab VIII, 11–12 and XII, 19 (both quoted above); 1QS VI, 19–20, 22. Compare 1QS IX, 22//4QSD 2 III, 6; 1QH^a XIX, 25–26 (Sukenik X, 22–23). For the more abstract sense of “evil wealth,” see also CD VIII, 5, 8. For a survey of the evidence, see Murphy, Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls. For less concrete similarities between the Qumranic criticism of the Temple and the Jesus traditions, see Craig A. Evans, “Opposition to the Temple: Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. James H. Charlesworth; New York: Doubleday, 1992) 235–53, esp. 242–43.

The most detailed source, however, is Damascus Document VI, 13–17, cited above, which concerns the impurity of the Temple. Here the explicit cause of the Temple's impurity is the fact that the money donated to the Temple was “money of wickedness.”⁶²

Since the next sentence in this passage deals with stealing money from the poor and widows, one may presume that this was the act of wickedness that caused defilement. A similar claim that corrupted money polluted the Temple is mentioned in Jub. 23:21. For the meaning and the provenance of the passage, see G. L. Davenport, The Eschatology of the Book of Jubilees (Leiden: Brill, 1971) 32–56.

It seems that if one considers certain acts or people as corrupt, one is likely to declare taboo the money associated with those acts or people.

This new proposal may be significant for those who are interested in recovering the historical Jesus. My aim, however, is simply to indicate that one tradition, at least, represented Jesus as actively confronting the problem of moral impurity as it related to the Temple. In any event, this was not the typical early Christian response to sin and its defiling force. I shall now turn to the problem posed by the fact that the traditions about Jesus often place him in the company of sinners, who are the generators of moral impurity.

The Paradox of the Acceptance of Sinners

Close interaction with sinners is one of the main characteristics of Jesus' activity as depicted in Q and Mark. These sources present Jesus as one who provoked his Pharisaic critics by associating with sinners and telling them that their sins were forgiven. Those sinners were people who were not concerned with religious piety (e.g., ritual purity, and possibly also the study of Scripture or Oral Torah) before they joined the Jesus movement. In many cases, they practiced immoral occupations involving monetary transgressions—collecting taxes and lending money at interest⁶³

Mark 2:15–17//Matt 9:10–13//Luke 5:29–32; Luke 15:1–2; Matt 11:19//Luke 7:34 (where Jesus' adversaries call him a “friend of tax collectors and sinners”). For the authenticity of the traditions about Jesus and sinners, see Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 262–64; and Markus, Mark 1–8, 230–32. Compare Borg, Conflict, Holiness & Politics, 79, 86 ff. 106–11. Horsley (Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, 212–24) denied that the association with sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes reflects the historical Jesus. For a comparison of the sinners and the Pharisees, see James D. G. Dunn, “Pharisees, Sinners, and Jesus,” in The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism (ed. J. Neusner et al.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) 264–89.

—that consequently produced moral defilement.⁶⁴

For the immorality of the tax collectors, see Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, 212. Although Matthew admits that Jesus also preached to the Gentiles (21:43; 28:19), he equates tax collectors and Gentiles as not righteous enough (5:46–47; 18:17). Matt 21:31b classifies tax collectors with harlots. Note also that the tax collectors of Matt 5:46–47 are replaced by sinners in Luke 6:32.

According to E. P. Sanders, Jesus' attitude was exceptional, perhaps even outrageous, since he was ready to consider the sinners as righteous before they completed the traditional redemption procedure that included restitution (when required) and an atoning sacrifice, with its accompanying confessional rite. Thus, from a traditional Jewish point of view, the sinners who followed Jesus were not fully redeemed and were still technically sinners. Yet the Jesus traditions imply that they recognized their sins, and that this amount of spiritual change was sufficient to mark the beginning of the process of their redemption.⁶⁵

See Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 112, 174–211, esp. 206–8. The religious background for the acceptance of sinners is the belief that even the most wretched people, though utterly rejected by society, are actually capable of becoming righteous and glorified. This perception is attested not only in the Sermon on the Plain/Mount, but also in several parables, including the parable of the good Samaritan. See Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 270–79; and idem, In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), esp. 65–66, 75. See also nn. 57 and 59, above. This attitude towards the sinners cannot be separated from the call to forgiveness in other traditions. Compare the parables in Mark 11:25; Matt 6:14–15; 18:23–35; Luke 7:41–43; 15:11–32; 18:9–14. I am not convinced by Sanders' argument (Jesus and Judaism, 207–8) that Jesus' call to sinners was a sign of the coming salvation. As I will try to show below, the phenomenon of moral impurity suggests a simpler explanation for the acceptance of the sinners. According to McKnight, Jesus' table fellowship with sinners was a sign of God's forgiveness and a symbol of the eschatological kingdom. McKnight also connects this treatment of sinners with a call for righteousness and a need for moral reform. See his “Jesus and James on Israel and Purity,” 91–98; idem, A New Vision for Israel, 41–49, 174, 224–28 with bibliography; and compare Chilton, Pure Kingdom.

I agree with Sanders that encouraging spiritual repentance without demanding that the offender make restitution (e.g., without demanding that tax collectors refund sums collected in excess of what was prescribed by the government; see Luke 3:12–13) was revolutionary. It should be emphasized, however, that repentance need not automatically be interpreted as a substitute for a sin offering or guilt offering, since in many cases such offerings may not be necessary at all. According to the Priestly code, repentance is a spiritual procedure that must be concluded by sacrifice under certain circumstances, namely in cases of unintentional sin (which requires a sin offering) or of swearing a false oath in God's name (which requires a guilt offering). Some intentional offenses, according to rabbinic theology, could be atoned for by repentance alone, while others could be expiated by sacrificial ritual and fasting on the Day of Atonement, activities that presuppose repentance. Indeed, atonement for most of the offenses pertaining to social interactions and economics does not require any sacrifice. Thus, one should not overstate the tension between the early Christian penitential system and Jewish sacrificial cult.⁶⁶

For the Priestly code, see Jacob Milgrom, Cult and Conscience: The Asham and the Priestly Doctrine of Repentance (SJLA 18; Leiden, Brill, 1976); and idem, “Israel's Sanctuary.” For rabbinic theology, see m. Yoma 8:8; and t. Kipp. 4(5):5 (ed. Lieberman, 251). The connection between repentance, restitution, and sacrifice in Matt 5:23–26 may have misled scholars into thinking that sacrifice is required in relation to every offense that pertains to property. For the common exaggeration of the opposition between spiritual repentance and sacrificial ritual, see the influential comment of Morton Smith (Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973] 208) concerning John the Baptist. Compare Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 231; and Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 528.

The regular acceptance of people who were excluded by other religious groups—more specifically, the habit of overlooking the socioreligious status and the immoral (even idolatrous) occupations of potential converts—is also typical of John the Baptist, the Jerusalem church, Paul, and Mark's Gospel. Although John himself was an ascetic hermit, he was willing to baptize anyone who was willing to repent, including sinners, prostitutes, and Roman soldiers.⁶⁷

Luke 3:7–14; 7:29; Mark 2:4–6; and Matt 21:31–32. Josephus and the New Testament do not mention restitution or sacrificial rites in relation to John's call for repentance. For the baptism of John, see nn. 23–24, above.

According to Acts, Peter did not screen those who were baptized in the name of Jesus,⁶⁸

Acts 2:38, 41. See Adela Yarbro Collins, “The Origins of Christian Baptism,” in Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism (Leiden: Brill, 1996) 231–34. For the Lukan theology of repentance, conversion, and baptism, see Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I–IX (AB 28; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981) 237–41. Even if the material in Acts is not a reliable witness to the time of Peter and the apostles, it is surely indicative of later, pre-Lukan or Lukan, trends.

and he even converted Cornelius, a God-fearing centurion. Philip baptized Samaritans and an Ethiopian eunuch.⁶⁹

Acts 8:5–40; 10:1–11:18. On problems concerning the authenticity of Luke's description of the conversion of gentiles by the Jerusalem church and hypotheses about the social motivations which led to their acceptance, see Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts, 95–96, 154–63; and Philip F. Esler, “Glossolalia and the Admission of Gentiles into the Early Christian Community,” BTB 22 (1992) 136–42.

Paul appealed to every potential believer, and when he was opposed by Jews, he and Barnabas turned to the Gentiles.⁷⁰

Acts 13:44–46.

In his letters, Paul advanced the view that even a former idolater can be baptized in Christ and become a true believer, and that one's sins are redeemed by one's faith, by the death of Jesus, and by God. Mark emphasizes the faith of Gentiles and has an “open attitude” toward them, in effect “lowering the barriers of the new Gospel of God,” since, for Mark, belief in the Holy Spirit is more crucial than the burden of previous sins.⁷¹

Kee, Community of the New Age, 92. For belief vs. sin see Mark 3:28–29 and compare also 11:24–25. For the ethos of the forgiveness of sins, see Kee, Community of the New Age, 157–58. For the sake of comparison, it is interesting to note that Saldarini (Matthew's Christian-Jewish Community, 82–83) concludes that Gentiles were not accepted into the Matthean community.

This willingness to overlook certain social distinctions in order to cultivate members is quite unlike the screening of potential converts at Qumran, as well as in some Hellenistic voluntary associations.⁷²

Moshe Weinfeld, The Organizational Pattern of the Penal Code of the Qumran Sect: A Comparison with Guilds and Religious Associations of the Hellenistic-Roman Period (NTOA 2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986) 21–23. The Hutterites, Amish, and Shakers maintained a long process of gradual acceptance. See Eyal Regev, “Comparing Sectarian Practice and Organization: The Qumran Sect in Light of the Regulations of the Shakers, Hutterites, Mennonites and Amish,” Numen 51 (2004) 146–81.

It is interesting that in his total acceptance of sinners and Gentiles, Paul did not call for repentance, in contrast to John the Baptist and Peter (compare Acts 2:38). Indeed, Paul demanded moral behavior from believers, not as a condition for entering the Christian community, but as a condition for remaining in the community and thus for receiving salvation on the eschatological day of judgment.⁷³

For good deeds as a requisite for salvation and an inheritance in the kingdom of God, see Rom 2:12–16; 1 Cor 6:9–10; and Gal 5:19–26. Compare also Eph 5:5. On the belief in the eschatological judgment, see Meeks, Origins of Christian Morality, 175–80. On the distinction between entering into and remaining in the community, as well as the absence of a requirement for repentance as a condition for entering the community, see E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) 498–502, 515–18. For the difference between repentance before baptism and repentance after baptism, see Heb 6:1–6 and Meeks, Origins of Christian Morality, 124–25. For the view that belief in Jesus atones, see Rom 3:21–26; 6:1–11; 1 Cor 15:3; 2 Cor 5:17–21; and Gal 1:4. See also Mark 10:45//Matt 20:28. A discussion of the interrelations between the atoning force of Jesus' death and the notions of moral pollution and moral purification exceeds the scope of this article. See, e.g., Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 463–66; and Eduard Loshe, Colossians and Philemon (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971) 39–40. For the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith, see, e.g., Segal, Paul the Convert, 174–78.

Hence it is necessary to distinguish between an unconditional acceptance of outsiders who are entering into the community, and a demand for moral discipline on the part of those who are already members of the community. Scholars sometimes tend to overlook the former and overstate the latter. Meeks has recently concluded that “Christians developed a fluent vocabulary for stigmatizing both outsiders and deviant members. The moral logic of the community … brings pressure to withdraw, to separate, to guard the boundaries, to eye with suspicion the fellow within who is too different.”⁷⁴

Meeks, Origins of Christian Morality, 119. Compare Klawans, Impurity and Sin, 152–54. For New Testament evidence of demands for moral discipline from members of the community, see 1 Cor 5 (on which see Newton, The Concept of Purity, 88, 90–97); 2 Thess 3:14–15; and Matt 18:15–17. See also n. 36, above.

Meeks thus portrayed early Christians as intolerant separatists, an evaluation which is contradicted by their willingness to accept sinners.

It should be noted, however, that Meeks' statement is made on the basis of evidence culled from sources dated after the first two centuries C.E.; that most of his sources pertain to the second phase of staying in the community (in contrast to entering into it); and that the context of his assertion is the polemic against the Christians' foes (see Matt 23:25–26; 1 Peter 4:3–5). The only example of the exclusion of outsiders who wish to join a Christian community that Meeks cites is from the third-century Apostolic Tradition, attributed to Hippolytus. According to this source, candidates for baptism were screened at several stages of an initiation ritual that lasted three years, and those who were considered to be morally corrupt were excluded. This is quite similar to the practice described in the Community Rule of the Qumran sectarians, as noted above.⁷⁵

See Meeks, Origins of Christian Morality, 32–33; and Thomas M. Finn, “Ritual Process and the Survival of Early Christianity: A Study of the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus,” JRitSt 3 (1989) 69–89. Finn indicates that this initiation rite is “a signal creation of the Roman Christians” (ibid., 75). One may also mention in this respect Did. 12:1, which orders that Christian guests be tested to distinguish “genuine Christians from impostors who only want to exploit and misuse Christian hospitality” (Kurt Niederwimmer, The Didache [trans. Linda M. Maloney; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991] 184). The social background of this ruling, however, reflects “radical itinerancy,” which is uncharacteristic of “regular” Christian communities. See Kurt Niederwimmer, “An Examination of the Development of Itinerant Radicalism in the Environment and Tradition of the Didache,” in The Didache in Modern Research (ed. Jonathan A. Draper; AGAJU 37; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 321–39.

It seems that the practices prescribed by the Apostolic Tradition serve to emphasize, by contrast, the path not taken by earlier Christians.

At first glance, the acceptance of sinners and tax collectors in the Jesus traditions and the conversion of Gentiles by Peter, Philip, and Paul may seem to indicate a leniency among early Christians in matters of ritual purity, since sinners and Gentiles did not adhere to the bodily purity characteristic of many Jews, including the Pharisees. Yet there is evidence for the observance of ritual purity by the earliest Christians, especially in Acts. Paul and four other members of the Jerusalem community took a Nazarite vow, which according to Scripture required absolute avoidance of corpse impurity.⁷⁶

Acts 18:18; 21:23–24, 26; C. K. Barrett, The Acts of the Apostles (2 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark. 1998) 2:877, 1011–13. For the halakhic background of these Nazarite vows, see Num 6:2–21; m. Naz. 1:1; 3:6; 6:8.

Moreover, it seems that at least some of those who accepted or converted Gentiles did not neglect ritual purity. James and his followers acknowledged Paul's mission to the Gentiles yet forbade shared table fellowship, and even Peter and Barnabas became reluctant to dine with Gentiles in Antioch (Gal 2:9–14). Peter received divine approval to associate with Gentiles but still encountered opposition within the Jerusalem community (Acts 10:15, 28; 11:3). Luke is at pains to demonstrate that it is legitimate for Jewish Christians to dine with fellow Gentiles.⁷⁷

James D. G. Dunn, “The Incident at Antioch (Gal. 2:11–18),” in Jesus, Paul, and the Law (n. 9, above), 129–82; Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts, 93–109.

Actually, accepting Gentiles into the community was exceptional not because of the requirements of ritual purity, but because, as Klawans has shown, Jews considered Gentiles to be defiled due to their immoral behavior: the impurity of Gentiles was a consequence of their idolatry and incest.⁷⁸

Jonathan Klawans, “Notions of Gentile Impurity in Ancient Judaism,” AJSR 20 (1995) 285–312. Compare idem, “Idolatry, Incest, and Impurity: Moral Defilement in Ancient Judaism,” JSJ 29 (1998) 391–415. For idolatry as a source of moral impurity, see Rom 1:23–25. On the immorality of the Gentiles, see also n. 64, above.

Thus sinners, tax collectors, and Gentiles were all viewed by the early Christians as potential believers, while most of the Jews treated them as unrighteous outcasts.

In light of the multiple attestations of the perception that sin defiles, one might have expected that Christian communities would reject those regarded (by some other Jews) as outcasts, as well as any other individuals regarded as dishonest or idolatrous. Indeed, both in ancient Greek religion and in the Qumran community, the notion of moral impurity led to sanctions against morally impure persons, culminating in their exclusion from the community, in order to contain the defiling force of sin. But the evidence for early Christianity shows that John, Jesus, and Paul tolerated morally defiled sinners as long as they joined their movements. Luke portrays Peter and Philip as eager to convert formerly idolatrous individuals. In view of the ancient Greek and Qumranic background, this attitude seems puzzling. If sin is defiling, how should this openness towards the impure be explained? Is it at all possible to reconcile Jesus' sayings regarding moral impurity with the traditions about his close relationship with sinners?

I propose that the purpose of the mission to sinners was to reduce their moral impurity. By associating with sinners, Jesus sought to lead them back to the path of righteousness. His acceptance of them was aimed at eliminating their defiling deeds. By approaching sinners instead of shunning and condemning them, Jesus hoped to transform them into potentially honest people who would avoid sin and moral impurity.

The basis for this general approach towards sinners among early Christians⁷⁹

By “early Christians” I mean pre-Markan, Q, and pre-Matthean communities. Werner Kelber (The Kingdom in Mark: A New Place and A New Time [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974] 22) attributes such behavior to the Markan community.

can only be assumed. The Jesus movement and the earliest Christian communities were very concerned with wickedness and its consequent moral impurity, since it violates Israel's holiness and threatens Jewish society. Yet the channels by which they could hope to limit sin and moral defilement were limited. These communities could not follow the institutional pattern as in ancient Greece, since they were small groups or scattered communities, with no social control over their environs. Nor could they implement the withdrawal and separation practiced in Qumran, which would only exacerbate the problem: excluding sinners would not change their behavior. Thus, the only productive way of reducing sin and moral impurity was to associate with immoral people and encourage them to repent. Openness and acceptance could be more persuasive and effective than rejection and condemnation. One should also bear in mind that the early Christian communities could not interfere in the procedure of restitution and the sacrificial rite of repentance since they lacked any social control or influence within the (local) legal system as well as in the Temple. Jesus and his followers might have changed the behavior of individuals, but not of institutions.

Social factors are only part of the explanation for this unique notion of repentance and elimination of impurity. The great innovation in these early Christian traditions is the emphasis on the individual-spiritual aspect of repentance, and a corresponding diminishment (although not a rejection) of the practical aspects of restitution and sacrificial rite. One may presume that the reason for this belief is the nature of moral defilement. If moral impurity is produced not necessarily by one's deeds and their results, but mostly by one's heart or intention,⁸⁰

Matt 15:18–19; Mark 7:20. For the purity of the heart, see n. 31, above.

then mental repentance may be sufficient to eliminate moral pollution. When the former sinner becomes a potentially righteous individual, the implications of his or her previous behavior become less acute.

This interpretation of Jesus' acceptance of sinners as a strategy for eliminating moral impurity suggests some more general observations regarding the social characteristics of such a means of purification. New religious and social movements customarily mark boundaries and separate themselves from the outside world.⁸¹

See Wouthnow, Meaning and Moral Order, 69–70; and Meeks, Origins of Christian Morality, 69–71, 119.

The Qumran community is a good example. But John the Baptist, Jesus (according to the synoptic traditions), Paul, and probably also some early Christian communities acted differently. They recognized the boundary between insiders and outsiders that was drawn by moral impurity, but they chose to cross it again and again. Their aim was to reduce unrighteous social behavior, sin, and moral impurity within Jewish society. The very definition of moral defilement in early Christianity was quite similar to its parallels in biblical tradition and in the Qumran texts, as well as in Greek religion. The strategies for coping with the problem of evil, however, were different. In Greece, there were institutional, social, and legal sanctions against sinners. At Qumran, moral pollution was a dynamic power that compelled the Qumranites to withdraw from the Temple and the rest of Jewish society. In early Christianity, however, the concept of the defiling force of sin was interwoven with an “open commensality,”⁸²

Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 261–64.

an openness towards new members without regard to their immoral background, and a rejection of the more prevalent practice of excluding the morally defiled.

Another characteristic of the early Christian approach is its focus on the individual. Almost all of the traditions about moral impurity that were ascribed to John, Jesus, and Paul refer to the defilement of the self. Interestingly, in numerous cases in the Hebrew Bible, Jubilees, and the Qumran scrolls, the pollution of the Temple by sin is emphasized. According to many early Christian traditions, however, the sinner defiles his own spirit. Sin, immoral behavior, and the impurity they produce are mainly individualistic phenomena, not collective ones. This may also explain the individualistic character of repentance in the case of sinners, in contrast to the institutional/communal elimination of sin and moral defilement by rituals such as those practiced in Greece or by the biblical guilt sacrifice (

⁸³

This understanding raises the question of whether the acceptance of the sinners is truly a substitute for the guilt offering (

). If one follows Sanders's interpretation that Jesus acknowledged repentance even without the sacrificial rite necessary to end the moral defilement, it is possible to conclude that according to this tradition, repentance eliminated the impurity of past misdeeds just as a sacrifice did. In contrast to the Levitical tradition, this attitude views the personal decision to repent as a sufficient starting point for the elimination of sin and its subsequent impurity.

If purifying one's soul is the chief concern, personal-spiritual repentance may suffice, and cleansing the altar from the filth of sin becomes a less urgent matter.⁸⁴

For the individualistic character of moral impurity in the teachings of John and Jesus, see Klawans, Impurity and Sin, 143, 150. For the individualistic pattern of repentance, see McKnight, “Jesus and James on Israel and Purity,” 91–93; and idem, A New Vision for Israel, 10 n. 26, 174. For the role of intention in Jesus' teachings, see Betz, The Sermon on the Mount, 134–37. Intention is also a fundamental category in early rabbinic law. See Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, Human Will in Judaism: The Mishnah's Philosophy of Intention (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1986). For the moral defilement of the Temple (as well as the land) in the Hebrew Bible and in Qumran, see Klawans, ibid., 27–28, 69, 71 88–89; and Milgrom, “Israel's Sanctuary.” For individualistic trends in Judean society in the first century C.E., see Regev, “Pure Individualism”; and idem, “The Individualistic Meaning of Jewish Ossuaries: A Socio-Anthropological Perspective on Burial Practice,” PEQ 133 (2001) 39–49. Individualism is a prominent feature of Paul's theology of justification by faith (see n. 73, above).

From a socioreligious perspective, their paradoxical approach to impurity and sin, and especially their openness toward sinners, marked the early Christian communities as “conversionist” groups, to use Bryan Wilson's typology. Their aim was to influence the masses and to change social reality through integration.⁸⁵

For the definition of “conversionist,” see Bryan Wilson, Magic and Millennium: A Sociological Study of Religious Movements of Protest Among Tribal and Third-World Peoples (London: Heinemann, 1973) 18–30. For the conclusion that the Lukan community was conversionist, see Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts, 59–70. For the application of Wilson's typology to Second Temple society, see Albert I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era: An Interpretation (JSJSup. 55; Leiden: Brill, 1997) 13–15. A similar drive to interact with Jewish sinners in order to “raise” them, purify their souls, and lead them to repentance was attributed to the founder of Hasidism, R. Israel Baעal Shem Tov. See Joseph Weiss, “The Beginnings of Hasidism” (in Hebrew), Zion 16.3–4 (1951) 69–82.

Such an exceptional approach to the problem of religious and social transgression probably helped early Christian communities to flourish. The conversionist strategy combined social critique and missionary activity. People from the wide margins of Jewish society, and, later on, Jewish sympathizers, and eventually also Gentiles, were able to join the community and feel that they had a more effective solution to the problem of sin and moral impurity than that endorsed by Jewish religious institutions.⁸⁶

The fact that everyone was welcome does not mean that joining such a movement was a simple task. On the spiritual procedure of conversion to the Jesus movement and its social implications (both may be relevant also for different early Christian communities), see McKnight, A New Vision for Israel, 164–96.

Conclusion: Patterns of Moral Impurity and Social Action

Throughout this essay, I have been concerned to show that ritual purity and moral purity were both important categories in first-century Christianity. I agree with Borg and McKnight that the spiritual revolution associated with Jesus turns on the prioritization of moral purity over ritual purity. On the other hand, unlike those scholars, I maintain that for the earliest Christians, moral purity did not displace ritual purity, nor did the new emphasis on moral purity lead to a rejection of the Temple cult. The traditions preserved in the Book of Acts indicate that Peter and other members of the Jerusalem church (and even Paul) took part in prayers and sacrificial rites in the Temple. Nor, it seems, did the communities of Q and Luke disregard those rites.⁸⁷

See n. 45, above. See also C. K. Barrett, “Attitudes to the Temple in the Acts of the Apostles,” in Templum Amicitiae: Essays on the Second Temple Presented to Ernst Bammel (ed. W. Horbury; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991) 345–67. According to Acts 6:7, even priests joined the Jesus movement. For the Jerusalem church's approach towards the Temple and the ambivalent Lukan redaction, see Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts, 131–65 with bibliography. For traditions concerning Jesus' positive attitude to the Temple, see Dunn, The Parting of the Ways, 37–38. Borg's view that Jesus or the Jesus movement was detached from the Temple cult is shared by many. I suspect that this approach is usually based on two major arguments: the “cleansing” of the Temple and the interpretation of the Last Supper as an anti-Temple act. See, e.g., Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 432–36. Most commentators, however, interpret the “cleansing” as expressing a sincere concern for the cult, while according to my interpretation, the “cleansing” dramatized a critique of the society and not necessarily the priestly cult. Recently, Jonathan Klawans asserted that the Last Supper used the metaphor of Temple sacrifice without aiming to reject or replace it. See his “Interpreting the Last Supper: Sacrifice, Spiritualization, and Anti-Sacrifice,” NTS 48 (2002) 1–17. For the central (and mainly positive) place of the Temple in first-century Christianity, see Eyal Regev, “A Kingdom of Priests or a Holy (Gentile) People: The Temple in Early Christian Life and Thought” in (Hebrew), Cathedra 113 (2004) 5–34.

Indeed, the evidence from ancient Greece and Qumran helps us to understand the relation between ritual purity and moral purity in earliest Christianity by illustrating some of the measures that communities may take to guard temples and other sacra from defilement by moral impurity. Thus, the concern that immorally acquired money could contaminate the cult is reflected both in the Qumran texts and in early Christian traditions. In both Greece and Qumran, however, exclusion of the offender from the community was a frequent strategy for eliminating the threat posed by moral impurity. Early Christians adopted precisely the opposite strategy, welcoming sinners into the community in the hope that they would stop sinning and stop generating moral pollution.

Let me conclude by pointing out that some tension exists between my two proposals regarding the ways in which the earliest Christians dealt with the problem of moral impurity and its relation to the Temple cult. Indeed, the cleansing of the Temple and the acceptance of sinners may actually reflect different approaches to that problem, grounded in different attitudes toward social behavior and the Temple. On the one hand, my interpretation of the cleansing of the Temple as a protest against moral corruption in general, and as an attempt to protect the Temple from the impurity borne by contaminated money, implies a strict allegiance to the Temple cult on the the part of the earliest Christians. On the other hand, this interpretation of the cleansing suggests a more positive attitude toward the efficacy of sacrificial ritual than the tradition about Jesus' acceptance of sinners would allow: the policy of accepting sinners implies a disregard for the process of atonement and the associated sacrifices. I have noted that such disregard may have been less significant than it appears, given that sin offerings and guilt offerings are only required for a limited range of offenses. Nevertheless, there is still a tension between devotion to the Temple cult, as it is so dramatically expressed in the cleansing, and negligence of the rituals associated with atonement.

Finally, no matter how one interprets Jesus' exceptional behavior during the cleansing, it makes a startling contrast with the other traditions about Jesus' teaching and his behavior in public. An attitude of tolerant acceptance towared sinners who are willing to repent is hard to reconcile with violent action in the cultic center of Judea.⁸⁸

Horsley (Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, 318; compare ibid., 326) observes, “There is no evidence that Jesus advocated violence … at least not overt individual acts of violence.”

If one insists on resolving this contradiction in the context of the historical Jesus, it may be possible to conclude that when Jesus saw that tolerant acceptance of sinners was not an entirely successful strategy for dealing with moral impurity, he resorted to violent public action.⁸⁹

A somewhat similar shift from peaceful sapiental preaching to harsh condemnation was also typical of the Q community. See Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q; and idem, “Literary Convention.”

Ultimately, however, it was the policy of tolerance toward sinners as an antidote to moral impurity that had the greater effect on Christianity.⁹⁰

Thanks are due to Dr. Seth Farber and Dr. David Lambert for their kind assistance in the writing of this article.

Article contents

Moral Impurity and the Temple in Early Christianity in Light of Ancient Greek Practice and Qumranic Ideology

Abstract

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Moral Impurity in Early Christian Traditions

Moral Impurity in Ancient Greece and Qumran

The Cleansing of the Temple and the Defiling Force of Money

The Paradox of the Acceptance of Sinners

Conclusion: Patterns of Moral Impurity and Social Action

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