Recent Scholarship on Impurity and Prohibition

Understanding the Leviticus passages about menstruation requires careful attention to the interplay of ritual impurity and legislated prohibition. It is therefore helpful first to consider two of the most salient treatments of this relationship in earlier scholarship. The first is Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger, which was groundbreaking in its approach to purity and impurity as a coherent system that could be understood in cultural context, rather than as the mere magical vestige of “primitive” religion.Footnote ⁶ Despite its many critics, Douglas's book remains foundational to the modern study of impurity in religion.Footnote ⁷ Critical to Douglas's work is the claim that we should not view ritual impurity and religious ethics as completely separate spheres of law: “Pollution rules can have [a] socially useful function—that of marshalling moral disapproval when it lags.”Footnote ⁸ This core insight of Douglas's has attracted many adherents, but the idea that ritual purity and the ethical are somehow related remains contested.Footnote ⁹ The menstrual laws of Leviticus provide us with a lens to examine Douglas's claims; if they are correct, we might expect to see, implicitly or explicitly, some interplay between passages discussing niddah laws as a topic of concern for ritual impurity and those treating them as a matter of prohibited activity, as we will see is indeed the case in Lev 18:19.

Douglas's work has spawned (directly and indirectly) a cottage industry of impurity studies, of which the most relevant to our present concern is Klawans's Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism. Building not only on Douglas, but also on the scholarship of Adolph BüchlerFootnote ¹⁰ on impurity in early Judaism, as well as that of more recent biblical scholars such as Tikva Frymer-Kensky and David Wright,Footnote ¹¹ Klawans argues that there are two distinct kinds of purity in both the Hebrew Bible and ancient Judaism. Ritual impurity is generally unavoidable, contagious, not sinful, and temporary. Moral impurity, by contrast, is volitional and not transmitted by means of contact from one person or object to another; it is a consequence of sin, and more or less permanent.Footnote ¹² The effects of these two kinds of impurity are also distinct. Ritual impurity “affects the ritual status of persons stricken by it.”Footnote ¹³ It leads to the defilement of people and objects, limiting their interaction with those things defined as sacred. Moral impurity, on the other hand, leads to the defilement not only of the sinner, but also of the sanctuary and the land (not via direct contact but rather, in an automatic sense), and, eventually, to the departing of the divine presence and exile.Footnote ¹⁴

Klawans's investigation is a careful study of two different kinds of purity in the Hebrew Bible (and early Judaism), but it should also be understood as another manifestation of the larger question of the relationship between “pollution” and “morality” that Douglas discusses in Purity and Danger.Footnote ¹⁵ Insofar as moral impurity results from certain prohibited actions, examining the relationship between ritual and moral impurity is one way of reconsidering the relationship between impurity (pollution) and prohibition (morality) generally. The total separation of ritual impurity from moral impurity as described by Klawans allows for the possibility of the general separation of the ritual from the ethical in the priestly writings (even if it does not necessitate it), while the unity of meaning that Douglas attributes to impurity in the Hebrew Bible perforce implies an overlapping of the ritual and the ethical.

Klawans, then, while indebted to and acknowledging Douglas for her view of purity as a coherent system of meaning, differs from her in that he delineates not one but two distinct purity systems, one dealing with concerns relevant to the proper observance of cultic matters and the maintenance of sacred goods, and the other primarily concerned with abstention from severely prohibited acts.Footnote ¹⁶ He maintains that in the Bible and in rabbinic literature, these ideas are kept fully separate and never conflated or combined.

Klawans's claims have been critiqued by Thomas Kazen, who argues that the distinction between “ritual” and “moral” realms is a uniquely modern one; we do not see biblical or late antique authors distinguishing between ritual and moral law.Footnote ¹⁷ Kazen points to the very phenomenon of the root (“impure”) appearing both in what Klawans identifies as ritual and as moral realms as proving his point: “When the same or similar terminology is being used for different phenomena, this probably reveals something about the thinking of the people using the language. . . . They were both, to varying degrees, regarded as objectionable to God, and for some reasons threatening to the sanctuary. They were associated with human feelings of aversion or disgust.”Footnote ¹⁸

Kazen is helpful in reminding us to take language seriously; the use of a common term in otherwise seemingly disparate settings is surely significant.Footnote ¹⁹ However, that significance need not be an identity of meaning in the two settings. Klawans's argument, after all, is based on the demonstration of substantive differences in biblical and early rabbinic texts between laws dealing with ritual impurity and those dealing with impurity of the prohibition-based variety; he shows that despite the use of a common term, ritual and prohibition-based impurities function differently. Our goal, then, should not be to determine some unified meaning of both in biblical passages concerned with ritual purity and in those focused on prohibitions, but rather, to understand the effects of using the same terminology for both sets of concerns. Klawans's work is completely convincing in showing that ritual impurity and moral impurity are two distinct kinds of impurity in the Hebrew Bible, with neither dependent on the other for its meaning. I argue here, however, that close attention to menstrual-purity laws in the Hebrew Bible, and in particular to Lev 18:19, reveals a (perhaps unique)Footnote ²⁰ example of the blurring of these two kinds of impurity, which therefore opens up the possibility that while terminologically and formally distinct, as Klawans has shown, ritual- and prohibition-based impurity may nonetheless be interrelated.

Menstruation in Leviticus: P

The topic of menstruation appears three times in the book of Leviticus, once in P and twice in H. Additionally, postpartum bleeding and its cultic significance are discussed in Leviticus 12 (i.e., also in P) using language that both reflects and alludes to P's lone pericope about menstruation. The most extended passage in the Pentateuch discussing menstruation is found in P at Lev 15:19–33:

The description of menstrual impurity here follows a description of male genital emissions that lead to ritual impurity.Footnote ²³ Verses 19–24 discuss a woman with a normalFootnote ²⁴ menstrual flow. Such a woman is impure for seven days (v. 19), presumably from the onset of menstruation. By contrast, vv. 25–30 describe the case of a woman with an abnormal menstrual discharge, i.e., one that appears either at an unexpected time () or that extends beyond the commonly expected boundaries of a woman's normal period (). Such a woman must count seven days, after which she becomes pure (v. 28). Verses 31–33 represent a closing to the chapter; v. 31 is likely an addition from the H tradition.Footnote ²⁵

Given this passage's location in the heart of the priestly impurity legislation of Leviticus 11–16, it is not surprising that several aspects of this passage fit perfectly into Klawans's definition of ritual impurity. The impurity discussed in this passage is temporary; in the case of normal menstruation, the woman is impure for seven days (v. 19), while in the case of abnormal bleeding she is impure for seven days beyond the cessation of blood flow (v. 25). The impurity is also contagious: the woman in question can pass it on to items (vv. 20 and 26) and people (vv. 21–24, 27). The cause is unavoidable/non-volitional. Fundamentally, the impurity described here is amoral, though we will return below to consider the meaning of v. 24 and its possible relevance to this point.

In addition, the passage displays a number of distinctive traits that serve to distinguish it from the occurrences of menstruation in H to be discussed below. For example, consider the terminology used in Leviticus 15 to discuss the menstruant: niddah and (dawah) (both to be defined shortly). Leviticus 15:19–33 uses the word niddah and its variants to describe both the ritual state in which the woman finds herself as a result of menstruation (vv. 19, 24) and the state of menstruation itself (vv. 25, 26). In a number of places it is unclear whether the word is referring to the state of menstruation or the ritual state caused by menstruation (i.e., v. 20 and the final appearance of the root in v. 25).Footnote ²⁶

In v. 33, however, a different phrase refers to the menstruant: (wehaddawah beniddatah). The root means to “be ill, unwell.”Footnote ²⁷ The phrase in question can therefore be translated “and the one who is ill in her menstruation,” i.e., one who is literally suffering from menstrual symptoms. But it is only because of the connection to a form of the word niddah that the general word dawah takes on the more specific meaning of “menstrual symptoms.”

The word niddah appears in the context of the shedding of the uterine lining two other times in Leviticus: Lev 12:2 and Lev 18:19. I will turn to the latter source (which is in H) and its significance below. Lev 12:2, in context, reads as follows:

The phrase (kime niddat dewotah, “as during the period of her menstrual infirmity”) clearly refers to a woman's time of menstruation; it describes the known situation to which the situation at hand is compared for legal purposes. As in Lev 15:33, the word derived from the root is connected, this time in construct form, to a word derived from niddah.Footnote ²⁸ From these two verses, then, it should not be assumed that the root on its own necessarily refers specifically to menstrual symptoms; it simply refers to illness more generally. Only when combined with forms of the word niddah is the specific meaning of menstruation and its physical symptoms intended. This, we will see, is in contrast to the word's use in H; rather, there, the word dawah on its own indeed likely signals a menstruating woman.Footnote ²⁹

A second element that distinguishes P's presentation of the menstrual laws is the distinction that P draws between normal menstruation and abnormal menstrual discharge. In Leviticus 15, as already noted above, normal menstruation leads to a relatively minor impurity of seven days, while abnormal menstrual discharge results in ongoing impurity, which extends beyond the cessation of the blood flow. In addition, abnormal menstruation requires the offering of sacrifices (vv. 29–30), while normal menstruation does not. Both of these legal distinctions are easily comprehensible. A woman's normal menstrual period, which is expected and regular, can be assumed to be done when it concludes in a way similar to several preceding occurrences, but abnormal bleeding, precisely because of its unusual nature, must be followed by some extended period of time without bleeding to determine that the flow has indeed ceased. The distinction between the two kinds of menstrual bleeding regarding offerings also makes sense, either (or both) because regular requirements of sacrifice would be an undue financial burden on women who menstruate regularly or because abnormal or unexpected bleeding, which may appear threatening or frightening, requires a more significant ritual response than does a perfectly normal and expected occurrence of menstruation. These differences, then, are both reasonable and understandable. As we will see, however, no such distinctions between normal and abnormal, or healthy and unhealthy, menstrual discharge are made in H passages about menstruation.

It is also worth taking note of the significance of washing with water, whether it be the bathing of a person or the laundering of clothing, in P generally and in Leviticus 15 in particular, although, strikingly, no immersion is explicitly required for the menstruant herself. Some scholars have understood this omission to be intentional, i.e., as implying that the menstruant does not in fact require ablutions in order to attain purity.Footnote ³⁰ Jacob Milgrom, however, has argued convincingly that the omission of an immersion requirement is incidental and not legally significant.Footnote ³¹

But we need not resolve the debate about immersion and menstruation in order to recognize that it is primarily the context of Lev 15:19–30 that allows Milgrom's side of the argument to get off the ground: his arguments are based on comparisons to other examples in P. In other words, if one accepts the argument of Milgrom (and others) that washing with water is a relevant biblical response to menstruation, one does so solely on the basis of the appearance of menstruation in P. Were we to read the verses about menstruation in H without Leviticus 12 and 15, there would be no obvious starting point for making such an argument. Only in P's treatment of menstruation is there reason even to consider washing as a ritual response to menstruation. Reading about menstruation in P, we might conclude that immersion is a part of the ritual process described; by contrast, a close reading of menstruation only in H (i.e., without referencing P) does not lead to this same conclusion.

Finally, I turn to a point assumed in the foregoing discussion—one of the most contentious aspects of this passage: Does Leviticus 15 (and P in general) assume there to be anything sinful about sexual relations during a woman's menstrual period? The relevant verse here is 15:24: “And if a man proceeds to lie with her, her menstrual impurity is transmitted to him, and he shall be impure seven days; any bedding on which he lies shall become impure.”Footnote ³² Despite assumptions and arguments made by many scholars to the contrary, this verse does not prohibit sexual relations during menstruation. The verse presents, in classic casuistic form, the consequence for sexual relations during a woman's menstrual period: the transfer of impurity from the woman to the man.

Yet despite the clear import of these words, many scholars simply assume a prohibition on menstrual sex in P. Thus, for example, in writing about the case of the parturient at the end of her seven days of impurity following the birth of a son, Baruch Levine begins, “Although she could engage in sexual relations,” implying that during the first seven days, sexual relations were forbidden.Footnote ³³ But neither Lev 15:24 nor Leviticus 12 makes any mention of such a proscription. Of course, Levine is right that a synthetic reading of Leviticus as a whole could lead to such a conclusion, but this is not the case if one considers the relevant passages in P alone.

Even more problematic is Levine's claim that a “menstruating woman was impure primarily with respect to marital relations, though there were certain additional restrictions.”Footnote ³⁴ When he writes that “chapter 15 of Leviticus is best remembered for the limitations placed on sexual relations between man and wife during her menstrual period,” Footnote ³⁵ he may well be right in describing the popular understanding of Leviticus’sFootnote ³⁶ position on menstruation, but this conclusion does not emerge from a reading of Leviticus 15 on its own terms.

But Levine is far from the only scholar to assume that Lev 15:24 prohibits sexual relations during menstruation. In an otherwise very sensitive and nuanced article comparing impurity language in P and H, David Wright nonetheless conflates the two when discussing menstruation, claiming that Lev 15:24 prohibits sexual relations during a woman's menstrual flow. In noting that some of the impurities in P are forbidden (as a way of proving, from these exceptions, that in general they are “tolerated”), Wright writes: “Since karet [excision] . . . is the penalty for this, it is not included in the tolerated impurities (Lev. 18.19 and its context; 20.18).”Footnote ³⁷ In other words, Wright, like Levine, reads synthetically, and thus applies prohibitions found in Leviticus 18 and 20 to the impurity ruling of Lev 15:24. Reading synthetically is certainly appropriate in many instances, but in studies that aim to distinguish between two kinds of impurity, synthesis is best delayed until each passage has been read on its own. What is more, a synthetic reading of Leviticus's treatment of menstruation is hindered by the many striking differences between Leviticus 15 and Lev 20:18 delineated above. Reading locally rather than synthetically reveals that nothing in Lev 15:24 suggests a prohibition on sexual intercourse during menstruation.

Indeed, Milgrom reversed his opinion on this matter in between the writing of the first and second volumes of his commentary to Leviticus. In the first volume, commenting on Lev 15:24, Milgrom endorses the view of the medieval commentator Abravanel, who claims that the omission of an explicit prohibition does not mean that the passage's author denies the existence of such a prohibition; rather, the omission simply indicates that the author's primary interest lies elsewhere. Milgrom writes that the “possibility” that “P did not envisage any penalty at all for the violation of impurity rules . . . must be dismissed out of hand” because “P is . . . obsessed” with “the potential contamination of the sanctuary” via impurity and “its silence . . . is explicable, on the grounds supplied by Abravanel . . . that P concentrates on the effect of impurity on persons and objects and not on divine sanctions for its bearers.”Footnote ³⁸

But the fact that the omission of any prohibition in P can be explained in accordance with Abravanel's interpretation need not mean that it should be. Importantly, Milgrom here does not distinguish between the prohibition of contaminating sacred goods by one's impure state and a prohibition on becoming impure. In other words, P may well be “obsessed” with the “potential contamination of the sanctuary,” but that does not mean that it is obsessed with the imperative to keep individuals (other than priests) from becoming impure; so long as those individuals keep their proper distance from sacred goods and precincts, we need not assume any problem for P.Footnote ³⁹

Milgrom, however, reversed himself in the second volume of his commentary, arguing forcefully for the idea that Lev 15:24 provides an example of legal difference between P and H. This shift in Milgrom's thinking appears motivated, at least in part, by the recognition that the proscription implied in Leviticus 15 is not the act of menstrual sex, but rather, the contact between “impure” people (people who are in a state of impurity for any reason) and holy goods: “Perhaps P's silence betrays its lack of concern with or even denial of any penalty . . . except when the impure couple comes in contact with sanctums . . . or when they neglect to purify themselves.”Footnote ⁴⁰ Later in the same volume, he refers to this possibility as “more likely.”Footnote ⁴¹

Of course, the fact that something is not forbidden need not (and should not) lead to the assumption that it has no negative valence. As Wright points out, “Although [the impurities of P] are allowed, they are not necessarily encouraged. The tenor of priestly legislation indicates that these impurities are to be generated as infrequently as possible.”Footnote ⁴² Nonetheless, while P likely implies a negative attitude towards sexual relations during menstruation, it does so through the framework of ritual-impurity legislation, and not through prohibitions or prohibition-based impurity. In this regard, the treatment of menstruation in P stands in stark contrast to the verses regarding menstruation in H, to which we now turn our attention.

Menstruation in Leviticus: H

Unlike the lengthy discussion in Lev 15:19–33, H's references to menstruation and menstruating women—Lev 18:19 and Lev 20:18—are quite brief, each one verse only. Lev 18:19 appears in the context of a chapter central to Klawans's description of moral impurity in the Bible:Footnote ⁴³

Leviticus 18 has a tripartite structure. In Milgrom's translation, these are described as the “Opening Exhortation” (vv. 1–5), “The Prohibitions” (vv. 6–23), and the “Closing Exhortation” (vv. 24–30).Footnote ⁴⁴ The exhortation at the beginning is focused on exile, but it does not use the language of purity. The closing exhortation, however, is a particularly conspicuous example of what Klawans calls “moral impurity.”

The closing exhortation with its description of the impurity consequences of sin refers back to the prohibitions in vv. 6–23. All but one of these transgressions are sexual in nature: vv. 6–18 deal with inappropriate sexual relations with family members; v. 19 prohibits sex during menstruation; v. 20 forbids adultery; v. 21 prohibits some sort of rite of the cult of Molek; v. 22 bans sexual relations of some sort between two men; and v. 23 outlaws bestiality. I will examine v. 19 in greater depth below, following a consideration of the other appearance in H of menstruation. At this point, however, it is sufficient to note that the prohibition on sexual relations during menstruation is the only one of these laws that has any relevant parallel in the literature of P. Unlike menstruation, nowhere in P are incest, adultery, idolatry,Footnote ⁴⁵ homosexual relations, or bestiality cited as sources of ritual impurity.

The second appearance of menstruation in H is Lev 20:18:

Leviticus 20 has a very similar structure to Leviticus 18, as well as much overlapping content, and the relationship between the two chapters has been grist for much biblical scholarship.Footnote ⁴⁶ Like Leviticus 18, it begins with an opening exhortation (though this introduction is itself preceded by a five-verse prohibition on cultic rites relating to Molek and one verse about necromancy), followed by a list of sexual prohibitions (and one prohibition about cursing parents), and concludes with a closing exhortation (the final verse is likely a later addition to the chapter, or alternatively, was moved from its original location earlier in the chapter).Footnote ⁴⁷ One of the overlapping laws found in both Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20 is the prohibition on sexual relations during menstruation (20:18).

However, as many commentators have noted, Leviticus 20 differs from Leviticus 18, for example, in its use of third-person casuistic, rather than second-person apodictic, legal-literary form, as well as in its inclusion of punishments. Another striking difference, relevant to our study, is the fact that unlike the closing exhortation of Leviticus 18, in which the language of impurity is used to describe the effects of sexual sins, Leviticus 20 uses impurity language only in the specific context of Molek rites (v. 3), which precedes its opening exhortation (and thus stands outside the literary structure of the unit), and in v. 25 describing animals, a usage more in line with the ritual impurity of P than with the kind of moral impurity associated with H.Footnote ⁴⁸ Furthermore, the discussion of exile from the land that serves as an inclusio to the list of sexual prohibitions in Leviticus 20 makes no mention of the permanent, prohibition-based impurity of the kind found in the parallel description of exile in Lev 18:24–30.Footnote ⁴⁹ Leviticus 18 is indeed the parade example of moral impurity in the Bible; Leviticus 20, despite so much parallel material, is concerned not at all with moral impurity, and only incidentally with ritual impurity.

The absence of impurity as a concern in Leviticus 20 highlights what is likely the most significant difference between appearances of menstruation in Lev 18:19 and the language used in Lev 20:18. Whereas the former frames the prohibition with the terminology of impurity and uses language that might even suggest that the prohibition derives from ritual purity concerns (a man may not approach a woman who is in “her menstrual impurity,” perhaps implying that the ritual impurity is the cause of the prohibition on sexual relations), the latter makes no reference to such matters, and does not even use the language of niddah so familiar from Leviticus 12 and 15. I present the verses here side by side for ease of comparison:

A number of differences between the two versions are typical of the differences already mentioned between the two chapters more generally, such as apodictic versus casuistic forms and the inclusion of the punishment in 20:18, which is lacking in 18:19. Also noteworthy is the fact that Lev 18:19 is directed to the man, whereas 20:18, while still describing the man as the active participant (“if a man lies with a woman”), nonetheless explicitly accuses both the male and female partners and holds both accountable. But the most significant difference for my concerns here is the language used to refer to the menstruant. I noted above that the root

(from which dawah is derived), in the two cases in P where it refers to menstruants or menstruation, appears together with some form of the word niddah. In Lev 20:18, however, the word appears alone, and it is only from the description that follows (“he has laid bare her source and she has exposed the source of her blood”) that we can gather that menstruation is referred to here. Leviticus 20:18 makes no use of the word niddah; indeed, consistent with its context in Leviticus 20, it makes no mention of any kind of impurity at all.

This stands in stark contrast to the description in Lev 18:19, where the menstruating woman is referred to by the quite challenging phrase (beniddat tum’atah). This reference to impurity has the ritual sort in mind; the use in conjunction with the word niddah makes that much clear. As discussed above, the word niddah could mean the state of menstruation, or it could mean the state of ritual impurity brought on by menstruation, and it indeed appears to mean both of those things at different times. If we take it to mean menstruation, then the phrase should be translated as “a woman in the menstruation of her impurity.” This reading seems unlikely, as impurity is the broader category, and the verse is referring here specifically to the menstrual form of impurity, i.e., the impurity brought on by menstruation. In that case, however, the phrase should have read (betum’at niddatah).Footnote ⁵⁰ Rather, we should take the word niddah to mean the ritual impurity caused by menstruation. The phrase in this case appears redundant (“a woman in the state of menstrual impurity of her impurity”), but despite the redundancy, Milgrom claims this as the literal translation of the words.Footnote ⁵¹ He usefully notes the work of Hanokh Yalon, who claims that “nearly synonymous” words paired together are often found in reverse order without a change of meaning. He also points out that we in fact have the reverse pair back in Lev 15:26.Footnote ⁵² Thus, Lev 18:19 introduces the ritual impurity of Leviticus 15 into a context concerned primarily with prohibition-based impurity.

This literary and legal connection to Leviticus 15 is significant for our under-standing both of the relationship between impurity and prohibition generally, and of the relationship between ritual impurity and prohibition-based impurity. Despite its use of ritual-impurity language, Lev 18:19 shares the substantive concerns and other formal traits of Lev 20:18, and not Leviticus 15: it is a brief, one-verse passage rather than an extended pericope; it does not distinguish between expected menstrual flow and unexpected or unusual bleeding; and, most strikingly, it presents an explicit prohibition on the act of sexual relations during menstruation. In all of this, Lev 18:19 is substantively consistent with Lev 20:18, which is focused not on impurity, but rather on holiness, and specifically on holiness through abstention from various sexual prohibitions. However, linguistically, Lev 18:19 recalls Leviticus 15 through its use both of the word niddah and of the root .Footnote ⁵³ In a sense, then, Lev 18:19 is a sort of midway point between Leviticus 15 and Leviticus 20, or better, a conflation of the two.Footnote ⁵⁴ While Lev 15:24 addresses sexual intercourse during menstruation in the context of ritual impurity, and Lev 20:19 considers it under the legal rubric of prohibition, Lev 18:19 expresses a proscription, the violation of which generates prohibition-based impurity, using language lifted from the context of ritual impurity. Leviticus 18:19 should thus not simply be lumped together with its companion in Lev 20:18 as a pair of verses that stand in opposition to Lev 15:24, a pair of verses that represent exclusively H's approach to menstruation while Lev 15:19–30 presents P’s. Rather, the two H occurrences of the ban on sexual relations during menstruation are different from each other in an important respect. While Lev 20:18, like Leviticus 15, reflects a strict compartmentalization between impurity and prohibition, with the former dealing with prohibition and the latter considering only impurity concerns, Lev 18:19 blurs the boundary between these two legal discourses.

Not only that, but as discussed above, while Leviticus 15 is a paradigmatic example of P's ideas about impurity, Leviticus 18 is a (indeed, the) parade example of moral-/prohibition-based impurity. Yet, in the midst of the prohibitions that are summarized in that chapter's closing exhortation as generative of prohibition-based impurity, ritual impurity appears, evoking the laws and ideas of P and its own forms of impurity and weaving them together with the formally distinct impurity of H. Thus, Lev 18:19 is a striking example both of the interplay of impurity language and a rhetoric of prohibition, as well as of the possibility of interrelatedness for the two kinds of impurity so clearly delineated in the work of scholars such as Büchler, Wright, and Klawans. Careful reading of the Hebrew Bible indeed reveals two very different kinds of impurity; careful reading of Lev 18:19 and its context reveals that, in at least one case, these two kinds of impurity interact.

The Significance of Category Conflation in Lev 18:19

The appearance of ritual-impurity aspects of niddah in the primarily moral-/prohibition-impurity framework of Leviticus 18 is particularly significant in that it represents already in the Pentateuch a model for what Fonrobert calls the “linguistic obfuscation of niddah in rabbinic literature.”Footnote ⁵⁵ Fonrobert describes the ways in which rabbinic texts use the language of impurity to express not a status vis-à-vis sacred goods and the cult, but rather to describe a woman's legal status with respect to her husband. Fonrobert points to two cases in particular, one in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Nid. 31) and the other in both the Palestinian and Babylonia Talmuds (p. Ketub. 2:5/26c = b. Ketub. 22b). In both of these passages, impurity language is used to describe a prohibited state, i.e., a character refers to a woman as “impure” when what is meant is that she is forbidden to engage in sexual relations (and that she is forbidden to her male sexual partner). As Fonrobert writes: “ [literally, ‘I am impure’] comes to mean ‘I have my menstrual period (and therefore cannot have sexual relations with you, my husband).’”Footnote ⁵⁶

Careful attention to Lev 18:19 reveals that the rabbinic appropriation of purity language to express a prohibition so astutely described by Fonrobert has a biblical precedent in this verse. Even as discussions of niddah laws in P express clearly different concerns, rulings, and language from the two discussions of menstruation in H, Lev 18:19, like the later rabbinic texts cited by Fonrobert, uses language from the realm of purity concerns to articulate a ruling that can best be defined as a prohibition.

But it is also possible that this close analysis of Lev 18:19 reveals more than just linguistic slippage, but rather that it also has significance for our appraisal of the substantive relationship between impurity and prohibition, as well as ritual impurity and prohibition-based impurity, in the Hebrew Bible. The possibility of conflation of impurity- and prohibition-based discourses suggests that the author(s) of Lev 18:19 did not view these two formal legal realms as always and absolutely distinct. If ritual impurity and the prohibition-based impurities of Leviticus 18 were truly completely separate domains, then it would be insensible to use the P-specific impurity language of Leviticus 15 in Lev 18:19. Rather, the act of sexual relations between a man and a menstruating woman, a source of prohibition-based impurity in Leviticus 18, is somehow related to ritual impurity.

At a minimum, Lev 18:19 makes clear that a particular prohibition that generates prohibition-based impurity is defined by the bounds of a particular example of ritual impurity, i.e., heterosexual intercourse generates moral-/prohibition-based impurity when the female partner is in a state of menstrual (i.e., ritual) impurity. But we can go further: the use of a ritual-impurity marker as a definitional marker of this impurity-generating prohibition implies, or at least creates the impression, that there is some connection between the ritual impurity of menstruation and the moral impurity depicted in the closing exhortation of Leviticus 18.

What are we to make of this conflation of impurity- and prohibition-based discourses? One route is that taken by Kazen, who, as noted above, understands the use of the same word in different contexts to mean a shared set of concerns:

In other words, Kazen finds in the realm of cognitive-emotional studies a single basis for both ritual- and prohibition-based law. Both are legal responses to a specific set of human experiences, and thus it should not be surprising that something such as menstruation appears in both settings.

As noted above, however, Kazen's approach takes the common appearance of the word (tum’ah) as dispositively proving a shared set of concerns. And yet, contextual analysis such as that found in the work of Klawans argues against such a claim, or at least against its being self-evident. We have already seen the ways in which the discussion of menstrual impurity in Leviticus 12 and 15 fits perfectly with Klawans's formal descriptions of ritual impurity, descriptions that are wholly irrelevant to Lev 20:18, and that seem equally irrelevant to Lev 18:19, especially when considered in the context of Leviticus 18 as a whole. If we assume—as it seems reasonable to do—that the formal traits of ritual impurity in Leviticus 15 (and P more generally) reflect something about the substantive concerns motivating ritual-impurity legislation generally, then the formal differences between the treatment of menstruation in Lev 15:19–30 and that found in Lev 20:18 suggest a different set of concerns as well. Klawans's treatment of impurity, then, means that when we find a blurring of ritual- and prohibition-based impurity, as we do in Lev 18:19, we should consider looking for a blurring of two sets of concerns, rather than one shared set.

Of course, identifying the concerns behind the impurity laws of P has been a significant project in biblical scholarship with nothing resembling a consensus;Footnote ⁵⁸ suggested interpretations of impurity and its motivating concerns include a lack of wholeness,Footnote ⁵⁹ encounters with death,Footnote ⁶⁰ and a confluence of the life-death polarity and sexual reproduction.Footnote ⁶¹ I have no delusions of being able to articulate in this article an argument to prove any of these explanations (or some other one) for the ritual-impurity legislation of Leviticus generally, and the menstrual purity laws of Leviticus 12 and 15 in particular. I will, however, return shortly to consider some examples of how the obfuscation of ritual- and prohibition-based impurity described in this article might affect our thinking about ritual impurity in the Hebrew Bible.

It is first important to note, however, that whatever one makes of the meaning of ritual impurity in the Pentateuch, Lev 20:18 reveals no hint that it shares any of those concerns commonly suggested for explaining the kind of impurity that we find in P.Footnote ⁶² There is no ritual-impurity language, nor any focus on the release of bodily fluids as we see in Leviticus 15.Footnote ⁶³ Rather, here we have a description of an ill woman whose genitalia have been revealed. Thus, Roy Gane's suggestion, cited in Milgrom's commentary, that the prohibition on sexual relations during a woman's menstrual period reflects a concern about her sexual vulnerability during this time is quite convincing as an explanation for the prohibition on sexual relations during menstruation in Lev 20:18.Footnote ⁶⁴ This interpretation has the advantage of paying attention to the use of dawah, rather than any form of the word niddah, as the word signifying the menstruant, as well as to the context of sexual relations that take advantage of imbalanced power dynamics within the family (i.e., the incest laws of Leviticus 20). However, just as we should not apply scholarly hypotheses about the motivations for ritual-impurity law to the treatment of menstruation in H, accepting Gane's interpretation for Lev 20:18 (and thus perhaps for Lev 18:19 as well) should not cause us to apply such reasoning to Leviticus 15. It is perfectly reasonable to believe that the menstrual impurity of Leviticus 15 reflects the concerns generally connected to ritual impurity (whatever position one comes to on that matter), even as the prohibition on sexual relations during menstruation in Lev 20:18 reflects some potentially entirely other concern.

Once the H prohibition on sexual relations during menstruation incorporates the language of ritual impurity in Lev 18:19, however, the conflation inevitably affects the reader's understanding of menstruation in both P and in H. The author(s) of Leviticus 15 may not have been motivated by concerns relating to illness and vulnerability; similarly, the author(s) of Lev 20:18 may not have been trying to draw attention to matters of life, death, and the purity of the cult. The composition of Lev 18:19, however, whether through conscious or unconscious conflation,Footnote ⁶⁵ renders these two pericopes interwoven. The powerful ritual-impurity language of Leviticus 15 has now been invoked with regard to the concerns represented in the H appearances of menstruation, while the reader of the Hebrew Bible as a redacted unit will, in reading Leviticus 15, inevitably hear the overtones of dawah and the connotations of illness and vulnerability that Lev 20:18's formulation carries.

For the sake of explication, I will posit here two of the common articulations of the motivations behind ritual impurity in the Hebrew Bible to explore how the blurring of different kinds of impurity in Lev 18:19 can affect a reader's understanding of both. I first offer here Milgrom's view that ritual impurity results from substances or events that highlight the life-death polarity, because it has been so influential (despite the fact that, like all the other explanations, one can raise valid critiques of it as an explanatory model). The motivation behind rendering menstrual blood impure, in Milgrom's scheme, is the sense that potential life is being lost. This also explains why unexpected or unusually extended shedding of the uterine lining generates more severe impurity, since it is a more frightening physical experience that may suggest actual illness. If one assumes such a motivation for menstrual impurity, then the obfuscation of Lev 18:19 introduces generalized human anxiety about the life-death polarity to the case of abuse of power in sexual relations. In the wake of Lev 18:19, such sexual abuse is not only a violation of the social order, but now a violation of the “natural” order and the maintenance of separate realms for life and death as well. Surely, this is a powerful tool for enforcing the social concerns of Lev 20:18. But the blurring works in the other direction as well. What previously would have been a somewhat abstract notion in P of the importance of taking account of moments when life and death threaten each other is now inflected with a more obviously ethical concern; perhaps we might even come to understand the separation of life and death as not only a “natural” human need, but also as a means of (and symbol for) the protection of the weak (represented by the mini-“death” of continual bleeding) from the powerful.

A similar effect on our understanding occurs if we imagine applying disgust as the explanation for pentateuchal rules about menstrual impurity in Leviticus 12 and 15. In this explanation, P codifies a human reaction to, say, menstrual blood, requiring Israelites (or perhaps only Israelite men) to keep that which they find disgusting separate from the holy. Reading ritual impurity this way, the line-blurring of Lev 18:19 lends social overtones to the primarily material original meaning of Leviticus 15; the disgust ancient Israelites (or, again, perhaps only Israelite men) felt at menstrual blood now represents the vulnerability of a sexual partner. At the same time, the prohibition on sexual relations with a menstruating woman, significantly in 18:19 addressed only to a male sexual partner, now carries a social judgment of disgust. In other words, this becomes a perfect example of what Douglas has argued (quoted above): “Pollution rules can have [a] socially useful function—that of marshalling moral disapproval when it lags.”Footnote ⁶⁶ (Of course, it is also worth noting that the need to legislate against men's having sexual intercourse with women while the latter are menstruating, and especially the invocation of ritual impurity to buttress this law and the implication that “moral disapproval” was “lagging,” calls into question Kazen's attribution of the use of impurity language in Leviticus 18 and similar locations to disgust. How disgusting could Israelite men have found menstruation to be if so much legislation was required to prevent men from taking sexual advantage of their female sexual partners?)

It may well be, then, that local units of the Hebrew Bible reveal a worldview in which ritual impurity and the prohibition-based impurity of, for example, Leviticus 18 are formally distinct. Indeed, this strict compartmentalization of these two kinds of impurity, both of which appear in the context of menstruation, likely signal that the ritual impurity and the legal prohibition associated with menstruation are in some sense distinct legal realms with differing motivations and sets of concerns. The linguistic obfuscation of Lev 18:19, however, necessarily complicates a view of menstruation in P and in H as totally separate. By introducing ritual impurity into the sexual prohibition regarding menstruation, which is itself one of the laws described as generating prohibition-based impurity, the author/editor of this verse interweaves both the terminology and, at least from the perspective of a reader, the concerns about menstruation. This one example of the blurring of the lines between impurity and prohibition opens up the possibility of identifying other such cases, requiring scholars to reconsider—yet again—the relationship between impurity and prohibition in the Hebrew Bible as a whole and to be wary of depictions of that relationship that leave no room for such blurring of these lines.