The Origins of Judaism, Part 1: Ritual purity and foods

The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal by Yonatan Adler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Origins of Judaism

Simply a great book. Adler’s look at archaeological and related evidence for when various practices commanded in the Torah of the Pentateuch became widespread is simple, and has more and more data to be researched today. Part 2 of this expanded review covers "graven images." Part 3, about "miscellaneous" items, is also now up.

First, the exact phrasing above? Adler uses “Pentateuch” for the five books “of Moses.” Torah is used for the “teaching,” which often was law or “nomos,” within them, to then ask where it was discussed literarily centuries later, ie, Christian New Testament, Qumran, Josephus, apocrypha, etc. That’s his terminus ad quem. Therefore, he does not use the Mishna; sayings attributed to 1st century CE rabbis by the second century may not hold up.

Then, as noted, he also looks at archaeological digs and related for their evidence.

He looks at several areas of Torah: Dietary laws, ritual purity, “graven images,” tefillin and mezuzoth, all of which get longer treatment, the synagogue’s existence, and a group of items under “miscellaneous practices.”

The conclusion he has is that based on the “lived experience” of practitioners of what became Judaism, none of these were widespread before the start of the Hellenistic area, and in most cases, it wasn’t until Hasmonean times. In fact, that’s his summary — that the Torah as prescriptive not descriptive was pushed and promulgated as a Hasmonean unity document or constitution of sorts.

Notes below are my observations and stimulations, as well as what I learned. As noted in posting my review link to a couple of biblical criticism subreddits, I am going to do some more in-depth breakouts to some portions of Adler's book in a series of posts, while still providing a link to the whole review with each one.

The first big part I want to break out further?

Ritual purity laws. That's in large part because they are a big thing in the Synoptic Gospels, on some of Jesus' disputes with the Pharisees, in Acts, with Pauline vs Jerusalem Christianity, and in Paul's letters.

The ritual purity chapter was great, and especially the immersion bath subsection. Adler shows this likely didn’t become widespread until the start of the 1st century BCE. He said it may have been aided from the start of the Hellenistic world by the rise of its hip bath. The photos involved, plus quotes from Josephus as well as the New Testament? Make clear how big of a deal this was. People had to create a site big enough for a full immersion. They had to have, or find, the wherewithal, to be able to afford this. In largely semi-arid, semi-desert Judea, especially if not in a Romanized Hellenistic city with an aquaduct, they had to rig up rainfall capture or something to keep it filled. If it was outdoors, they had to skim out bugs, I would think for no other reason than most of them being unclean as food sources, in summer. Also if outdoors, in higher elevations, they might have had to break up a skim of ice at times in winter and in general, if it wasn't heated, brave brisk temperatures.

All of this illustrates the detail to which ritual purification was practices by most Pharisees, at least, in everyday life. And, it illustrates the depth of the challenge that Jesus was posing to them, especially in a place like Galilee where interactions with Gentiles would have been common for many of them. The best illustration of this is the Markan-Matthean parable of clean and unclean foods, which starts with Jesus dining with a Pharisee and talking about them purifying themselves and their utensils before getting into clean and unclean foods (whatever the final meaning of the parable is).

I also think of Paul calling out Peter for his dining hypocrisy. Maybe this was instead a “weaker brother” thing on Peter’s part, where he was OK with ignoring ritual purity concerns when by himself with Gentiles, but didn’t want to upset other Jewish Jesus-believers when they were around. And, since Paul himself talks elsewhere — and specifically on things like food sacrificed to idols, about not offending a weaker brother, that would mean that if anybody was a hypocrite, it was Paul. (Shock me.) Speaking of that, I blogged specifically about Paul and this issue recently.

That will lead me, more briefly, to clean and unclean foods.

I’d already heard about the catfish bones outside Jerusalem in approximately Davidic times, that 20 percent or more of all fish bones found there were unclean catfish.

From there, we're going to take it back to New Testament times, where in 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about both ritual purity and indirectly, unclean foods, but not in a Jewish Torah sense, over food sacrificed to idols. The idol issue itself would make such meat ritually impure, not just the person eating it, and based on purification laws, I don't see how you could purify the food without ruining it.

But, as Adler notes, food sacrificed to an idol would also normally not have been slaughtered and butchered kosher, and thus would still have the blood in it. This, of course is not Torah, but a Noahide law, which is why it would have been scandalous to the Jerusalem Jesus-believers. And, though this is beyond Adler's remit, it's why I believe there was no "Council of Jerusalem," contra Acts 15. It is also why I, per above, think that it would have been Paul, not Peter, who was the hypocrite, in his callout.

Related? I do not think all details of the actual parable of clean and unclean foods are real, though the dispute with Pharisees surely is. The Markan judgment as to what Jesus meant is surely just that — a Markan judgment. Note also I didn't call it Lukan. That's because only a briefer version of the ritual purity dispute is in Luke; the clean and unclean foods issue is moved and edited to become Peter's dream of the sheet of unclean foods in Acts, which also surely didn't happen.

Adler's conclusion, and one with which I agree?

Even if the persecution of Antiochus IV was real, it may well have targeted just the temple cult, per Daniel. The Torah was elevated in Maccabean times as part a of Hasmonean unity program. John Collins and Reinhard Kratz propose this. Hyrcanus coercing Idumeans to support "the whole law" may support this. So may the rise of Jewish sectarianism upon independence. 

Update: Jon D. Levinson thinks Adler pushes some doors too hard, not just on individual instances, but especially on the claim that before Ptolemaic times, the Torah was seen as descriptive more than prescriptive. I would respond that some of his pushback idealized Deuteronomy, assumes a relatively early date for final or semi-final redaction of Leviticus (vis a vis Ezekiel) and other things. He does, interestingly, note that Adler studied pre-PhD at an Orthodox seminary in Israel, and with a clear "is"/"ought" distinction on the Torah, would appear to still be an Orthodox Jew at heart.

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