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The concept of impurity is, in Christian culture, often associated with sin and sexual immorality. This is far from the understanding we find in Biblical Judaism. Moral impurity, however, was a sin, which caused the presence of God to disappear, but ritual impurity was a quite different concept resulting from natural processes which should not be avoided. Jesus also employed the term impure spirits, as an ontological category. And during the 2. Temple periode we find the concept og genealogical impurity. This book presents an analysis of the different kinds of impurities and the regime and rituals of purification. The author argues that Jesus and Paul used the concept of purity/impurity in quite different meanings, according to their different contexts in 1. century Israel and Roman societies.

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Ragnhild Gilbrant, PhD, M.Phil, Cand.Philol., is Associate Professor at the University of Stavanger. She teaches religion and ethics at teacher-education for pre-school. Her academic background is both theology and philosophy. She has taught at all levels in the Norwegian schoolsystem, and she is an ordained minister.

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