Bible Study for Amateurs #71 – Elizabeth Shively’s “Purification of the Body and the Reign of God in the Gospel of Mark,” part 5

Hey, everyone! I’m Ben – the Amateur Exegete, and this is episode seventy-one of Bible Study for Amateurs. Today’s episode is, “Elizabeth Shively’s ‘Purification of the Body and the Reign of God in the Gospel of Mark,’ part 5.”¹

In the last episode, as we continued our look at Elizabeth Shively’s 2020 piece “Purification of the Body and the Reign of God in the Gospel of Mark,”² we asked if the idea that the Markan Jesus rejected purity regulations held any water. We also asked what evidence we had that such regulations were important in the time and place in which Jesus lived. It is to that question we now turn.

In his book The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal,³ Yonatan Adler, an associate professor at Ariel University in Israel, offers two categories of evidence to support the notion that purity concerns were relatively wide-spread in ancient Judea, including the time during which Jesus lived: textual and archaeological. He begins with Philo, a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth albeit one living hundreds of miles away in Alexandria, Egypt. Described by one historian as “the most eminent representative of Diaspora Judaism,”⁴ Philo was a Greek-speaking Jew whose writings offer us one of the few literary glimpses into Judaism of the late Second Temple period.⁵ He wrote on a variety of subjects, from the life of Moses⁶ to treatises on virtues⁷ to inebriation,⁸ and more.⁹ He even composed a Q&A on the book of Genesis.¹⁰ Important for our purposes are references to the ritual purity system found within Philo’s impressive literary output. Adler observes that the Alexandrian discusses impurity related to sexual intercourse,¹¹ gonorrhea and skin diseases,¹² and more.¹³ Additionally, Philo speaks of how things like λέπρα (lepra) were to be treated, especially the mixtures of water and ash used to render the impure pure.¹⁴ But Adler offers a cautious note regarding Philo’s commentary: “It is somewhat difficult to know whether Philo wrote any of this from personal familiarity with these rituals as practiced by Judeans in real life, or whether he was simply paraphrasing and interpreting Pentateuchal regulations whose actual observance he may have never experienced.”¹⁵ This caveat aside, Philo at least offers us a glimpse into what some Jews were thinking about purity regulations. It also allows us to draw an inference, namely that if purity regulations were a concern for a Jew as far from the temple to Yahweh as Alexandria, Egypt, then it was surely a concern for Jews who lived in close proximity to the cult center in Jerusalem. 

The next piece of textual evidence Adler discusses is that of the New Testament. For example, in Mark 7 the Pharisees and scribes interrogate Jesus as to why his disciples do not follow “the tradition of the elders” by washing their hands before they eat (Mark 7:1-2). The Evangelist offers an explanatory note in vv. 3-4, describing the practice of washing as one performed by “the Pharisees and all the Jews.”¹⁶ Writes Adler,

For our purposes, it is less important to understand precisely what it was that the writer here intended to convey regarding Jesus’s own views on ritual purity practices than it is to note the manner in which ‘all the Judeans’ are depicted as adhering to these rules. Regardless of whether this story actually took place as described (if at all), the writer here clearly believed that it would make sense to readers to have regular Judeans portrayed as actively concerned about the ritual purity of the food they ate, and as commonly practicing purificatory rituals mandated in the Pentateuch – and even expanding upon these rules – in order to ensure the ritual purity of their bodies, utensils, furniture, and food.¹⁷

And Mark is not the only Gospel wherein Jewish concerns about ritual purity serve as important background data. In the Gospel of Luke, for example, Jesus’s family is depicted as faithful to Torah, having Jesus circumcised on the eighth day following his birth (Luke 2:21), offering a sacrifice for purification in accordance with the Law (Luke 2:22-24),¹⁸ and even celebrating the Passover every year by going to the temple in Jerusalem (Luke 2:41-42).¹⁹ Similar material which has the ritual purity system as background can be found also in the Matthean and Johannine Gospels as well as the Acts of the Apostles.²⁰

The final piece of textual evidence Adler mentions is that of Josephus, the Jewish freedom-fighter turned historian in Roman employ.²¹ Per his autobiography, Josephus was of noble lineage, claiming that his father Matthias was “a very eminent man”²² and his mother belonged to a line of Hasmoneans.²³ Additionally, he depicts himself as precocious: “While still a boy, really about fourteen years old, I used to be praised by everyone because [I was] book-loving: the chief priests and principal men of the city would often meet to understand the legal matters more precisely with my assistance,” he wrote.²⁴ As an adult, he became a prolific writer, composing lengthy tomes on Jewish history. His writings, like those of Philo and the New Testament, come down to us in Greek, a language which he confessed he found difficult to pronounce correctly,²⁵ though he clearly had no difficulty writing in it.²⁶ One of the many topics to be found in his writings is that of ritual purity. Adler notes²⁷  how Josephus discussed issues surrounding λέπρα,²⁸ sacrifices related to childbirth and sex,²⁹ and even the ways in which Jewish sects like the Essenes interpreted and put into place the purity regulations of the Torah.³⁰ Some of the stories Josephus tells even require purity concerns as part of the narrative groundwork. For example, in his autobiography³¹ he recalls going to Rome at the age of twenty-six after a group of priests and other associates of Josephus were arrested and taken to none other than Nero himself. Ultimately, he is able to secure the release of his countrymen, writing that these Jewish prisoners “even in wretched circumstances…had not abandoned piety toward the deity but were subsisting on figs and nuts.”³² Why figs and nuts? Adler thinks it has to do with Leviticus 11:34³³ which forbids the consumption of any food that came into contact with unclean water. Because these Jewish prisoners could not have known whether their gentile captors had used water that was ritually pure to make bread, they would have sought out food that was not stored in potentially impure water but was kept dry. Fruits and nuts, then, “would have been regarded as unsusceptible to impurity, and hence permitted even if obtained from Gentiles.”³⁴

Adler has provided us with textual evidence for purity concerns in and around the time of Jesus. But what about archaeological? That is what we will explore next time.

That’s all the time we’ve got this week. See you next time! And remember, in the words of Richard Elliot Friedman, “One does not need to deny what is troubling [about the Bible] in order to pay respect to what is heartening.”³⁵ Thanks for stopping by. 

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1. Throughout the endnotes readers will find various abbreviations. For a list of what abbreviations I use and the works to which they refer, please see the page “Commonly Used Abbreviations.”  ↩︎
2. Elizabeth E. Shively, “Purification of the Body and the Reign of God in the Gospel of Mark,” JTS 71 part 1 (April 2020), 62-89.  ↩︎
3. Yonatan Adler, The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal, AYBRL (Yale University Press, 2022). ↩︎
4. Jean Daniélou, Philo of Alexandria, translated by James G. Colbert (James Clarke & Co., 2014 [originally published 1958], 1. Cf. Maren R. Neihoff, Philo of Alexandria: An Intellectual Biography, AYBRL (Yale University Press, 2018), 244: Philo “illustrates a form of Judaism that positioned itself within the general culture, embracing new historical and cultural developments in the world rather than opposing them.” ↩︎
5. David M. Scholer, “Foreword,” in The Works of Philo, translated by C.D. Yonge (Hendrickson Publishers, 1993), xi. Scholer’s foreword was written in an edition published in 2008. ↩︎
6. De vita Mosis I, II (i.e., Mos. 1, 2) = On the Life of Moses 1, 2. ↩︎
7. De virtutibus (i.e., Virt.) = On the Virutes. ↩︎
8. De ebrietate (i.e., Ebr.) = On Drunkenness. ↩︎
9. For an overview of Philo’s literary output, see Peter Borgen, “Philo of Alexandria,” in ABD, 5:334-336. ↩︎
10. Quaestiones et solutiones in Genesin I, II, III, IV (i.e., QG 1, 2, 3, 4) = Questions and Answers on Genessis 1, 2, 3, 4. ↩︎
11. See Philo, Spec. 3.63: “So careful is the law to provide against the introduction of violent changes in the institution of marriage that a husband a wife, who have intercourse in accordance with the legitimate usages of married life, are not allowed, when they leave their bed, to touch anything until they have made their ablutions and purged themselves with water.” Translation taken from Philo, On the Decalogue; On the Special Laws, translated by F.H. Colson, LCL 320 (Harvard University Press, 1937). ↩︎
12. See Philo, Spec. 1.118: “If however, leprous eruptions [λέπραι (leprai)] appear on him or he is suffering from seminal issue [γονορρυὴς (gonorrhyēs)], the priest must not touch the holy table or any of the prizes to which his clan is entitled until in the one case the issue has ceased, in the other the leprosy is converted into a resemblance to the hue of healthy flesh.” Translation taken from Philo, On the Decalogue; On the Special Laws, translated by F.H. Colson. ↩︎
13. Adler, The Origins of Judaism, 53. ↩︎
14. E.g., Philo, Spec. 3.205-208. ↩︎
15. Adler, The Origins of Judaism, 54. Cf. Laura von Bartenwerffer, “First Day Ablutions in Qumran and Philo,” in Purity in Ancient Judaism, edited by Lutz Doering, Jörg Frey, and Laura von Bartenwerffer, WUNT 528 (Mohr Siebeck, 2025), 320. Bartenwerffer notes that there are elements of Philo’s discourse on purity regulation that differ from those found in the HB and, therefore, one could plausibly conclude that he was aware of them because of real-world practice. ↩︎
16. The existence of this explanatory note surely implies that a significant number in the Evangelist’s audience were non-Jews. On the audience of the Gospel of Mark, see Mary Ann Beavis, Mark, Paideia (Baker Academic, 2011), 12-14. Cf. Donald A. Hagner, The New Testament: A Historical and Theological Introduction (Baker Academic, 2012), 185: “this Gospel makes modifications with Gentiles in mind (as in 7:19, the revoking of the dietary restrictions; and 10:12, perhaps added for Gentile readers, whose wives had the right to divorce their husbands, unlike Jewish wives.” Hagner, in context, is defending the early tradition that the Gospel of Mark was written in the city of Rome or, at a minimum, that it was intended for the assembly in Rome.  ↩︎
17. Adler, The Origins of Judaism, 55. A similar point about the Gospel of Mark generally is made by Matthew Thiessen (Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels’ Portrayal of Ritual Impurity within First-Century Judaism [Baker Academic, 2020], 8: “The Jesus of the Gospels only makes sense in light of, in the context of, and in agreement with priestly concerns about purity and impurity documented in Leviticus and other Old Testament texts.” ↩︎
18. Adler, The Origins of Judaism, 56-57. Cf. Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death, 23-41. ↩︎
19. Luke Timothy Johnson (The Gospel of Luke, SP 3 [The Liturgical Press, 1991], 60) writes, “The domestic drama gives Luke the chance to express some of his characteristic religious perceptions. We see again the centrality of Jerusalem and its Temple. When Jesus arrives in Jerusalem in chapter 19, he does not come as a stranger. Once more we see the piety of Jesus’ family that draws them each year on a difficult pilgrimage for Passover.” Cf. Michael Wolter, The Gospel According to Luke, translated by Wayne Coppins and Christoph Heilig (Baylor-Mohr Siebeck, 2016 [originally published in German in 2008], 149-150. ↩︎
20. On this, see Adler, The Origins of Judaism, 56, 57-58. ↩︎
21. For a brief and accessible biography of Josephus, see Steve Mason, Josephus and the New Testament, second edition (Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), 35-54. ↩︎
22. Josephus, Vita 7. ↩︎
23. Josephus, Vita 2. ↩︎
24. Josephus, Vita 9. Translation taken from Steve Mason, Life of Josephus: Translation and Commentary, FJTC 9 (Brill, 2001). Cf. Shaye J.D. Cohen, Josephus in Galilee and Rome: His Vita and Development as a Historian (Brill Academic Publishers, Inc., 2002), 105. One wonders whether the Lukan Evangelist was aware of Josephus’s Vita and cast Jesus as an equally precocious child in a bid to magnify his reputation (see Luke 2:46-48).  There is compelling evidence to suggest that the author of Luke-Acts knew the works of Josephus, particularly A.J. and B.J. On this, see Mason, Josephus and the New Testament, 251-295; Richard I. Pervo, Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists (Polebridge Press, 2006) 149-199; Barbara Shellard, New Light on Luke: Its Purpose, Sources and Literary Context, JSNTSup 215 (Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 31-34. More likely, the Lukan author (as well as Josephus) was well aware of a literary trope in which a person of great stature (self-assessed or otherwise) demonstrated from an early age their virtue. See Koen de Temmerman and Danny Praet, “Martyrs and Life-Writing in Late Antiquity,” in The Oxford Handboook of Ancient Biography, edited by Koen de Temmerman (Oxford, 2020), 381-382; L. Michael White, Scripting Jesus: The Gospels in Rewrite (HarperOne, 2010), 56. ↩︎
25. Josephus, A.J. 20.263. ↩︎
26. Steve Mason (Josephus and the New Testament, 55) writes that Josephus “was not only familiar with his native Hebrew and Aramaic traditions, but he also had achieved some basic facility in Greek language, literature, and though even before he left Judea.” ↩︎
27. Adler, The Origins of Judaism, 59. ↩︎
28. E.g., Josephus, B.J. 5.226-227: “Persons afflicted with gonorrhoea [γονορροίοις] or leprosy [λεπροῖς] were excluded from the city altogether.” Translation taken from Josephus, The Jewish War, Books IV-VII, translated by H. St. J. Thackeray, LCL (Harvard University Press, 1928).  ↩︎
29. E.g., Josephus, C. Ap. 2.198: “In view of the sacrifices the Law has prescribed purifications for various occasions: after a funeral, after child-birth, after conjugal union, and many others.” Translation taken from Josephus, The Life, Against Apion, translated by H. St. J. Thackeray, LCL (Harvard University Press, 1926). ↩︎
30. See Josephus, B.J. 2.120-161 for his understanding of the Essenes. Cf. Albert I. Baumgarten, “Josephus and the Jewish Sects,” in A Companion to Josephus, edited by Honora Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers (John Wiley & Sons, 2016), 261-272, especially 268. ↩︎
31. Josephus, Vita 13-16. ↩︎
32. Josephus, Vita, 14. Translation taken from Mason, Life of Josephus.  ↩︎
33. Leviticus 11:34: “Any food that could be eaten shall be unclean if water from any such vessel [i.e., a vessel into which a carcass has fallen] comes upon it, and any liquid that could be drunk shall be unclean if it was in any such vessel.” Cf. Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AYB 3 (Doubleday, 1991), 678. ↩︎
34. Adler, The Origins of Judaism, 60-61.  ↩︎
35. Richard Elliot Friedman, The Exodus: How It Happened and Why It Matters (HarperOne, 2017), 214. ↩︎