5 - Jesus and the purity of Israel

Summary

In the foregoing chapters I have argued that the eschatological proclamation of Jesus must be viewed as the paradoxical announcement that the judgement and restoration of Israel were to be experienced as simultaneous realities. In this and the following chapter, I wish to examine the way this assessment of the eschatological situation of the nation played out in Jesus' intentions toward three central and interrelated constitutional features of the eschaton: purity, Land and Temple. Few Jews believed that Israel's restoration would take place on a strictly spiritual or theological plane. Dramatic changes were expected, changes which would alter Israel's social structures and institutions. This is not to say that the sacred traditions which serviced these expectations were univocal. This diversity lies behind the divergence of Jesus' aims from the expectations of many of his contemporaries. Central to the eschatological hopes of Second Temple Judaism were the beliefs that Israel would be reassembled in a pure Land and reconstituted as a pure people. A crucial question, then, is how Jesus' message of national restoration and judgement affected his intentions concerning the purity and Land of Israel.

Purity, society and Israel

Purity and the Temple

On the Pharisees of Sanders and Neusner

A useful, if not wholly obvious, point of departure is the recent debate between E. P. Sanders and Jacob Neusner over the purity practices of Pharisees in the first century.