Sexual pollution in the Hebrew Bible

This dissertation explores the use of pollution language in the Hebrew Bible to describe problematic sexual relationships and their effects. It argues that while the idea of sexual pollution shares a conceptual framework with other uses of pollution language in the Hebrew Bible, it is a concept unto itself with its own distinct characteristics. The analysis of sexual pollution in this study is grounded in a general analysis of pollution concepts in the Hebrew Bible. This general analysis proceeds from an examination of specific terms used for purity and pollution as well as other terms in the same semantic domain. Observations on the phenomenon of contagion from the fields of anthropology and psychology augment the terminological analysis and yield the conclusion that pollution language reflects a perception of contagion that is a product of disgust. The use of pollution language in connection with sexuality is a subset of this general usage. The remainder of the dissertation examines specific biblical texts that use pollution language to describe problematic sexual relationships. Most of these texts reveal a common conception of sexual pollution as a quality that affects women who have sex outside the context of marriage to one man. Leviticus 18 divorces this concept from its basis in sexual property and connects it to the idea of the holiness of all male Israelites. The book of Ezekiel adopts some aspects of Leviticus 18's conception of pollution but retains the convention of applying sexual pollution language to women and not to men. Ezra 9 develops Leviticus 18's concept of sexual pollution into a new idea that foreigners pollute the corporate body of Israel and thereby utilizes the concept to define the boundaries of the Israelite people.