Purity: Embodiment in the Social Order

In the Old Testament purity is embodied in social and ritual behavior. Mary Douglas defines ‎defilement as ‘matter out of place’ where people, places, and things which don’t fit into accepted ‎cultural cognitive categories are considered defiled and hence defiling. Defilement is dangerous due to ‎the potential disruption of social life. Both Sherry Ortner and Robert Priest challenge this rubric as too ‎simplistic. Ortner situates purity in worldview where social and spiritual order are embodied. Priest ‎links defilement to an inherent disgust of death and decay. All of them show how the power of ritual ‎overcomes danger and defilement. We will use all three paradigms to examine the semantic domains ‎of two key terms in the Old Testament, ‎טהר ‏‎ (tahar to be pure) and ‎טמא ‏‎ (tame’ to be defiled). ‎Beginning with the temple as a holy place, we will look at how holiness and purity are embodied in the ‎ritual associated with cultic Old Testament religion. Western Christians tend to consider purity as a ‎moral issue, ignoring the ritual and emotional components of purity and defilement. This interferes ‎with an understanding of the Hebrew semantic complex. We will demonstrate how two new tools ‎currently in development for use in the Paratext environment, Biblical Culture Notes (BCN) and Key ‎Terms Old Testament (KTOT), can help translators explore these concepts more fully. ‎