Deep: Purification and Water Imagery in Early Jewish Literature

ROLLING IN THE (WATERS OF THE) DEEP ROLLING IN THE (WATERS OF THE) DEEP: PURIFICATION AND WATER IMAGERY IN EARLY JEWISH LITERATURE SIMON ZELDIN A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts McMaster University © Copyright by Simon Zeldin, 2017 M.A. Thesis – Simon Zeldin McMaster University, Religious Studies McMaster University MASTER OF ARTS (2017) Hamilton, Ontario (Religious Studies) TITLE: Rolling in the (Waters of the) Deep Purification and Water Imagery in Early Jewish Literature AUTHOR: Simon Zeldin, B.Hums (Carleton University) SUPERVISOR: Professor D.A. Machiela NUMBER OF PAGES: vi, 126 ii M.A. Thesis – Simon Zeldin McMaster University, Religious Studies ABSTRACT: Scholars such as Jonathan Klawans have distinguished between two types of impurity described in priestly texts: ritual and moral. The former, which denotes bodily pollution, occurs as a result of natural human processes (i.e., birth, death, genital discharge) and can render one temporarily unfit for temple worship, though it bears no clear ethical implications. Conversely, moral impurity refers to the more permanent defilement brought about by ethical transgressions (i.e., murder, apostasy, adultery), and has the capacity to stain the land of Israel itself, in addition to threatening the sanctity of the temple. However, this separation between ritual and moral dimensions of pollution are not absolute, as even Klawans allows that these categories are rather “pliable” (and to a certain extent, intertwined.) This thesis explores the concept of purity (both ritual and moral) in early Jewish literature, through a detailed analysis of water and cleansing language. In particular, I emphasise conceptual links between water for a) ritual washing and b) moral cleansing or sanctification. In this way, I highlight the flexibility of scholarly purity categories, demonstrating how purification can often be understood “holistically,” as encompassing both ritual and moral dimensions. I also illustrate how water seems to embody liminal tensions, oscillating between thresholds of purity and pollution, as well as primordial chaos and cosmic order. The thesis is divided into two major sections: Part One focuses on representations of water in the Hebrew Bible, whereas Part Two examines non-canonical texts from the Second Temple period. iii M.A. Thesis – Simon Zeldin McMaster University, Religious Studies ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I would like to first acknowledge my supervisor, Dr. Daniel Machiela, for his guidance throughout this process, as well as my other two committee members, Drs. Eileen Schuller and Matthew Thiessen, for their help and assistance. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Dr. Shawna Dolansky, whose support from afar helped me to persist, even when I wasn’t sure that I could. Thank you to my mother and editor extraordinaire, Corinne Hart, for your willingness to read through chapter drafts, even while heavily medicated, post-surgery. (I hope this provided a good distraction from all that physio!) Thank you to my sister Mira, without whom I would never have even begun this process – let alone finish. Thank you to my wonderful grandparents, Dovena and Myer, for your weekly check-ins, which always kept me accountable. Thank you as well to Helen Slade for your support. Thank you to all my main divas (Beyoncé included), but especially the Religious Studies ladies, as well as my Toronto crew, whose consistent encouragement and faith in me provided a major source of strength. (Special mentions also go out to Céline, Donna Summer, and Lorde, whose music featured prominently in my summer writing soundtrack.) Financially, I received assistance through the Harry Lyman Sr. Hooker Master’s fellowship. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada also helped fund my second year of study. iv M.A. Thesis – Simon Zeldin McMaster University, Religious Studies TABLE OF CONTENTS: Abbreviations …………………………………………………………………………….vii 0.1. INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………1 PART ONE: BIBLICAL TEXTS …………………………………………………………4 1. Purity and Water for Ritual Cleansing …………………………………………………4 1.1. Purity, Pollution, and Water in Leviticus and Priestly biblical material 4 1.2. Different Types of Washing in the Pentateuch 11 17 (מים חיים) and Living Water (מי נדה) Corpse Impurity: Lustration Water .1.3 1.4. Purity, Danger, and Liminality: Anthropological Perspectives 20 1.5. Conclusion 30 2. Cosmic Waters of Creation: Chaos and Liminality…………………………………….31 2.1. The Priestly Vision of Creation 31 2.2. Chaoskampf: Water in Genesis and Ancient Near Eastern Cosmogony 33 2.3. Water’s Liminal Capacit(ies) for Destruction and Re-Creation 37 2.4. Creation and Flood as Sanctification of the Earth 41 2.5. Conclusion 46 3. Water as a Poetic/Prophetic Metaphor of (National) Restoration……………………..47 3.1. Metaphorical Repurposing of Priestly Ritual Language 47 3.2. Eschatological Cleansing Imagery 52 3.3. Poetic (Biblical) Renderings of Metaphorical Washing 55 3.4. Particularistic Dimensions of Water Restoration Imagery 58 3.5. Conclusion 61 v M.A. Thesis – Simon Zeldin McMaster University, Religious Studies PART TWO: NON-BIBLICAL TEXTS …………………………………………………62 4. Purity and Water in Second Temple Period Narrative…………………………………62 4.1. Ritual Dimensions of Purity and Water within Second Temple Narrative: Jubilees 62 4.2. Moral Dimensions of Purity and Water in Jubilees and 1 Enoch 71 4.3. Sanctification and Diluvial Imagery in Jubilees and 1 Enoch 77 4.4. Moral Sanctification and the Re-Establishment of Sacred Order 81 4.5. Conclusion 89 5. Water Imagery in the Dead Sea Scrolls ……………….………………………………90 in The Treatise of Two Spirits: Ritual Metaphor, Moral Significance 91 מי נדה .5.1 5.2. The Fountain(s) of Living Water in 1QS, CD, and 1QHa: Ritual and Moral Intersections of Purity at Qumran 100 5.3. Conclusion 110 6. CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………….112 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………122 vi M.A. Thesis – Simon Zeldin McMaster University, Religious Studies ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS 1QHa Hodayot 1QS Rule of the Community AB Anchor Bible AcBib Academia Biblica Ant. Jewish Antiquities BibInt Biblical Interpretation BZAW Beihefte zur Zietschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft CD Cairo Damascus Document CDCH The Concise Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. Edited by David J.A. Clines. Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 2009. ConBOT Coniectanea Biblica: Old Testament Series DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert DSD Dead Sea Discoveries DSS Dead Sea Scrolls DSSSE Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition. Edited by Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1999. EJL Early Judaism and Its Literature HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual JANER Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions JAOS Journal for the American Oriental Society JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JJS Journal of Jewish Studies JR Journal of Religion JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism JSP Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha JSJSup Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series JSPSup Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series J.W. Jewish War LSTS The Library of Second Temple Studies MT Masoretic Text, specifically the Leningrad Codex Numen Numen: International Review for the History of Religions OTP Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Edited by James H. Charlesworth. 2 vols. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1983. ResQ Restoration Quarterly vii M.A. Thesis – Simon Zeldin McMaster University, Religious Studies RevQ Revue de Qumrân SBL Society of Biblical Literature SJLA Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity STDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah TTS Treatise of the Two Spirits VT Vetus Testamentum WAW Writings from the Ancient World WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft viii M.A. Thesis – Simon Zeldin McMaster University, Religious Studies 0.1. INTRODUCTION: Water, cleansing, and ritual immersion in ancient Judaism are often examined in light of Christian baptism, since the later Christian sacrament seems to bear some relation to its Jewish precedents.1 It is true that ancient Jewish views of water may indeed help delineate the historical development of Christian baptismal practices, but apprehending how early Jewish texts represent water also provides critical insight into specifically Jewish beliefs in antiquity. Discussions of water in early Jewish literature frequently focus on legal biblical texts, where water serves as an integral cleansing agent for ritual defilement. Yet in spite of water’s literal capacity for purification, water terminology is also employed in non-ritual depictions of cleansing, which would also seem to indicate its symbolic power as metaphor. Water-related metaphors often draw on Priestly purification terminology (as attested in Leviticus and Numbers), extending this purity language beyond its specific ritualistic Sitz im Leben. In order to properly apprehend water and cleansing imagery, this thesis evaluates Israelite and early Jewish conceptions of pollution. Using Jonathan Klawans’s purity typology as a starting point,2 I emphasise the points of intersection between “ritual” and “moral” types of purification and pollution, and how ritual and moral dimensions of purity can be seen to reinforce one another. Specifically, I highlight how the observance of purification rituals,

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