Book contents
- Purity and Pollution in the Hebrew Bible
- Purity and Pollution in the Hebrew Bible
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on Transcriptions and Translations
- Abbreviations
- Part I Setting the Stage
- Part II Embodying Pollution through the Life Cycle
- Disease
- The Soul: From the Table to the Grave
- Mating
- 9 Sexual Pollutions: The Moralized Body
- 10 Gender Fluidity and the Danger of Leaky Manhood
- 11 Did Women Need to Wash?
- Part III Images, Codes and Discourse
- Works Cited
- Index of Biblical Sources
- Index of Selected Ancient Near Eastern Sources
- Index of Rabbinic and Second Temple Literature Sources
- Subject Index
9 - Sexual Pollutions: The Moralized Body
from Mating
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2021
- Purity and Pollution in the Hebrew Bible
- Purity and Pollution in the Hebrew Bible
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on Transcriptions and Translations
- Abbreviations
- Part I Setting the Stage
- Part II Embodying Pollution through the Life Cycle
- Disease
- The Soul: From the Table to the Grave
- Mating
- 9 Sexual Pollutions: The Moralized Body
- 10 Gender Fluidity and the Danger of Leaky Manhood
- 11 Did Women Need to Wash?
- Part III Images, Codes and Discourse
- Works Cited
- Index of Biblical Sources
- Index of Selected Ancient Near Eastern Sources
- Index of Rabbinic and Second Temple Literature Sources
- Subject Index
Summary
In biblical Israel, sex was not considered sinful, but it was messy. Yet, commerce in bodily fluids by itself is insufficient to account for the attention sex receives as a source of pollution, throughout the HB and cross-culturally. In terms of sheer messiness, one could think of numerous activities that far exceed intercourse, for example frolicking in a dung heap, which for some reason did not merit the attention of purity regulations.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Purity and Pollution in the Hebrew BibleFrom Embodied Experience to Moral Metaphor, pp. 175 - 206Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021