This book is acollection of essays on purificaton and atonement in the Hebrew Bible that provides new insights into the discussion of these ideas by looking at the values of sociological and anthropological approaches to the topics. The collection also examines multivalence and polyvalence in ritual and asks to what extent it is possible to speak of the function or meaning of ritual, even within the highly systematic priestly texts.
Author Biography
Baruch J. Schwartz is the A. M. Shlansky senior lecturer in Biblical History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research centers on Biblical religion and law, the Torah, classical prophetic literature and medieval biblical exegesis. He is the author of The Holiness Legislation (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1999) and of the commentary on Leviticus in The Jewish Study Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). He was an editor of the volume Texts, Temples and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1996). David P. Wright is associate professor of Hebrew Bible and ancient Near East at Brandeis University.
