Includes bibliographical references (pages 285-291) and indexes.
Contents
1. Introduction. -- pt. I. Gentile Impurities in Biblical and Second Temple Sources. 2. Gentile Impurity in the Bible. -- 3. The Impurity of Gentiles in Second Temple Sources. -- 4. Impurity, Intermarriage, and Conversion in Second Temple Sources. -- 5. Intermarriage in the Writings of Paul and the Early Church Fathers. -- pt. II. Gentile Impurities in Rabbinic Sources. 6. Gentiles and Ritual Impurity in Rabbinic Sources. -- 7. Gentiles and Moral Impurity: Rabbinic Attitudes to Intermarriage. -- 8. Gentiles and Genealogical Impurity: Converts and Their Offspring in Rabbinic Texts. -- 9. Conclusion. -- App. A. The Impurity of Gentile Lands and Houses: A Refutation of Alon. -- App. B. Evidence for Intrinsic or Derived Gentile Ritual Impurity: A Refutation. -- App. C. The Ritual Impurity of Idolatry: A Refutation of Alon.
Summary
"Did ancient Jews view Gentiles as ritually impure, capable of communicating defilement to Jews with whom they interacted? For more than a century, scholars of ancient Judaism and early Christianity have answered this question implicitly and explicitly in the affirmative, and have assumed the operation of an ancient principle of Gentile ritual impurity that led to a strict and burdensome policy of separation between Jews and non-Jews. In Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities, Christine E. Hayes sweeps aside decades of erroneous scholarship on the question of Gentile ritual impurity and rewrites the history of Jewish perceptions of Gentiles in antiquity."--Jacket.