Mapping Impurity and Sin
According to Jonathan Klawans, there are two overlapping systems of defilement that are developed through the OT. The language of ritual impurity and the language of sin (moral impurity). Being able to see the structural similarities between the two systems is incredibly helpful so I made this little diagram based off Klawans’ work in his book “Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism”. This doesn’t cover the food laws because they live in their own little world. I’m working on a detail chart of the ‘how do you get rid of it’ section because that’s where all the action is.
Here’s the Ritual impurity chart:
Here’s the Sin, i.e. Moral impurity chart:
And finally, the super handy overlap:
*So, just for kicks I’d like to include this perspective on the idea of pre-germ theory ritual behaviors, especially since this visual schema makes it so easy to see. This article at Psychology Today is a good short introduction to the topic.
Paul Rozin at the University of Pennsylvania and Nemeroff contend that magical contagion may emerge from our evolved fear of germs, which, like essences, are invisible, easily transmissible, and have far-reaching consequences. Well before humans had any concept of germ theory, we quarantined the ill and avoided touching dead bodies. The deep intuition that moral or psychological qualities can pass between people, or that an object carries its history with it, could just be an extension of the adaptive tendency to pay close attention to the pathways of illness.
*More fun with the behavioral psychology of “impurity”
When it comes to avoiding infection, a growing body of evidence suggests we don’t just have a physiological immune system, we also have a behavioural immune system – one that alerts us to people likely to be carrying disease, and that puts us off interacting with them.
* And more on the behavioral immune system and prejudice
A similar set of functional priorities applies to the behavioural immune system. In order to avoid the highly costly consequences that may follow from contact with parasites (e.g. illness, death), the system is calibrated to be supersensitive to superficial cues (e.g. a wide range of morphological or behavioural anomalies) connoting the possible presence of parasites. The result is that the behavioural immune system may sound its alarm (and trigger aversive affective, cognitive and behavioural responses) whenever a person perceives someone else whose superficial physical appearance or behaviour deviates from whatever prototype people perceive to be ‘normal’.
No discussion of ritual & purity would be complete without referencing a classic, Mary Douglas’ Purity and Danger. Related reading: Problems with Atonement.
