BibleProject - Purity and Impurity in Leviticus – Leviticus E5

Episode Date: June 27, 2022

Childbirth, non-kosher food, sex, death, disease—they’re all considered impure in the book of Leviticus. In this episode, join Tim and Jon as they discuss the levitical laws of purity and impurity and how they create a way for humanity to share in God’s own life and form a surprisingly beautiful backdrop for Jesus’ miraculous healings.View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps Part one (00:00-10:50)Part two (10:50-28:04)Part three (28:04-44:35)Part four (44:35-01:05:32)Referenced ResourcesInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.You can experience the literary themes and movements we’re tracing on the podcast in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTS"Harbor" by Stan Forebee & Francis"Protected" by Swørn"Acquired In Heaven" by Beautiful EulogyShow produced by Cooper Peltz. Edited by Dan Gummel and Tyler Bailey. Show notes by Lindsey Ponder. Podcast annotations for the BibleProject app by MacKenzie Buxman and Ashlyn Heise.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey, we're reading Leviticus. Israel has created the tabernacle. The place where God and humans can live together out in the wilderness a new Eden spot. But in the very last story we read, the priests fail to follow God's commands. They do what is good in their own eyes, bringing in their alternative liturgy, and their struck down, dead in the most holy place.

The place where there should be life is no death. Yalway's living room has been vandalized with death. And so what are we gonna do? Well, what Yauai says is, I need some priests who will learn the importance of holiness versus commonness and purity versus impurity. And this is why the next part of Leviticus that will read are a bunch of purity laws.

Now purity laws are gonna seem kind of strange to us modern Western thinkers. Laws about bodily fluids, touching dead bodies, skin disease. It feels like a random list of icky things. But for the ancient thinker, these were symbols of life and death. I am constantly living at the border of life and death. I'm a mortal creature. Becoming impure is not morally wrong, but what it reminds me is that I live outside of Eden,

and that I live in a world that is not the way it's supposed to be or that it could be. In your translations, you might find the words pure and impure. It could also be translated clean and unclean. What is common versus what is uncommon. Humans, their origins are in what is common. We come from the dirt, but humans are invited to transcend those dirty origins. And in some way participate in the life and presence and relational communion

with the holy one, the source of all life. This is Bob a Project Podcast. I'm John Collins, along with Tim Mackey. And let's talk about sex, food, childbirth, and skin disease. When you see how they're deeply woven into the vocabulary and themes of the Torah that have been on recycle, over and over and over again, all of a sudden all these features of these chapters just be in the pop with significance. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. [♪ INTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

Hey, John. Hey. Here we are. Rockin' the Book of Leviticus. Yes. As one does. The Book of Leviticus. It's the third book in the Bible.

It's the third book in a five-part collection of books called The Torah. And we've been walking through the whole Torah this year. And here we are. We're actually in the middle of the Torah. We are. We're in the middle of Leviticus. That's right. It's a five-scroll collection, but it really is a big triad. You have Genesis, first scroll, which matches in many unique ways to the

other end of the Torah, the Deuteronomy scroll. And then in the center are the three scrolls Exodus, Leviticus numbers, which are bound together in a tight unity that makes it one big unit of three parts with Leviticus in the center. And then Leviticus has three parts. And the center of the center of Leviticus is the section. And then Leviticus has three parts. And the center of the center of Leviticus is the section that we're in right now. Yeah, Leviticus has three parts, which we're calling three movements. The first movement was chapters one through seven,

looking at five offerings, as we call them. And this is all part of the Tabernacle ritual. Yeah. And the second movement is then the center of Leviticus. And there's three kind of sections of the center movement. Yeah, it begins with a narrative, what we call Leviticus, chapters eight through ten, which is about the inauguration of the tent, Tabernacle, at the center of Israel's camp, and the ordination of a priesthood that will serve in and around

that sacred tent. It happens over a period of seven days and here the priests are set apart, chosen to be the representatives of all of the Israelites before God, serving in the heaven and earth's spot, which is the tabernacle. So they were ordained and of part, and on the eighth day, so the first day on the job is the eighth day, and they start their work of, you know, offering sacrifices, which symbolize Yahweh's gift of a substitute life that will cover for the sins and impurity of the people that's atonement. They begin to surrender themselves in all Israel to God

through sacrifices and offerings. But then the two sons of Aaron decide with poor judgment that they want to rewrite the liturgy that they were just told to obey, exactly. And so they take the place of their dad by offering unauthorized fire inside the tent, which is only for their dad to do right now. They do it.

The same divine fire that showed up to bless the people and to signify the union of God with God. Yeah, I can not agree. Yeah, and the result and blessing and joy, that same divine fire now consumes the two rebellious sons of Aaron. And by consumes them, you mean kills them. It kills them. Yeah. But the fire eats them. Yeah. And that's a part of the way that the story links back to Genesis 3, which is all about the eating that leads to death. And so here the fire eats them. It leads to death. And the reason why this is so intense. And the reason why this is at the center of the center of the center,

is because this is God, for the first time since the Garden of Eden, creating a space where humans and God can dwell together and can work together in order to bring blessing to the world. That's the story of the Garden of Eden. It was lost. Now, here's the story being represented to Israel. God is doing it, though, within the customs of this ancient world of sacrifices, priests, rituals. He's using all of that in order to help them understand a

Reality that he is making happen which is to use them to then bring blessing to the world That's right and even a step above that the biblical authors are using This material from their family history as a part of a much bigger mosaic that makes up the Hebrew Bible that leads to the need for an anointed representative who will do for Israel and for all humanity what nobody has yet been able to do. And the name of that anointed representative in the Torah and prophets goes by a variety of titles and images. One of them is the Mashiach, the anointed one, and the first anointed one in the Bible is... Happened right here. Happened in this section of the book.

Aaron. Aaron anointed as the High Priest to be the true human, who then can enter into God's presence. And in this case, because there's still a rift, create purification and atonement for all the people, so that all the people can then be encamped around God's Presence. Right. And Aaron's sons were anointed too, along with him. And so these are two uniquely anointed ones, set apart to give their lives wholly in obedience to God's instruction and commands commands to live by Yahweh's

order, all as an image of one on behalf of Israel, but then as an image of future hope of a renewed humanity that lives by the wisdom and order of God. And so these, it's not just in averages, really, you know, who like forgets not to light a fire on the Sabbath. There's something and he lights a fire. Oops, I forgot. You know, it's like these are two of the high-prey sense on the first day on the job. Yeah. And so that severe neglect of Yahweh's word warrants a severe response. And so they die. Yeah. The sense die by God's hand. And what they're doing is also fitting in with a pattern of humans choosing to discern between good and bad, holy and profane on their own terms. Instead of letting God give that to them, this is the story of Adam and Eve, getting

from the tree of knowing good and bad. And then it's also hyperlinked to the story of Noah and his sons, and Noah getting drunk and them trying to do something. Yeah, one of the younger sons, inappropriately trying to usurp his father's authority or honor in the tent. And so what's interesting is both the Adam and Eve failure story and that story of what Ham did to his dad in the tent are both being hyperlinked to in this story. And to be clear, this story is where Aaron's two sons go in to begin the vocation of the priests in a tone for Israel and they go rogue, strange fire.

And we learned that they go rogue, strange fire. And we learned that they were drinking on the job. They were eating fruit. Well, yeah, what we're told is they go into the tent and do something there that they were not authorized to do. But only their dad was. And then after they die, their dad does not protest, which is a narrative signal that he recognizes that they did something wrong and they got what was coming to them.

And then God says to their dad, all right, new rule, new rule, never get drunk before you come to do your priestly service. Just don't do it. And then second, I'm going gonna put this one in writing. So one, so that you can do your job, but then second, because you need, as a priest, to have all of your intellect, unlike the highest level of alert, so that you can make separations between what is holy and dedicated Yahweh and what is common? And between what is pure and between what is impure, and so that you can become a teacher to Israel of all these things. Yeah. And so that opens us up into this next section of the book

that we're going to talk about right now. It's easy to just think of this as ancient rituals that you need to try to understand. And there's just things that they did that because of that time in human history, here's what they're doing. But all of this is meditation on the bigger story. It's Torah, which means instruction. This is instruction for us to sit with and to realize what does it mean to be the image of God? What does it mean for God to partner with us? And what sense do we need to prepare ourselves? And in what sense do we actually need a representative to go before us? Yeah.

To prepare us. Yeah, it's crucially important when you read the section of the book, you shouldn't walk away thinking, okay, where do I need to go like put up a sacred tent and like find some goats and no, that's as ridiculous as reading the flood narrative and where God says to know okay, start building a boat, make it the size. And none of us would say, hmm, how do I respond to this story as scripture, right? How do I respond to what God might want to say to me through this story?

And none of us would walk away thinking, okay, well, I need to go build a boat in my backyard. We'll get some go for wood. No, it's a narrative that instructs me about how to respond to God when in my own life circumstances it becomes clear there's something God wants me to do and so all of these stories give me case studies positive and negative and everything in between and Noah was one but this story is a sense of Aaron is another one and the story of God offering these commands about purity and impurity laws are a part of this story.

So that's what we're going to talk about today. The purity and impurity laws become after Aaron's sons die in the holy place and have to be exiled. And now it's like this is the ultimate crisis. The solution that God put in place is just completely fallen apart. Yeah, yeah, totally. It's as if they've been invited into your house and they just threw rebellion and neglect and dead bodies into his living room. Yeah. So now the relationship is damaged and your always living room has been, you know, vandalized with death. And so what are we going to do? Well, what Yauai says is, I guess I need some priests who will first of all not get drunk and second of all who will learn the importance of holiness versus

commonness and purity versus impurity. And then this chapter's the 11 through 15 of Leviticus are of long speeches from God, two Moses, to give to Israel about holiness and commonness and purity and impurity. These are chapters that there's some weird ancient laws in here. These, for me, still today, even though I really think there's amazing wisdom here. These are the most difficult chapters of the Hebrew Bible for me to read.

Wow, great. They're long, they're complicated, and they are full of things that are so distant in culture and time for me. It's hard to read them sympathetically, still for me. And there's a lot of discussion around cringy stuff. Totally. So in this section, here's Quick Flyover. Chapter 11 is about distinctions between pure and impure animals.

And this chapter, along with Deuteronomy 14, are the foundation of the kosher food law. Kosher food laws. That's what. Yeah, the foundation of the kosher diet of... That's some people still fall. People that's real Jewish people and Jews all over the world still today. Yep. Kosher salt. There's a particular way out of the wisdom based on these chapters.

There became developed in history of Judaism all kinds of wisdom and guidelines about every type of food. Yeah. Why you can't have cheeseburgers. Yep, yeah, because you're mixing milk and meat, for example. Yeah. So that's all begins life in chapter 11. Chapter 12 is a chapter about how the reproductive fluids for a woman that come out of her body during childbirth, those reproductive fluids render her ritually impure. We'll talk about that. And so there need to be a period of waiting and washing and sacrifices

to purify her from that impurity. Chapter 1314 are all about how people, homes, and clothing garments can be rendered ritually impure through skin disease or mold or fungus. Yeah, these are things we don't want around. Totally, yep. Chapter 15 comes around and it now talks about reproductive fluids again, but for men and women in the course of sexual intercourse or in the case of a woman's monthly period or for a man in the course of a nocturnal emission.

But it's again about how bodily reproductive fluids, and we'll talk about this in what follows, render a person ritually impure. So food, childbirth, sex, and skin disease. This is the subject matter of a lubricus 11 through 15. Yeah. So that's why I said cringey. Yeah, totally. So here's what I have found. If you just read them at the surface level, you'd really, you'll get nothing out of it. And I got nothing out of these chapters for years.

When you see how they're deeply woven into the vocabulary and themes of the Torah that have been on recycle, over and over and over again, all of a sudden, all these features of these chapters just begin to pop with significance. That's one level. Another level that gains new insight is to do some sympathetic cross-cultural imagining on our part. So what we need to do is imagine ourselves into an ancient Israelite setting for how the biblical authors viewed concepts of holiness and commonness, purity and impurity and how they specifically, how they viewed bodily fluids of blood and reproductive fluids. And so I think that's where we should start, actually, because me, this has been a huge area of learning and insight.

And also made these chapters really profound in what they're saying. So should we go there, some cross-cultural analysis of bodily fluids? Oh, we're going to start with body fluids. Excuse me. Should we start with, we're going to start with holiness and commonness and purity and impurity. Yeah, let's understand that first. Okay. Great. What does it mean for something to be holy versus common? And what does it even mean to be holy? Talk about that. So start there. You've defined holiness as being set apart to be in the presence of and in the service of God. So it's proximity and

its connection and partnership. Yes, let's start there. And we went here already earlier in our conversation on Leviticus, but we need to do it again. Yeah, so word holy and Hebrew is kadoch. It refers to a person place or thingplacer thing that has been brought into proximity or dedicated to the service of the God of Israel, who's the creator of heaven and earth, who is called throughout the Hebrew Bible as the Holy One, or in the book of Isaiah, the holy, holy, holy one, triple holy, the most holy one. So holiness refers to the unique one of a kind status of the one God of Israel who it is claimed is the source of all life being goodness beauty, light, the source of the I am. The I am exactly. And so their holiness refers to the unique one of a kind, holy other above and beyond status of I am.

Here's the thing. There's also unique about this portrait of the God of the Bible is that this is a God who is so generous that wants to share being an existence and light and goodness and beauty with one who is other than God's own self. And this is the concept of creation in the biblical story. And so God creates another who can exist in limited autonomy and freedom to just be. But that being is an invitation to be come connected to the source in a relationship. And so- Is this the beginning of the idea of being common that humans are made of the dirt? Yes, exactly. So in the biblical story, creation, and then humans

begin as one who is other than the holy one, that is common, or the Hebrew word of whole. Whole? Whole, you have to clear your throat. Whole. So, these are two fundamental categories. You could call them as status. Something in the biblical imagination, something is either holy or it's whole.

It's either kadoosh or whole, holy or common. Not to be common is not bad. Something can be beautiful and good and be common. In fact, almost all creation is. Okay. But. And this word's often translated as profane. Translators profane. Which makes it sound bad. It makes it sound because of the connotations in modern English. Because of the King James.

Yep. Like, that's right. Deal. Yep. That's right. So, kodash and khul. So, a flower, a tree, a table, you know, is whole, common. And a human, humans are common. However, humans are unique in the biblical story because they are invited. Their origins are in what is common. We come from the dirt. But humans are invited to transcend those dirty origins, and in some way participate in the life and

presence and relational communion with the Holy One, the source of all life. And so go through a process of what the biblical authors will call Kadeş. So the real word is Kadeş for holy and then to Kadeş means to become holy. Yeah. And there's another word that's translated there, right? Oftentimes, to make holy, does that sanctify? Oh, so we have other English words. Yeah. Yeah, we have make holy, commonly in our English translations, it's the word sanctify,

or to consecrate, or to halo. To halo. Halo. These are all fancy words we don't use in common English. No, yeah. They're pun intended. Yeah. But it means to take something that is common and transform it to become holy. Yeah. Bring it in the presence of God at the service of God. Yeah, totally. And that's the destiny of all humanity. Yeah, it's the calling of all humanity is to come from our material common material origins in the biblical imagination

that's to come from the dirt, but to be raised up and elevated, to status as an image of God, to be creatures in whom heaven and earth, God's presence and our material dirty origins become fused as one, and that is the process of Kadeh being sanctified or consecrated. fused as one, and that is the process of Kadesh being sanctified or consecrated. And then would you say it's also the destiny of all of creation? To undergo that as well. That is how Genesis 1 frames it. The seventh day points forward to the crowning of all creation as a place where heaven and earth and God's space and human space are one in the seventh day.

So being common is not bad. It's not bad. It's not bad. But it's not the ideal either. Yeah, it's a beginning point. It's a beginning point. Yeah. Okay.

Everything begins as common. So maybe we can maybe think of some parables, you know, here. So these won't necessarily be good ones. Ah, this is an interesting one. So my boys are young eight and ten, and we have in our house, our house isn't huge, but on the main floor, the kitchen, living room, dining room are all kind of one extended big space, and then off to the side are a couple bedrooms and a bathroom. And right now their bedroom is in the upstairs attic.

They have like an old finished attic. You have to kind of crouch. That's certain points. But the downstairs bedroom we've converted for years, all the years they've been growing up is their playroom, which means it's just a constant mess of Legos and Star Wars action figures. So this thing started about three years ago where when they go in there to play, they close the door.

This is our space. Yeah, and particularly with the closed door and we play, they close the door. This is our space. Yeah. And particularly with the closed door, and we can hear them through the door, acting out stories. And they're in there, in their imaginative world. And the, I mean, it's hilarious. Often I'll stick my little like phone camera underneath the door just to try to see it. And just to record them, because they're like literally,

they're acting out movies and stories and anyway But what we've noticed is when I open the door to like tell them hey like dinner's gonna be ready in 10 minutes They both freeze and just look at me they stop like they were caught And then I close the door and then they start acting again and so the door is like a portal Yeah, it is and when the door is closed It's like a portal. Yeah, it is. And when the door is closed, it's like a holy space. It's dedicated to their imagination. So they're play acting.

And it becomes another world for them. But the moment that door is opened, it's like reality breaks in. And once they hear and see Jessica and I out, making dinner or something, and they can see us from the angle, and it just about breaks the illusion. Yeah. And it just, I'm out, breaks the illusion. Yeah.

And it's no longer holy. Interesting. So there's something about that space is uniquely dedicated to their imaginative story worlds. And when it's sealed off, it's like protected and- Closing the door purifies a space. Yes, totally. And it separates it as a dedicated space,

separate for that, we'll get to purety in a second. But just once they close the door, it's separated as a holy space. And they don't act that way out in the kitchen. They don't act that way out in the living room. That's good. Yeah, it is. So for the moment, that's what it is.

Now, if I were to consecrate the living room and just say, boys, I want you to see this as a part of your imaginative world now. You can take over the living room. That would be a consecration or a sanctification of the living room. The space is now. You'd have to bring the Legos out there.

Yeah, yeah. You'd have to like, make sure it could be closed off. Totally. Yeah, put up some sort of screen or drape or something. Put up a drape. Yeah, yeah, okay. But here's the thing. Let's say, Jessica and I were to get like a little camp stove

and decide we're gonna set up kitchen in dinner in the playroom tonight. And we just like a waltz in there and start of making pancakes on a little camp cooking, frying pan or something. That would be defiling. The word would be defiling or profaning their holy space. And it's a verb connected to member Hull

is the word for common. Hull. Hull. And to defile or profane is chale. It's the same letters to make to treat as common. So when you see the word defile or profane in the Bible, what it means is you're taking something that's dedicated to the space for one in the Bible, for Yahweh, but you're treating it like it's an everyday common space that belongs to you.

So the B common isn't necessarily bad. It's a starting place. But to take something that has been set apart, yes, as holy. And treat it as common. That's not good. No bueno. Yep. So the existence of these categories establishes an order, and where the value or like an ethical issue of that play is not whether or not you're holy or common. It's how you cross the boundaries between holy and common. So Aaron's sons were set apart as holy, but then they just introduced

their own ideas and how to do the liturgy, and they just trumped into the holy space. And so they made what was dedicated for Yahweh their own and so defiled or treated it as if it were their own and so made it common. So that's all this language of to sanctify, consecrate, to hallow is to take something common and make it holy. And then the reverse process to take holy and treat it as common is to profane it or to file it. So these are fundamental categories to the biblical authors.

In other words, there's no book of the Bible that explains it the way we're trying to explain it right now. It just is taken for granted, which is how you know it's one of these cultural assumptions. So that's first step. Okay. That's holiness, commonness. If something is common, it can exist in one of two conditions, pure or impure. Okay. So, and here, my chart might help here. No one else gets to see this, but. No. So, holiness, think of holiness as being this category off to the right. Yes. Okay. And then, when something is in a state of being whole or common, it can exist in one of

two states. And think of this as like a condition way we might think of like a health condition. There's only one way to be holy. Yeah. There's two different states of being common. Common. Yep. Okay.

Pure and impure. Yeah. And so it's very analogous to our concepts of sickness and health, which is why the biblical authors use sickness or health as very common metaphors to describe purity and impurity. So the word pure, in fact, pure has become the word that I prefer in almost all of our English translations, it's the word clean.

Oh right, clean and open. Clean versus unclean. Which I understand why it's a venerable tradition way of translating these Hebrew words, but I think it doesn't quite get us all the way there. But pure and impure also have their own baggage that are not helpful in English too. So the word pure or clean, so the word taher, to make pure, and then to be impure or to be unclean is ta-mei, ta-ha'er and ta-mei. Ta-ha'er and ta-mei?

Yeah. So essentially, to be pure is to exist in an ideal state as a common object, person-placer thing, in ideal state. Healthy, whole. So you're not consecrated yet, you're not like in the presence of God being the priest, being the ever thought of. Nothing to do with being in the Holy Space. This is just like if you're life in the world as the common man, your adult creature,

but things are good. You're not sick. Your body's working. That's a pure. A Tahir state. A Tahir state. A Tahir state. That's correct. A pure, yeah, a Tahir state. You exist in a Tahir state. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. But to exist in an impure state means that you have come into contact with a force or a substance or an experience that has brought you to the boundary between life and death. And when you touch things associated with death, you go from being pure to becoming contracting impurity. Impurity is a lot like a contagion, something you contract by touching

it or eating it or experiencing it. But as we're going to see in these chapters, the things in ancient Israel's culture that were associated with death and mortality were certain animals, reproductive bodily fluids, skin diseases, fungus and mold. When you come in contact with those things, it makes you impure. I started thinking of purity as a sense of just wholeness of like my body's working, not sick, that makes sense. But then you threw in, I could be impure because I touched an animal that's in this category. So it's not just like how my body is, but it's also like what I've come in contact with.

Yeah, that's right. So I think purity as a status, that's a lot like health. And if you've, I mean, we were living in the middle of the tail end, we would have mercy. We're willing of global pandemic. So we kind of, these categories are really familiar to us. Yeah. Where I'm healthy, I might feel great, but maybe I've been around somebody. Oh, yes.

Who has the virus? And so for a period of time, I have to seal off. And I treat myself and act, and others treat me as if I have the virus. It's very similar to these concepts here. Yeah, it's not just about you being healthy. To be pure is to an existence state where you are healthy in an ideal state, and you haven't come into contact with anything. So in some way, you could think of this as ancient sanitary practices.

Yeah, that's right. That's how it would appear to us. It appears that way. Yeah. And some of them, you're like, oh, they were onto something there. Some of them are like, who cares? Yeah, that's right. Like touching reproductive fluids.

Yeah, like that's not going to harm anyone. Yeah, that's right. Like touching reproductive fluids. Yeah, like that's not gonna harm anyone. That's right. So this is a good example to say all cultures have these what you might call them like taboos. Yeah, right. taboos. And there's a lot of overlap. In fact, there's a Hebrew Bible scholar, Mary Douglas, who most of her scholarly career was dedicated to trying to do cross comparisons and anthropology across cultures present and ancient as a background for illuminating the purity and impurity of laws of Leviticus. And I never thought books on that topic would be interesting to read, but she's such a good writer that our first most important work was called purity and danger, which just makes you want to pick it up.

And as I learned so much, interesting. We talked about this years ago, we made the holiness video. Oh, yes, okay, yeah. And you brought up this really wonderful taboo that we have. That doesn't make any sense. Yes, okay, it's important to say some of them make intuitive sense in different ways to different people. Yeah. But usually some of them seem irrational

if you don't inhabit the home culture of the taboo. Right, because a lot of our taboos around sanitation make sense. Wash your hands after you go to the bathroom. Yep, make sense. Totally. Eating a meal in the bathroom would feel weird to us. Yes, and this is what I was gonna bring up.

Oh, okay, yes, yeah. Is that you said, look, like it's a taboo, you don't go and eat in the bathroom. Yeah. That place is dirty. When you're done with that, you wash. Yeah. You have your little washing ritual

to like enter the real world. Yes. So you wouldn't bring food in there. And you brought up, but isn't interesting, we brush our teeth in the bathroom. Yes. And then leave the toothbrush, sometimes out on the counter permanently.

Yeah, just hanging out. Hang it out in the unclean space. And you're telling me that if you flush the toilet with the seat up, little water particles aren't floating up. Becle matter on your toothbrush. Floating in and coming on your toothbrush. But we don't care. First, sure that is happening. it. Sure that is happening.

Yeah. Like for sure that is happening. Yeah. And we don't think a thing of it. Yeah. Totally. You know? And now like hundreds of people are like,

mm, I keep it my toothbrush out on the counter anymore. You know, we have little caps. A plastic caps. People do that. Put over the heads of our toothbrush. Yeah. Yeah. I am very lost a fair when it comes to germs.

And I think, actually, let's flip it though, because also it's irrational to think that somehow we wouldn't eat in the bathroom. That's irrational because somehow we think the kitchen is more clean than the bathroom. Well, that makes sense. It would saliva. All the stuff, I'm just saying, like, my kitchen sink

and the way my kids treat it, is no more clean than my bathroom. They'll spit in it, they'll bring in, they'll be digging the backyard and they'll come rinse mud off of some nail they found and like, you know. When you really think about it, like, we can't protect ourselves

from all the germs. But we have rituals that help us think that we are and also help us. Correct. But. So the point here is that every culture has its own taboo's around cleanliness. Yeah.

And some of them are usually grounded in what we would might call physical realities, but often there are irrational elements too. Yeah, often they're just gut reactions. Yeah. At the end of the day are symbolic. Yeah. They're symbolic. Yeah, because you wash your hands after you like use a toilet. Mm-hmm. But you know it's dirtier than a toilet seat. Mm-hmm. A public keyboard. Yes, of course. Oh, yeah. People pick their nose, pick their ears,

rub their eyes, and they go. Or someone who hasn't watched it. Go to the library. Go to the library. And like use the internet. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Or a public door knob. That's right. Kind of like the totally. So I mean like.

That's right. And COVID era has taught many of us to be more aware of these things than ever before. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that same irrationality, inherent irrationality, it should humble us when we read these chapters of Leviticus.

And we say, okay, I get the thing about not touching corpses of dead animals. Yeah. I get that that that would render somebody impure. Yeah. But what a reproductive fluid's like, what that about? That's normal to us. And that's easy to get to, I suppose. I mean, it's kind of icky. Yeah, but I think what we have to get underneath, we have to say, okay, the way every culture slices

the pie is going to be different. Yeah, I think the animal thing is probably the hardest to sympathize with. Yeah, yeah, sure. But even there, there's an intuition of like some animals, oricce, gross, unsanitary. Yeah, that's right. Okay, but underneath all of this, this is an opportunity for, let's just jump to the conclusion before we just get into the weakness. This is an opportunity for ancient Israel to on a daily basis in everyday life, like have their imagination shaped by this idea of life and death, that they're kind of on the boundaries. Like life is on the boundaries between life and death.

And at any given moment, you are in one of these states. And why is that important? Why is that a significant thing to obsess over? And so I mean, they're obsessing over it. Yeah, yeah, no, they're obsessing. Yeah, that's right. So maybe let's think of it this way, within the biblical story, all the way back to Genesis 1 and 2, especially with Garden of Eden, Genesis 1, Yahweh is the

source of all life, all life, order, beauty, goodness, the holy one. Second thing. In his light, we have light. Yeah, that's right. So, anything that is existing in a state of death, mortality, or dying of, and here I'm trying to inhabit the imagination of these laws here, of having some sort of physical malformation, a body that's in the state of disorder, decaying, rotting flesh, a science that I am a mortal being that is dying, this is all a state of being that is not the way that it's supposed to be if I'm in proximity to Yahweh. If I'm in proximity to Yahweh, I'm gonna share in this holiness,

in this goodness, in this beauty, in this life. It should mean health. And it will mean eternal life. Yeah. So on one side of the spectrum is Yahweh's life and holiness and a state of order. And on the opposite end of the spectrum is death, chaos, impurity, et cetera.

And so every Israelite saw themselves as somewhere on that spectrum, never static, always moving towards one end or the other by what they ate. But it's binary, whether you're pure and pure. Correct. Yeah, that's right. So it's not like a spectrum. Oh, I understand.

Okay, yeah, I got it. It's binary. And you're either, yeah. You're either being thrust into an impure state. That's right. And then there's rituals to get you back. So there's this constant like day to day, you're like, okay, I'm in impure state. That's right. And then there's rituals to get you back. Mm-hmm. So there's this constant like day to day, you're like, okay, I'm in a pure state.

And then boom, all of a sudden, I have to like deal with a dead body. That's right. This is so important, and this is crucial for understanding this whole thing. This was a Jewish scholar, Jonathan Klawons, and his book, Sin and Impurity, in ancient Israel.

This is where I first learned the concept. And you know, it's not his concept, it's right there. In Leviticus, being ritually impure is not simple. It's not bad. It's not a moral failure. It's not a moral failure. You enter a state of ritual impurity when you bury your uncle. Yeah. What you should do. Yes, yeah, totally. You become ritually impure every time a husband and wife have sex, which is a blessing, part of the blessing, right? It's celebrated in the song of songs,

and it's a place where, through you always mercy and generosity, new life can be. Whenever a child is brought into the world, there's a lot of bodily fluids that render the mother and in the midwife and anybody else involved, ritually, and pure. When you hold a baby, that's newborn. And the fluids on it render somebody ritually and pure. When you have a skin disease, in a boil that breaks out and begins to spread, that renders to you richly and peer. So nobody's done anything wrong here. These are all fluids, substances, or experiences that bring us to the border of life and death. And what's the strange one might be childbirth because you're like, it's life.

That's just life. But childbirth is an experience fraught with the danger of death. It's a life event that brings both mother and child to death's doorstep. In a way, a successful childbirth and a healthy mom and child after labor is a miracle. It's a deliverance from death. Think of how they would have imagined it, and it still is today. A deliverance from death in many ways. So what we're talking and reproductive fluids, think of it this way, these are fluids that in the ancient imagination, these are the fluids, if they mix together male reproductive fluids and female reproductive fluids, they mix together, the male reproductive fluid in Hebrew is called Zara,

the word seed. Oh, which also is the Greek word for seed is Seminus, which is where we get our English word Seaman. And then on the flip side, so that's the seed. And then in English, we have all of these words for like the egg. You know that the egg producing ovaries, but the word ovary comes from the Greek word ovum, which is egg. It's egg, egg. It's so...

Yeah, all of our language about this is agricultural imagery about seed and eggs, but it's all about the genesis of life. And so if you're leaking these fluids, that's showing that there's a problem. Yeah, so this is why a man who leaks these fluids from his body outside of sexual intercourse or a woman in the course of a monthly period leaks these fluids. It's viewed as a sign of dying. It's like you're dying. You're leaking your life substance. And so it makes you richly impure. It's not wrong, but it is a sign that I'm a dirt creature that my body is not wrong.

The sense it's not a moral failure. It's not a moral failure, but it points to a sense that there's a corruption. Yes, what it shows is that I'm living outside of Eden. There's something wrong in which I'm inhabiting. Yeah, within the biblical story, because we're reading this, Leviticus within a scroll in the story

that began with Genesis 1-1, what I was told was that humans are capable. If somehow our way of existing could be transformed, that we are creatures capable of becoming one with the life and presence of God and living forever. But that's clearly not the state that we are creatures capable of becoming one with the life and presence of God and living forever. But that's clearly not the state that we're in. We are right now outside of Eden and the state of death and dying and anything that's associated

with death and dying, reproductive fluids out of place, childbirth, even though it's a new life coming into the world that brings both mother and child close to death, skin disease, and certain animals. Those are all signs of the disorder, decay, and mortality of our lives. and And so it's so important to come to terms with that reality. Yeah. One way to frame this is it is so important that there's a whole ritual around it. Yeah. There's a whole categories and making sure you understand when you're in and you're

out. All this is kind of like shape our imagination towards reckoning with this state. Correct. Yep, that's right. So all of these rituals and taboos were a daily reminder. And for us, they function as Torah, instruction, and wisdom because they become narrative images that give insight into what it means to live outside of Eden. So all of our lives is permeated with reminders that we are not in Eden. And in the biblical imagination, you know, in its ancient cultural context, it's all these things that these laws. And so I will be cool to jump in and look at some of them, but tell me about that. What's the wisdom? What's the Torah? The teaching.

Like, what am I supposed to take about these things into my life? Am I supposed to be hyper aware of the frailty of creation? Like, and am I supposed to create some sort of rhythm that allows me to? Yeah. Well, let's first do, so to go from an impure state, if you're in an impure state,

it's important and it's not morally wrong. Yeah. It's temporary. It's as long as the condition lasts. And then when you want to go from a state of impure back to pure, these are called purification rituals or cleansing rituals. Yeah. They involve taking a bath, yeah, waiting a period of seven days, and then offering a chatat offering in the tent, which is a purification offering. This is so funny. Living through the pandemic, because we have all three of those. Yeah, we do. We wash our hands.

Wash hands. We quarantine, and then we provide the test that says we're pure. That's it, that's exactly it. Totally. And then the reverse process to go from a state of purity to impurity is the verb pollute, yeah pollute, or to make something impure. So what's the wisdom here?

So the wisdom here is that I am constantly living at the border of life and death. I'm a mortal creature and Becoming impure is not morally wrong But what it reminds me is that I live outside of Eden and I live in a world that is not the way It's supposed to be or that it could be so to come out of an impure state into a pure state Means that I am ready to go enter the holy place. It's not wrong to be impure. What is morally wrong in Israel's culture is to enter into the holy

space when I'm in an impure state. When you're in an impure state, you're cut off from the holy space. You don't go into the outer courts to do sacrifices. You can't come near. That's right. There's a law in the book of numbers that says, before Israel set out and its wilderness journeys, they made sure to get anybody who had to skin disease or had touched a dead body or impure fluids in the last seven days, and they had to go to the border of the camp. They couldn't travel inside the camp itself. They had to go behind. And that was their way of honoring this. That when Yahweh is in our midst, we remove whatever is associated with death to be far away from the hot spot of the source of all life. So to be in an impure state is not morally wrong,

but it is a sign that I'm cut off from the source. I'm far from life as you can be. And so to enter into a pure state is to go one step closer to being fit, to be in the holy presence. And it means that I'm restored to a status of health and life. But to be pure doesn't mean you're in the holy place. It means that you can now go into the holy place if you want to. And then that to go from a pure state to entering into the holy place that becomes sanctification or consecration. So it's, there here's our spectrum. You go from being impure to becoming pure and then once you're pure, you're eligible to become holy. But holiness purity are not the same thing. Right. Okay. Yeah.

To become holy, you need to be in a pure state. Yeah. Sorry. That's not the question that you asked me though. I'm just realizing. No, but that's important to get at the question, which is, yeah, what is the wisdom here? When I'm reading these purity laws, am I thinking about what are ways for me to mark some sort of boundary of like, here's one thing that came to mind.

I've been noticing, and a lot of people have noticed this, and we don't know what to do with it, is that social media is toxic. Yes it is. Yes it is. It's so great, it's so fun to like know what people are up to and share ideas, and the social media that I find myself drawn to specifically is Twitter because Twitter's a very

five social media. It's like give me your ideas. Give me all your hot takes. Apart from any relational commitment, there's no energy required to be nice to somebody. It's just like here's my, here's my thought. Here's a thought. Here's a thought. Here's a thought. That's what I never thought of it that way. Yeah.

It's perfect for any grandfives. It's an any of your grandfives. Instagram is perfect for any grandforsies. Yeah, definitely. Exactly. Exactly. But you spend any time in there, and there's just this toxicity of people just not being nice and taking sides and being grumpy and pointing fingers and kind of just starting to be mean and anyways, it actually changes my mood.

It like affects me. You notice it. Yeah, probably your wife knows it. And I'm noticing it more and more. Yeah. That like, I like it, I'm drawn to it, but then I like just get grumpy. And so it's almost be interesting for me to think about that as one of those boundaries.

I go into there, like it's, in a way, I'm now entering into a state that's like broken. Yeah, sure. And it's gonna affect me. Yeah. And I might need some sort of ritual to kind of cleanse myself of that. Yeah, sure.

In a way, like to get some separation. And by having a ritual, or having that mentality, it helps me really respect what I'm actually after. Yeah, that's good. Another type of analogy that's more closely tied to like a physical food or body. And this is so relative to your social location. But in my relational network, a family's in the culture of my home, sugar has become something that's a real subject of like critical reflection. Refined sugars. Refined sugars. Yeah. And so Jessica's, my wife's been on a mission over the last decade to really make refined sugars unpalatable to us by not having them around and not using them. And so I've come to the strange place where it starts to feel kind of unclean.

Yeah, it's start. Yeah. Like I used to love whenever I was doing a house project, like on the weekend, you know, the house project, and I would go to the hardware store. I would just love to get a snickers and just like power up on a snickers bar to come back and like whatever Fix the locks on the door or something and yeah, this happened to me last year at some point where I had the snickers on my Way home from the hardware store and I just felt sick and I almost didn't enjoy the last half I was like and It was I was talking with Jessica about,

cause usually I would not tell her when I would do this. Yeah. And so I told her about the Snickers experience and she was like, yeah, your body is actually becoming unacustom to this thing that's not good for it. But it takes a while. Anyway, I was such an interesting experience where I was like, I grew up on these.

I love these. And now it makes me sick. And I don't want it now. So anyway, each person could tell their own story and I'm not trying to throw any judgment on Snickers bars. But refined sugars have become a category in your mind that now when you have them, you kind of feel like you're in another state.

I do. You've entered into a new state. I feel, yes, exactly. And I'm like, this is not the version of myself that's going to bring my best to the world. Right. And I think that's the category here. I see. That's an experience that maybe we can relate to. Yeah. And I think it's interesting to think about, you know, there's a connection between obsessing about being in that state. When you go into vocation to do things that are quote unquote holy connected to God in God's presence. It seems like there is real wisdom there, which is if you're going to let go preach on Sunday morning, it'd be good that you're in the right kind of mind frame. Okay. Yeah. No, I

guess one hopes this out of their spiritual leaders. If you're a part of a church community that they... Not that they weren't eating sugar per se, but like... No. ...the things that like... Yeah. ...that they're like healthy, well-adjusted people. Yeah, you kind of... In a bit expecting it, I suppose, in a way.

Yeah, which is a dangerous assumption. But, because people are people, you know? Yeah. Within the biblical story and within the melody, there's this desire that God has to share his own life and creative power and the possibilities that come with it and the responsibilities that come. What else is the theme of the image of God

except God wanting to share, divine power and life with one of his creatures? But it's going to call that creature to a level of responsibility and wisdom about what are the conditions that lead to true life and flourishing for a human. And so these impurity laws were, again, it's not morally bad. Right. It's not morally bad. It's not morally bad to check.

And that's why touching reproductive fluids, if you're a midwife, giving birth, it's not like the Snickers bar at all, actually. Because it's not bad for you. To touch a newborn baby covered with bodily fluids. It's not spiking your blood sugar. No, no, that's not. So, but it is a fluid that reminds you that this life came out of a moment in experience

where this all could have died. All this beautiful life of the mother and the child could have died. And so for a period of seven days, or in Loviticus 12, it's 33 or 66 days, this was such a holy moment. I was such at the border of like a critical moment of life and death that I am going to sit apart for big chunks of time to mark this moment as a moment where I came near to death.

And by sitting apart, that just means you're not doing the sacrifices. Well, what it means is I'm going to abstain from going near to the holy place for a period of time. So what's the wisdom there, though, because we wouldn't say like, hey, don't go to hang out with your community. Hmm, but it is a unique experience with God's power. Actually, in the Christian liturgical tradition, this is essentially what the practice of Lent is about. And it just so happens that while we're sitting here recording this,

we are in the period of Lent in the year 2022. Yeah, but it's a way of withholding yourself from certain pleasures, not because they're bad, but because the immediate satisfaction of a pleasure is a part of a larger problem with the human condition, which is meeting our desires and pleasures in our own wisdom and our own timing in ways that are destructive to ourselves and other people, not every desire and not all the time, but often. And so I'm gonna choose one pleasure. So you're saying fasting, in a sense, is wisdom from these laws. Yes, and fasting is associated with grieving and mourning and death.

In fact, you would often dress up like you're dead. Shave your head, put dust on yourself, wear sat cloth. Yeah. Fasting is a way of existing in a state of impurity for a chosen period of time. And what it does is it forms me to one regard is so precious when I get to be in a state of purity, but also it increases my appreciation for the time or place of holiness. Yeah.

So for Christian and Lent, it's the days, weeks leading up to Resurrection Sunday, just the ultimate holy event of God's life invading earth. So, I guess in a way that it's what Lent is about. It shapes you into a kind of people who are hyper aware of my own mortality, but also makes you more appreciative of the holy time and space when it graces you. Thanks for asking that question. I appreciate that. Yeah, that's cool. That makes me want to do that actually. I never do it.

I mean, I've done it once or twice, but like... Yeah, sure. Yeah. No, it's cool. Yeah, I know that for some people, the liturgical calendar, the experience is maybe something from their family of origin or whatever. Yeah. But the intention of these liturgical traditions is to retell the biblical story with your

body and your time and your calendar, your whole self. The purpose of Lent is to annually have a season of time where you mind yourself that you're dying. And the part of the reason that we're dying is we constantly meet our desires in our own way and in our own time. It's killing us. So we withhold our desires from ourself. Now with Lent, you're not actually really separating

from the community. Where here, there's a separation, there's a like, you're impure, go to the outside of the camp. Yeah, it's a little different in that way. Here's the thing, we need to bring different parts of our experience based on your social location and merge them all together to try and imagine ourselves into this ancient Israelite context. But for them, these were all one thing.

To exist in a state of impurity because of a skin disease or because I was touched by my own reproductive fluids, whatever. But it was right now I'm in a set apart. I've been in touch with something that brought me close to the force of death. I'm gonna sit aside for seven days. And. This could have been the attitude you bring

to quarantining yourself in the pandemic. Oh, yeah, okay. Right, like it makes it a... Anticipatory, you mean? Just the category of just like... I'm not gonna just go quarantine because I'm supposed to health reasons. Like, I'm actually gonna allow this

to be a sacrament of sorts. A time of mourning, or a time of grieving, or a time of recognizing my own mortality. I'm actually separated from everyone. I'm gonna recognize mortality and frownness. And this is the world that I'm actually separated from everyone. I'm going to recognize mortality and frownness. And this is the world that I'm living. This is really marking that more. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. One last thing. Being impure is contagious. In other words, if you're around somebody who's in a richly pure state, you can make them impure by touching them. And so being richly impure is contagious.

Holiness, which is the opposite end of the spectrum, is contagious. So when people come into contact with the holy foods of the temple, that holiness gets transferred to them. But you know, it could be dangerous, for example. But being in a pure state is not contagious. When you're in a pure state, you could either get leveled up to holiness by contacting it, or you can get leveled away from holiness towards impurity by touching it. And so impurity and holiness are the two contagious states. So what is fascinating? And here just this is a good, like get your friends together on a Friday night and read the gospel's Luke out loud.

And you just watch. Luke has intentionally placed in all of his healing narratives, the people who would be populating the list of Leviticus 11 through 15 uniquely. Jesus touches dead bodies. He touches people, a woman leaking menstrual blood. He touches people, a woman leaking menstrual blood. He touches people with skin diseases. He goes into the homes of non-Israelites who would not be eating kosher.

It's truly remarkable. Luke has intentionally shown Jesus as the Holy One of God, which he's called. In Luke Acts, he's called the Holy One of God. And he is God's contagious holiness moving out one by one, just checking off the list of people from Leviticus 11 to 15. Those things that would make someone impure when Jesus comes in contact with them.

Touching them, Luke, and then look, always highlights. He touches them, which would render a normal pure is relied impure, but in the case of Jesus, his contagious holiness actually transforms them. It turns the impure thing into pure, which makes them fit for the presence of God. So this is a cool way how these chapters might seem so extreme and bizarre, but they actually illuminate how Jesus saw the world and why he moved towards the kinds of people that he did. It's because he knew these chapters well, and they informed his view of the world, and

he didn't think they were bad. Jesus didn't overturn these systems, but what he did was use his holy power to bring people into a state of purity, to bring them into proximity to holiness. So that's a cool way that these connect to Jesus. These chapters in Leviticus are a part of the unified story that leads to Jesus. Yeah, that's cool. And that's a part of how.

And that makes me realize that if I am going to start to imagine my own modern purity rituals, it has to be grounded in this reality that to be in relationship with Jesus is to be made pure. Yeah. Lent is interesting because once a year leading up to his death, you imagine like what if I didn't have that? Yeah. He's going to die. Yes. And not until resurrection, Sunday, do you celebrate? Nope, that's not the reality. Yeah,

totally. But we don't have to live in that day and in day out. We get to live in this reality of being connected to purity. That's contagious. And holiness, that's contagious. Yeah, contagious holiness. Yeah, that can make even the parts of my life that had been touched by mortality or suffering or death. Can, yeah, transform them, make them whole and pure.

Yeah, that's a big confusion. It's called. Which is common them whole and pure. Yeah, that'd be confused with whole. Which is common. Which is common, yeah. Okay. All right, yeah, there you go. There's no way to tie that up in a bow, but. Yeah, we didn't read any of them. Yeah, we didn't actually read any of these passages.

Well, listeners of the podcast, you have some helpful categories now that can help you go read them with greater understanding. Thanks for listening to this episode of Bible Project Podcast. Next week we're exploring the very center of Leviticus, which is the very center of the Torah, the day of Atonement. When death has been introduced into the very heart of the tent, which is the source of all life, we need to deal with the problem there. We need to deal with the problem there. We need to deal with the pollution that's taking place in the tent, and that's what the day of Atomment is all about.

This chapter is in the section that's at the center of the center of the center of the Torah. We know we're close to the heartbeat of the message of the Torah when we enter into the tent on the day of Atomment. Today's show is produced by Cooper Peltz, edited by Dan Gummel and Tyler Bailey. Our show notes by Lindsay Ponder, Ashlyn Heiss and McKenzie Buxman have provided the annotations for our annotated podcast and our app.

Bible project is a crowdfunded nonprofit. We exist to experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. And we can do this along with you, all for free because of your generous support. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Peter Vaughan, and I'm from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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