Intermarriage and Impurity in Ancient Jewish Sources

Abstract

Does a principle of Gentile ritual impurity motivate Israelite and late antique Jewish prohibitions of intermarriage? The answer to this question turns upon the answer to an even more basic question: is a principle of Gentile ritual impurity found in ancient Israelite and Jewish texts? Some suppose ritual impurity of Gentiles to be an ancient halakah dating perhaps to early biblical times (Schürer, Alon) and serving as the rationale for laws regulating or reducing Jewish and Gentile interactions of various kinds. Others suppose ritual impurity of Gentiles to be a legal reality only in the Second Temple or Tannaitic period (Büchler, Klawans). On such a view, Gentile ritual impurity did not serve as the rationale for older laws regulating or reducing various forms of Jewish-Gentile interaction, including intermarriage.

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