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Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism
Ancient Jewish sacrifice has long been misunderstood. Some find in sacrifice the key to the mysterious and violent origins of human culture. Others see these cultic rituals as merely the fossilized vestiges of primitive superstition. Some believe that ancient Jewish sacrifice was doomed from
the start, destined to be replaced by the Christian eucharist. Others think that the temple was fated to be superseded by the synagogue. In Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple Jonathan Klawans demonstrates that these supersessionist ideologies have prevented scholars from recognizing the Jerusalem
temple as a powerful source of meaning and symbolism to the ancient Jews who worshiped there. Klawans exposes and counters such ideologies by reviewing the theoretical literature on sacrifice and taking a fresh look at a broad range of evidence concerning ancient Jewish attitudes toward the temple
and its sacrificial cult. The first step toward reaching a more balanced view is to integrate the study of sacrifice with the study of purity-a ritual structure that has commonly been understood as symbolic by scholars and laypeople alike. The second step is to rehabilitate sacrificial metaphors,
with the understanding that these metaphors are windows into the ways sacrifice was understood by ancient Jews. By taking these steps-and by removing contemporary religious and cultural biases-Klawans allows us to better understand what sacrifice meant to the early communities who practiced it.
Armed with this new understanding, Klawans reevaluates the ideas about the temple articulated in a wide array of ancient sources, including Josephus, Philo, Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament, and Rabbinic literature. Klawans mines these sources with an eye toward illuminating the
symbolic meanings of sacrifice for ancient Jews. Along the way, he reconsiders the ostensible rejection of the cult by the biblical prophets, the Qumran sect, and Jesus. While these figures may have seen the temple in their time as tainted or even defiled, Klawans argues, they too-like practically
all ancient Jews-believed in the cult, accepted its symbolic significance, and hoped for its ultimate efficacy.
the start, destined to be replaced by the Christian eucharist. Others think that the temple was fated to be superseded by the synagogue. In Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple Jonathan Klawans demonstrates that these supersessionist ideologies have prevented scholars from recognizing the Jerusalem
temple as a powerful source of meaning and symbolism to the ancient Jews who worshiped there. Klawans exposes and counters such ideologies by reviewing the theoretical literature on sacrifice and taking a fresh look at a broad range of evidence concerning ancient Jewish attitudes toward the temple
and its sacrificial cult. The first step toward reaching a more balanced view is to integrate the study of sacrifice with the study of purity-a ritual structure that has commonly been understood as symbolic by scholars and laypeople alike. The second step is to rehabilitate sacrificial metaphors,
with the understanding that these metaphors are windows into the ways sacrifice was understood by ancient Jews. By taking these steps-and by removing contemporary religious and cultural biases-Klawans allows us to better understand what sacrifice meant to the early communities who practiced it.
Armed with this new understanding, Klawans reevaluates the ideas about the temple articulated in a wide array of ancient sources, including Josephus, Philo, Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament, and Rabbinic literature. Klawans mines these sources with an eye toward illuminating the
symbolic meanings of sacrifice for ancient Jews. Along the way, he reconsiders the ostensible rejection of the cult by the biblical prophets, the Qumran sect, and Jesus. While these figures may have seen the temple in their time as tainted or even defiled, Klawans argues, they too-like practically
all ancient Jews-believed in the cult, accepted its symbolic significance, and hoped for its ultimate efficacy.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published October 15, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 28, 2024
Fabulous!
In this follow-up to his "Sin and Impurity", Klawans looks specifically an sacrifice and the temple. He notes that so many treatments of ancient Judaism look at purity in a positive light, but seem to see animal sacrifice as remnant of a more brutal age, that has been superceded in both Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. He points out that purity and sacrifice are, in a sense, inextricable, with purity being first and foremost a condition for proper sacrifice. His treatment is thorough and lucid, and casts doubt on any possibility of a simple explanation that defies the complexities of the biblical accounts.
So too with the temple he looks at attitudes in Qumran, the Rabbis, and the New Testament, showing that there is very little anti-temple sentiment actually there. One of his keenest observations is that the "replacement" of temple ritual with prayer (what he calls the "templization") is not a replacement of something outmoded with something better, but rather an association of prayer with the importance that the temple rituals once had, unavailable now with the temple destroyed.
This book is absolutely essential to any study of purity and sacrifice in ancient Judaism.
In this follow-up to his "Sin and Impurity", Klawans looks specifically an sacrifice and the temple. He notes that so many treatments of ancient Judaism look at purity in a positive light, but seem to see animal sacrifice as remnant of a more brutal age, that has been superceded in both Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. He points out that purity and sacrifice are, in a sense, inextricable, with purity being first and foremost a condition for proper sacrifice. His treatment is thorough and lucid, and casts doubt on any possibility of a simple explanation that defies the complexities of the biblical accounts.
So too with the temple he looks at attitudes in Qumran, the Rabbis, and the New Testament, showing that there is very little anti-temple sentiment actually there. One of his keenest observations is that the "replacement" of temple ritual with prayer (what he calls the "templization") is not a replacement of something outmoded with something better, but rather an association of prayer with the importance that the temple rituals once had, unavailable now with the temple destroyed.
This book is absolutely essential to any study of purity and sacrifice in ancient Judaism.
July 14, 2015
Jonathan Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). Pp 372.
Klawans challenges long held notions concerning biblical notions of sacrifice and purity in modern scholarship. Any scholar who writes about these subjects without consulting Klawans’s work will be greatly outdated.
Until now, contemporary scholarship on purity and sacrifice has been influenced by several factors: 1) Christian and Jewish supersessionism, 2) evolutionary schemes, and 3) understanding sacrifice only as literal. Klawans shows that these understandings fail to account for how the ancient Israelites themselves understood the purity and sacrificial system.
Klawans first makes a distinction between ritual impurity, and moral impurity. Ritual impurity comes about though natural means, such as birth, death, bodily flows, etc. He remarks that purifying oneself of these sorts of impurities makes one more god-like, thus allowing one to enter the temple.
The other impurity is moral impurity, also known as abominations. These include transgressions such as idolatry, sexual transgression, bloodshed, and economic exploitation. The only resolution for these is atonement or punishment, and, ultimately, exile. These sorts of impurities do not ban someone from entering the temple, but they do defile the Temple, and the land.
Klawans argues that the ancient Israelites understood sacrifice as imitatio Dei; that is to say that they saw themselves as imitating God (tied to ritual impurity) within the Temple, which was a microcosm of the world. Just as God shepherds his people within the world, and has control over life and death, so the priests, in imitation of God, have control over life and death within the world of the temple. The purpose of sacrifice was to attract and maintain the presence of God for the community.
The impact of his scholarship is immediately seen when he states that it is sin that undoes sacrifices rather than sacrifices that undo sin.
In the remaining chapters, Klawans traces his line of thought through the biblical prophets, ancient Judaism (including Philo and Josephus), the Qumran community, the medieval rabbis, and the New Testament.
For me, as an Orthodox priest, I was most interested in his assessment of the New Testament. Since he is not a New Testament scholar, per se, he is very hesitant to firmly conclude anything. Instead, he states he is only introducing ideas for other scholars to think about.
He argues that the New Testament is not anti-Temple, and he gives several citations where the apostles continue to use the Temple after Christ’s resurrection.
Regarding the Last Supper, he concludes:
“…Jesus’ Eucharistic words and deeds find a likely context in the multifarious and well-attested ancient Jewish efforts to channel the temple’s sanctity into various other ritual activities, such as prayer and eating. …And thus the historical Last Supper was most likely not an antitemple symbolic action. ‘This too is divine service’ is probably what and all Jesus original intended to say” (pg. 244).
Klawans also addresses the “cleansing” of the Temple. He notes that Jesus only expels the moneychangers and pigeon sellers, which, as he notes, are items that only the poor would use (richer people would have been buying different sacrificial animals). He writes,
“I am suggesting that Jesus felt the temple should pose no financial burden to the poor at all. Those with money should give, those without should be exempt. If anything, the system should provide for the poor. But this did not amount to a rejection of the temple by circumventing the ill effects from the traders” (pg. 239).
He looks at Acts 2, and understands the redistribution of wealth among the early Christians as a way for all to be able to participate in the Temple system.
“By sharing wealth among themselves, they could provide the sacrificial needs for the poor among them (and perhaps other poor folk as well). Hence, I suggest the juxtaposition in the book of Acts of the community of goods with the continued Christian worship in the temple. The good of the sharing of goods trumps the bad from the exaction of fees form the poor” (pg. 239).
I found Klawans’s thesis intriguing, and I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to understand the Bible better. I look forward to more work from him.
Klawans challenges long held notions concerning biblical notions of sacrifice and purity in modern scholarship. Any scholar who writes about these subjects without consulting Klawans’s work will be greatly outdated.
Until now, contemporary scholarship on purity and sacrifice has been influenced by several factors: 1) Christian and Jewish supersessionism, 2) evolutionary schemes, and 3) understanding sacrifice only as literal. Klawans shows that these understandings fail to account for how the ancient Israelites themselves understood the purity and sacrificial system.
Klawans first makes a distinction between ritual impurity, and moral impurity. Ritual impurity comes about though natural means, such as birth, death, bodily flows, etc. He remarks that purifying oneself of these sorts of impurities makes one more god-like, thus allowing one to enter the temple.
The other impurity is moral impurity, also known as abominations. These include transgressions such as idolatry, sexual transgression, bloodshed, and economic exploitation. The only resolution for these is atonement or punishment, and, ultimately, exile. These sorts of impurities do not ban someone from entering the temple, but they do defile the Temple, and the land.
Klawans argues that the ancient Israelites understood sacrifice as imitatio Dei; that is to say that they saw themselves as imitating God (tied to ritual impurity) within the Temple, which was a microcosm of the world. Just as God shepherds his people within the world, and has control over life and death, so the priests, in imitation of God, have control over life and death within the world of the temple. The purpose of sacrifice was to attract and maintain the presence of God for the community.
The impact of his scholarship is immediately seen when he states that it is sin that undoes sacrifices rather than sacrifices that undo sin.
In the remaining chapters, Klawans traces his line of thought through the biblical prophets, ancient Judaism (including Philo and Josephus), the Qumran community, the medieval rabbis, and the New Testament.
For me, as an Orthodox priest, I was most interested in his assessment of the New Testament. Since he is not a New Testament scholar, per se, he is very hesitant to firmly conclude anything. Instead, he states he is only introducing ideas for other scholars to think about.
He argues that the New Testament is not anti-Temple, and he gives several citations where the apostles continue to use the Temple after Christ’s resurrection.
Regarding the Last Supper, he concludes:
“…Jesus’ Eucharistic words and deeds find a likely context in the multifarious and well-attested ancient Jewish efforts to channel the temple’s sanctity into various other ritual activities, such as prayer and eating. …And thus the historical Last Supper was most likely not an antitemple symbolic action. ‘This too is divine service’ is probably what and all Jesus original intended to say” (pg. 244).
Klawans also addresses the “cleansing” of the Temple. He notes that Jesus only expels the moneychangers and pigeon sellers, which, as he notes, are items that only the poor would use (richer people would have been buying different sacrificial animals). He writes,
“I am suggesting that Jesus felt the temple should pose no financial burden to the poor at all. Those with money should give, those without should be exempt. If anything, the system should provide for the poor. But this did not amount to a rejection of the temple by circumventing the ill effects from the traders” (pg. 239).
He looks at Acts 2, and understands the redistribution of wealth among the early Christians as a way for all to be able to participate in the Temple system.
“By sharing wealth among themselves, they could provide the sacrificial needs for the poor among them (and perhaps other poor folk as well). Hence, I suggest the juxtaposition in the book of Acts of the community of goods with the continued Christian worship in the temple. The good of the sharing of goods trumps the bad from the exaction of fees form the poor” (pg. 239).
I found Klawans’s thesis intriguing, and I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to understand the Bible better. I look forward to more work from him.
December 17, 2015
Another fascinating book about Ancient Judaism which makes a case for a fresh look at sacrifice in the temple as more than a primitive rite. This author really is able to make complicated theories easy to understand.
December 1, 2024
Really great study for those interested in ancient Jewish purity and sacrificial practices. Extremely useful for understanding of the Old Testament especially, but also many references from the New Testament.
January 16, 2008
a page-turner which undermines so much of (presuppositional) scholarship on the temple, purity and sacrifice. 5 stars so far(having only read three chapters)
Want to read
May 22, 2011May need to get this through the library!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews