Lutz Doering
although Ravid has raised some important questions. However, we need to
cast our net wide enough to be able to gauge the full range of Jubilees' take
on (im)purity. In what follows I shall heuristically accept the distinction be
tween "ritual" and "moral" impurity: "ritual" impurity, as reflected in Lev
11-15, Num 19, and related texts, is natural, contracted by contagion, and can
in most cases be purged by purification rituals; it is not sinful but disquali
fies from contact with sancta (I shall, however, include dietary laws and
priestly ablutions here too). In contrast, "moral" impurity, as reflected in Lev
18, 20, and related texts, consists of certain crimes; defiles the sinner, the
land, and the temple; and cannot be purged by purification rituals. However,
since I think the terms "ritual" and "moral" are not unproblematic, and
since I also note certain "ritual" aspects of impurities designated as "moral,"
the terms come in quotation marks.
I. "Ritual" Impurity, Purity, and Purification in Jubilees
- The impurity and purification of the parturient. Jub 3:8-14* contains a tradi
tion about the entry of Adam and "his wife" (not named before 3:33) into the
Garden of Eden with which the periods of impurity and purification after
childbirth familiar from Lev 12 are etiologically linked. Two aspects are de
veloped. First, harmonizing the two creation narratives (cf. Gen 1:27; 2:18-
22), Jub 3:8 states that although Adam and his wife were created in the first
week, only in the second week was she shown to him. From this, the "com
mandment" is inferred that women giving birth to a son shall be kept "in
their defilement" (Ge'ez westa rekwson) for seven days, those giving birth to a
daughter, for fourteen. Lev 12 clarifies that the parturient during this period
is impure like a menstruant (v. 2: NODD miTT ITT J ,a,3; v. 5: niTT3D; cf.
4Q265 7 15). Apparently, the tertium between Lev 12:2, 5 and Jub 3:8 is that af
ter this period of impurity a woman would be allowed to mate again with
her husband. Second, a longer period of less severe impurity is linked to the
entry of Adam and his wife into the Garden. Both have been created outside
the Garden, and angels bring Adam in after forty days but his wife after
eighty days (Jub 3:9). Again, a "commandment" is inferred, this time written
on the heavenly tablets, mentioning the "defilement" of seven or twice seven
days and additionally a period of thirty-three days for a male child and sixty-
6. Text and translation: J. C. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, 2 vols., CSCO 510-511,
Scriptores Aethiopici 87-88 (Louvain: Peeters, 1989).