Hermeneutics of Holiness: Ancient Jewish and Christian Notions of Sexuality and Religious Community

326 Pages·2010·1.53 MB·English

by  Naomi Koltun-Fromm

Hermeneutics of Holiness
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Hermeneutics
of Holiness
Ancient Jewish and Christian Notions
of Sexuality and Religious Community
-
NAOMI KOLTUN FROMM

2010
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Koltun-Fromm, Naomi, 1964–
Hermeneutics of holiness : ancient Jewish and Christian notions of
sexuality and religious community / by Naomi Koltun-Fromm.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-19-973648-5
1. Sex—Biblical teaching. 2. Communities—Biblical teaching.
3. Holiness—Biblical teaching. 4. Bible—Extra-canonical parallels.
I. Title.
BS680.S5K65 2010
241 ′ .660915—dc22 2009030183
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
for Ken, Ariel, Talia, and Isaiah
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Acknowledgments
This book started as an idea in the summer of 2000; a summer that I
spent in Berlin not learning any German. Sitting in the Staatsbiblio-
thek in Berlin, not understanding a word of the conversations
fl owing around me allowed me to focus my thoughts on holiness. I
thank the staff of the Staatsbibliothek for giving me that space. That
same summer, at a meeting of the European Association of Biblical
Studies in Utrecht, my idea to trace biblical notions of holy-people-
hood gained more clarity and support from the colleagues I met there
(Gary Porton, Lieve Teugels, Joshua Levenson, and Marcel Poorthuis,
to name just a few.) The summer was followed by an exceptional
sabbatical year during which my family and I were hosted by Wolfson
College, Oxford University, and the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and
Jewish Studies, Yarnton Manor. (I was also supported fi nancially by
Haverford College and by a fellowship from The Foundation for
Jewish Culture that year.) In the various and numerous libraries of
Oxford I read copious books on biblical holiness and purity; and by
the end of the year I had a better sense of both. Martin Goodman,
Sebastian Brock, and Alison Salveson generously offered their time
and conversation to me. Martin graciously allowed me to participate
in his graduate seminar and often took me to lunch in the Common
Room, providing both spiritual and physical sustenance. The commu-
nities of scholars and families that we met up with and participated in
provided the needed intellectual atmosphere for pursuing
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
research in an engaging environment. To all our friends in Oxford, thank you
for being there!
The following year I returned to Haverford College and to a fellowship at
the University of Pennsylvania Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. At the Cen-
ter I was able to write the fi rst version of what became chapter 6 in this book.
Again, the stimulating and engaging atmosphere of the Center, and the col-
leagues I met that year (Natalie Dohrman, Dalit Ram Shiloni, and Tamar Kadari,
to name a few), gave me the collegial support to push forward and produce.
Thank you David Ruderman, David Stern, and the staff of the Center for sup-
porting such a wonderful group that year.
Over the next several years I progressed from holiness in the Bible, to the
Second Temple Literature, to the early Christian literature, Syriac literature,
Aphrahat, and fi nally the Rabbis. I thank all of my colleagues at Haverford for
their enduring support and encouragement. The members of the Department
of Religion, but especially David Dawson and Anne McGuire, read various
chapters over the years and simply lent their collegial support. Over these same
years numerous students have read various drafts and helped me pull things
together, especially the students in my seminar on holiness.
My fi rst readers at the University of Pennsylvania Press helped me
transform this manuscript from a draft to a book, even if our visions of the fi nal
edition eventually differed. I thank you. My readers at Oxford University Press
were amazing: pushing me to see things I had not seen before, and allowing
me to let go of the unnecessary. Eliezer Diamond not only read an early draft of
chapter 7, but at the behest of Oxford read and commented on the whole man-
uscript, and chapter 7 yet again. Thank you for all your continued and enduring
support and encouragement. I want to give a special thanks to my other, anon-
ymous, reader, who read so thoroughly the fi rst time, and then agreed to do it
again, you are tremendous!
I returned to Yarnton in the summer of 2008 to participate in an NEH
institute. But during my free time I was able to pursue and (mostly) com-
plete the revisions of this manuscript, so once again I thank the people of
Yarnton Manor for giving me space to write surrounded by their beautiful
landscape.
Many other colleagues answered queries, read passages and even whole
chapters over the last decade. Forgive me if I have forgotten anyone: Ellen
Birnbaum, David Brodsky, Georgia Frank, Paula Fredriksen, Christine Hayes,
Martha Himmelfarb, Marc Hirshman, Jonathan Klawans, Vasiliki Lamberis,
Deborah Roberts, Christine Shepardson, Benjamin Sommer, Lucas Van
Rompay, and Andrea Weiss. No book is complete without the expert guid-
ance of one’s editors: Thank you to Cynthia Read, Linda Donnelly, and their
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
staff at Oxford University Press. I thank my father, who came out of retire-
ment to do some last minute proofreading, as well. Last but not least, I must
thank my family, my husband Ken, my children Ariel, Talia, and Isaiah, who
have put up with me and this book for way too long. I dedicate this book to
them. It’s done!