What’s Spit got to do with it?

Jodi Magness, about her forthcoming book on daily life at the time of Jesus called Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus :

Many of the disagreements among Jews [which divided them into sects at the time of Jesus] focused on the correct interpretation and observance of biblical purity laws. Like other ancient religions in the Mediterranean and Near East, Judaism required everyone entering the deity’s presence to be in a state of ritual purity. This meant that all Jews were required to purify themselves before entering the Jerusalem temple, which was the house of the God of Israel. According to the Hebrew Bible, ritual impurity is caused by coming into contact with certain things (ranging from mildew on the walls of a house to lizards to corpses) and by certain natural processes (such as nocturnal emissions for men and menstruation for women). For most types of ritual impurity, purification is effected through immersion in water and the passage of time (usually waiting until sunset).

The observance of Jewish purity laws has left material traces in the archaeological record. For example, in the late Second Temple period immersion pools (Hebrew: miqva’ot) became common at sites around Palestine, especially to be found clustered around Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, in priestly dwellings (since priests had to maintain a high degree of purity to serve in the temple), and along pilgrimage routes to Jerusalem. More traces remain in the Essene settlement at Qumran (the site associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls), whose inhabitants lived a priestly lifestyle. This settlement is characterized by a large number of large-sized miqva’ot, which accommodated the community’s need for repeated ritual immersion. Stone vessels also became common in the late Second Temple period, due to the belief that stone could not contract ritual impurity.

These archaeological finds attest to the widespread observance of purity laws among the Jewish population of Palestine. The Gospel accounts suggest that Jesus also engaged in debates about the correct interpretation of biblical purity laws, as, for example, when he reportedly declared, “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile” (Mark 7:15).