Season 2: Episode 40
Everything We Get Wrong about Jesus and Jewish Impurity Laws
Date Aired: 11/06/2023
It’s easy to read the New Testament and come away with the idea that Jesus was in opposition to the Jewish ritual impurity laws. In fact, that’s what most Christian theologians have taught for the past 2,000 years. Is it possible that we’ve (gasp!) been misreading the Bible this whole time? Our guest Matt Thiessen says, “Yep.” In today’s episode, we travel back to the first century to understand how everyday Jewish people understood ritual impurity, and what Jesus’s miracles—healing a leper, curing a woman of a hemorrhaging condition—would have meant in that historical context.
Listen to the episode on the Biblical Time Machine website or wherever you get your podcasts.
Disclaimer: The Society of Biblical Literature is not responsible for the content of this podcast. The opinions expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of the Society of Biblical Literature, its members, or its staff.
