Hermeneutics of Holiness focuses on the historical, theological, and literary trajectories of the Hebrew biblical notions of holiness from the biblical context into the fourth-century Jewish and Christian interpretive traditions. This work is particularly interested in how holy communities are formed and in what ways these individuals or communities derive their notions of holiness from the biblical texts. Moreover, this book examines how and why these notions of holy-community often intersect with ideals of sexuality, sexual practice, and asceticism. The book first examines bi ... More

Hermeneutics of Holiness focuses on the historical, theological, and literary trajectories of the Hebrew biblical notions of holiness from the biblical context into the fourth-century Jewish and Christian interpretive traditions. This work is particularly interested in how holy communities are formed and in what ways these individuals or communities derive their notions of holiness from the biblical texts. Moreover, this book examines how and why these notions of holy-community often intersect with ideals of sexuality, sexual practice, and asceticism. The book first examines biblical constructs of holiness but then follows these ideas along their various interpretive developments through the Second Temple Literature (Ezra, Jubilees, Dead Sea Scrolls), early Christian literature (New Testament) and the early Syriac Christian tradition (Odes of Solomon, Acts of Judah Thomas, Aphrahat) on the one hand, and the Rabbinic literature on the other. This study ends with a comparative analysis between the Syriac Christian literature and early Rabbinic writings in order to better understand both the similarities between and the diversity of holiness and sexuality constructs, as well as biblical interpretive practices and traditions in these communities. In the end, this book argues that early Christian and Jewish notions of sexual production and sexual restraint derive from shared interpretive traditions of biblical holiness.