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The Corpse in the Tent

The Corpse in the Tent THE CORPSE IN THE TENT BY HYAM MACCOBY London One of the most difficult topics in the study of ritual purity is that of the corpse in the "tent," and particularly the question of how the biblical law expressed so briefly in Numbers 19:14-16 proliferated into the complex system found in Mishnah Ohalot and elsewhere. Numbers says simply: "When a man dies in a tent, this is the law: everyone who goes into the tent and everyone who was inside the tent shall be ritually unclean for seven days, and every open vessel which has no covering tied over it shall also be unclean. In the open, any- one who touches a man killed with a weapon or one who had died naturally, or who touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days." These verses differentiate between a corpse that is enclosed in a "tent" and a corpse that is in the open. When it is enclosed, it trans- mits impurity even to those people and vessels that have not touched it; simply to be under the same roof as the corpse is sufficient to incur impurity. In the open, however, a corpse http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal for the Study of Judaism Brill

The Corpse in the Tent

Maccoby, Hyam
Journal for the Study of Judaism , Volume 28 (2): 195 – Jan 1, 1997
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1997 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0047-2212
eISSN
1570-0631
DOI
10.1163/157006397X00147
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

THE CORPSE IN THE TENT BY HYAM MACCOBY London One of the most difficult topics in the study of ritual purity is that of the corpse in the "tent," and particularly the question of how the biblical law expressed so briefly in Numbers 19:14-16 proliferated into the complex system found in Mishnah Ohalot and elsewhere. Numbers says simply: "When a man dies in a tent, this is the law: everyone who goes into the tent and everyone who was inside the tent shall be ritually unclean for seven days, and every open vessel which has no covering tied over it shall also be unclean. In the open, any- one who touches a man killed with a weapon or one who had died naturally, or who touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days." These verses differentiate between a corpse that is enclosed in a "tent" and a corpse that is in the open. When it is enclosed, it trans- mits impurity even to those people and vessels that have not touched it; simply to be under the same roof as the corpse is sufficient to incur impurity. In the open, however, a corpse

Journal

Journal for the Study of Judaism – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1997

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