Bücher von Thomas Kazen

Moral Infringement and Repair in Antiquity, is a series of publications related to a project on Dynamics of Moral Repair in Antiquity, run by Thomas Kazen and Rikard Roitto between 2017 and 2021, and funded by the Swedish Research Council. The volumes contain stand-alone articles and serve as supplements to the main outcome of the project, the volume Interpersonal Infringement and Moral Repair: Revenge, Compensation and Forgiveness in the Ancient World, forthcoming on Mohr Siebeck in 2023.Supplement 1: Emotions and Hierarchies, contains four articles and chapters by Thomas Kazen. Three of them are republished in accordance with the publishers' general conditions for author reuse. The fourth has not been published before. 1. Emotional Ethics in Biblical Texts: Cultural Construction and Biological Bases of Morality. 2. Viewing Oneself through Others' Eyes: Shame between Biology and Culture in Biblical Texts.3. Law and Emotion in Moral Repair: Circumscribing Infringement.4. Retribution and Repair in Voluntary Associations: Comparing Rule Texts from Qumran, Collegia, and Christ Groups.

This study traces Jesus' attitude to impurity within the historical context at the end of the Second Temple period, when practices of ritual purity came to play an increasing role in Jewish society and an expansionist trend gained in influence and support. The traditional focus on sayings material and criteria of authenticity in historical Jesus-research is modified, narrative traditions with implicit purity issues are appealed to, and extra-canonical traditions are included. The main areas examined are the most important "fathers" of impurity: "leprosy" (skin diseases), genital discharges, and corpse-contamination. Jesus is found to have acted in ways that could have been understood by some of his contemporaries as indifference to these types of impurity. His behaviour is shown on several points to clash with current purity halakhah and dominant expansionist ideals. In an attempt to interpret his actions within the Jewish context and culture of the Second Temple period, three explanatory models are provided. Jesus' attitude can be seen as part of a moral trajectory in Judaism. It can be understood as a response to a regional, Galilean dilemma. It can be viewed in a power perspective as an expression of Jesus' eschatological struggle against demonic evil. The result is that Jesus may be understood as operating within the purity paradigm of his time, yet seemingly indifferent in the eyes of some, pushing it to the breaking point. Such a reconstruction makes subsequent developments intelligible, in which various Christian currents drew conflicting conclusions. Those looking to Jesus' behaviour for some sort of guidance today may perhaps find contemporary analogies.

While Jesus and Purity (2002, corrected reprint 2010, 2021) aimed to present an unfolding argument, this volume does not aspire at such coherence. It consists of articles and papers on various issues of impurity in early Judaism. A few of these have been previously published, the rest not. Some chapters develop and further expand on topics discussed in Jesus and Purity and much focus lies on questions of the impurity of discharges and the practice of hand-washing before meals. Both literary and historical methods are used, as well as approaches based on cognitive science. The analysis covers texts from the Pentateuch, Qumran, the New Testament, and some Jewish Hellenistic authors. By bringing these articles together, they are made available and can be easily found by potential readers. Together with the recently published collection Impurity and Purification in Early Judaism and the Jesus Tradition (SBL Press, 2021), Issues of Impurity represents Kazen's continuous work on purity issues through two decades. The reader of both volumes will see how the author's views have gradually evolved through the years.