ABSTRACT
Modern cosmologies that separate strictly between “natural” environments and “artificial” human habitats dictate which materials are considered pure and polluting in each of these places. Materials like soil, soap, and disinfecting chemicals may be regarded as purifying in one place and polluting in the other. The cultural history of biblical interpretation, particularly of the purity rules in Leviticus 11–15, also confirmed the ancient correlation of cosmology with purity. The explicit invocation of cosmology in the biblical text gave interpreters expectations of finding underlying systematic consistency which the details of the rules failed to support. Sex-based pollutions failed to conform to the large-scale cosmologies projected by the text, but instead reified microcosmic distinctions between human bodies.
