Rites and Rank

Saul M. Olyan is Dorot Professor of Judaic Studies, Professor of Religious Studies, and Director of the Program in Judaic Studies at Brown University. He is the author of A Thousand Thousands Served Him: Exegesis and the Naming of Angels in Ancient Judaism and Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel.

• Acknowledgments ix List of Abbretiations xi Introduction 3 Status and Hierarchy 7 Cultic and Quasi-Cultic Settings 10 Rites and Rank 11 1. Foundational Discourse: The Opposition Holy/Common 15 Holiness and Privilege 27 Conclusion 35 2.Admission or Exclusion: The Binary Pairing Unclean/Clean 38 Sources of Impurity 40 Degrees of Pollution and the Requirements of Purification 50 The Hierarchical Dimensions of UncleanlClean 54 Conclusion 61 3.Generating "Self" and "Other"- The Polarity Israelite/Alien 63 Forms and Functions of the Polarity Israelite/Alien 64 Contesting Alien Exclusion from Israel and Its Cultic Life 90 Cultural Mechanisms of Alien Incorporation into Israel 93 Conclusion 99 4.The Qualified Body: The Dyad Whole/Blemished 103 Blemishes and Inequality 111 Conclusion 113 Conclusion 115 Appendix. The Idea of Holiness in the Holiness Source 121 Notes 123 Index of Authors 175 Index of Biblical Citations 179

"Olyan's book is thorough, meticulous, judicious, and nuanced; and he succeeds admirably in accomplishing what he sets out to do."--Byron E. Shafer, Fordham University, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly "This is a significant book that uses anthropological approaches in a clear, non-flashy way to advance our understanding of biblical cult, and especially our conceptions of holiness... Olyan is to be congratulated for writing a very readable, clear and interesting book on a topic that is central to biblical scholarship."--Mark Z. Brettler, Jewish Quarterly Review