Purity has long been recognized as one of the essential drives which determines humankind's relationship with the holy. This volume studies the 'pure' and 'holy' from both Christian and Jewish perspectives, beginning with the Hebrew Bible, and proceeding on to the New Testament, Qumran, Rabbinics, Patristics and reaching even the medieval and modern times. A wide array of disciples are used including exegesis, archaeology, liturgy, feminist studies and anthropology, all coming together to study the complex phenomena of purity within its religious and social framework.

M.J.H.M. Poorthuis, Ph.D., coordinates research on the relation between Judaism and Christianity at the Catholic Theological University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. He has published on the interrelatedness between Patristics and Rabbinical literature and on modern Jewish philosophy.
Joshua Schwartz, Ph.D. (1981) in Jewish History, Hebrew University, is Director of the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies and Professor of Historical Geography of Ancient Israel at Bar-Ilan. He has published extensively on the historical geography of ancient Israel and Jerusalem.