Washing in Water: Trajectories of Ritual Bathing in the Hebrew Bible and Second TempleLiterature by Jonathan D. LawrenceReview by: Jonathan KlawansJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 127, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 2007), pp. 551-552Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20297329 .

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Reviews of Books 551

and "Hiddur Mitzvah and Its Limitations") is methodologically problematic. Did these texts describe every aspect of daily life and its artistic fabric? How might rabbinic "filters" have distorted it?

Finally, two areas of the book could have benefited from better methodological underpinning and lengthier discussion: the issue of a "minority art" (p. 3) and the discussion in part three of symbols and their use and meaning within various cultures and to different viewers within the same culture.

Overall, these specific issues do not overshadow the invaluable contributions of this masterful, inter

disciplinary work.

Elise A. Friedland

George Washington University

Washing in Water: Trajectories of Ritual Bathing in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature. By Jonathan D. Lawrence. Academia Biblica, vol. 23. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Litera

ture, 2006. Pp. xix + 294, illus. $47.95 (paper).

The work under review constitutes the published version of the author's 2003 Notre Dame disser

tation, written under the primary direction of James C. VanderKam. Judging from the bibliography (which contains few references later than 2000, and none later than 2003), the work has not been sub

stantially revised. Following an introduction entitled "Questions about Ritual Bathing" (pp. 1-21), the work's chapters cover the stated topic in the Hebrew Bible (chapter 2, pp. 23-42), the literature

of the Second Temple period (chapter 3, pp. 43-79), and the Dead Sea Scrolls (chapter 4, pp. 81-154). The fifth chapter (pp. 155-83) turns to the archaeological evidence. Following the conclusion (pp. 185 202), readers are supplied with twenty-five figures (mostly photographs of Jewish ritual bathing in stallations, along with maps indicating their locations, pp. 203-17). These are, in turn, followed by three

appendices: a brief chart outlining biblical and Second Temple period bathing laws; an extensive list (pp. 221-50) of textual references, with data keyed to the author's own categorizations (see below), and an almost equally extensive chart (pp. 251-68) providing data pertaining to the archaeological remains. The final appendix, as the author grants, is based heavily on Ronny Reich's 1990 Hebrew

University dissertation on Jewish ritual baths (which remains unpublished and untranslated). An author index and a scripture index wrap up the volume.

Titles can be misleading, and this proves to be the case here both with regard to the work's goals and its textual focus. The author's chapter structure separates the Dead Sea Scrolls from the rest of

the Second Temple literature?a reasonable move considering the amount of evidence and the likely sectarian nature of at least a good portion of it. But the Scrolls chapter is longer than the Hebrew

Bible and Second Temple chapters combined. Arguably, Qumran figures disproportionately in the ar

chaeological chapter too. This does not necessarily reflect an unwise decision on the part of author, but a reader who judged the book by its title would have no reason to expect the Qumran focus either.

Similarly problematic is the term "trajectory" (in addition to the title, see p. 13). The terms more

frequently used within the work are "distribution" (pp. 20, 24, 33, 38, 64, etc.) and "tendency" (esp. pp. 187-90). These terms better match the author's goals and achievements (pp. 21, 185-92), which,

thankfully, are not to trace grand linear schemes, but to collect textual and archaeological data, pro vide evidence for diversity and change, and base reasonable, restrained conclusions on solid evidence.

Finally, the subtitle indicates nothing of the author's sustained interest in (and fresh presentation of) the archaeological data. Readers worried about finding evolutionist or supersessionistic schemes

lurking behind the advertised "trajectories" need not be concerned. Readers interested in archaeology or the Qumran scrolls may find the book more interesting than the title would otherwise suggest.

A number of characteristics separate this study from others in the field. First and foremost is the

author's focus on washing per se, where many other works focus on purity rules or ideas more gen

erally. Second, the author boldly rejects Jacob Milgrom's method of structural gap-filling, whereby better attested rules are used as the basis for logically reconstructing rules curiously left unstated.

With regard to the present topic, one key question (p. 2, n. 4) is this: were women required to bathe

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552 Journal of the American Oriental Society 121.A (2007)

following menstruation? While such a requirement is assumed in rabbinic literature, the stipulation cannot be found in Leviticus, unless it is extrapolated from the requirement that men bathe after less

serious defilements (e.g., Lev. 15:16, 21). In this dispute, Lawrence sides with the unadorned text of

Leviticus (pp. 7-8, n. 21), against Milgrom.

Third, the author also parts company with previous studies?including the works of this reviewer?

in adopting his own schematization of the various textual references to washing and purification. Lawrence distinguishes three broad categories: 1) washing for ritual purity, 2) metaphorical uses of

washing, and 3) initiatory uses of washing. The first category is then subdivided into general washing,

priestly washings, and washings for theophanies and other distinct purposes (pp. 26-32, 47-64, SO

US). The second category is taken to include instances of apparently non-physical bathing (such as

cleansing by God), references to "moral" or other types of defilement, as well as allegorical expla

nations of ritual bathing such as those put forth by Philo (pp. 35-38, 64-70, 119-26). The third

category?initiation?is the most focused of the three, applying primarily to Essene/Qumranic initia

tion and Jewish proselyte immersion (pp. 71-77, 135-41). Rethinking accepted categories is frequently a productive exercise. This is neither the time nor

place to defend the distinction between ritual and moral defilement, though for the record I stand by my work, and wish besides that Lawrence had given some credit to other scholars (such as David Z.

Hoffmann, Adolph B?chler, Tikva Frymer-Kensky, and David P. Wright) who earlier worked out

similar distinctions between cultic and sinful defilements. Nevertheless, some observations need to be

raised regarding the categories employed in the present project. First, Lawrence's categories are not

parallel: initiation could easily be seen as a specific type of ritual purification employed when non

initiates are presumed to be ritually impure (cf. pp. 140-41). At any rate, it hardly seems to stand on its

own against the larger categories of ritual and metaphor. Perhaps the isolation of the category is driven

by the author's concern with baptism (pp. 1, 201), an interest not pursued in the present project. A second problem concerns the vagueness of Lawrence's category of metaphorical washings,

which includes a wide array of phenomena. While I salute the positive evaluation of symbol and

metaphor (pp. 19-20), I wonder what the jumbling together of symbol, myth, allegory, and explana

tion?along with all other non-ritual purifications?achieves, especially considering the author's rather

minimalist conclusions regarding these texts (pp. 187-90, 200). What this boils down to is this: we find here some pointed critiques of previous studies (e.g., 120-29), along with some creative sugges tions for alternative categorical schema. What we find less of is the demonstrable results that novel

categories should bring forth. Redefining terms can lead to confusion. That is why it is imperative that

new categories be defended not merely on the grounds of descriptive precision, but also with regard to their analytic value, measured in terms of new understandings.

In fairness?and in conclusion?it must be emphasized that the present work is a doctoral disser

tation, one that was conceived as, and is presumably still meant to be, the first step of a longer-term

project on Christian baptism (p. 1, n. 2). Moreover, the work's careful collection and clear presenta tion of a great deal of data deserves praise too. Perhaps the full value of the author's approach to

metaphor and initiation will be seen in the future. While we wait patiently to see the full thrust of

what the author has to say on these matters, we can in the meantime consider the important correc

tives, helpful resources, and thoughtful suggestions offered in the present work.

Jonathan Klawans

Boston University

Crafts and Images in Contact: Studies on Eastern Mediterranean Art of the First Millennium BCE.

Edited by Claudia Suter and Christoph Uehlinger. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, vol. 210. Fri

bourg: Academic Press, 2005. Pp. xxxi + 395, plates. 85.

This volume of collected papers arose from a workshop convened at the University of Fribourg,

Switzerland, in 2001. The 2001 workshop was a continuation of earlier conversations and studies that

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