Jesus and the Forces of Death Quotes

“Contact with Jesus, the holy one of God, causes a discharge of holiness to surge out of Jesus—a holiness that overpowers the source of impurity in the one touching Jesus. Just as the tabernacle and its accoutrements exercise no will in sanctifying objects that come into contact with them, Mark portrays Jesus’s body automatically and involuntarily purifying those who touch him in faith.”
― Matthew Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels' Portrayal of Ritual Impurity within First-Century Judaism

“Ritual impurity has nothing to do with guilt unless one brings it into the wrong context—that is, into sacred space. Ritual impurity and moral impurity (sin) are two different categories, although they overlap at times, as some scholars have stressed. The woman who suffers a ritual impurity is not guilty of sin, but were this same woman to enter into the courtyard for women at the Jerusalem temple, she would wrongfully encroach upon holy space, bringing impurity into contact with the realm of the holy, and would thus become guilty of sin or moral impurity as well.62”
― Matthew Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels' Portrayal of Ritual Impurity within First-Century Judaism

“Turning to the Gospels, if lepra was little different from eczema or scurvy medically speaking, why did the Gospel writers care to present Jesus performing a miracle that was roughly equivalent to using dandruff shampoo or an antifungal ointment twice a week? What does the fact that Jesus overcomes something as seemingly mundane as skin blemishes say about his mission and identity? Surely there were more pressing medical conditions in the first century upon which Mark, Matthew, and Luke could have focused! The answer must be that they did not want to demonstrate Jesus’s opposition to Jewish ritual concerns about lepra, as is so often the argument of New Testament scholars; rather, these early followers of Jesus wanted to depict him in a way that showed his opposition to the very existence of lepra itself. The difference between these two interpretations is substantial. The former denies the reality and power of ritual impurity; the latter acknowledges its reality but believes that Jesus’s power transcends the power that creates the ritual impurity.”
― Matthew Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels' Portrayal of Ritual Impurity within First-Century Judaism