What is purity/impurity? The purity/impurity of an action, object, animal, or person is determined by its/their relation to the perceived order and perfection of the world around them and how they fit into it. Douglas says “if uncleanliness is matter out of place, we must approach it through order. Uncleanliness is that which must not be included if a pattern is to be maintained.” She also explains that this pattern is set by culture, providing “a positive pattern in which ideas and values are tidily ordered.” This understanding of the topic means that everything pure fits within the order and wholeness of the world as defined by a culture, and impure things are those which in a way, whether through anomaly or ambiguity, are discordant with the structured pattern and order of things. Thus it is things that lay on the margins, that seem to defy specific definitions and structures that act in even slight defiance of orderliness that receive the label of “impure.”
So why does God concern himself with the maintenance of purity? I’m honestly not entirely sure. In my mind it makes sense that we are constantly trying to organize creation towards the end goal of perfection, and so God provides us the framework with which we try to order things. So it is in ordering things appropriately that we validate their “purity” and in failing to order something within that structure towards God that it must be deemed “impure.”
The laws we encounter in Leviticus, especially for the food, seem to follow specific patterns. They involve specific types of sacrifices and their preparation, with special care taken for the blood, fat, and organs, while the sons of Aaron, the priests, are the ones to handle them. Additionally, there are restrictions set on which animals they can eat from at all. This list excludes camels, rabbits, and pigs from their diets as well as aquatic creatures lacking scales, many types of birds, crawling insects, rats, lizards, and others. These rules all seem very overwhelming, but the footnote seems to indicate that Douglas’s idea that “purity rules represent regulations of the social body” may be the correct way to think about the connection of all these numerous laws.
True to what was promised, I did indeed find this reading and Leviticus quite challenging and not in the least bit confusing. I look forward to seeing everyone else’s approach to these questions as I am very unsure about my own! ( :
Introduction to Theology: Charlotte Spraul 
I agree with you that this reading was quite challenging as I ran into a few problems trying to answer the question posed to us. That being said, I think that you made a great attempt to answer this in arguing that God requires the maintenance of purity in order to get closer to our goal of perfection. I had not thought of this in that way, but I think there is a lot of validity in what you argue. You also say that Douglas approaches the specific laws in a way of representing them as regulations of the social body and I agree that she approaches this same question correctly in presenting this as her way to connect the numerous laws. Considering that we all struggled answering this, why do you think that is so?
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I agree with your point that purity and impurity are a way to distinguish between what is anomalous and ambiguous in nature and fails to conform to a predetermined world views. I hadn’t thought of how beliefs on purity could change between cultures. I like your comment that in ordering things correctly we are striving towards God’s perfect creation while when we order incorrectly we are going against this creation. Why do you think the purity laws relate to “the social body”, in what ways do the laws regulate the people?
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Isn’t it a little convenient that “order” in many ancient societies, the Israelites included, is decreed by the priests who end up at the top of the chain? Do you think the rules might be a little different if a prostitute had decided them? Basically: isn’t it possible that maintaining social order might have more to do with what we want as humans and less about what God wants?
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