RT Article
T1 The Legislation of Leviticus 12 in Light of Ancient Embryology
JF Vetus Testamentum
VO 68
IS 2
SP 297
OP 319
A1 Thiessen, Matthew 1977-
LA English
PB Brill
YR 2018
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1571447830
AB Interpreters have provided numerous unsatisfactory reasons for why priestly literature stipulates that women endure a longer impurity after the birth of a girl than they endure after the birth of a boy. This article situates Leviticus 12 within a wide range of medical discourses, found in Hittite, Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian literature, in order to illuminate the priestly rationale behind this legislation. It demonstrates that these differing periods of ritual impurity relate to ancient medical beliefs that females developed more slowly than did males. These different articulation rates were believed to result in different lengths of postpartum lochial discharge, which meant that the new mother suffered different lengths of ritual impurity based on the sex of the newborn child.
K1 Childbirth : embryology : lochial discharge : medicine : postpartum : ritual impurity
DO 10.1163/15685330-12341314