Uncleanness

Ceremonial uncleanness in the Mosaic law was a state of ritual impurity that excluded a person from worship and community participation until appropriate purification was performed. Sources of uncleanness included: contact with a corpse (Num. 19:11–22), childbirth (Lev. 12), skin diseases (Lev. 13–14), bodily discharges (Lev. 15), and contact with certain animals or their carcasses (Lev. 11). The system distinguished between major uncleanness (requiring days or weeks of waiting plus sacrifice for restoration) and minor uncleanness (resolved by washing and waiting until evening).

The NT reinterprets cleanness radically: Jesus declared all foods clean (Mark 7:19) and touched lepers and the dead without becoming defiled — reversing the direction of contamination through his power to purify. Peter's vision at Joppa (Acts 10:9–16) used the clean/unclean food distinction to communicate the inclusion of Gentiles. Paul teaches that nothing is unclean in itself (Rom. 14:14) and that the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, making moral rather than ritual purity the Christian's concern (1 Cor. 6:19–20).