Download or read book Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities written by Christine E. Hayes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2002-11-14 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In ancient Jewish culture the ideas of purity and impurity defined the socio-cultural boundaries between Jews and Gentiles. Hayes argues that different views of the possibility of conversion, based on varying ideas about Gentile impurity, were the key factor in the formation of Jewish sects in the second temple period, and in the separation of the early Christian Church from what later became rabbinic Judaism.