The purity laws are established by God as norms for the people of Israel to live by. The function of the laws is to make a distinction between the correct and incorrect ways to perform rituals, make sacrifices, and prepare meals. They set a standard for how humans need to act in order to maintain their communion with God to be pure in His eyes. When we disobey Him or His laws, we enter a state of impurity and must be cleansed to restore communion with God. We must understand the laws of purity and impurity because they are not just rules on what to eat and what to avoid. They are largely symbolic of God’s creation and are a point of debate. When I initially read about God’s restriction from humans eating the blood of animals, it immediately reminded my of the creation story of Noah in which God gave a similar order. Furthermore, Douglas claims that “purity rules represent regulations of the social body,” and we must help God to order society by removing impurities, or as Douglas refers to it, removing the disorder of dirt. This out of place matter must be removed in order to clean societal order which is represented by order of the body. The logic of the laws is to show that clean food symbolize our unity in relationship with God. Thus when we eat or offer food in disobedience to God’s rules, we enter into a state of disunity. Therefore there must be boundaries between pure and impure to reflect the order of society and avoid contamination, symbolized by impure foods.
God provides humans with rules regarding food so that we are able to remove any pollutants from our bodies in order to remain pure. In this way, purity has to do with hygiene, but more generally means ordering things into their correct places because God requires purity in order to maintain a system free of dirt. He requires a maintenance of purity because it corresponds to a maintenance of order in which there is a separation of unlike things to maintain harmony. When God’s rules are broken, humans become unclean and impure because our harmony with God is ruptured, thus purity must be reinstated to restore our communion with God.
