Dear Herbert,
I apologize if I wasn't sufficiently clear before. The point is simply
this: if a soldier, by slaying the enemy, renders both himself and his
weapon unclean for a period of seven days, and if this in turn prevents him
from fighting during that week (as 1QM 5:5-6, etc., would seemingly imply),
then a victory would take most (and probably the best) of a general's army
out of action. Purity issues, if seriously enforced, would have potentially
had great practical impact on military effectiveness. It must have been
difficult to run an army where you were supposed to avoid all contact with
dead people!
By the way, I imagine that those rendered unclean by corpse contact or
other reasons would have resided in an auxiliary camp outside of the main,
pure war camp (on analogy with the legislation in 11QT for a special location
east of the city for those with various temporary impurities).
And responding to David Suter, I am particularly struck by the
impracticality of all the ornamental filigree work mandated for shields, etc.
Yet as Yadin brings out, there are specimens from the period with all those
same designs...
Best regards,
Russell Gmirkin
> I read your stuff and am not sure what your point is-- so what if corpses
> and murder weapons are ritually impure-- whats the point youre making?
>
> lots of people and things get defiled--whats the point?
>
> herb
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