
Genesis Marks the Spot Jesus and the Forces of Death: Ritual Purity in the Gospels - Episode 159
This week, Carey continues the Purity Series by digging into Matthew Thiessen’s Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels’ Portrayal of Ritual Impurity within First-Century Judaism—and uses it as a springboard to talk about atonement, purification, and why “apocalypse” is not just end-times hype.
A core thread: modern readers (and plenty of scholars) often read Jesus as if he’s against Jewish purity, when the Gospels actually portray him as rescuing people from the forces of ritual impurity—with a “contagious holiness” that overwhelms impurity at its source.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
- Why we misread the Gospels when we unconsciously import our modern conceptual world into a first-century purity framework (a frame-semantics problem)
- The common scholarly false dichotomy: “Jewish holiness vs Jesus’ mercy,” and why it fails
- A helpful map for thinking clearly: holy/profane (common) and pure/impure as distinct-but-related categories
- Why “ritual impurity vs moral impurity” can be a useful discussion tool—but isn’t quite a clean biblical taxonomy
- “Death-logic,” sacred space, and why childbirth (surprisingly) gets pulled into the conversation
- How this connects to Genesis (childbirth, Eden as sacred space, exile from the presence, Sabbath, and the start of death)
- Demonic impurity / unclean spirits: why Genesis 6/Nephilim and 1 Enoch matter, but don’t “solve” everything—and why you have to account for broader ancient exorcism
- Apocalyptic vs prophetic genre: prophecy as covenant lawsuit and warning to rebels; apocalypse as hope for the faithful and God “breaking in”
- A bridge into the atonement conversation: how “atonement” language can mean purification/purgation of sacred space, and how that differs from broader “at-one-ment” reconciliation talk
Referenced
- Matthew Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death
- Andrew Rillera, Lamb of the Free (and the PSA conversation)
- Jacob Milgrom and “death-logic”
Join the study (On This Rock)
Carey is formally kicking off a deep-dive study of Lamb of the Free in January 2026, with recorded Zoom discussions and supporting visuals/charts; the study is for paid members (noted as $5/month in the episode)
On This Rock Biblical Theology Community: https://on-this-rock.com/
Website: genesismarksthespot.com
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot
Music credit: "Marble Machine" by Wintergatan
Link to Wintergatan’s website: https://wintergatan.net/
Link to the original Marble Machine video by Wintergatan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q&ab_channel=Wintergatan
