Mary Douglass And Michael Carroll Analysis

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The Levitical laws are often times baffling and arbitrary. They the raise question of why God has placed certain creatures as clean and others as not? However, the anthropological work of Mary Douglas and Michael Carroll helps give some insight to the nature of these laws and their purposes. Douglas gives two categories for the previous views of the laws found in Leviticus, which are they are meaningless or arbitrary, or they are to illustrate virtues and vices. The more ethical approach lacks symbolisms, but views the laws as a guide to keep and develop a specific virtue. In the case of Judaism, the virtue that is being cultivated is holiness. According to Epstein’s notes to the Babylonian Talmud, “Its real object is to train the Israelite