Purity and holiness: an introductory survey / Marcel Poorthuis & Joshua Schwartz -- The dynamics of purity in the priestly system / Jacob Milgrom -- Impurity of land animals / Mary Douglas -- Israel's holiness: the Torah traditions / Baruch Schwartz -- "They saw that his forehead was leprous" (2 Chr 26:20) the Chronicler's narrative on Uzziah's leprosy / Pancratius Beentjes -- Jewish purity laws as viewed by the church fathers and by the early followers of Jesus / Peter Tomson -- Purity and impurity of the body in Luke-Acts / Bart Koet -- Rudolph Otto revisited: numinosity vis-a-vis rabbinic, patristic and Gnostic interpretations of Scripture / Marcel Poorthuis -- Impurity between intention and deed: purity disputes in first century Judaism and in the New Testament / Eric Ottenheijm -- Reflections on hand-washing, hand-purity and holy Scripture in rabbinical literature / Chaim Milikowsky -- The concept of holiness and the requirements of purity in Second Temple and Tannaic literature / Cana Werman -- Leviticus 12-15 in early Christianity / Gerard Rouwhorst -- Sin and illness in the Targum of the prophets / Alberdina Houtman -- On birds, rabbis and skin disease / Joshua Schwartz -- Non-priestly purity and its religious aspects according to historical sources and archaeological findings / Eyal Regev -- 'Contagium' and images of self in late sixth-century Gaul / Giselle de Nie -- Medieval models of purity and sanctity: Ashkenazic women in the synagogue / Jeffrey Robert Woolf -- "A relic of superstition": bodily impurity and the Church from Gregory the Great to the twelfth-century Decretists / Rob Meens -- Leviticus 12, Mary and wax: purification and churching in late Medieval Christianity / Carles Caspers -- Reclaiming ritual: a gendered approach to (im)purity / Anne-Marie Korte -- The pure life of Grietje Schouten (1915-1947): rereading Mary Douglas's Natural symbols / Paul Post.