Talk:Red heifer

Color to a fire?
"Cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet are added to the fire". How do you add a color to a fire? I doubt the link should be to scarlet (cloth). ? dbenbenn | talk 14:51, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

"Scarlet" in the sense of some kind of cloth, presumably red (but evidence has it that color wasn't criterial), is attested in English several hundred years before the first attestation of the word referring to a color, and continued to be used thus into the 19th century (albeit probably somewhat artificially and self-consciously in the last couple of centuries). The etymology of the English/Romance word is troubled, but the likeliest candidates are words for some sort of "rich" cloth.

I'd bet a lot of money on the wager that no one actually knows WHAT the Hebrew word means.Alsihler (talk) 21:27, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Becoming and ceasing to be impure
The article reads: "In order to purify a person who has become ritually contaminated by contact with a corpse, water from the vessel is sprinkled on him, using bunch of hyssop, on the third and seventh day after the contamination took place (Numbers 19:19). The priests who have performed the ritual then become impure themselves."

Thus, further priests would then be needed to perform the ritual to purify the priests who performed the ritual for the person who was actually contaminated by the corpse. Then further priests would then be needed to purify those priests, and so on. When does it end? Thanks in advance for any responses. --Aquarius Rising 05:57, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * There are many varying levels of ritual impurity (tumah), the most severe being ritual impure by a dead body.  Only dead body tumah need a red heifer to become ritually pure (tahar).  The priest performing the ritual would have a lower level of ritual impurity and could immerse in a Mikvah to become pure.  The different levels of tumah act independently of one another; for example a person can be ritually impure to a dead body but not have any lower type of tumah or just the opposite.
 * Nevertheless having a never ending cycle would not be problematic. Unless one need to go to the Temple in Jerusalem (the Three pilgrim festivals for example) there is no problem at all with being ritual impure to a dead body.  In fact currently all of the Jewish people are ritually impure and that presents no problem whatsoever.  (For other ritual impurities that apply nowadays see Niddah).  Jon513 08:40, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the article is overaccentuated regarding the Muslim traditions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dina138 (talk • contribs) 15:26, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

removed paragraph
I removed the follow:
 * According to the Islamic traditions, a person among the jews in the times of Moses killed another (probably his own paternal uncle) in order to seize his wealth and property as well as marry his daughter. No one could detect the murderer as the murderer himself was the man to seek justice. Then Almighty Allah ordered them to slaughter any heifer. As the jews of that time were habitual of raising unnecessary questions from the Prophet Moses, they started asking the nature, colour and charcteristics of the heifer. Their unnecesary questions limited them to slaughter one specific heifer, which they thought to be a sacred one. Thus, they had to slaughter it though half-heartedly. The piece of that slaughtered heifer was touched to the corpse of the murdered man, who got up for some moment, indicated his murderer and cause of murder and died again immediately. The name of second chapter of the Holy Qur'an has been taken after that red heifer under the title "The Heifer". (Quoted in "Allah, Adam and Serpent" by Mujtaba Haider Zaidi Advocate:2007)

it was added by both 117.102.44.73 (talk · contribs) and Mzaidi (talk · contribs). I do not think that the paragraph adds to the article. Jon513 13:33, 7 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the root of that story came from the fact Red is spelled like Man. Later annotations were to bring unity to a people through inciting hatred. CheskiChips (talk) 07:31, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds like they confused the Red Heifer up with the Eglah Arufa . Pedantrician (talk) 19:23, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Modern day Red Heifers
There was mention of two Red Heifers born in Israel in the 1990's. One later grew a few dark hairs and was disqualified and it is not clear what happened to the other one. Something similar happened after the year 2000. This too is vague and somewhat mysterious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.143.237.213 (talk) 16:42, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * can you find any news articles about it? Jon513 (talk) 17:18, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Here's a good source to expand upon this topic. I would edit the article myself but am not sure how.  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/readings/forcing.html.  PicturesofDoodie (talk) 14:15, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Site of the burning of the Red Heifer tentatively located by Adler
Could anyone please assist me in locating information on the discovery of the site of the burning of the Red Heifer on the Mount of Olives that has been tentatively located by archaeologist Yonatan Adler? This is mentioned in the article but I have been unable to locate any further information about this. Any information at all would be highly appreciated. Thank you. CWatchman (talk) 18:21, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Was this ritual optional or were the ashes stockpiled for use over the centuries?
if only 9 heifers were so sacrificed, does that mean that this purification ritual only happened 9 times in history, and people were fine without it at other times? Or did they stockpile the ash from each sacrifice for use in small quantities in the subsequent rituals? 76.24.104.52 (talk) 22:41, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * An amount of the ashes was mixed with pure water (which is a whole other story in itself). The ash/water mixture was saved in the Temple in a pure vessel, and used over again. Pedantrician (talk) 19:26, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * the ash water mixture was not saved. the ashes where saved and mixed with spring water based on need for immediate use.--Marecheth Ho&#39;eElohuth (talk) 19:37, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Capitalisation
Why Red Heifer? In ictu oculi (talk) 06:05, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Someone thought it was a proper name, but it isn't. I moved it. If there is a problem about it being too general (but who else would care about red heifers at all except in this context?), then a more expansive name like "Red heifer in Judaism" could be used. Zerotalk 15:01, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Good source
Jason Olson's article The red heifer in Israeli Judaism would add quite a lot of reliable information to this page. Zerotalk 15:03, 14 September 2011 (UTC)