Death and funerary customs belong to the stable and conservative elements in a society. They are very slow to change and can remain almost identical for hundreds, even thousands of years, varying only with fundamental changes in the social sphere and culture. In the case of ancient Israel, changes to long-established death and funerary customs often occurred when new foreign influences were incorporated and transformed in accordance with indigenous traditions and norms. Even when a new theory within the death "ideology" appeared, it did not necessarily dictate a change in mortuary behavior towards the dead. Actually, we cannot always find a causal relationship between a doctrine or particular religious attitude and the corresponding burial practice. For nearly two millennia Jews practiced the full body treatment, including manipulation during the secondary burial, while at the same time regarding corpse handling as unclean and polluting.