Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ita Sheres <isheres AT mail.sdsu.edu>]

Hello Peter,

Thanks for the info.  I have already reserved the rabbinical essays on the
topic (are you familiar with any of that?) and will let you know what they
had in mind.  Anyhow, I wonder what is the disease that the Bible refers
to if indeed there was no leprosy in the middle east at that point in
time?  It seems to me that a skin disease of any sort would not have
generated so much fear (especially of contagion) and "excommunication" to
the desert.  Or, do you think we're dealing here with spiritual issues as
much as with physical ones?

Ita.