Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

Dear Ita,

Thank you for your quick reply. I would be interested in a summary of 
rabbinical thought on this, as Hartley does not seem to have looked in 
detail into that important angle (so often a failing of Christian 
commentators) - but he does mention that Mishnah Neg. 1.4 identifies 
16, 36 or 72 types of grievous skin disease. Your study of any DSS as 
well as rabbinical evidence may be interesting, as Hansen's Disease 
could have appeared in Palestine by these periods, and you may be able 
to determine whether this was considered as a form of leprosy or a 
different disease. This could also help to answer the question whether 
the "lepers" mentioned in the New Testament might have been sufferers 
from Hansen's Disease.

Hartley does not say what he thinks CR(T actually was; of the evidence 
in the Hebrew Bible he says that "None of these accounts, however, 
gives enough clinical details to diagnose the specific malady 
involved".  But he quotes Hulse as identifying from Leviticus 
"psoriasis, seborrhoeic dermatitis, fungus infections of the skin 
particularly favus, patchy eczema, and pityriasis rosea". Perhaps more 
to the point, Hartley wrote, "The term CR(T also conveyed strong 
feelings of dread and repulsion, somewhat like cancer and AIDS do 
today, for one struck by CR(T was excluded from the community with 
little hope of recovery." It must be on that level that the disease 
could generate such horror, and especially so if it was both highly 
contagious (unlike Hansen's Disease) and seriously disfiguring. I do 
also see spiritual issues, but I would surmise that they are 
secondary; "leprosy" may be a picture of the contagion of sin (or 
whatever), but it is only a good picture if it existed as a real 
physical entity.

I have also found the article on CFRA(AT in VanGemeren (#7665), which 
is by R.K. Harrison. He writes, "While most critical scholarship has 
denied the identification of CFRA(AT with clinical leprosy, without, 
incidentally, suggesting a convincing alternative - a comparison of 
signs and symptoms in Leviticus with those of modern Hansen's disease 
dispels any reasonable doubt on the matter." Contrast Browne quoted by 
Hartley: "medically speaking, none of the references to CFRA(AT 
includes any of the specific signs and symptoms of leprosy. The signs 
mentioned witness against, rather than for, leprosy." I wonder why 
Harrison uses the language of a fundamentalist responding to an attack 
on the veracity of the Bible? This could at most be an attack on the 
King James version and on traditional interpretations - and, according 
to Hartley, KJV was correct in its time as the English word "leprosy" 
was previously of broader application and became identified with 
Hansen's disease only in the 19th century.

Peter Kirk



______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re[3]: Leprosy
Author:  isheres AT mail.sdsu.edu at internet 
Date:    30/05/1999 13:04


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.