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  • From: peter_kirk AT sil.org
  • To: <isheres AT mail.sdsu.edu>
  • Cc: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re[4]: Leprosy
  • Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 00:45:56 -0400


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.





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