Tazria-Metsora Leviticus: 12-15
SAN DIEGO — The text deals with purification procedures after menstruation and childbirth; evaluating and separating out various skin lesions, and stains on objects, to sort the serious from the benign; the purification of a healed leper/leprous lesion; and dealings with venereal discharges, benign or serious.
I have chosen three passages, from which I sought internet sources for ancient pagan comparison.
Leviticus 12:2-8 “…When a woman at childbirth bears a (child)…(or post) menstruation…a period of purification…bring…a burnt offering.”
I. Generally other ancients did not regard menstruation as impurity, though often they saw “dangerous power” in menstrual blood. In many hunter-gatherer societies, menstrual observances were/are observed in a positive light.
In some historic cultures, a menstruating woman was considered sacred and powerful, with increased psychic abilities, even strong enough to heal the sick. According to the Cherokees, menstrual blood was a source of feminine strength and had the power to destroy enemies.
Greco-Romans saw no reason to consider menstruation in conflict with the sacred. On the contrary, Pliny the Elder wrote that a menstruating woman who uncovers her body can scare away hailstorms, whirlwinds, and lightning. If she strips naked and walks around the field, caterpillars, worms, and beetles fall off the ears of corn. In fact, menstrual blood is a good threat to men’s power! [1]
In Africa, menstrual blood is used in powerful magic charms to both purify and destroy.
Mayan mythology explains the origin of menstruation as a punishment for violating the social rules governing marital alliance. It turns into snakes and insects used in sorcery, before the Maya moon goddess is reborn from it.
In Buddhism menstruation is viewed as “a natural physical excretion that women have to go through on a monthly basis, nothing more or less.” In Hinduism, menstruation is seen as a period of purification, with women separated from places of worship for the length of their periods.
In some parts of South Asia, menstruation is a taboo, being considered an impurity, with mandated separation for its duration. [2]
II. Leviticus 13:2-59 “When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration, and it develops…priest sees… leprous…inflammation…unclean…dwell apart…When…occurs…on cloth..or in anything made of skin…malignant…unclean.”
I found little on the internet specifically dealing with skin lesions, though the implication is that ‘leprosy’ was a concern. There is, however, a literature on infectious diseases which spread in epidemic fashion.
Of interest, Hamurrabi’s code (c. 1750 BCE) has the following quote of interest: “If a dog becomes rabid and the ward authority makes that known to its owner, but he does not watch over his dog so that it bites a man and causes his death, the owner of the dog shall pay forty shekels of silver; if it bites a slave and causes his death, he shall pay fifteen shekels of silver.”
Unfortunately of the epidemics in ancient times, most were not recorded. Here are a few that were:
(a) In 1200 BCE, in Babylon and its environs, there was an epidemic recorded (in Indian Sanskrit) of a disease resembling influenza. The death toll is unknown.
(b) Between 429-426 BCE, Greece suffered the “Plague of Athens,” during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE) between Athens and Sparta. It was recorded by Thucydides, arguably the first known ‘objective historian.’ He himself, suffered the disease, attributed in retrospect by modern scientists variably to typhus, typhoid, or a viral hemorrhagic fever. An estimated 75,000 to 100,000 people died. Because of overcrowded wartime conditions in the city, the plague spread quickly. Having been a sufferer, Thucydides’ description of symptoms has credibility: at first headaches, conjunctivitis, body rash, and fever. Victims then coughed up blood, had painful abdominal cramps with vomiting/retching, insomnia, restlessness, unquenchable thirst, and diarrhea Survivors might suffer residual partial paralysis, amnesia, or blindness.
(c) An epidemic, dubbed the 412 BCE epidemic, in Northern Greece and the Roman Republic, killed off an unknown number. It is speculated to have been something like influenza.
(d) The Antonine Plague (165-180 CE) over the Roman Empire, killed an estimated 5-10 million, suspected today to be possibly smallpox.
(e) The Plague of Cyprian, in Europe (250-266 CE), eliminated at least one million, also possibly due to smallpox.
(f) The Plague of Justinian, in Europe and west Asia (541-542 CE), killed an estimated 25-100 million, suspected to be caused by Yersinia Pestis, a bacteria spread by rats, the same agent later responsible for the The Black Death of 1331-1353 CE. It is believed to have originated around Ethiopia, spread through Egypt and onto Asia, where it traveled along caravan trading routes and those of troop movements.
A key factor in spread of epidemics is the clustering of people, e.g. in cities of size, and the trails described above. [3] {4}
We can’t help but note resemblances, in spread behavior, to our COVID-9 pandemic.
Incidentally, one should distinguish the above infectious plagues from the “10 Biblical Plagues” in Exodus. To my mind, of the 10, only two of them qualify as infectious plagues; # 5, pestilence among livestock, a zoonosis, which can spread to humans, possibly anthrax; and #6 Boils, also anthrax-like.
Two other Biblical plagues, # 3 lice, and #4 insects, can be responsible for human disease, but the Bible demonstrates them as nuisances, i.e. doesn’t describe human pathology in these. [5]
III. Leviticus 15:2-27 “When any man has a discharge…from his member…(or) a woman has had a discharge…not at the time of her impurity…put the Israelites on guard against…uncleanliness…”
Famously the Ancient Egyptians knew a lot about sexuality, gynecology and genitourinary infections. Recorded symptoms suggest gonorrhea and pelvic infections. Possibly the Egyptians were the first to make condoms, from the gossamer skins of sheep-innards. [6]
NOTES
[1] Shakyne J.D. Cohen, The Significance of Yavneh and Other Essays in Jewish Hellenism, 2010, Mohr Siebeck, Tubingen, German
[2] https://en wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_and_menstruation
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
[4] http://people.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1996-7/Smith.html
[5] The Torah, Exodus: Ch. 7:14-11:10
[6] https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/12127/is-there-any-evidence-of-stds-in-ancient-times
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Irv Jacobs is a retired medical doctor who delights in Torah analysis. He often delivers a drosh at Congregation Beth El in La Jolla, and at his chavurah.