Book contents
- Purity and Pollution in the Hebrew Bible
- Purity and Pollution in the Hebrew Bible
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on Transcriptions and Translations
- Abbreviations
- Part I Setting the Stage
- Part II Embodying Pollution through the Life Cycle
- Disease
- 3 The “Touch” of Leprosy: Diagnosing Disease between Language and Experience
- 4 The Missing Ritual for Healing Skin Disease
- 5 Diagnosing Sin
- 6 Naturalizing Disease: Pollution as a Causal Theory
- The Soul: From the Table to the Grave
- Mating
- Part III Images, Codes and Discourse
- Works Cited
- Index of Biblical Sources
- Index of Selected Ancient Near Eastern Sources
- Index of Rabbinic and Second Temple Literature Sources
- Subject Index
4 - The Missing Ritual for Healing Skin Disease
from Disease
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2021
- Purity and Pollution in the Hebrew Bible
- Purity and Pollution in the Hebrew Bible
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on Transcriptions and Translations
- Abbreviations
- Part I Setting the Stage
- Part II Embodying Pollution through the Life Cycle
- Disease
- 3 The “Touch” of Leprosy: Diagnosing Disease between Language and Experience
- 4 The Missing Ritual for Healing Skin Disease
- 5 Diagnosing Sin
- 6 Naturalizing Disease: Pollution as a Causal Theory
- The Soul: From the Table to the Grave
- Mating
- Part III Images, Codes and Discourse
- Works Cited
- Index of Biblical Sources
- Index of Selected Ancient Near Eastern Sources
- Index of Rabbinic and Second Temple Literature Sources
- Subject Index
Summary
As was seen in the previous chapters, the recognition that the concept of pollution (ṭum’ah) provided an account for the infectiousness of disease may resolve some problems in interpreting biblical texts related to this topic, but it also exposes new riddles, especially the seeming reluctance to openly address the infectiousness of disease. The purpose of this chapter and the ones that follow is to demonstrate that this silence is not accidental and to explore the far-reaching implications of this recognition for understanding the implicit worldview of the Priestly source.
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- Chapter
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- Purity and Pollution in the Hebrew BibleFrom Embodied Experience to Moral Metaphor, pp. 76 - 90Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021