Doctor Jesus and the appellants

reThe Old Testament is an interesting read for venereologists. It is full of venereal diseases. While Moses is on Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God, the Israelites in the valley begin to worship a golden calf and have fun in different ways. When Moses returns and sees the show, he breaks the calf and the stone tablets with the commandments.

God is also very angry. He punishes people with an epidemic, the name of which is not mentioned in the Bible, but whose origin may also have been self-indulgence. Venereologists speculate on syphilis or gonorrhea. There are articles in medical journals about it. The bacteria disfigured people, they had ulcers all over their body. When the Bible speaks of lepers, it does not necessarily refer to the disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae, but to many forms of disfiguring epidemics. And the one who got sick did not deserve mercy, because he was a sinner, punished by God.

The books of Moses are also instructive for epidemiologists, they deal with the rules of hygiene. The high priests were not allowed to touch corpses. People with illnesses were not allowed to enter the communal tent, they had to stay away from eating, and everyone and everything they touched was disinfected and quarantined. The follow-up of the contacts was rigorous. “Anyone who is touched by the sick person without first rinsing his hands with water has to wash his clothes, bathe in water and is unclean until evening,” says Leviticus 15:11.

Lateral thinkers got to read the riot act

If any lateral thinker felt that they did not have to adhere to these infection protection rules, the consequences were clarified. “The Lord will strike you with glands of Egypt, with genital warts, with scabs and scabies, so that you cannot be healed”, says Deuteronomy, 28:27. At that time there was not yet a federal health education center with friendly brochures. When it comes to fighting epidemics, the tone of the Bible is so severe that a proverb emerged from it: I read you the riot act, let’s say to the rebels today.

Anyone who complains that the health department has called and ordered a quarantine in the warm living room should read Leviticus 13: 45-46. Back then, ads were a bit harsher. “The leper affected by this evil must wear torn clothes and leave the hair on his head untidy; he should cover his mustache and exclaim: Filthy! Unclean! As long as evil persists, remain unclean; it is unclean.

He should live separately, outside the camp he should stay ”. The mustache coverage sounds like an everyday mask, and the cry of “Filthy! ”After a Corona application without data protection. The infected were sinful, unclean, outcast. The disease meant not just isolation, but unemployment, poverty, and homelessness. The infections weren’t just physical ailments, they were an emotional mess.

Then came Jesus of Nazareth. Bible student John Dominic Crossan tells his story differently than in some communion classes. For Crossan, Jesus was a revolutionary and a healer who mitigated the social consequences of the epidemics. Crossan dealt with Jesus all his life. He was a monk of the Order of Servants, a scientist at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, and a professor in Chicago.

For him, Jesus led a movement calling for non-violent resistance against the Roman Empire. The son of God was supposed to be not Emperor Augustus, as he was on all coins at the time, but Jesus, the son of a Nazareth carpenter. That was high treason, which Christians commit to this day from the perspective of the Romans when they pray, “Your kingdom come.” Instead of the Roman kingdom, Jesus promised a kingdom of God in which justice reigns.

In Galilee, where Jesus lived, times were turbulent. Rome’s appointed ruler, Herod Antipas, moved the capital to the Sea of ​​Galilee. The Romans wanted to market it. They wanted to salt the fish and sell it throughout the empire. Fishermen should work in fish factories and not on their own account. The entire economic structure was unbalanced and with it the social structures. That is why many of Jesus’ disciples were fishermen and the fish was their symbol. They had lost their jobs. You were poor. There was malaria in the lake.