Leviticus: A Good Source for Medical Advice

As I told those of you last week who are signed up for Berean Insights Announcements, I would be changing the focus of the Nuggets from today and going back to add to the Nugget Series Evidence to Believe. This was how the Nuggets started back in June 2006 when I was asked to write articles for the Jakarta Praise Community Church bulletin on Biblical evidence to believe, Nuggets from the Word. This process spawned other series of Evidence which you can find in the Popular Nuggets Series on the Nuggets Home Screen.

• Evidence for the Exodus
• Evidence for the Patriarchs
• The Message in the Stars
• and more . . .

Many of the Nuggets from the Word have been lost in their original form but I still have past files on the articles I wrote. Not only that but I have added to the file over the years as new pieces of evidence have come to light. So when I finished the series on A Puzzling Paradox I felt in the absence of any clear leading to begin a new series on a new theme, I would pick up on some of the old Nuggets series. This week I was asked by someone who shall remain nameless, “Can any good thing come from the book of Leviticus?” Ah there is my inspiration, I will begin the additions for Evidence to Believe with Leviticus and the Ebers Papyrus.

The Ebers Papyrus represents the pride of Egyptian medical wisdom.

• Have you got a splinter in your hand?  Why not try an ointment of donkey dung and worm blood. That will fix it.   
• Constipated? Try cat dung and sweet beer.  Guarantee it will help it.  It might not be good for the rest of your health but it will stop the constipation. 
• What about a crying child?  Anybody reading this having difficulty with your little one or your older little one?  Do you want to solve the matter of a crying child?  Give her a drink of fly dung solution. That will solve it every time.  It will, permanently!
• Are you losing your hair? Try a paste of various animal fats mixed with a donkey’s tooth crushed in honey.

I don’t know if you rub that last one on or take it orally, the instructions didn’t say. The point to all of this is these instructions came from Egyptian medical records.  Medical advice from the ancient practices of Egypt.  These remedies are all cathartic. They are purging advice to cause the body to revolt against the infection. Such remedies were prevalent in the ancient world.  

Here is the world’s oldest medical prescription, a Sumerian cuneiform tablet written about 2150 BC. It contains 15 prescriptions. Some are poultices, some are plant and beer mixtures. Others suggest using various animal excreta. In fact this was common around the Ancient Near East. This was the best advice of the day. No one knew much about hygiene. What was that?

Moses got his knowledge from another source; he didn’t just repeat the advice of the culture around him. Why didn’t Moses use these these hot tips?  How is it that he is able to give the advice like that found in Leviticus which were unknown in the Middle Ages in Europe?  Yet Moses clearly had another source for what he wrote in the Book of Leviticus.  I wonder where he got them from?  I believe the God who made Moses told him what to write. 

In Leviticus we have statements like:

• Don’t use cracked pots!  When the pot gets cracked throw it away.
• Make sure you scour and rinse the bronze pan thoroughly.
• Don’t touch dead bodies or dung. 
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Any animal or human waste get rid of it, burn it or bury it.

There is a very good description in Leviticus for the first quarantine ward.  They didn’t know about this in North Western Europe in the Middle Ages. They had no clue what was happening in England with the bubonic plague. There were all sorts of ideas as to what you should do. All based on superstition. Anyone familiar with the song Ring a Ring a Rosy? Do you know where it came from? It was a plague song. They didn’t know the plague was spread by the fleas from rats that were unhygienic.

This kind of advice wasn’t part of the knowledge and advice of the Ancient Near East – what Moses wrote was way before its time. Like the purifying solution mentioned in Numbers 19 :- majoram, hyssop ashes and cedar oil. When alchemists considered the composition of that solution, they considered it wise advice way before its time. The hyssop oil contains 50% carvacrol which is one of the strongest antiseptic and antibacterial agents.  Hidden in the text of Numbers 19 is a major modern medical break-through and yet it is found in this ancient text of the Bible. This process was to be applied for cleansing various things, it is a very effective solution to use after touching a dead body. 

The Biblical text is filled with advice ahead of its time. It is all evidence to believe the Word of God.