This Is One for the Good Books : Bizarre Biblical Practices Have Medical Roots, Experts Say

Experts have found a strong basis in medicine for seemingly bizarre biblical practices, such as Babylonian and Roman military leaders who studied the livers of grazing animals to choose campsites and battlegrounds.

Other scientists say that current physical and mental fitness crazes find resonance in Holy Scriptures and that contrary to popular belief, women were never meant to suffer pain in childbirth--the “curse of Eve.”

These findings were contained in some of the 40 papers presented by American, British, Canadian, French, West German and Israeli researchers at a recent International Symposium on Medicine in Bible and Talmud at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.

“We always think they knew nothing about medicine in biblical times,” says Dr. Elinor Lieber, a physician and medical historian at Oxford University, “but they knew quite a bit. They didn’t have microscopes then, but they had their own methods. All we have to do is figure out what they did.”

Lieber’s research focused on hepatoscopy, or liver science, which she traced to the days of the prophet Ezekiel. It was then that Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar of the early 6th Century BC “looks at the liver” to decide whether first to invade Amman, the capital of modern-day Jordan, or Jerusalem. (Ezekiel 21:21)

The king’s method was later picked up by Roman rulers in Palestine around the time of Jesus, Lieber said.

The ancients linked liver disease in animals with outbreaks of malaria. Lieber said although the two diseases are not directly related, the insects that carry both are bred in the same wet, marshy environment.

Thus, she said, the examination of livers was not a religious superstition but a way of determining where soldiers ran less of a risk of getting diseases such as malaria, which claimed more lives than battles.

“This was a clearly invaluable method for military planning,” she said.

Ancient tablets unearthed in Babylonia, in modern Iraq and in Israel show models of livers from sheep or other grazing animals that were examined to see whether they had holes caused by flukes or other parasites.

According to the writings of an ancient engineer named Vetruvius, Roman soldiers who camped near Jerusalem in the 1st Century BC used similar methods to decide on the sites of their bases, Lieber added.

At the symposium, Rabbi Reuven P. Bulka of Ottawa cited the Bible as a source of support for today’s fitness fads.

He noted many Old Testament admonitions to maintain sound mind and body, such as “be exceedingly heedful of yourselves” (Deuteronomy 4:15).

He said the Old Testament also attached much significance to mental stability in many commandments, including the passage (Deuteronomy 26:11), “Rejoice in all of the good that God has given you.”

Other researchers noted the Bible made little reference to methods of maintaining sound mental health, although it spoke often of avoiding psychological afflictions such as depression.

Bible researcher Danielle Gourevitch of Paris reported a biblical practice that was once prescribed by doctors but that proved to be unfounded.

Called Shunamitism, the practice involves a teen-age girl sleeping with an elderly man for purposes of his rejuvenation.

The practice was begun by Israel’s King David, who in his old age kept a young woman named Abishag the Shunamite (1 Kings 1:1-4). It was subsequently promoted by doctors as a restorative beginning in 18th-Century France, Gourevitch said.

Another challenge to popular interpretations of the Bible came from Helen Wessel, a childbirth educator from San Diego.

Wessel said the Scriptures contained little evidence to support modern notions that God punished Eve for eating forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden by decreeing that all women would suffer pain in childbirth.

She traced the phrase “the curse of Eve” to 3rd- and 4th-Century Christian theologians who, she said, sought to promote the religious virtues of female virginity.

Suffering during childbirth became common in the 16th Century when overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in Western cities caused the deaths of many women during delivery, Wessel added.

In support of her thesis, Wessel said that out of dozens of references to childbirth in the Old Testament, there is just one delivery associated with hardship: the birth of Benjamin to the ancient matriarch Rachel in the Book of Genesis.

Wessel said according to the Bible, Rachel died during a delivery complicated by the baby being in a breech or sideways position.