Outdated or Ahead of Its Time? /SCIENCE

 MEDICINE

THE BIBLE, ALTHOUGH NOT A MEDICAL TEXTBOOK, CONTAINS SOME PRINCIPLES THAT REFLECT ADVANCED KNOWLEDGE OF HEALTH.

Isolating sick people.

The Mosaic Law prescribed keeping people with leprosy separate from others. Not until the plagues of the Middle Ages did medical doctors learn to apply this principle, which is still deemed effective. - LEVITICUS, chapters 13 and 14. 

Washing after touching a dead body.

 

Until late in the 19th century, physicians often worked on corpses and then on living patients-without washing their hands in between. That practice caused many deaths. Yet, the Mosaic Law stated that anyone who touched a dead body was ceremonially unclean. It even directed that water be used for ceremonial cleansing in such cases, those religious practices surely had health benefits as well. - NUMBERS 19:11, 19.

Waste disposal.

Each year, over half a million children die of diarrhea largely because of exposure to human waste that is not disposed of properly. The Mosaic Law said that human waste should be buried, disposed of away from human habitation. - DEUTERONOMY 23:13. 

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