Sunday Sermonette: Clean and Unclean

The definitive proof that leprosy is not Hansen's disease is that you can recover from leprosy. Until recently Hansen's disease was incurable and inevitably progressive. (Now it is treatable with antibiotics.) Leprosy is evidently some subset of individual skin lesions. The descriptions are too vague to identify what is going on biologically, indeed one suspects that priests would have interpreted the instructions largely idiosyncratically. But in any case it does not seem that "leprosy" actually defines some set of contagious conditions.

In fact, while apologists often argue, or just assume, that the categories of "clean" and "unclean" have to do with hygiene or contagion, they obviously do not and are largely arbitrary. Unclean animals include not only pigs but also rabbits and hares, several types of waterfowl, and birds of prey. Most insects are unclean but grasshoppers and locusts are not. As we have seen, women who have recently given birth are unclean, and as we will soon see so are women who are menstruating. But nowhere are urine or feces unclean, nor are people with any identifiable contagious diseases.

These are largely arbitrary categories, which have to do with ritual purity, not public health. Observance of the rituals is a mark of identity and prevents the people from intermarrying or assimilating into neighboring tribes. And of course it is very profitable for the priests, as we are again about to see. Since Ch. 14 is also very long, and consists of two distinct pieces, I'll just present the first part today. Remember also that this was written some 2,000 years after these events, which are entirely fictitious, purportedly occurred; it is not certain that these practices ever actually existed.

14 The Lord said to Moses, ² “This shall be the law of the leper for the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought to the priest; ³ and the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall make an examination. Then, if the leprous disease is healed in the leper, ⁴ the priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed two living clean birds and cedarwood and scarlet stuff and hyssop; ⁵ and the priest shall command them to kill one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water. ⁶ He shall take the living bird with the cedarwood and the scarlet stuff and the hyssop, and dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water; ⁷ and he shall sprinkle it seven times upon him who is to be cleansed of leprosy; then he shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird go into the open field. ⁸ And he who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and bathe himself in water, and he shall be clean; and after that he shall come into the camp, but shall dwell outside his tent seven days. ⁹ And on the seventh day he shall shave all his hair off his head; he shall shave off his beard and his eyebrows, all his hair. Then he shall wash his clothes, and bathe his body in water, and he shall be clean.

¹⁰ “And on the eighth day he shall take two male lambs without blemish, and one ewe lamb a year old without blemish, and a cereal offering of three tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, and one log of oil. ¹¹ And the priest who cleanses him shall set the man who is to be cleansed and these things before the Lord, at the door of the tent of meeting. ¹² And the priest shall take one of the male lambs, and offer it for a guilt offering, along with the log of oil, and wave them for a wave offering before the Lord; ¹³ and he shall kill the lamb in the place where they kill the sin offering and the burnt offering, in the holy place; for the guilt offering, like the sin offering, belongs to the priest; it is most holy. ¹⁴ The priest shall take some of the blood of the guilt offering, and the priest shall put it on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot. ¹⁵ 

Note that this was also part of the ritual of ordination of priests. Blood is normally unclean but in this context it is most holy.

Then the priest shall take some of the log of oil, and pour it into the palm of his own left hand, ¹⁶ and dip his right finger in the oil that is in his left hand, and sprinkle some oil with his finger seven times before the Lord. ¹⁷ And some of the oil that remains in his hand the priest shall put on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot, upon the blood of the guilt offering; ¹⁸ and the rest of the oil that is in the priest’s hand he shall put on the head of him who is to be cleansed. Then the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord. ¹⁹ The priest shall offer the sin offering, to make atonement for him who is to be cleansed from his uncleanness. And afterward he shall kill the burnt offering; ²⁰ and the priest shall offer the burnt offering and the cereal offering on the altar. Thus the priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be clean.
²¹ “But if he is poor and cannot afford so much, then he shall take one male lamb for a guilt offering to be waved, to make atonement for him, and a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil for a cereal offering, and a log of oil; ²² also two turtledoves or two young pigeons, such as he can afford; the one shall be a sin offering and the other a burnt offering. ²³ And on the eighth day he shall bring them for his cleansing to the priest, to the door of the tent of meeting, before the Lord; ²⁴ and the priest shall take the lamb of the guilt offering, and the log of oil, and the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before the Lord. ²⁵ And he shall kill the lamb of the guilt offering; and the priest shall take some of the blood of the guilt offering, and put it on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot. ²⁶ And the priest shall pour some of the oil into the palm of his own left hand; ²⁷ and shall sprinkle with his right finger some of the oil that is in his left hand seven times before the Lord; ²⁸ and the priest shall put some of the oil that is in his hand on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot, in the place where the blood of the guilt offering was put; ²⁹ and the rest of the oil that is in the priest’s hand he shall put on the head of him who is to be cleansed, to make atonement for him before the Lord. ³⁰ And he shall offer, of the turtledoves or young pigeons such as he can afford, ³¹ one^[a] for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering, along with a cereal offering; and the priest shall make atonement before the Lord for him who is being cleansed. ³² This is the law for him in whom is a leprous disease, who cannot afford the offerings for his cleansing.”

Note that the person who has had a leprous skin legion is treated as a sinner. He must make a guilt offering and be cleansed. Again, this is all about ritual purity, not hygiene.