Archives: Impurity

A Spiritual Disease

The skin condition which is poorly translated as leprosy in English versions of the Bible is no ordinary disease. Sufferers from the disease are not only quarantined, as we might expect; they are also declared spiritually unclean- tamei in biblical Hebrew.

Spiritual uncleanness can occur in many ways, for example contact with a corpse or a bodily emission. But there are no other examples of spiritual uncleanness in the bible where physical isolation is also required. Continue reading

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