Leprosy. The word still strikes terror and fear into the hearts of even the gentlest souls.
The image that comes to mind - a highly contagious disease passed on by individuals with disfigured faces and rotting limbs - has substantial biblical roots.The command in Leviticus that the individual with a leprous disease shall warn others with the cry "Unclean, unclean," and Aaron's plea in Numbers that the prophet Miriam's leprous disease be cured lest she "be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed" still contribute to the fear of lepers, although today the disease is both curable and preventable.
In a recent article on leprosy in Bible Review, scholars Kenneth V. Mull and Carolyn Sandquist Mull of Aurora University add an ironic footnote to the historical abuse suffered by lepers for thousands of years partially at the hands of those who would equate leprosy with divine judgment.
The word "tsara'ath" from the Hebrew translation of the Bible is commonly translated into English as "leprosy," but actually was a vague term referring to a variety of skin diseases. Only a linguistic blooper in the translation from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English resulted in the word being translated as "leprosy," a specific disease, said the Mulls, who are married.
"In fact, it could have been anything from dandruff to psoriasis," Kenneth Mull said in an interview.
Leprosy, known today as Hansen's disease, still ranks among the 10 most common diseases, afflicting an estimated 12 million to 15 million people in 140 countries, the Mulls say. In the United States, where there are about 6,000 cases, new cases were reported in 29 states in 1988.
Superstitions aside, the Mulls said, leprosy is one of the least contagious of diseases, with an estimated 90 percent of the population believed to be immune to it.
But Kenneth Mull said that lepers today can be compared with people suffering from AIDS with regard to the social stigma attached to the disease.
"There is kind of a universal dread of leprosy," said Mull, a professor of religion and archaeology at the Aurora, Ill., university.
It would be a mistake to blame the Bible for all the prejudices attached to leprosy, the Mulls said. Even in societies such as China, where biblical rules were not known, lepers endured special stigmas.
But they say the Bible seems to be "the main culprit" responsible for the attitude of exclusion in Western society.
In many of the cases in the Bible where individuals had tsara'ath, the disease is associated with impiety and regarded as a divine punishment.
When Moses asks God in the fourth chapter of Exodus what will happen if the Israelites refuse to listen to the divine commands, God says he would give Moses some signs.
"He put his hand into his cloak; and when he took it out his hand was leprous, as white as snow. Then God said, `Put your hand back into your cloak.' So he put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored like the rest of his body."
Fear of the disease and divine retribution contributed to some of the more horrific treatment of lepers, particularly in the Middle Ages, when lepers were sometimes forced to wear bells and clappers to warn anyone approaching, or to attend their own funeral mass, where they were officially declared dead to the community.
However, responses to the disease by religious people also made saints as well as sinners. Following directives throughout the Bible to care for the sick, and particularly emulating Jesus in the accounts in the synoptic Gospels of his visiting and healing lepers, some candidates for sainthood devoted their lives to caring for lepers.
But compassion has not always overcome fear among much of the population, even today, Mull said.
"Very few of the population at any given time is on the level of Mother Teresa," he said.
In their article, the Mulls call for the rejection of a medieval understanding of scripture that stigmatizes people with leprosy.
"In no way do they constitute a threat, medically or socially," the Mulls said. "They simply need medical care and human understanding, as do all who suffer from disease."