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Mass Deaths in Infectious Diseases in the Hebrew Bible

LeeEunAe 1

1이화여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This paper examined how the Hebrew Bible texts contained and transmitted memories of collective deaths from infectious diseases through text criticism and historical criticism, and The three texts were compared and analyzed from the perspective of mutual texts that they are connected to each other in the overall composition, including the situation, terminology, structure and content. The texts may have been written at different times, but as a tool and means of "cultural memory" that conveys various memories of mass deaths from infectious diseases, they are believed to have been related to, talked to, and influenced by society and historical situations. A cross-examination study of the epidemic and the resulting collective death in the Bible reveals that the ancient Israeli community accepted the epidemic as God's punishment and understood it to be based on God's wrath from religious crimes challenging God's authority. Numbers chapter 16 is a challenge of authority to Jahwe God, who established them as leaders by complaining about the authority of leaders in the Israeli community, Numbers chapter 25 is about the worship of an Gentile God, expressed in sexual relationship with the daughters of the Moab people and the Midian woman, and David's census in 2 Sam. 24 can be seen as a challenge to Jahwe's royal authority. Therefore, it is recorded that the solution was possible through religious acts of the priest or ritual acts of religious and political leaders, such as the establishment of the king's altar. In other words, in the wilderness, the epidemic stops when Aaron, the priest, burns an incense burner containing the altar fire and takes it among the people to atone (Num. 16:46-48), and the epidemic stops when Phinehas, the son of Aaron, kills those who serve the Gentiles (Num. 25:7-8) Here, Phinehas’ behavior can be seen as having religious and ritual meaning as a sense of atonement to clean up the sins of the entire Israeli people rather than an individual heroic act. In the age of David, according to the prophecy of Gad the seer, David built an altar to Jahwe on the threshing floor of Arauna, the Jebusite, and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, ending the epidemic (2Sam. 24:18-25). In conclusion, the three texts of the Hebrew Bible show the interventional role by religious and political leaders and the responsibility and function of saving, treating, and saving people from disease, death, and fear. The old tradition was reinterpreted according to the editor's times. The cultural memory of "mass death" caused by infectious diseases in the wilderness and the religious interpretation of it were transformed and modified differently depending on the times and cultures, affecting the identity of the community. The mass death experienced in history means the beginning of a new life at the same time as the end of the previous life of the Israeli community, and in particular, it can be said to be an opportunity to start a new relationship with God.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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