Scriptural Mormonism Episode 95: Islam: A Jewish-Christian Heresy? (with Jabra Ghneim)

Episode 95: Islam: A Jewish-Christian Heresy? (with Jabra Ghneim)

Robert Alter on 2 Kings 3:27

  

he took his firstborn. A king’s sacrifice of his own child, in an effort to placate the gods at a moment of military emergency, was a familiar practice in the ancient Near East.

 

and a great fury came against Israel. This denouement is surely perplexing from a monotheistic point of view. “Fury” (qetsef) is usually the term for God’s devastating rage against Israel when the people has transgressed. Here, however, Israel has done no wrong. And the descent of the fury explicitly reverses Elisha’s favorable prophecy. This turn of events might reflect an early tradition that accords Chemosh, the Moabite god, power that must be propitiated by human sacrifice, so that he will then blight the enemies of Moab. In any case, the story means to explain why Israel and its allies, after an initial victory, were obliged to retreat. A Moabite inscription on a stele, discovered in 1868, in which Mesha speaks in the first person, triumphantly proclaims a sweeping victory over Israel, though it is not altogether clear whether this victory is over Jehoram or his predecessor. (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 2:538)

 

Marvin A. Sweeney on 2 Kings 3:26-27

  

[26–27] The Moabite king attacked the king of Edom because he perceived the Edomites as the weak link in the forces of the Israelite coalition. When the attempt failed, the Moabite king sacrificed his own son to appease the Moabite god Chemosh. Human sacrifice is attested in biblical tradition and elsewhere in the ancient world in times of emergency (Judg 11:29–40; 2 Kgs 16:3; Mic 6:7; see Montgomery and Gehman 363; Cogan and Tadmor 47). The notice, “and great wrath was upon Israel” (Hebrew, wayěhî qeṣep gādôl ʿal yiśrāʾēl) is frequently understood as a reference to Chemosh’s wrath that then plays a role in Israel’s defeat. Although the term qeṣep, “wrath,” generally describes YHWH’s anger “against” (ʿal) wrongdoers (see Num 18:5; Deut 29:27; Josh 9:20; 22:20; Cogan and Tadmor 47), the phrase here can hardly refer to wrath directed “against” Israel. Such an interpretation requires that YHWH’s oracle concerning the defeat of Moab would remain unfulfilled and thereby raises doubts about its legitimacy. There is otherwise no indication in this narrative that YHWH’s oracle is to be considered as false. The reference to anger must be read as “upon” (ʿal) Israel, that is, Israel became angry at the sight of Mesha’s sacrifice of his son, and consequently withdrew from Kir Haresheth. Israel/Jehoram—and not YHWH—would be responsible for the failure to achieve victory over the Moabites. The scenario provides a parallel to the wilderness tradition—for example, the Israelite spies refused to accept YHWH’s guarantees of victory and suffered as a result (Num 14). (Marvin A. Sweeney, I & II Kings: A Commentary [The Old Testament Library; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013], 284)

 

Examples of Early Christian Interpretations of 2 Kings 5:8-16

  

5:8–12 Washing in the Jordan

 

Elisha’s Order to Wash in the Jordan Prefigures Baptism. Ephrem the Syrian: Naaman was suffering from leprosy, and when he heard that a prophet who lived under the command of Jehoram, king of Israel, could cure him, he left and proceeded to the country of the healer and went to the house of Elisha, because he had learned that he was the prophet who could aid him in his distress and that he had to ask him to be healed. But Elisha did not go out to meet him or speak to him. He informed him through a messenger: If he wanted to be healed, he had to wash his body in the Jordan seven times. Now a question rises: Why did Elisha prevent Naaman from seeing him and did not allow him to come into his house? In the first place, because he had served Ben-hadad in his wars. In fact, the prophet knew that the king of Aram had killed many children of Israel, and how Naaman had destroyed their lands and how his hands were stained with innocent blood, for he was the commander of the army and had received full authority over the Arameans. In the second place, because he was stopped by the corruption of leprosy. Elisha knew that the Law prescribed that no leper could be approached or touched.

 

Naaman, as a consequence, was enraged. Blaming and accusing Elisha, he left [saying] that he would have never thought to come to a prophet just in order to see him act mysteriously and that he certainly did not expect such words. He believed that his healing would be accomplished through a simple imposition of the hands. So he blamed Elisha and said, “Why did he not come out to meet a man of power who had come to his house? And why did he prevent me from seeing him, and why did he not judge me worthy of speaking to him? And why did he not heal me with the remedy he uses and which is easy and effortless for me? On the contrary, he sends me to the Jordan, as though that river may really purify me; but are not the rivers of my land, the Amana and the Pharpar, sufficient for such purification?”

 

It is not surprising that he had such thoughts and rebelled, the man who had heard with his own ears and compared the words of the prophet. A man who had made his career in the army could not have access to the mystery hidden in that unusual healing.

 

Therefore Naaman was sent to the Jordan as to the remedy capable to heal a human being. Indeed, sin is the leprosy of the soul, which is not perceived by the senses, but intelligence has the proof of it, and human nature must be delivered from this disease by Christ’s power which is hidden in baptism. It was necessary that Naaman, in order to be purified from two diseases, that of the soul and that of the body, might represent in his own person the purification of all the nations through the bath of regeneration, whose beginning was in the river Jordan, the mother and originator of baptism. On the Second Book of Kings 5:10–11.

 

Naaman Does Not Understand the Great Mystery of the Jordan. Origen: But in addition, that we may accept the interpretation of the Jordan, that river that is so fresh and grants so much grace, it is useful to present both Naaman the Syrian, who was cleansed from leprosy, and the comments made about the rivers by the enemies of religion. It is written of Naaman, therefore: “He came with his horse and chariot and stood at the doors of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, ‘Go and wash seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will return to you, and you will be cleansed.’ ” Then Naaman becomes angry because he does not perceive that it is our Jordan, and not the prophet, that removes the uncleanness of those who are unclean because of leprosy and heals them. For the work of a prophet is to send one to that which heals.

 

Since, therefore, Naaman does not understand the great mystery of the Jordan, he says, “Behold, I said that he will assuredly come out to me and will stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and will place his hand on the place and the leprosy will recover,” for placing the hand on leprosy and cleansing it was the work of my Lord Jesus alone. To the man who asked with faith, “If you will, you can make me clean, he not only said “I will, be made clean,” but in addition to the word that he spoke, he also touched him, and he was cleansed from leprosy.

 

Naaman, who is still in error and does not see how inferior the other rivers are to the Jordan for healing the suffering, praises the rivers of Damascus, Abana and Pharphar, saying, “Are not the Abana and the Pharphar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Shall I not go and wash in them and be cleansed?” Commentary on the Gospel of John 6.242–45.

 

5:14–16 Naaman’s Flesh Restored

 

A Type of the Healing Granted by the Lord to All Nations. Ephrem the Syrian: After Naaman had been persuaded by the prophet and had washed seven times in the Jordan, he eventually acknowledged his error. He was astonished, and a deep bewilderment took him when he realized that he had been delivered from his filthiness. And he thanked God for his healing and testified that the Lord of the universe, in his profound care for him, had conceded him that extraordinary power by simply using water. He also proclaimed that his healing could not have derived from the water of the river but had been caused by Elisha’s command. That is why he offered royal presents, but the prophet did not accept them and was not persuaded by the donor, even though he had pressed him many times. For that magnificently and very clearly prefigured the mystery of the healing, which is freely granted to all nations of the earth by our Lord through the intercession of the apostles. And this had been promised in advance to those masters by the prophet Isaiah, when he said, “You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money.”

 

Since all diseases are a sort of bondage, the prophet necessarily fixed the healing at the seventh bath, in parallel with the fact that the Law, too, orders and promises freedom for the slave at the seventh year. On the Second Book of Kings 5:15.

 

The Regeneration of the Gentiles Through the Baptism of Christ. Caesarius of Arles: Let us further see what blessed Elisha commanded Naaman the Syrian. “Go,” he says, “and wash seven times in the Jordan.” When Naaman heard that he was to wash seven times in the Jordan, he was indignant and did not want to comply, but accepting the advice of his friends, he consented to be washed and was cleansed. This signified that before Christ was crucified, the Gentiles did not believe in Christ when he spoke in his own person, but afterwards they devoutly came to the sacrament of baptism after the preaching of the apostles. For this reason Elisha told Naaman to wash seven times in the Jordan. See, brothers: Elisha sent Naaman to the river Jordan because Christ was to send the Gentiles to baptism. Moreover, the fact that Elisha did not touch Naaman himself or baptize him showed that Christ did not come to the Gentiles himself but through his apostles to whom he said, “Go, and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Notice further that Naaman, who prefigured the Gentiles, recovered his health in the same river that later Christ consecrated by his baptism. However, when Naaman heard that he was to wash seven times in the Jordan, he became angry and said, “Are not the waters of my region better, the rivers of Damascus, the Abana and the Pharphar, that I may wash in them and be made clean?” When he had said this, his servants advised him to agree to the counsel of the prophet. Carefully notice what this means, brothers.

 

Holy Elisha, as we said, typified our Lord and Savior, while Naaman prefigured the Gentiles. The fact that Naaman believed he would recover his health as the result of his own rivers indicates that the human race presumed on its free will and its own merits; but without the grace of Christ their own merits cannot possess health, although they can have leprosy. For this reason if the human race had not followed the example of Naaman and listened to the advice of Elisha, with humility receiving the gift of baptism through the grace of Christ, they could not be freed from the leprosy of the original and actual sins. “Wash seven times,” he said, because of the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit, which reposed in Christ our Lord. Moreover, when our Lord was baptized in this river, the Holy Spirit came on him in the form of a dove. When Naaman descended into the river as a figure of baptism, “his flesh became like the flesh of a little child.” Notice, beloved brothers, that this likeness was perfected in the Christian people, for you know that all who are baptized are still called infants, whether they are old or young. Those who are born old through Adam and Eve are reborn as young people to death, the second one to life. The former produces children of wrath; the latter generates them again as vessels of mercy. The apostle says, “In Adam all die; in Christ all will be made to live.” Therefore, just as Naaman, although he was an old man, became like a boy by washing seven times, so the Gentiles, although old by reason of their former sins and covered with the many spots of iniquity as with leprosy, are renewed by the grace of baptism in such a way that no leprosy of either original or actual sin remains in them. Thus, following the example of Naaman, they are renewed like little children by salutary baptism, although they have always been bent down under the weight of sins. Sermon 129.4–5. (1-2 Kings, 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, ed. Marco Conti and Gianluca Pilara [Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2008], 167-69)

 

Notes on 2 Kings 5:3 and the meaning of צָרַ֫עַת tsaraʿat

  

skin blanch. The Hebrew tsaraʿat is traditionally translated as “leprosy,” but the leading symptom mentioned in this narrative and elsewhere is a complete loss of pigmentation, whereas leprosy involves lesions and lumps in the skin and sometimes a slightly paler color but not the ghastly whiteness of which the biblical texts speak. This is, then, a disfiguring skin disease that remains unidentified, and hence the present translation, here and elsewhere, coins a name not to be found in dermatological manuals that refers to the whiteness. (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 2:543)

 

Lexical Resources on צָרַ֫עַת:

 

TDOT:

 

II. Occurrences and Meaning

 

1. Overview. The subst. ṣāraʿaṯ occurs 35 times in the OT, including 29 in Lev. 13–14, the torah concerning “skin disease” (13:2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 12[bis], 13, 15, 20, 25[bis], 27, 30, 42, 43, 47, 49, 51, 52, 59; 14:3, 7, 32, 34, 44, 54, 55, 57). The remaining occurrences are Dt. 24:8 (law); 2 K. 5:3, 6, 7, 27 (Naaman); and 2 Ch. 26:19 (Uzziah). The presumably denominated verb ṣrʿ occurs 5 times in the qal passive participle (Lev. 13:44, 45; 14:3; 22:4; Nu. 5:2) and 15 in the pual participle (m^eṣōrāʿ), though only once in Leviticus (14:2). The remaining occurrences are Ex. 4:6 (Aaron); Nu. 12:10 (Miriam); 2 S. 3:29 (Joab); 2 K. 5:1, 11, 27 (Naaman); 2 K. 7:3 (four persons with skin diseases), 8; 2 K. 15:5 (Azariah/Uzziah); 2 Ch. 26:20, 21, 23 (Azariah). The two participial forms generally function as adjectives and substantive participles (concrete and individual), then also once as a substitute for an abstract substantive (as the obj. of ʾāsap̠, 2 K. 5:11).

 

2. Syntactial Considerations. In the torah concerning “skin disease” in Leviticus, ṣāraʿaṯ occurs 11 times (Lev. 13:2, 3, 9, 20, 47, 49, 59; 14:3, 32, 34, 54) as the nomen rectum in a construct expression with neg̱aʿ, “blow, touch,” “attack.” Because neg̱aʿ refers to an “onset of illness in a general sense,” and can appear with other substantives as well (e.g., neṯeq [13:31]), one cannot rashly equate ṣāraʿaṯ and neg̱aʿ as synonyms. In this expression with ṣāraʿaṯ, neg̱aʿ refers to contact with a sphere far removed from Yahweh (act.) or to the onset of an illness caused by a demon (pass.; 14:34, caused by Yahweh).

 

Syntactically the expression neg̱aʿ ṣāraʿaṯ generally constitutes the predicate of a nominal clause of classification (i.e., with the subj. hûʾ, hîʾ) and in the cases and subcases of the skin-disease torah often functions as a statement concluding the case under discussion (13:3, 9, 20, 49) or as a summarizing signature (13:59; 14:32, 54). The expression neg̱aʿ ṣāraʿaṯ can also, however, appear in conditional clauses at the beginnings of case discussions (13:2, 9, 47; 14:34) or in other parts of case explications (14:3). The absolute use of ṣāraʿaṯ in Lev. 13–14 also demonstrates the technical function of the lexeme as a genre reference; it functions as a diagnosis without any substantival or adjectival qualification in 13:8, 15, 25, 27. In this function the substantive is usually qualified by various other substantives or adjectival elements, e.g., in 13:30 with ṣāraʿaṯ hārōʾš ʾô hazzāqān, which specifies the location of the attack (cf. 13:42). Lev. 13:11 (nôšeneṯ), 42 (pōraḥaṯ), 51, 52; and 14:44 (mamʾereṯ) use adjectival participles to specify certain features of ṣāraʿaṯ, albeit features whose medical background can no longer be determined (e.g., 11, “chronic”; 42, “blooming, i.e., breaking out”; 51, “opening up”). Prepositional phrases are occasionally used to indicate the affected area (on the body or clothes; 13:11, 42; 14:44).

 

Compared to this substantive use as a diagnosis, summary, and exposition in cases in Lev. 13–14, verbal expressions with ṣāraʿaṯ occur only rarely. In 13:12–13 the process prḥ or the activity ksh piel is predicated of ṣāraʿaṯ as the subject, both times with reference to the skin of the human body. In 3 instances neg̱aʿ ṣāraʿaṯ is associated with hāyâ, in 13:9 as the subject of an incipient illness affecting people, and in 13:2 as the prepositional object indicating the goal of such an illness. In the case described, the symptoms on the person’s skin, ś^eʾēṯ, sappaḥaṯ, bahereṯ, lead to neg̱aʿ ṣāraʿaṯ on the person’s body. Lev. 13:47 addresses the emergence of neg̱aʿ ṣāraʿaṯ on clothes. According to 14:34, Yahweh causes neg̱aʿ ṣāraʿaṯ to befall houses, expressed by nāṯan with a direct object. Lev. 14:3 and 14:7 use passive constructions to express the healing (rpʾ niphal) or the cleansing (ṭhr hithpael) of ṣāraʿaṯ.

 

Regarding the use of ṣāraʿaṯ in the torah concerning “skin disease” in Lev. 13–14, one can say that substantive clauses predominate in which ṣāraʿaṯ functions as a technical term for describing and diagnosing an otherwise unspecified skin disease that makes a person cultically impure or a similar phenomenon on clothes and houses, or as a catchword used in super- or subscriptions attaching to such passages. In the less frequent verbal expressions, ṣāraʿaṯ is associated with developments and alterations in the progress of an illness or attack.

 

Among the 6 remaining passages outside Lev. 13–14, only Dt. 24:8 occurs in a legal context. It contains a general warning in the form of an imperative (šmr hithpael) against neg̱aʿ ṣāraʿaṯ, expanded by the addition of two infinitive clauses with a reference to the priestly torah concerning “skin disease” (pl. form of address) and a vague reminiscence of the Miriam episode in Nu. 12:9ff. (Dt. 24:9).

 

Several verses from the Naaman story (2 K. 5:3, 6, 7) use the expression ʾāsap̱ (naʿ^amān) miṣṣāraʿtô in discourse and address the possible healing of Naaman’s case of “skin disease” in Samaria.

 

Elisha’s curse of Gehazi and his house in 2 K. 5:27 (w^eṣāraʿaṯ naʿ^amān tiḏbaq-b^eḵā) already uses ṣāraʿaṯ naʿ^amān as a fixed expression. The disease of ṣāraʿaṯ is also understood as Yahweh’s punishment in connection with King Uzziah’s cultic transgression (2 Ch. 26:19). The verbal association with ṣāraʿaṯ here is zāraḥ, the verb typically associated with theophanies.

 

The two verbally derived forms ṣārûaʿ (qal ptcp.) and m^eṣōrāʿ (pual ptcp.) occur but 5 and 15 times, respectively. Of the two, ṣārûaʿ always refers to persons either as an attributive participle (Lev. 13:44) or as a substantive participle identifying the person affected by ṣāraʿaṯ (13:45; 14:3; 22:4; Nu. 5:2) and associating the cultic consequences for that person (dietary restrictions and quarantine) with those accompanying the zāḇ (the person affected by emissions; see Lev. 22:4; Nu. 5:2). The ptcp. m^eṣōrāʿ can refer to objects (Ex. 4:6, yāḏ) but otherwise functions like ṣārûaʿ as a substantive participle that can also be used predicatively in reference to a person affected by this skin disease (Miriam in Nu. 12:10; Gehazi in 2 K. 5:27) and often with the accompanying qualification kaššeleg̱ (“as snow”; also Ex. 4:6), said of Naaman (2 K. 5:1), Azariah/Uzziah (2 K. 15:5 par. 2 Ch. 26:20, 21, 23), and four nameless men (2 K. 7:3, 8). Lev. 14:2 uses hamm^eṣōrāʿ to refer to the class of “those with skin disease,” as does David’s imprecation against Joab in 2 S. 3:29, which again coordinates zāḇ and m^eṣōrāʿ. In one instance (2 K. 5:11) hamm^eṣōrāʿ functions as a substitute for the abstract ṣāraʿaṯ.

 

3. Meaning and Translation. An ongoing extensive exegetical discussion addresses the question of the medical identification of ṣāraʿaṯ, particularly the symptoms described in Lev. 13 affecting the skin. Confusion concerning the cultic function of the term is prompted by the consistent LXX rendering of ṣāraʿaṯ as lépra, resulting in ṣāraʿaṯ being long mistakenly associated with Hansen’s Disease (after the Norwegian G. H. A. Hansen, who isolated the leprosy pathogen in 1868), which modern medicine refers to as “leprosy.” More recent studies of medical history, however, and especially Hulse, Wilkinson, and Andersen consider it likely that it was not until the Middle Ages that biblical ṣāraʿaṯ/lépra was incorrectly associated with incurable elephantiasis Graecorum, and that at the level of OT usage it must instead be viewed as a collective term for various curable skin anomalies (a view concurring with the Hippocratic meaning of lépra). While some scholars are justifiably more reserved in their medical identification of the subclasses of ṣāraʿaṯ explicated in Lev. 13:2ff., others suggest that the diseases are actually psoriasis, favus, or vitiligo.³⁹ A strict reading of Lev. 13, however, suggests that one follow Andersen’s lead in emphasizing the cultic-ritual connotation and function of ṣāraʿaṯ as a collective term for otherwise unspecified skin anomalies requiring priestly diagnosis and purity assessment (ṭmʾ piel) and involving quarantine (sgr hiphil; 2×7 days). Priestly involvement is again required for lifting the quarantine and effecting cultic reintegration (ṭhr piel, “declare pure”), the latter procedure being ritually expanded in Lev. 14:2ff. The assessment of ṣāraʿaṯ on clothes and houses represents analogical and metaphorical transference whose specifics remain unclarified.

 

The discussion attaching to Gramberg’s essay is instructive regarding the special problem accompanying the usual English translations of ṣāraʿaṯ as “leprosy” that thereby foster the problematic identification of ṣāraʿaṯ as modern lépra. Gramberg’s suggestion that one avoid the word “leprosy” in English Bible translations prompted the New English Bible, e.g., to render ṣāraʿaṯ as “skin disease.” The World Health Organization has similarly supported such usage in order to put an end to the inhuman consequences for those affected by leprosy. In German-speaking scholarship, Köhler suggested as early as 1955 that one avoid the term Aussatz as a translation of ṣāraʿaṯ and use Hautkrankheit, “skin disease,” instead.

 

By way of summary, one might also list the synonyms for ṣāraʿaṯ used in Lev. 13 to differentiate various diagnoses or other variations of ṣāraʿaṯ or that appear outside the torah concerning “skin diseases” in reference to skin anomalies. Lev. 13:6 (cf. v. 2), mispaḥaṯ (LXX sēmasía, “impetigo” [so Elliger]); v. 23 (cf. v. 18), ṣāreḇeṯ hašš^eḥîn (LXX oulḗ toú hélkous, “scar of the ulcer”); v. 28, ś^eʾēṯ hammiḵwâ (LXX oulḗ toú katakaúmatos, “boil of the burn wound”); v. 30, neṯeq (LXX thraúsma, “eczema” on the hair of the head or beard); v. 39, bōhaq (LXX alphós, “vitiligo, skin disease”).

 

Passages outside Lev. 13–14 include Ex. 9:9–11; Dt. 28:27, 35; 2 K. 20:7; Job 2:7; Isa. 38:21, š^eḥîn (LXX hélkos, hélkē, “ulcer”); Lev. 21:20; 22:22, yallep̱eṯ (LXX lichḗ, “eczema”); Dt. 28:27, ḥeres (LXX knḗphē, “scabies”); Lev. 22:22, yabbeleṯ (LXX myrmēkiṓn, “wart”); Lev. 21:20; 22:22; Dt. 28:27, gārāḇ (LXX psōragriṓn, psṓra agría, “scabies”).

 

4. Qumran. The Qumran Temple Scroll involves both the word field and the overall theme of ṣāraʿaṯ, with occurrences limited to OT constructions (11QT 45:17; 46:18; 48:15, 17; 49:4). 11QT 45:17, 18 mention persons forbidden from entering the city of the sanctuary, including kl ṣrwʿ wmnwgʿ, where ṣrwʿ corresponds to Nu. 5:2, while mnwgʿ, though based on biblical ngʿ ṣrʿt, occurs only in extrabiblical witnesses (1QS 2:10–11; 1QM 7:4) and in the Mishnah (cf., e.g., Neg. 13:6). 11QT 46:16–18 calls for the establishment of three separate locales east of the city of the sanctuary for, among others, hmṣwrʿym whzbym (see Nu. 5:2). 11QT 48:14–16 stipulates that all cities establish places of quarantine for mnwgʿym bṣrʿt wbngʿwbntq … lzbym wlnšym. In the related but fragmentary passages 48:17 and 49:4, one discerns the OT expressions ṣrʿt nwšnt (Lev. 13:11), ntq (Lev. 13:30), and ngʿ ṣrʿt. Yadin suggests that the missing ll. 1–3 contained instructions regarding cleansing rituals for ṣrʿt corresponding to Lev. 14. (T. Seidl, “צְרוֹר and צָרַעַת,” TDOT 12:471-75)

 

 

HALOT:

 

צָרַעַת (< ṣarraʿt, Bauer-L. Heb. 477z): צרע (KBL) or ? I גרע (see Sawyer VT 26 (1976) 243); SamP. ṣårrḗt; MHeb., JArm.; Sam. צרעה (Ben-H. Lit. Or. 2:576); cf. ? Akk. ṣennettu(m) skin disease (AHw. 1090b, 1588b; CAD Ṣ: 127, ṣennītu); Eth. ṣĕrnĕʿĕt, → צרע: צָרָֽעַת, sf. צָרַעְתּוֹ: skin disease, not leprosy = lepra, since it is curable (Lv 13), but vitiligo and related diseases; see Koehler Kl. Licht. 42-45; ZAW 67 (1955) 290f; KBL; see further Elliger Lev. 180ff; de Vaux Inst. 2:356 = Lebensordnungen 2:315; K. Seybold BWANT 99 (1973) 31¹, 51²¹; Hulse PEQ 107 (1975) 87-105; Crüsemann ZDPV 94 (1978) 74³⁷; Reicke-R. Hw. 167: —a. evident on people Lv 13:2-59 (21 times), 14:3, 7, 32, 44, 54, 57 Dt 24:8 2K 5:3, 6f, 27 2C 26:19; —b. evident on clothes and fabric Lv 13:47, 51f, 53, 59 14:55; on leather 13:48, 51f, 53, 59; on a wall 14:34, 44, 55. †

 

 

Clines:

 

צָרַ֫עַת _35.0.7 n.f. skin disease—צָרָֽעַת; cstr. צָרַ֫עַת; sf. צָרַעְתּוֹ—skin disease, with scaling as one of its symptoms; not leprosy, <subj> זרח appear 2 C 26:19, פרח break out Lv 13:12, 25, 42, ישׁן ni. become advanced Lv 13:11; 11QT 48₁₇, כסה pi. cover Lv 13:12, 13, דבק cling 2 K 5:27, אחז take hold of 4QD^a 6.1₃ ([צרעת]), מאר hi. be malignant Lv 13:51, 52; 14:44 (ממארת; all three Sam ממראת obstinate) 4QD^a 6.1₅ ([צ]רעת), מרא hi. be obstinate Lv 13:51₍₎, 52₍₎; 14:44₍₎.

 

<nom cl> צָרַעַת הִוא it is a skin disease Lv 13:8, 15 (הוּא) 13:25, var. 13:42, צָרַעַת נוֹשֶׁנֶת הִוא בְּעוֹר בְּשָׂרוֹ it is an advanced, i.e. chronic, skin disease in the skin of his flesh Lv 13:11, צָרַעַת הָרֹאשׁ אוֹ הַזָּקָן הוּא it is a skin disease of the head or the chin Lv 13:30, [צ]רעת ממארת היא it is a malignant skin disease 4QD^a 6.1₅, צָרַעַת מַמְאֶרֶת הַנֶּגַע the affliction is a malignant skin disease Lv 13:51, vars. 13:52; 14:44 (all three Sam ממראת obstinate), בו צרעת נושנת in him is an advanced skin disease 11QT 48₁₇.

 

<cstr> צָרַעַת הָרֹאשׁ skin disease of the head Lv 13:30, הַזָּקָן of the chin Lv 13:30, עוֹר בָּשָׂר of skin of the body Lv 13:43, הַבֶּגֶד of, i.e. in, clothing Lv 14:55, נַעֲמָן of Naaman 2 K 5:27; נֶגַע צָרַעַת affliction of a skin disease Lv 13:2 (צָרָ֑עַת) 13:3, 9, 20, 25, 27, 47 (צָרָ֑עַת) 13:49, 59; 14:3 (הַצָּרַעַת) 14:32 (צָרָ֑עַת) 14:34, 54; Dt 24:8 (both הַצָּרַעַת) 4QD^e 2.2₁₂; 11QT 46₀₁ ([נגע צרעת]) 49₄ (הצרעת), תּוֹרַת הַצָּרָֽעַת law of, i.e. concerning, skin disease Lv 14:57; 4QD^a 6.1₁₃ ([תור]ת), [משפט] ordinance of 4QDg 1.2₂ ([הצ]רע[ת]), מַרְאֵה צָרַעַת appearance of a (skin) disease of Lv 13:43.

 

<prep> לְ concerning Lv 14:55; מִן privative, from, (so as to be free) of, + טהר htp. undergo purification Lv 14:7, אסף remove, i.e. relieve from 2 K 5:3, 6, 7; בְּ of instrument, by (means of), with, + נגע pu. be afflicted 11QT 48₁₅.

 

<coll> צָרַעַת ‖ נֶתֶק scall Lv 13:30; 14:55; 11QT 48_15.17; + נֶתֶק Lv 14:54; 4QD^a 6.1₅ ([צ]רעת).

‖ זוֹב discharge 4QD^e 2.2₁₂.

 

‖ נֶגַע affliction 11QT 48₁₅; + נֶגַע affliction Lv 13:25, 30, 42, 43, 49, diseased person Lv 13:12, 12, 13.

 

+ בַּהֶרֶת spot Lv 13:2, 25, 25, שְׂאֵת swelling Lv 13, סַפַּחַת scab Lv 13:2, מִסְפַּחַת scab Lv 13:8, שְׁחִין boil Lv 13:20, מִכְוָה burn Lv 13:25.

 

<syn> נֶתֶק scall, זוֹב discharge, נֶגַע affliction.

 

► צרע be afflicted with a rash. (The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, ed. David J. A. Clines, 8 vols. [Sheffield, England: Sheffield Phoenix Press Ltd., 2011], 7:164)

 

 

TWOT:

 

1971    צָרַע (ṣāraʿ) be diseased of skin, leprous. (ASV and RSV similar). This denominative verb is used chiefly in the Pual.

 

Parent Noun

 

1971a  צָרַעַת (ṣāraʿat) malignant skin disease, leprosy. Strictly, leucodermia and related diseases. (ASV and RSV similar: “leprosy”).

 

1971b  צִרְעָה (ṣirʿâ) hornet.

 

While usually rendered leper or leprous, the term “leper” is not correct medically, since ṣāraʿat refers to a wider range of skin diseases (cf. “malignant skin disease,” neb). For convenience, however, the term “leper” can be retained.

 

A person with leprosy. apart from the telltale malignant raw flesh and white hair, was to be otherwise identified by torn clothes, announcement of “unclean” when in the streets and was to live isolated from the community. Four persons are named in the ot as becoming leprous. Not counting Moses (Ex 4:6; cf. also II Kgs 7:3), there were Miriam (Num 12:10), Uzziah (II Kgs 15:5), Gehazi (II Kgs 5:27) and Naaman, the Syrian (II Kgs 5:1).

 

God may inflict the disease of ṣāraʿat as punishment for sins such as jealousy (cf. Miriam), anger, and lack of full compliance with God’s commands (cf. Uzziah), and covetousness (cf. Gehazi). One must not conclude, however, that all sickness is a result of an individual’s sin (cf. Job; Lk 13:1–5; Jn 9:1–7).

 

ṣāraʿat was not necessarily incurable (cf. II Kgs 5:7). Leprosy by contrast, was likely incurable (Lev 13). In any event, healing of ṣāraʿat could serve as a sign of divine power (Ex 4:6; II Kgs 5:8).

 

The isolation of a leprous person was doubtless a sanitary measure in order to avoid further contagion. That a priest in Israel’s theocracy was to diagnose the illness does not mean that today’s clergy should become health officers. But the principle of God’s concern for the health of bodies is not only self-evident but remains an enduring principle (cf. Jesus, Mt 8:2–3).

 

Diseases with eruptions affecting the skin are sometimes mild, sometimes, as in smallpox, scarlet fever, etc., both dangerous and highly contagious. The only effective control in antiquity would have been isolation. Only the Hebrew laws had this very valuable provision.

 

ṣāraʿat is found primarily (twenty times) in the two chapters that govern the diagnoses and the cleaning measures for one who had become unclean (tāmēʾ, Lev 13, 14). In the nature of a contagion, ṣāraʿat refers not only to eruptions on the skin but to mildew or mold in clothing (Lev 13) or in houses (Lev 14:34–53); therefore obviously the word is not specific for leprosy. The determination by the priest of an individual as unclean meant separation from the community, and ceremonial unfitness to enter the temple (cf. II Chr 26:21). The cleansing measures to be performed upon recovery involved a ritual with two birds, which ritual according to KD was necessary for restoration to the community (Lev 14:2–9). An additional set of offerings followed, notably the guilt offering, perhaps because disease is ultimately to be linked with sin (Lev 14:10–20).

 

There is no Scriptural warrant for regarding leprosy as a type of sin, though the analogy can be helpful for illustrative purposes. Bibliography: Harris, R. Laird, Man—God’s Eternal Creation, Moody, 1971, pp. 142–43. Browne, S. G., “Leper, Leprosy,” in WBE, II, pp. 1026–27. (Elmer A. Martens, “1971 צָרַע,” in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke [Chicago: Moody Press, 1999], 777)

 

Paul Corby Finney and Franz Rickert, "Type and Antitype" in The Eerdmans Encyclopedia of Early Christian Art and Archaeology

  

Type and Antitype

 

“Type” may be defined as a person, event, or institution that provides an example, pattern, or model of some other person, event, or institution; places and things may also be seen as types. “Antitype” sometimes means a copy of a type—e.g., Heb. 9:24: the earthly sanctuary is the antitype (copy) of the true (heavenly) one. At other times it is the reality represented by the type—e.g., 1 Peter 3:21: baptism is the antitype (copy) of God’s saving Noah from the waters of the flood (see D. L. Baker, “Typology and the Christian Use of the Old Testament,” SJT 29 [1976]: 137–57). Early Christianity was a form of religiosity given to typological thinking; its devotees, habitually looking for types of NT persons, events, and institutions, turned first to the OT; secondarily they looked to other environments for prefigurations of their beliefs and practices. The definition of typological thought within early Christianity and the extent of its influence are matters of controversy and debate.

 

For the study of early Christian art it has long been assumed that typological intentions are at the heart of this pictorial tradition, beginning, e.g., at Dura and in the Roman catacombs, with Adam as a type of Christ and Eve as a type of Mary. A recent study (Schrenk, 1998) argues instead that there are very few early Christian monuments that can sustain the weight of a typological interpretation. Schrenk argues that the key factor in assessing this issue must be a clear presence of both sides of the iconographic equation: the type and the antitype. Much of early Christian iconography consists of the presentation of one or the other, but not both. Schrenk identifies 11 early Christian monuments that support a typological interpretation:

 

•          three so-called Passion sarcophagi (RepSark 1, nos. 61, 215, 677),

•          mosaic sequences in four churches (S. Maria Maggiore, S. Vitale, Sant’Apollinare in Classe, St. Catherine’s on Mt. Sinai),

•          two codices (→ Rossano and the → Ashburnham Pentateuch),

•          a lost fresco sequence from St. Paul’s at Jarrow, and

•          a textile fragment of a wall hanging (the Elijah fragment in Riggisberg).

 

In all, we have a total of 23 early Christian images that can be admitted under Schrenk’s rigorous definition of the type-antitype rubric applied to pictorial art. This approach radically diminishes the importance of typological thought in the interpretation of early Christian iconography.

The idea of exhibiting, in works of pictorial art, people and events in the past that anticipate the present has a long history in Greek and Roman art. A familiar example is Augustus’s Ara Pacis (Nash.1961–62, 1:63ff.), which presents images of a hoary and mythic Golden Age interspersed with allusions to Virgil’s rendition of the founding of Rome (A. Geyer, Die Genese narrativer Buchillustration [Frankfurt, 1989], 286ff.). The fulfillment of promises and prodigies, the anticipation in Aeneas of the coming of the new father of the country, Augustus—these are the types and ancient prefigurations that the viewer is prompted to see coming to fruition in the new Golden Age, the Augustan period. The allusive imagery of the famous Gemma Augustea (T. Kraus, Das römische Weltreich [Berlin, 1985], no. 384b) makes a similar statement, well understood by those versed in the language of Roman political ideology. The famous Vatican Virgil MS (Vaticanus latinus 3867; Sörries.1993, 127ff.), painted at the tail end of the Roman Empire in the West, presents the same pictorial allusions and prefigurations. The Christians who took upon themselves the responsibility of making pictures may have simply been continuing a well-established and venerable Greco-Roman tradition of imagining the past in the present, in which case Christians would not have been any different in this respect from the culture that produced them. Typological intention poses for the study of early Christian art the same problem as for the study of all pictorial art—namely. the subjective character of the viewer. Reading a prefiguration of the present in the past, finding the meaning of the present in examples, patterns, models lifted from the past—these depend very much on what the viewer brings to the work of art. That is, typological intention is largely the viewer’s prerogative, and the effort to establish hard-and-fast rules of admissibility (governing when typological intention can be said to be present and when it is absent) is doomed to failure.

 

However, Schrenk is no doubt correct to insist on degrees of probability. In church environments, such as where early Christian pictures survive in close spatial proximity to the sanctuary and its altar—e.g., OT pictures illustrating → Cain and Abel, → Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac, or → Melchizedek’s offering of bread and wine—there is little reason to doubt the presence of typological intention. The eucharistic liturgy provides the explicit context and the interpretative key supporting the application of a type-antitype mode of seeing and processing visual information. Where early Christian pictures survive in settings that are not liturgically encoded, it is more difficult to insist on the presence of typological intention. Ultimately, the matter must be judged case by case. (Paul Corby Finney and Franz Rickert, “Type and Antitype,” in The Eerdmans Encyclopedia of Early Christian Art and Archaeology, ed. Paul Corby Finney, 3 vols. [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2017], 2:664-65)

 

Gerd Schunack on "type" and "antitype" in the Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament

  

8. Τύπος occurs in Heb 8:5 and Acts 7:44, just as also ἀντίτυπος in Heb 9:24 and 1 Pet 3:21, in an expressly hermeneutical and technical sense that calls for so-called typological exegesis.

 

The following differentiation seems in order:

 

First, “typology” as traditio-historical hermeneutics is at work whenever a historically new, usually eschatological institution of salvation and judgment is expressed in terms of a temporally preceding institution. Since the older is thus surpassed by what is eschatologically newer, or is critically or antithetically suspended by the latter, it thus appears as a superseded prefiguration of the newer. Typology that is synthetic and oriented to salvation history develops secondarily relative to typology that is defined more as antithesis to what precedes. The former is then continued in a certain way in “figural interpretation” (cf. Auerbach). The lack of strict differentiation between “typological” interpretation on the one hand, and correspondence between prediction and fulfillment conceived from the perspective of salvation history on the other, impairs a great many assertions made concerning the subject of typology. Despite Bultmann’s misconception of typology as an unhistorical and mythological thought structure that simply repeats similar elements, his criticism of Goppelt’s inflationary expansion of typological elements within the NT is appropriate.

 

Second, the apocalyptic understanding of history can alter typology such that an eschatological event can appear to have been prefigured from the very beginning. It thus enjoys both temporal and objective priority over against its corresponding counterpart (cf., e.g., 2 Bar. 4:1-7).

 

Third, in Hellenistic Judaism, esp. in Philo, we encounter the speculative cosmological idea that the world of tangible, earthly things was created as a copy of its prototype. Philo Op. 16, 19, 36 is exemplary: At creation God first formed the ἀρχέτυπος and the νοητὴ ἰδέα, and the tangible, earthly creation was then produced as a copy of this τύπος or παράδειγμα — an activity, however, comprehensible only to the Spirit. See also Philo Som. i.206 on Exod 25:40: The divine prototype of the tabernacle became visible to Moses in the Spirit as τύπος or παράδειγμα; only then, and according to this model, did Bezalel produce an imitation or copy (μίμημα or σκιά), namely, the tangible, earthly tabernacle itself. In textual exegesis τύπος refers to what actually should be shown and what should be disclosed in its hidden meaning through allegory (Philo Op. 157).

 

a) In Hebrews this Hellenistically conceived relationship between the “perfect heavenly prototype” and the “earthly copy and shadow” is clearly transferred into the historical dimension of the eschatological Christ-event; in the process, the conscious use of the (exegetically acquired) key term τύπος produces a “typological interpretation” of the OT in the technical hermeneutical sense. Its conception should thus probably be sought in this early Christian formation within the tradition, represented by the letter to the Hebrews, and not in Paul.

 

In a “typological” understanding of Exod 25:40, Heb 8:5 characterizes priestly service in the old covenant by asserting that those priests “serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary; for when Moses was about to erect the tabernacle, he was instructed by God, saying, ‘See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.’.”

 

Within the LXX citation, as in Acts 7:44, τύπος is the translation of Heb. taḇnîṯ (building plan, model, picture) and is not used elsewhere in the letter to the Hebrews. Yet in Heb 10:1 εἰκών occurs in the same way as in 8:5 opposite an OT σκιά (“the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these things”). 9:23f., initially recalling the ratification of the OT covenant with blood (vv. 15–22), speaks of the “copies (ὑποδείγματα) of the heavenly things”; immediately thereafter, however, the expression ἀντίτυπος, “antitype,” occurs, which also acquires a technical meaning and here parallels ὑπόδειγμα. This term emphasizes the contrast between the sanctuary (or cultic objects?) of the old covenant on the one hand, and the true sanctuary on the other: “For Christ did not enter into a sanctuary made with hands, an antitype of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.”

 

In Hebrews this scheme of correspondence between heavenly prototype and earthly copy is clearly a consciously chosen hermeneutical device, though not in the service of any “vertically” conceived cosmological doctrine of salvation. The correspondence, rather, has a typological function: The eschatologically unsurpassable, one-time sacrifice of the true high priest and mediator is realized in the event of Jesus’ death occurring even now, which therefore suspends once and for all the OT institutions of dispensing salvation. This suspension turns those very institutions into their own linguistic “copies” and historical “shadows.”

 

b) 1 Pet 3:21 uses ἀντίτυπος in what appears to be an already familiar typological sense. Mediated through the idea that Christ preaches salvation to the dead (v. 19), Noah’s deliverance through water (the flood) appears as an event against which saving baptism is thrown into relief for the reader as an antitype, perhaps intended as a warning. Although the idea of correspondence hinges here on that of water, neither the linguistic relationships nor the train of thought is wholly transparent. In v. 21a, ὅ hardly refers to the act of deliverance, but rather to the water, “in correspondence to which as an antitype baptism now delivers you as well.” Cf. also 2 Clem. 14:3: Christ’s flesh (the Church) is the ἀντίτυπος (“representative”) of the Spirit, which is αὐθεντικόν.

 

9. In two usages, τύπος in writings after the NT seems to be a virtually fixed concept.

 

a) Τύπος is the earthly copy of a heavenly model: superiors as a copy of God (Did. 4:11; Barn. 19:7), the bishop as copy of the Father (or of God; Ign. Trall. 3:1). A variation of this usage is “essential image” (Barn. 6:11). The term is then transferred to visionary images of apocalyptic realities (Herm. Vis. iii.11.4; iv.1.1; iv.2.5; iv.3.6; Sim. ii.2.

 

b) Τύπος is an OT prefiguration of events and circumstances realized in the salvation history of Jesus Christ; this is excessively the case in Barn. 7:3, 7, 10, 11; 12:2, 5, 6, 10; 13:5. The same sense appears in Justin Dial. 42.4 (cf. 90.2), where one after another of Moses’ instructions are presented as τύπους καὶ σύμβολα καὶ καταγγελίας of the future Christ-events. (Gerd Schunack, “τυπος, ου, ο,” in Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Horst Robert Balz and Gerhard Schneider, 3 vols. [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990–], 3:375-76)