By April Harrison, ULC minister
We're into month 18 of the pandemic, and there's no sign this thing is going away soon. Public health officials have recommended that everyone continue to wear masks and social distance, which hopefully could help things get better.
But those are also controversial policies that not everyone supports. Perhaps another authority could weigh in and offer some perspective? What does the Bible have to say about masks and social distancing?
A recent ULC Facebook post caught my eye. It cited Leviticus 13:45-46, which appears to show that those very measures were actually recommended thousands of years ago.
The passage reads:
Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ 46 As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp.
Where did this verse come from? What was the context? I was curious, so looked into the backstory a bit.
The passage in question is not about illness in general, but instead talking specifically about "defiling skin diseases," which most experts believe is a reference to leprosy. Many lines are devoted to explaining what measures should be taken when someone is believed to have such a disease to prevent them from spreading it to others...
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