The Great Physician IV: Clean Food & Water

The late physician A. Rendle-Short, saw modern medical science in the Law of Moses. He was and M.D., professor of surgery and lecturer in physiology at the University of Bristol in England, as well as Examiner and Hunterian Professor of the Royal College of Surgeons. While commenting on Deuteronomy 14:21, which prohibits eating the meat of an animal which has died of disease, Dr. Short stated the following:

Today, if a butcher exposed an animal which had died of disease for sale in his shop he would be prosecuted under the Food and Drugs Act, because there is the possibility of conveying some germ infection or parasite. The law is the more noteworthy because thereby a considerable source of food supply is cast away as useless. Whence had the Biblical writer this insight, two or three thousand years in advance of his day? When reading and commentating on Leviticus 11:32–38, which underscores the necessity of clean water for hygienic purposes, he noted:

The importance of a clean water supply is one of the major discoveries of the modern public health services. It was only about fifty years ago [Dr. Short wrote this in 1949] that it became recognized that typhoid fever in this country [Great Britain], cholera in India, bilharziasis in Egypt, and many other diseases, were spread principally by polluted water. (2)

The late physician further wrote:

Closely connected with the protection of the wells and springs is the safe disposal of sewage. Water-borne and fly-borne diseases, such as dysentery and enteric fever, have been the scourge of armies in the field even more than of stationary populations. In the South African [Boer] War the loss of life from these diseases was greater than from wounds. It was not till the Great War of 1914–1918 that effectual precautions were put into practice. Yet all through the centuries the remedy was ready to hand, if the generals had troubled to read their Bibles, and to observe the directions given for the disposal of excreta by burial (Deuteronomy 23:12–14). (3)

The Mosaic Law not only stressed protection of water from contamination, but food as well. Commenting on Numbers 19:15, which declares unclean any food container not sealed with a tight lid, Professor Neufeld stated that:

“…some care was taken to protect the food being prepared from surrounding contamination. Textual references to “open vessels” with no lids fastened down clearly indicate that pots with fastened-down lids were used during preparation and storage to protect food from insects and various contamination. In fact, an ingeniously constructed lid of the middle 8th century B.C. was unearthed by [Yigael] Yadin at Hazor.” (4)

The bottomline is this...no one can survive without food and water. No one can survive well without clean food and water.

(1) A. Rendle Short, M.D., Modern Discovery and the Bible, 2nd ed., rev. (London: Inter-varsity Fellowship, 1949), 120.

(2) Ibid.

(3) Ibid., 121.

(4) Edward Neufeld, “Hygiene Conditions in Ancient Israel (Iron Age),” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 25 (1970); 171-172