Leviticus 14 | More about Skin Diseases and a Note on Mildewhauses (Mildewhausen?)
God gave Moses further instructions about cleansing from skin diseases. Basically:
- Bring the patient to Dr. Priest.
- If Dr. Priest says "huzzah, you're healed!" he'll perform a purification ceremony with two birds (one to be slaughtered), a stick, some yarn, and water, and SPRINKLING THE BLOOD OF A DEAD BIRD ON THE DUDE WHO JUST LEARNED THAT HE'S BEEN CURED OF A SKIN DISEASE while the remaining live bird bathes in the blood of its freshly killed wife/husband/sister/brother/friend/fwb/enemy/homeskillet.
- The patient must then wash his or her clothes (the first good idea so far), shave off all their hair, and bathe themselves in bird blood water. Then they can return to camp but they have to remain outside their tents for a week, afterward shaving off their one-week hair-shadow and their eyebrows and all the hair on their heads, wash their clothes, and bathe again.
- Then there's another slaughter sacrifice 'cause cattle-slittin' was the "amen" of the Desert-Era Hebrews.
It gets more complicated. So basically just try not to get a freakin' skin disease, and if you do get one, your life will probably be easier if you just keep it. Seriously.
There are paragraphs of crap that the priest needs to do--the bird-bathing-in-blood ritual, the sanguine sprinklin', the purification haircut, the week-afterward purification haircut, a guilt offering, and more blood on the purified person (some of the blood from the guilt offering is applied to the lobe of the patient's right ear, the thumb of their right hand, and the big toe of the right foot, because what you do with a person who's just been cured of a skin disease is liberally apply the blood of dead animals upon his person).
Then there's a sin offering, 'cause it's apparently a sin to be purified of a skin disease (?), after which point the priest will slaughter some of an apparently endless supply of ritual cattle for a burnt offering and offer it along with the grain offering on the altar.
I'm skipping down about ten verses 'cause it all reads like this. It's instructions for the priest for various offerings to help out a dude with a skin disease (well, actually it's for if it turns out the dude no longer has the skin disease, after which point, I, personally, woulda been like "okay, give him the green card and some Campbell's soup," but y'know, that's just me) and it's needlessly complicated, I think, but y'know, God said it to a tribe of meandering goat-herders and he meant it, gorrammit, or maybe he'd have to set some more folks on fire.
God then tells Moses "hey, uh... when you arrive in Canaan, I, uh... I may contaminate some of your houses with mildew."
Moses probably replied with something to the effect of "why the hell would you do that," but that's not in the Bible, so for now, it's just a happy conjecture.
Moving on.
"The owner of a mildewhaus has to come to the priest and say 'dude, I gots teh mildew.' Before the priest goes in the mildewhaus..."
"...all the stuff inside the mildewhaus has to be taken out. A bunch of other crap happens that Matt's not gonna write about 'cause really, after so much of this, it's not 'The Gist,' is it?"
"Good point," Moses might have said, after which point he'd have directed you here if he had a blog.
- Bring the patient to Dr. Priest.
- If Dr. Priest says "huzzah, you're healed!" he'll perform a purification ceremony with two birds (one to be slaughtered), a stick, some yarn, and water, and SPRINKLING THE BLOOD OF A DEAD BIRD ON THE DUDE WHO JUST LEARNED THAT HE'S BEEN CURED OF A SKIN DISEASE while the remaining live bird bathes in the blood of its freshly killed wife/husband/sister/brother/friend/fwb/enemy/homeskillet.
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| These days, faith healing is a lot less interactive. You say a prayer and you watch someone die and you chalk it up to God's will. Maybe if we gave 'em all avian blood showers we'd have already figured out that eternal life thing. I'm jussayin', y'know, like... maybe Alred Hitchcock was onto somethin', guys. |
- Then there's another slaughter sacrifice 'cause cattle-slittin' was the "amen" of the Desert-Era Hebrews.
 |
| The coda of prayers was often marked with "in the loving, sticky, sweet, holy name of the LAWD we slay..." |
There are paragraphs of crap that the priest needs to do--the bird-bathing-in-blood ritual, the sanguine sprinklin', the purification haircut, the week-afterward purification haircut, a guilt offering, and more blood on the purified person (some of the blood from the guilt offering is applied to the lobe of the patient's right ear, the thumb of their right hand, and the big toe of the right foot, because what you do with a person who's just been cured of a skin disease is liberally apply the blood of dead animals upon his person).
Then there's a sin offering, 'cause it's apparently a sin to be purified of a skin disease (?), after which point the priest will slaughter some of an apparently endless supply of ritual cattle for a burnt offering and offer it along with the grain offering on the altar.
I'm skipping down about ten verses 'cause it all reads like this. It's instructions for the priest for various offerings to help out a dude with a skin disease (well, actually it's for if it turns out the dude no longer has the skin disease, after which point, I, personally, woulda been like "okay, give him the green card and some Campbell's soup," but y'know, that's just me) and it's needlessly complicated, I think, but y'know, God said it to a tribe of meandering goat-herders and he meant it, gorrammit, or maybe he'd have to set some more folks on fire.
 |
| TENTMOOT FIREDOOM | NEVER FORGET |
Moses probably replied with something to the effect of "why the hell would you do that," but that's not in the Bible, so for now, it's just a happy conjecture.
Moving on.
"The owner of a mildewhaus has to come to the priest and say 'dude, I gots teh mildew.' Before the priest goes in the mildewhaus..."
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| Mil-dew-house. <nelsonmuntz> HYAH, hyah! </nelsonmuntz> |
"Good point," Moses might have said, after which point he'd have directed you here if he had a blog.
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