Towards a Renewed Biblical Understanding of Health & Healing (A Prophetic Response)

About The Book

This book examines the different interpretations of the understanding of illness, health and healing by the Biblical (Old Testament) Prophets in order to address the issues related to these concepts in our contemporary context.

The prophetic literatures of the pre-exilic, exilic and post-exilic times were corrective, subversive alternative to the pre-dominant idea that health and healing were something very physical. However, the prophetic understanding corrected the notion that health and healing is not just physical but it was also emotional, relational, spiritual, and ecological. Therefore, the prophetic literatures are not just important for the study in their own context but are also extremely relevant to our time and context where relationships are broken, ecological crisis is at high risk, injustice prevails, violence and fear grips the health of the individual and the community. All the three prophetic books: Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah are structured in such manner so as to underscore God's overarching healing love. Each book not only directly presents God as seeking health and healing, but also in its overall structure makes clear that the portrayal of anger and wrath is serving a rhetorical strategy meant to foster trust in the people a loving, patient, and healing God. This book is a treat for those who are willing to amplify their radius of understanding illness, health and healing from a 'different' yet relevant perspective.

About the Author

Dr. Atula Ao (Tsüdir) is from the Ao Baptist Church (ABAM) and a native of Mokokchung, Nagaland. She did her theological education under the Senate of Serampore College (University) and holds a Doctorate in Old Testament studies for her research on Prophetic Literatures.

Earlier she served as a theological educator in Nagaland, Karnataka (Bangarpet & Bangalore), and Visakhapatnam. Currently, she serves as an Associate Professor in the dept. of Old Testament studies at the Allahabad Bible Seminary (Serampore), Allahabad.

She has contributed immensely through her writings in many national and international journals and books. She is the author of Hidden Identity of Women in Church and Society: A Re-reading of the Book of Esther (CWI, 2016). She is married to Dr. Samuel George from Jammu & Kashmir, a Professor of Christian Theology.

Foreword

When we analyse the health care system being practiced in the contemporary India and in the world, there are few consequential factors that have led into a crisis of health care today. They are namely:

1. The predominance of the medical model with its reductionism and depersonization.

2. The rise of corporate based medical care system that has been on economies and not on the care of the patient as a physio-psychic and spiritual being who is one of God's creation.

3. There is a lack of understanding of the holistic health care system. The medical model of health care system looks at human being merely on the biological and mental parameters. An individual who is a spiritual being along with his/her emotional quality is neglected completely.

In such a context, Dr. Atula Ao has made an erudite attempt to draw insights for a clear understanding of health and health care from the perspective of God, especially how the prophets as God's chosen instruments have propounded to eradicate the wrong understanding of health and healing. This book is a revised edition of Dr. Atula's doctoral dissertation which she had submitted to the Senate of Serampore College (University) under my supervision. Dr. Ao has pursued her research on the holistic perspective of health with special reference to the prophets of the Isaianic, Hoseanic and Jeremianic traditions which were permeated during the eighth to sixth centuries of B.C.E. in Israel. In this monograph, Dr. Ao has identified four significant terms such as Rapha, Arukah, Shalom, and Marpe that portray the restoration of the societal health that was lost due to the socio-political sickness of the respective societies. She has elucidated how the ancient West Asians had understood health in their respective nations. The seven chapters of the book have important resources for highlighting the metaphorical and tangible portrayals pertaining to health and healing. I am certain that this monograph is a well-researched presentation that will clarify several problems that afflict the human communities due to the wrong approaches in our health care mechanism.

Introduction

1. Statement of the Problem

This work examines the different interpretations of the understanding of illness, health and healing by the prophets in order to address the issue/issues related to this concept in our contemporary context. In today's context of war and globalization, health is often [misunderstood] as individualistic. Community well-being or corporate wellness is not an option now a days. Biblical understanding of health more specifically the prophetic oracles of the Old Testament gives prominence to health as a corporate aspect.

Even though infrequently used, health is one of the vital indications reflecting the quality of life in the Old Testament. The concept of healing and health in the Bible especially, that of in the Old Testament has not adequately been dealt with by the scholarly world, especially the issues pertaining to our society. The problem lies in the faulty understanding of health and healing and skewed interpretation of the scripture.

Each culture has its own attitude toward illness and health. In the Old Testament, it was specifically believed that if one is sick and suffering was because of sin.' The sickness metaphor to designate ill health from physical aspect was always considered, according to the classical Israelite idea, as a direct result of sin. Very often the disruption of health is interpreted as a consequence of disobedience, idolatry, sin. Such ill-founded and prejudicial attitude toward illness led to the ambiguous definition of health. The Bible insists often on a connection between sickness and sin in particular instances but no doubt rightly. In the biblical record, illness might be the direct result of sinful action-that is, as divine punishment but that need not be the case. "Illness has special significance for the OT in that it is either experienced as distress that leads to lament... or is understood as the effect of God's curse." The either/or is essential. Not everyone in the Bible sees a direct connection between their illness and their sin. But sometimes sickness and diseases are the ways to their liberative and wholistic aspect of their life. Gerhard von Rad concurs: "[T]here was a very close connection between sin and physical disease. But he indicates how all the disturbances in our natural life have their roots in a disturbed relationship to God.

There is a lack of consensus among the scholars concerning the precise definition of health. The following lines will be dealt with the different facets of understanding the term health.

**Contents and Sample Pages**