The Legislation of Leviticus 12 in Light of Ancient Embryology

Interpreters have provided numerous unsatisfactory reasons for why priestly literature stipulates that women endure a longer impurity after the birth of a girl than they endure after the birth of a boy. This article situates Leviticus 12 within a wide range of medical discourses, found in Hittite, G...

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Détails bibliographiques
Publié dans:Vetus Testamentum
Auteur principal: Thiessen, Matthew 1977- (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
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Publié: Brill 2018
Dans: Vetus Testamentum
Sujets / Chaînes de mots-clés standardisés:B Bibel. Levitikus 12 / Femme / Naissance / Pureté / Embryologie
Classifications IxTheo:HB Ancien Testament
NBE Anthropologie
Sujets non-standardisés:B Childbirth embryology lochial discharge medicine postpartum ritual impurity
Accès en ligne: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Édition parallèle:Non-électronique
Description
Résumé:Interpreters have provided numerous unsatisfactory reasons for why priestly literature stipulates that women endure a longer impurity after the birth of a girl than they endure after the birth of a boy. This article situates Leviticus 12 within a wide range of medical discourses, found in Hittite, Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian literature, in order to illuminate the priestly rationale behind this legislation. It demonstrates that these differing periods of ritual impurity relate to ancient medical beliefs that females developed more slowly than did males. These different articulation rates were believed to result in different lengths of postpartum lochial discharge, which meant that the new mother suffered different lengths of ritual impurity based on the sex of the newborn child.
ISSN:1568-5330
Contient:In: Vetus Testamentum
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15685330-12341314