For several years the rendering of the Hebrew
tsaraʿath and the Greek
lepra by ‘leprosy’ or its equivalents in other languages, has been
questioned by many medical experts. They have pointed out that the symptoms described in Leviticus 13 and 14 do not agree with those known now as typical of leprosy, or ‘Hansen’s Disease’ as it is sometimes called. They accordingly hold the opinion that the word ‘leprosy’ should not be used in the Bible. This, for most of them, is no academic question, but one pathetically important for leprotics, whose fate, they maintain, has been made worse by the influence of the biblical ideas about leprosy and the prohibitions attached to it. Up to now their views do not seem to have been widely discussed among Bible translators.
However, this problem is certainly important for every one engaged in translating the Bible. Therefore the Editorial Board of
The Bible Translator has decided to give it due attention in the coming issues. We start by giving here a paper by Dr. K. P. C. A. Gramberg, which
we are able to publish by kind permission of the Editor and Publishers of
Tropical and Geographical Medicine, with emendations approved by
the author.
Dr. Gramberg, a retired Dutch medical missionary, has given over twenty years of his life to the care and cure of leprosy patients. Even before the last war he approached the committee responsible for the New Dutch Version about their rendering of the term in question. Since then
he has written several papers on the problem, trying to influence public opinion in general and Bible translators in particular.
While this article is chiefly concerned with the medical aspects of the problem, we hope to publish some remarks on the problem by a Bible translator in the next issue. It is hoped that readers and their medical colleagues will give their close attention to this and the following articles, and then send their considered opinions to the editor. In this way we may be able to publish a closing article which gives a general picture of opinion on this topic. Ed.
View Less
