Medicine, Healing and Spirituality

Introduction

 

Our sacred scriptures were composed in social contexts where people understood physical health to be related to spiritual well-being.  We moderns have not abandoned that correlation entirely.  In what ways are body and sould connected in the scriptures and in the cultures that composed them?

Notes

 

Reading

• Scripture: Tobit; Luke 4:16-41; 5:12-32; 17:5-37; 23:33-24:53
  
  
• Secondary: Hector Avalos, "Medicine," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (ed. Eric M. Meyers; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) 3.450-59; John T. Carroll, "Sickness and Healing in the New Testament Gospels," Interpretation 49 (1995) 130-42. (both on ERes)
  
  
• Optional: Emma J. Edelstein and Ludwig Edelstein, "Greek Medicine in Its Relation to Religion and Magic," in Ancient Medicine: Selected Papers of Ludwig Edelstein (ed. Owsei Temkin and C. Lilian Temkin; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967) 205-46. (on ERes)

 

Notes

Under construction.

Bibliography

 

Ancient Medicine and Spirituality

 

Avalos, Hector.  Health Care and the Rise of Early Christianity.  Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1999.

 

--------.  Illness and Health Care in the Ancient Near East: The Role of the Temple in Greece, Mesopotamia, and Israel, Harvard Semitic Museum Publications.  Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995.

 

--------.  "Medicine."  In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (ed. Eric M. Meyers; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) 3.450-59.

 

Carroll, John T.  "Sickness and Healing in the New Testament Gospels."  Interpretation 49 (1995) 130-42.

 

Crislip, Andrew.  Thorns in the Flesh: Illness and Sanctity in Late Ancient Christianity, Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion.  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania press, 2012.

 

Dean-Jones, Lesley Ann.  Women's Bodies in Classical Greek Science.  Oxford: Clarendon, 1994.

 

Edelstein, Emma J. and Ludwig Edelstein.  "Greek Medicine in Its Relation to Religion and Magic."  In Ancient Medicine: Selected Papers of Ludwig Edelstein (ed. Owsei Temkin and C. Lilian Temkin; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967) 205-46.

 

Garland, David E.  "I am the Lord your Healer."  Review and Expositor 85 (1988) 327-39.

 

Hogan, Larry P.  Healing in the Second Tempel [sic] Period, NTOA 21.  Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992.

 

Howard, J. Keir.  Disease and Healing in the New Testament: An Analysis and Interpretation.  Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2001.

• Review

 

Kottek, Samuel S.  Medicine and Hygiene in the Works of Flavius Josephus, Studies in Ancient Medicine 9.  Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994.

 

Majno, Guido.  The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World.  Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1975.

 

North, Robert.  "Medicine and Healing in the Old Testament Background."  In Medicine in the Biblical Background and Other Essays on the Origins of Hebrew (Analecta Biblica 142; Rome: Pontifical Institute, 2000).

• Review

 

Pilch, John J.  Healing in the New Testament: Insights from Medical and Mediterranean Anthropology.  Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999.

• Review

 

Seybold, Klaus and Ulrich B. Mueller.  Sickness and Healing.  Nashville: Abingdon, 1981.

 

Thomas, John Christopher.  The Devil, Disease, and Deliverance: Origins of Illness in New Testament Thought, Journal of Pentecostal Theology Supplement Series 13.  Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998.

• Review

 

Wells, Louise.  The Greek Language of Healing from Homer to the New Testament Times, BZNW 83.  Berlin/New York: Walther de Gruyter, 1998.

 

Wilkinson, John.  The Bible and Healing: A Medical and Theological Commentary.  Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1998.

• Review

 

Cult of Asklepios

 

Aristides, Aelius.  Aristides, in Four Volumes, trans. C. A. Behr, Loeb Classical Library.  Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1973-.

 

Edelstein, Emma J. and Ludwig Edelstein.  Asclepius: Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies, 2 vols.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998; original 1945.

 

Kee, Howard Clark.  "Self-Definition in the Asclepius Cult."  In Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, vol. 3, Self-Definition in the Graeco-Roman World (ed. Ben F. Meyer and E. P. Sanders; London: SCM, 1982) 118-36.

 

Kerényi, Karl.  Asklepios: Archetypal Image of the Physician's Existence, trans. Ralph Manheim, Bollingen series 65.  New York: Pantheon, 1956; German original.

 

Robinson, Thomas L.  "Cult of Asclepius."  ABD (ed. David Noel Freedman; New York: Doubleday, 1992) 1.475-6.

 

Contemporary Medicine and Spirituality

 

Benson, Herbert.  "Three Case Reports of the Metabolic and Electroencephalographic Changes During Advanced Buddhist Meditation Techniques."  Behavioral Medicine 16 (1990) 90-95.

 

Benson, Herbert, with Marg Stark.  Timeless Healing: The Power and Biology of Belief.  New York: Scribner, 1996. (see esp. 149-217)

 

Byrd, R. C.  "Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population."  Southern Medical Journal 81 (1988) 826-9.

 

Dossey, Barbara M. and Larry Dossey.  "Body-Mind-Spirit: Attending to Holistic Care."  American Journal of Nursing 98 (1998) 35-8.

 

Dossey, Larry.  "Prayer and Medical Science: A Commentary on the Prayer Study by Harris et al. and a Response to Critics."  Archives of Internal Medicine 160 (2000) 1735-8.

 

--------.  Reinventing Medicine.  San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999.

 

Dubus, Andre.  "The Colonel’s Wife."  In Dancing After Hours: Stories (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1996) 103-122.

 

Koenig, Harold G.  Aging and God: Spiritual Pathways to Mental Health in Midlife and Later Years.  New York: Haworth Pastoral Press, 1994.

 

--------, ed.  Handbook of Religion and Mental Health.  San Diego: Academic Press, 1998.

 

Koenig, Harold G., Mona Smiley and Jo Ann Ploch Gonzales.  Religion, Health, and Aging: A Review and Theoretical Integration.  New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

 

Kurtz, Ernest and Katherine Ketcham.  The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Journey to Wholeness.  New York: Bantam, 1992.

 

Palmer, Parker J.  "All the Way Down: Depression and the Spiritual Journey."  Weavings: A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life 13 (1998) 30-41.

 

Prevallet, Elaine M., S. L.  "Borne in Courage and Love: Reflections on Letting Go."  Weavings: A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life 12 (1997) 6-15.

 

Strathern, Andrew and Pamela J. Stewart.  Curing and Healing: Medical Anthropology in Global Perspective, Ethnographic Studies in Medical Anthropology.  Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 1999.

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