This started life as a post from 2015. I have removed the links that have broken since, including a chapter in the Encyclopaedica Judaica, which seems not to be freely available anymore. Your local library might have access.
In Mark 1:40, in the Christian New Testament, Jesus heals a man with leprosy.
I'd certainly come across the idea that "leprosy" in the Bible might not actually be the leprosy (Hansen's disease) that we know today. There is work by Biblical scholars and others to back up my memory - this article by Cochrane (not Archie), and an article from the Jewish Encyclopedia.A PubMed search for leprosy AND bible finds 60, the oldest 1873 and the most recent April 2020. (This is six more than when I wrote in 2015).
Actually leprosy AND (bible OR biblical) is better, finding 72, including one from 1914 also arguing that "leprosy" in the Bible may not have been Hansen's disease (1).
Neither PubMed search finds this article (2). Finding it through Google, as I did, meant I did not know which journal published it and when. However, my own institution's Library Search finds it, in JSTOR, in the journal The Biblical World. This is why, I imagine, it was not in PubMed.... Our Library Search finds articles in medical and theological journals, including some in the South African part of SciELO - watch that your general database or search does!
Here is some information about leprosy now:
FitForTravel (NHS Scotland).
Public Health England published a Memorandum on leprosy in 2012. It included statistics. Leprosy is rare in the UK, although it is a notifiable disease. Between 2001 and 2010 there were 129 cases. No case had definitely been acquired indigeneously since 1925. However, globally, (figures from that same document) there were 244796 cases in 2009, over half of them in the South East Asia region of WHO. Numbers of cases have been falling year on year since 2003, with, in 1985, around 5 million. There is a figure of "prevalence" for 2008 nearby, which is lower than the number of new cases detected, so I am not sure what this figure is, but whatever it is, the fall is striking.
So, back to "leprosy" in the Bible.
It's certainly interesting to explore whether "leprosy" in the Bible was leprosy as we know it, and if it was not, what it was. It is also important to think about how it was regarded in the Bible (Hebrew and Christian) and how Jesus regarded people with it, whatever it might have been.
Mark 1:40 has resonance today. A longstanding friend of ours, Stephen Haward, wrote a Sunday School syllabus for the United Church of Zambia called Believing and Belonging, in which he used the story to address the topic of HIV. What do the stories talk about for me? What is Biblical "leprosy" for the UK today?
In closing, have a look at the work of the Leprosy Mission, a Christian organisation working with people affected by leprosy. Within their work is work to tackle the stigma. Have a look too at their information about leprosy.
References
(1) Hill HW. The non-identity of modern leprosy and Biblical leprosy. Am J Public Health (N Y). 1914 Jul;4(7):605-8. Available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1286399/, accessed 7th February 2021.
(2) Schamberg JF. The nature of the leprosy of the Bible. From a medical and Biblical point of view. The Biblical World. 1899 Mar;13(3):162-9. Available from: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/472423, accessed 7th February 2021
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