Ancient Bible Health SECRETS Revealed Today!

We live in an age of increasing concern about heart disease, cancer, and a host of modern diseases which afflict our generation. Health is a number one concern of millions despite the knowledge of modern medical science. Why is this? Seemingly, in all these thousands of years that man has been on this planet, he has not learned how to avoid sickness and stay well. And even when man should know better, he often compromises with his knowledge and eats things he knows he should not, doesn't get enough rest, recreation, fresh air, or exercise!

Vibrant good health requires a price. It is not free. It demands self-control and diligent effort.

The truth is, ancient health keys revealed in the Bible show the way to avoid many illnesses and disease. Biblical health laws show how to avoid epidemics, contagious diseases and plagues, venereal diseases, mental illness, and a host of the ills man falls prey to every year -- including such diseases as heart disease, cancer, and the "diseases of civilization."

Other ancient nations, not understanding these Biblical health principles, were not so fortunate. Although many ancient peoples believed that good health was one of the greatest of gifts, and the Greeks prized vigorous health highly, disease was rampant among them. Its treatment concerned physicians from the earliest dynasties in Egypt, physicians in Greece, and medical practitioners in India and China.

The ancient nations experienced many, if not all, of the same diseases that now plague humanity. Examination of neolithic bones in Denmark and Norway have shown that arthritic diseases were among the most crippling afflictions then as now. Neanderthal man suffered from arthritis. Malignant tumors of the bone have been found in Egyptian mummies, in human remains of France, North America and Peru.

X-ray photographs of mummies, paintings and sculptures have revealed that Pharaoh Siptah of the Nineteenth Egyptian dynasty and some of his subjects suffered from poliomyelitis. Pharaoh Merneptah suffered from arteriosclerosis of the aorta. Hardened arteries occurred in other Egyptians from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-seventh Dynasty.

Professor Rene Dubos in his book Mirage of Health, says: "In fact, the list of diseases found in mummies reads almost like the catalog of a pathological museum and includes siticosis, pneumonia, pleurisy, kidney stones, sinusitis, gallstones, cirrhosis of the liver, mastoiditis, appendicitis, meningitis, smallpox, leprosy, malaria, tuberculosis, congenital atrophy of the liver."

Why did the ancients suffer from the same disease that plague us, today? The answer is relatively simple. They made the same mistakes! They violated the same health laws.

For instance, it is well known that obese people have a shorter life expectancy than other people. In laboratory experiments, rats fed an unlimited diet were found to die sooner than animals prevented from gaining weight by a restricted diet. Overweight is the most common nutritional disease in the Western world. Was this also true in ancient times?

Writes Rene Dubos: "This was apparently true also in Imperial Rome, as during all periods of great material prosperity. 'In the old days,' wrote Lucretius in the fifth book of De Rerum Natura, 'lack of food gave languishing limbs to Lethe; contrariwise today surfeit of things stifles us.' Thus, history repeats itself. Like the prosperous Romans of two thousand years ago, countless men of the Western world today are digging their own graves through overeating" (Mirage of Health, pp. 155-156).

Was diet also an important health factor in ancient Egypt? Judging from the dentition in mummies, dental caries were rare in Egypt during the predynastic period and became more frequent with the development of civilization, especially among the wealthy classes. Studies reveal that "...every form of dental disease was more prevalent among the wealthy than among the poor people who had to be satisfied with a coarse, uncooked diet" (ibid., p. 169).

Studies on the children of contemporary African tribes have yielded similar conclusions. In a comparative investigation the caries rate was found to be twenty-eight percent among the Luo children, who are town dwellers-and eat manufactured foods, whereas it was only eleven percent among the Banyaruanda children, whose parents are poor and unable to buy European foods other than tea and sugar. The aborigines of Australia, who live on tough and rubbery kangaroo meat have few caries and remarkably healthy peridontal tissues, capable of transmitting a biting stress far greater than those of more civilized races.

Thus diet played a very important role in the diseases of ancient times, just as it does today. And seemingly, for all his 6,000 years experience, man has progressed very little -- if at all -- in prevention of disease. We face many of the identical diseases today that crippled and killed the ancient Egyptians.

Why is this the case? The answer involves the fact that the modern world has overlooked the sensible guidelines and health instruction contained in the pages of Scripture.

Let's take a brief look at some of the major discoveries of medical science regarding health.

During the 14th century bubonic plague-called the "Black Death"-- struck Asia and spread to Russia, Persia, Turkey, North Africa and Europe. Perhaps one third of the world population died in that tragic epidemic.

The plague did not relent. Panic, confusion, and death struck everywhere. The dead were thrown into huge pits, mass graves, and rotting bodies lay about everywhere. The final grim toll of the Black Death was an estimated 60 million lives.

Balavignus was a distinguished Jewish physician who lived during the first part of the 14th century in Europe. He lived at a time when London and Paris were reeking with garbage and filth -- when refuse was simply thrown in the gutter and left to stink. Balavignus was a student of the Old Testament and was familiar with the medical information set forth in it.

When the Black Death broke out in 1346 and swept through Europe, like a hurricane, killing millions, Balavignus saw that the miserable sanitation throughout Europe was a major factor in the quick spread of the disease. He instituted a cleanup movement among the Jews of Strassburg. He had all refuse burned. The rats consequently left the Jewish ghettos and moved into the Gentile sectors of the city. As a result, the Jews' mortality rate from the plague was only five percent of what it was among their non-Jewish neighbors!

This striking fact did not go unnoticed by their superstitious Gentile neighbors. The general population soon saw the difference, and were amazed. But instead of emulating the Jewish hygienic measures, the surrounding people began to suspect the Jews of causing the plague by poisoning their wells! As a result, a general massacre was launched. Balavignus himself, persecuted and tortured, was finally compelled to "confess" that he and others were "responsible" for the frightful disease!

How was the Black Death finally conquered? Declared David Riesman, Professor of the History of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania: "Isolation of the sick and quarantine came into use. These practices not only eliminated the plague as a pandemic menace for the first time in history but also led to general laws against infectious diseases, thereby laying the foundations upon which modern hygiene rests" (Medicine in the Middle Ages, p. 260).

Where did these principles originate? From the Bible!

The Old Testament contains many hygienic injunctions which relate to health. If the world would have obeyed them, its disease toll would have been drastically cut. Until the close of the 17th century, hygienic conditions in cities were generally deplorable. Excrement was often dumped into the streets. Flies, breeding in the filth, and rodents spread and carried disease to millions. During the Industrial Revolution working-class families sometimes lived in squalid, dark, airless tenements, perhaps 30 families sharing one toilet which probably was connected to a cesspool overflowing into the street. Some households simply emptied chamber pots out the window. As a result, streets sometimes looked more like garbage pits than avenues!

In 1842 Edwin Chadwick, an English lawyer, showed that the working-class suffered a higher incidence of disease than upper classes because of miserable living conditions. He reported on the unsatisfactory sanitary conditions and thus fostered a great sanitary movement throughout the Western world.

Self-seeking landlords and slum owners protested and opposed any clean-up measures, but gradually progress was made. By clearing away the filth, the sanitariums removed the breeding grounds of microbes which caused many diseases. As a result, in the second half of the 19th century, epidemics of typhus, typhoid, dysentery and cholera dramatically decreased.

The same lesson had to be learned the hard way in hospitals. During the first part of the 19th century, hospitals seldom had running water. Surgeons wiped their tools on their trousers. There was little regard for sanitation and cleanliness. Infections were rampant, and as many as one third of all pregnant women in hospitals died of puerperal fever, a form of blood poisoning.

However, unknown to scientists and men of medicine, incredibly, the principle of burying excrement and filth -- the basic underlying principle of MODERN SANITATION -- was a basic LAW given in the Scriptures, fourteen centuries before the Messiah. YEHOVAH God told Moses and the children of Israel:

Says Castiglioni, "The regulations in Deuteronomy as to how soldiers should prevent the danger of infection coming from their excrement by covering it with earth constitute a most important document of sanitary legislation" (A History of Medicine, p. 70). Castiglioni declared, "Study of Biblical texts appears to have demonstrated that the ancient Semitic peoples, in agreement with the most modern tenets of epidemiology, attributed more importance to animal transmitters of disease, like the rat and the fly, than to the contagious individual" (Ibid., p. 71).

An indication that the Hebrews knew that the rat was implicated in the spread of plague is found in I Samuel 6:4-5, where an outbreak of plague was associated with "rats that have ravaged the whole land" (Living Bible). But 3,000 years later, when the Bubonic Plague devastated Europe, this knowledge had generally been lost. Some blamed noxious fumes in the air, some blamed the stars, some blamed a conjunction of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, some blamed the Jews, and many blamed YEHOVAH God.

Generally, the world did not wake up to the importance of hygiene and cleanliness until about the end of the 18th century. Yet vital principles of sanitation and cleanliness were expounded long ago by YEHOVAH God to Moses!

The Biblical laws of cleanliness, washings, and purification were not all merely "ceremonial" customs or rituals. They protected the camp of Israel from the dangers of contagious diseases and deadly plagues!

States Dr. D. T. Atkinson, "in the Bible greater stress was placed upon prevention of disease than was given to the treatment of bodily ailments, and in this no race of people, before or since, has left us such a wealth of laws relative to hygiene and sanitation as the Hebrews. These important laws, coming down through the ages, are still used to a marked degree in every country in the world sufficiently enlightened to observe them. One has but to read the book of Leviticus carefully and thoughtfully to conclude that the admonitions of Moses contained therein are, in fact, the groundwork of most of today's sanitary laws. As one closes the book, he must, regardless of his spiritual leanings, feel that the wisdom therein expressed regarding the rules to protect health are superior to any which then existed in the world and that to this day they have been little improved upon" (Magic, Myth and Medicine, Atkinson, p. 20).

Another plague which prevailed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Europe was leprosy. England, Sweden, Iceland and Norway showed alarming gains in the numbers of leprosy cases in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. But when the authorities began to institute the quarantine, in the form of segregation of leprosy cases, the plague was again brought under control.

In Norway rigid national quarantine was introduced in 1856 because of the widespread severity of leprosy. "Ninety years later the health authorities were able to report that Norway had only five per cent of the number of lepers that were there before segregation. Similarly favorable reports come to us from Finland and Sweden, where enforced segregation of lepers had also been instituted," writes D. T. Atkinson (Magic, Myth and Medicine, p. 64).

Where did these quarantine laws come from? This same author tells us,

Speaking of the Biblical laws regarding leprosy, Atkinson states:

Consider another example. In Vienna in 1846 Ignaz Semmelweis noticed that one patient in eight died of puerperal fever in one ward where they were tended by physicians and medical students who had just performed autopsies on victims who had died. He noticed that in a ward ministered by midwives, however, the death rate was much lower. He ordered all attendants to wash their hands before treating the patients and the following year the death rate dropped to zero. Unfortunately, the medical "authorities" were not impressed, refused to believe there was any direct connection, and Semmelweis was summarily dismissed from his job!

But the really remarkable fact is that Semmelweis, even though he was far ahead of the prevailing medical opinion of his time in the mid-1800's, was still 3,200 years behind in medical knowledge! Almost 1,500 years before the Messiah, YEHOVAH God gave Moses detailed instructions on cleaning one's hands and body after handling the dead! You can read these extensive hygienic laws in Numbers, the 19th chapter, verses 11-22.

Semmelweis made an important discovery, but merely washing the hands once would not be accepted as proper sanitation in any reputable hospital, today. However, the Biblical laws went further. They stated the person who touched a corpse was to be considered "unclean seven days." The third day he was to purify himself and be sprinkled with the water of separation or purification. That is, the water was to be thrown on him (Hebrew zaraq, "to throw" or "sprinkle"). Some authorities say that running water was to be used (verse 17). This duty was to be repeated on the seventh day, and the individual was then to wash his clothes and bathe himself in water -- and then he would be considered "clean."

Running water insured that the water was uncontaminated. The repeated washings insured that there were time intervals which allowed exposure to the sun to kill any bacteria which had not been washed off. The washing of clothing and change of clothes also insured protection from spreading infection.

Were these hygienic laws merely "rituals"? The answer is a profound and resounding "NO!" They were invaluable and wise safeguards from various sources of contamination! Clearly, regardless of the source of his wisdom, Moses was 3,000 years ahead of his time!

Speaking of His divine LAWS, which protect human health and vitality, YEHOVAH God declared to Moses and the children of Israel:

Unfortunately, in our modern world nations are beginning to lose sight of the importance of sanitation and hygiene. Our modem cities are becoming increasingly polluted, filthy and dirty. Our air is becoming unfit to breathe because of pollutants; water is becoming fouled and contaminated with industrial chemicals and urban wastes. Some comic once joked that man is standing knee deep in garbage on earth while he hurls rockets at the moon!

Could the continuing decrease of sanitation, and the growing pollution and filth around us, be contributing factors in the increase in modem degenerative and contagious diseases?

At first one might think it strange that the Bible would have something to say about cardiovascular disease or arteriosclerosis -- but it does!

Modern researchers have pinpointed several contributing causes of heart disease including improper diet, overweight, smoking, lack of exercise and nervous mess. What does the Bible have to say about heart disease? Much more than you probably imagine!

First, the Bible clearly recommends a balanced life "moderation" in all things (compare Phil. 4-5). It condemns gluttony and over-eating (Prov. 23:20-21). The Bible also tells us we should exercise regularly, moderately, throughout our lives. I Timothy 4:8, correctly translated, shows that bodily exercise profits "for a little while." The Bible also admonishes us to avoid nervous stress, anxieties, and worries which can trigger heart attacks.

Perhaps the most interesting point of all, however, is the fact that medical science has proved there is a correlation between heart disease and diets high in animal fat. Fatal coronary heart disease has been caused by diets containing high levels of fat. Animal fats are high in cholesterol.

But what does this have to do with the Bible? Simply this: Dr. Paul Dudley White, the heart specialist who treated President Eisenhower while he was in the White House, once quoted Leviticus 7:23:

Dr. Paul Dudley White asserted, "It is conceivable that a few years from now we medical men may repeat to the citizens of the United States of America the advice that Moses was asked by God to present to the children of Israel 3,000 years ago."

Was Moses way ahead of his time? YEHOVAH God told Israel to avoid eating animal fats -- diets high in animal fat -- a major cause of clogged arteries and coronary heart disease!

Here is further evidence that the Biblical health teachings "scooped" modern medical science by 3,400 years!

Proper diet is also important in the prevention of disease. In Leviticus 11 we read of important dietary laws which YEHOVAH God gave His people. Among other things, he forbade them to eat the flesh of swine, rabbits, or shellfish (Lev. 11:6, 7, 9-12). Were these laws merely ceremonial, ritualistic? Not at all! Writes Dr. Louis Lasagna:

Cancer, one of the most fearsome and excruciating diseases afflicting mankind today, would also be greatly reduced if all men and women obeyed the health laws of the Bible!

Consider: Every year in the United States alone over 300,000 people lose their lives from cancer. According to specialists, the overwhelming majority of the 60-odd thousand deaths due to lung cancer would be eliminated by the institution of one measure; Stop smoking cigarettes!

Although the Bible doesn't mention smoking cigarettes by name, many Biblical principles show that slavery to a "weed" is virtual idolatry and is contrary to YEHOVAH's will. Smoking cigarettes is a major source of "pollution," as scientific evidence shows. YEHOVAH God says through the apostle Paul:

If people would obey just this one Biblical principle, and avoid smoking cigarettes like the plague, there would be 60,000 less deaths each year due to lung cancer alone!

Interestingly, cancer of the cervix -- which comprises about 25 percent of the cancer of women in general -- is very rare among Jewish women. Wrote Dr. Louis Lasagna,

This finding astounded the medical experts. Why are Jewish women comparatively free from this dreaded scourge?

Medical researchers have concluded that it is because the practice of circumcision, which YEHOVAH God gave to Abraham and his descendants, enables men to keep the glans penis and foreskin clean and free from the bacteria which could otherwise become lodged beneath the foreskin.

In regard to circumcision, Lasagna writes: "...the practice almost guarantees against the development of cancer of the penis, and may be related to the lower incidence of cancer of the cervix in Jewish women" (The Doctors' Dilemmas, p. 85).

Another important law in the Old Testament which may be related to lower incidence of cancer of the cervix is the law against having sexual intercourse during a woman's menstrual period (Lev. 20: 1 8).

The fastest spreading contagious disease in the Western world today is venereal disease. In the United States alone, someone contracts venereal disease every 12 seconds! There are probably over five million new cases of venereal disease in the United States every year. Medical authorities frankly admit that venereal diseases, and especially the scourge of AIDS, are spread through promiscuous sexual contact. Homosexuals account for nearly all the cases of AIDS in the United States, and one-fifth of the reported cases of venereal disease! This no doubt is due to their extremely promiscuous life style and sexual practices. As long as there is promiscuity, free sex, and homosexuality, there is bound to be venereal disease. What is the solution to this rampant scourge of mankind?

But the solution to this terrible worldwide curse is as simple as it is ancient: As the apostle Paul wrote:

What does the Bible say will happen to those who devote themselves to sexual vice, who dishonour their own bodies? YEHOVAH God inspired Paul to write to the church at Rome:

The growing incidence of these horrible plagues speaks eloquently that the only workable solution is prevention. Thousands of years ago the Biblical standards of morality safeguarded against these plagues which blight the lives of as yet unborn generations. There is no safe, reliable "cure" for AIDS or VD or any similar disease -- except prevention. Why do millions insist on rejecting this self-evident truth?

When YEHOVAH God created mankind, He said, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be one flesh" (Gen. 2:24). If this one basic, Scriptural principle were obeyed today, the world would see the end of AIDS, and venereal diseases of all kinds.

The Bible, clearly, is a remarkable Book. Its various portions, written from 2,000 to 5,000 years ago, speak plainly, clearly, and authoritatively all across the field of health and disease prevention. The Bible not only gave laws of sanitation and hygiene thousands of years before "medical science" stumbled across the same laws, but it also gives basic principles of prevention of disease which millions today still refuse to face, and admit are true.

Thus far I have only dealt with Biblical health laws as they concern physical ailments, diseases and afflictions. But there are an estimated 20 million Americans who are mentally ill-suffering various forms of neuroses, psychoses, and emotional-mental problems.

The National Association for Mental Health admits, "We know very little about the causes of mental illness, and until we know much more, we cannot identify any sure way to prevent mental illness."

Wrote Dr. Sarnoff A. Mednick in Psychology Today, "We have been working on the problem of schizophrenia, however, for more than 100 years, and at this point it is fair -- in fact necessary -- to say that we know very little definite about the origins of this disease. Zero" (Mednick, "Birth Defects and Schizophrenia," Psychology Today, April, 1971).

When medical authorities admit they don't know the causes of mental illness, or how to prevent it, perhaps we should look to another source -- another Authority -- for counsel and advice. What about the Bible? Does the Bible say anything about mental and emotional illness? In view of the amazing statements in the Bible pertaining to other modern afflictions, it would be surprising if the Bible didn't say anything about mental illness.

YEHOVAH God warned 3,400 years ago that if men insisted upon breaking His laws and commandments, and living their own ways, the result would be disastrous. YEHOVAH said if we broke His laws we would be smitten with mental illnesses:

The original Hebrew word for "madness" in this verse is shiggaown and refers to mental insanity, craziness -- a raving maniac. Interesting, isn't it, that 25 percent of our hospital beds today are occupied by victims of schizophrenia?

What is the solution to the plague of mental illness devastating millions of lives today? If our modern nations would obey YEHOVAH God's laws, including the health laws which He established, YEHOVAH would remove these curses -- which we have brought upon ourselves because of our disobedient life styles -- far from us (Deut. 28:58-62; Lev. 26:40-46).

Obedience to the laws of YEHOVAH God is the key to mental health. "Great peace have they that love thy law," David wrote in the Psalms (Psa. 119:165). YEHOVAH's law is the way to a long life, happiness and peace (Prov. 3:1-2).

YEHOVAH's law summarized, is the law of love-outgoing concern for others (Matt. 22:36-40). Love is the fulfilling of YEHOVAH's law (I John 5:3, Rom. 13:10). Perfect, mature love casts out fear, worry, anxiety, depression, and the negative emotions which can wreck mental health (I John 4:18). This kind of love is outgoing concern for the welfare of other people, as opposed to self-centered, selfish concern for self. It is the attitude of giving to others, service to others, helpfulness (see Acts 20:35).

This kind of love leads to real mental health and emotional well-being. It conquers the negative emotions of jealousy, envy, fear, hatred, vanity, worry, anxiety, inferiority, depression, discouragement and the like. Developing this outgoing love is the road to mental health -- the key to mental health!

In other words, the way we think has a dramatic effect on our health and vitality. Negative thinking can destroy and vitiate good health. Positive thinking can reinforce and invigorate our health, and lead to radiant, robust health! The human mind has a direct and powerful effect over "matter" -- our body and its functions!

Solomon wrote in Proverbs concerning this principle:

The effect of the mind and emotions on human health today is well known. Books have been written about it. Pychosomatic illness is an emotionally-induced illness, where emotions lead directly to physical diseases, by lowering our resistance. Therefore, positive emotions can be a powerful key to preventing disease, and helping to increase our resistance to them.

Paul wrote to the Philippians:

If a person has true love for others, he will radiate cheerfulness and joy. Modern medical science has found that cheerfulness and joy are tremendous antidotes for sickness and mental illness. Solomon declared in the book of Proverbs,

Modern clinical evidence supports this statement of Solomon!

When will men cease to overlook the Source Book for good health? When will educators and medical authorities accept the fact that the health principles endorsed by science today were originally set forth -- in principle -- and in striking details -- in the Bible thousands of years ago?

Today, medical science spends millions of dollars to conduct research to find a "magic cure" for cancer. Movies glorify doctors, surgeons, and medical researchers who are ostensibly looking for a "magic bullet" to cure disease. But amidst all this glamour, something is missing. It seems far more logical, doesn't it, that medical science should concentrate its efforts on preventing disease, rather than merely "treating" it after its occurrence?

And shouldn't the major function of doctors be to educate the public as to the preventive measures they should take so they can avoid disease And yet Selig Greenburg wrote in The Troubled Calling:

YEHOVAH's principles were designed to prevent illness, contagion, and disease epidemics -- to maintain vibrant good health for a whole community. But the world generally continues to ignore, slight, and scoff at those teachings. What a paradox! And no wonder so many people are so sick and suffering from so many diseases!

It is time we admitted that thousands of years ago when most other nations -- steeped in superstition -- were propounding weird remedies and " cures" for illness, there was a nation which was given a way of life free from superstition, and which was taught principles of health and disease prevention which are still valid today.

An ancient Egyptian medical book, the famous Papyrus Ebers, tells us that in ancient Egypt medicine was bound up inextricably with magic and mythology. Among the hundreds of disgusting remedies suggested for various diseases are human excrement mixed with yeast of sweet beer, male semen, ass's semen, excrement of the adu bird, testicles of a black ass, cat's dung, tape worm, hoof of an ass, bullock's bile, mouse's tail, and assorted wings, shells, toes, guts, fat, urine, etc. (see The Papyrus Ebers, by Cyril P. Bryan, pp. 32-38). Sound preposterous? The ancient Egyptians took these remedies seriously -- as if their lives depended on them!

Truly Biblical health laws were far in advance of their times. Can we learn from the Bible health secrets and laws to improve our own health? The choice is yours!