scienceblogs.com/pharyngul...ligion.php
Religious ritual can make you very, very sick, and even kill you. This somewhat morbid, mildly gross, and terribly sad story about the Essenes, the religious zealots who authored the Dead Sea scrolls, is an interesting anthropological look at an ancient failed cult.
It seems that their requirements for dealing with their own waste were mistakenly ineffective. They excreted into pits that protected parasites, which they would then carry back…and before they could return to the group, they had to bathe by total immersion in a cistern, which meant they'd basically soak in each other's infestations.
The ritual cleansing "is a total immersion, which means that it gets in your ears, in your eyes and in your mouth," Zias said. "It is not hard to imagine how sick everyone must have been."
The sickness is reflected in the Qumran cemetery, which had been partially excavated previously.
"The graveyard at Qumran is the unhealthiest group I have ever studied in over 30 years," Zias said.
Fewer than 6% of the men buried there survived to age 40, he said. In contrast, cemeteries from the same period excavated at Jericho show that half the men lived beyond age 40.
Religious ritual can make you very, very sick, and even kill you. This somewhat morbid, mildly gross, and terribly sad story about the Essenes, the religious zealots who authored the Dead Sea scrolls, is an interesting anthropological look at an ancient failed cult.
It seems that their requirements for dealing with their own waste were mistakenly ineffective. They excreted into pits that protected parasites, which they would then carry back…and before they could return to the group, they had to bathe by total immersion in a cistern, which meant they'd basically soak in each other's infestations.
The ritual cleansing "is a total immersion, which means that it gets in your ears, in your eyes and in your mouth," Zias said. "It is not hard to imagine how sick everyone must have been."
The sickness is reflected in the Qumran cemetery, which had been partially excavated previously.
"The graveyard at Qumran is the unhealthiest group I have ever studied in over 30 years," Zias said.
Fewer than 6% of the men buried there survived to age 40, he said. In contrast, cemeteries from the same period excavated at Jericho show that half the men lived beyond age 40.
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SF Bay Area
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OK, next flame?
Thu, January 4, 2007 - 1:31 PMAs to the value of this tidbit: One would have to show the magnitude of danger posed by religious rituals. -
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Re: OK, next flame?
Thu, January 4, 2007 - 2:22 PMTrue. It would all depend on the ritual. Some ritual could have benefit outside of the conscious purpose of the ritual. -
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Re: OK, next flame?
Thu, January 4, 2007 - 5:21 PMWell, on a tangent of sorts, there's so many religious rituals out there that involve huge amounts of pain and suffering; I'm thinking sun dance here. Now, the case at Qumran seems to have been accidental rather than intentional suffering, but in the general theme of religious ritual being dangerous, or painful, doesn't that just come with the territory often?
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