{"id":582,"date":"2015-02-25T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2015-02-25T12:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?p=582"},"modified":"2015-02-13T21:34:37","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T21:34:37","slug":"matthew-918-26-a-dead-girl-and-a-sick-woman-factual-info","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-918-26-a-dead-girl-and-a-sick-woman-factual-info.html","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 9:18-26; A Dead Girl And A Sick Woman (Factual Info)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The \u201cWoman with an Issue of Blood\u201d lived 12 years with a chronic uterine illness\u2014but her physical suffering was not the worst part of her daily life. Here are the facts about what this woman most likely endured for more than a decade:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>She was probably in her mid to late twenties\u2014a young woman by our standards. According to Bible historian, Craig S. Keener, \u201c[Her] ailment probably started after puberty; given an average life expectancy of about forty years and the \u2018twelve years\u2019 she had been ill, she may have spent half or all her adult life with this trouble.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Because of her feminine discharge, this woman was literally shunned by everyone in her society. This was not simply a community prejudice; it was required by God himself and recorded by Moses in Leviticus 15.<\/li>\n<li>According to Jewish law and customs at the time, the woman with an issue of blood was considered unclean, both physically and spiritually.<\/li>\n<li>She was to be confined to her home while menstruating (which, for her, was all the time).<\/li>\n<li>She was not allowed to touch anybody. Her family members weren\u2019t even allowed to lie on a bed or sit on a chair that she had touched.<\/li>\n<li>People who touched this menstruating woman, even by accident, were considered contaminated right alongside her and had to a) take a bath to purify themselves; b) wash their clothes; and c) stay isolated until evening.<\/li>\n<li>She was forced away from religious gatherings, from temple worship, from even joyous annual religious feasts that consumed her Jewish culture in regular intervals.<\/li>\n<li>Gentile cultures of that time had similar rules. For instance, the Roman philosopher Pliny dictated that the touch of a menstruating woman was invisibly harmful and to be avoided.<\/li>\n<li>Some extremists forbade even speaking with a menstruating woman or making eye contact with her because her breath was poisonous and her gaze was injurious.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/workscited.html\">Works Cited<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>[BBC, 148; BKC 124; ZB1, 237; GISM, 83-85]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2126\u2126\u2126<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Bible Study Nerds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-for-bible-study-nerds.html\">About: For Bible Study Nerds\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Mike Nappa\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-mike-nappa.html\">About: Mike Nappa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2014 to present by\u00a0<a title=\"Nappaland Communications Inc. official website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nappaland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nappaland Communications Inc<\/a>. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The \u201cWoman with an Issue of Blood\u201d lived 12 years with a chronic uterine illness\u2014but her physical suffering was not the worst part of her daily life. Here are the facts about what this woman most likely endured for more than a decade: She was probably in her mid to late twenties\u2014a young woman by&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":571,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[249,248,247],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-factualinfo","category-matthew","tag-ceremonially-unclean","tag-levitical-law","tag-woman-with-an-issue-of-blood"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Matthew 9:18-26; A Dead Girl And A Sick Woman (Factual Info) - For Bible Study Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matthew 9:18-26; A Dead Girl And A Sick Woman (Factual Info) - For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The \u201cWoman with an Issue of Blood\u201d lived 12 years with a chronic uterine illness\u2014but her physical suffering was not the worst part of her daily life. Here are the facts about what this woman most likely endured for more than a decade: She was probably in her mid to late twenties\u2014a young woman by&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-918-26-a-dead-girl-and-a-sick-woman-factual-info.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-02-25T12:00:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-02-13T21:34:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mike Nappa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Matthew 9:18-26; A Dead Girl And A Sick Woman (Factual Info) - For Bible Study Nerds","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Matthew 9:18-26; A Dead Girl And A Sick Woman (Factual Info) - For Bible Study Nerds","og_description":"The \u201cWoman with an Issue of Blood\u201d lived 12 years with a chronic uterine illness\u2014but her physical suffering was not the worst part of her daily life. Here are the facts about what this woman most likely endured for more than a decade: She was probably in her mid to late twenties\u2014a young woman by&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-918-26-a-dead-girl-and-a-sick-woman-factual-info.html","og_site_name":"For Bible Study Nerds","article_published_time":"2015-02-25T12:00:49+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-02-13T21:34:37+00:00","author":"Mike Nappa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-918-26-a-dead-girl-and-a-sick-woman-factual-info.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-918-26-a-dead-girl-and-a-sick-woman-factual-info.html","name":"Matthew 9:18-26; A Dead Girl And A Sick Woman (Factual Info) - For Bible Study Nerds","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-02-25T12:00:49+00:00","dateModified":"2015-02-13T21:34:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-918-26-a-dead-girl-and-a-sick-woman-factual-info.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-918-26-a-dead-girl-and-a-sick-woman-factual-info.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-918-26-a-dead-girl-and-a-sick-woman-factual-info.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Matthew 9:18-26; A Dead Girl And A Sick Woman (Factual Info)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/","name":"For Bible Study Nerds","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Mike Nappa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575","name":"Mike Nappa","description":"Mike Nappa is an entertainment journalist at FamilyFans.com, a bestselling author\u2014and a notorious Bible Study Nerd. He's a former youth pastor who shepherded kids on staff at Chuck Swindoll's church in Southern California\u2014and he's a bestselling and award-winning author with more than a million copies of his books sold worldwide. Plus, he holds a degree in Christian Education with an emphasis in Bible Theology. So, you know, he\u2019s got that going for him. Mike is also a pop culture dork who watches too much TV, reads too many comic books, utters too many bad words, laughs at all the wrong jokes, and often gets in trouble because he says whatever he happens to be thinking at the moment\u2014like quoting an R-rated movie in the middle of a sermon. Yeah, he\u2019s a mess (just like you!), but he kind of likes it that way. Most of all, Mike Nappa loves Jesus, and he figures that covers over a multitude of sins. Learn more at nappaland.com\/mikenappa.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.biblestudynerds.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/author\/mnappa"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":585,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}