Did biblical translators mistranslate a word as leprosy?

There were many biblical words that translators and commentators mistranslated. Tzaraat was one of the many. It is mentioned in the thirteenth chapter of the fourth biblical portion of Leviticus, Tazri’a 12:1-13:59. Earlier this week, I posted an essay showing four mistranslations of the Bible. This is a fifth of the many that exist. 

The Hebrew word tzaraat refers to both skin diseases and verbal crimes. It appears approximately two dozen times in the Hebrew Bible, most frequently in Leviticus. Chapter 13 describes it as an affliction of humans, clothes, and houses.

While many Bible translations translate it as “leprosy,” the translation is incorrect. The biblical term has a broader meaning than what we recognize as leprosy. Tzaraat encompasses various skin conditions as well as verbal crimes. 

The word was first incorrectly identified as leprosy in 382 or 383 CE when the well-meaning Catholic priest Saint Jerome mistranslated tzaraat when he translated the Hebrew Bible into Latin, known as the Vulgate.

It is possible but far from certain that Jerome derived his erroneous translation from a misunderstanding of the Greek translation of tzaraat in the Septuagint.

The Septuagint, sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy, and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. It was composed around the second century BCE.

The Septuagint renders tzaraat as λέπρα, lepra. In ancient Greek, lepra meant “rough” or “scaly.” It described what occurred to humans, clothing, and houses. While Jerome may have associated lepra with “leprosy,” in Greece, it did not refer to leprosy. What we now call leprosy was called elephantiasis in ancient Greece.

Although most likely originally a Jewish translation, Jews gradually stopped using the Septuagint primarily due to its adoption by early Christians and its multiple intentional mistranslations of the original Hebrew that were added over time in the text. The changed version of the Septuagint was adopted by Christians who used it to support their claims about Jesus.

Seeing the corruption in the Septuagint, a Jewish scholar named Ἀκύλαϛ, Aquilas, also spelled in English as Aquila, who lived in the second century CE, wrote a new literal translation into Greek of the Hebrew Bible around 140 CE. Jews used it in place of the Septuagint. It was also used by the Church Fathers, Origen in the 3rd century and St. Jerome in the 4th and 5th centuries, while most Christians preferred the Septuagint.

Although the Aquilas version was praised in the Jerusalem Talmud, Yoma 3:8, who described Aquilas as a proselyte to Judaism, only fragments of his translation exist today.

Knowing that the Septuagint was a changed version of the original Hebrew text, Jerome translated the Bible into a document later called the Vulgate using the Aquilas version and the original Hebrew text instead of the Septuagint.

Pope Damasus I commissioned the Vulgate to revise the Vetus Latina Gospels used by the Roman Church. The earliest known use of the term Vulgata to describe Jerome’s “new” Latin translation was made by Roger Bacon in the 13th century.

Jerome’s translation of the Bible, which became the standard Latin version, was called the Vulgate because “vulgate,” from the Latin vulgata, meaning “commonly used,” opposed the more scholarly versions and became the “commonly used” Latin translation of the Bible.

While Jerome’s use of the Hebrew Bible makes sense, Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430) opposed Jerome’s Vulgate translation. He favored the Septuagint, believing it was divinely inspired and preferred by the church.

However, despite Jerome’s well-intentions and sensible use of the original Hebrew, his translation of tzaraat was a mistake.

Biblical tzaraat and Hansen’s disease (leprosy) are very different. Tzaraat, as previously stated, referred to a broader range of situations, not just skin conditions. It was considered a ritual impurity, a divine punishment for improper behavior, and was therefore treated by a priest. It denotes spiritual uncleanness and defilement, resulting in punishments that affect people, clothing, or even a wall.

As discussed below, tzaraat was considered a punishment for slander. It did not need medicines but atonement. People affected by tzaraat had to make sacrifices to atone for their misdeeds. In contrast, leprosy is a physical, not ritual, bacterial infection primarily affecting skin and nerves.

Besides the noticeable differences between tzaraat and leprosy, it is clear that the Torah’s goal was not to protect people from contagious diseases. The ancients recognized many infectious diseases, but the Five Books of Moses did not address them. It only focused on tzaraat, not because it was a disease but because it was a divine punishment for misbehavior.

The Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible, called Targum Onkelos, gives a far better translation of tzaraat when it renders the word as a “quarantining affliction.” As I wrote in my “Onkelos on the Torah: Leviticus,” on pages 88 and 302, Onkelos avoided interpreting the obscure meaning of tzaraat. The Aramaic translator focused on what occurs to individuals after they suffer the affliction; the person is isolated from the community.^[1]

Tzaraat is a punishment for slander

The ancient rabbis wrote that tzaraat is a punishment for slander in Midrash Tanchuma, Metzora 4, Midrash Sifra, Metzora 5.7, and other places.

Slander and gossip are called loshon hara in Hebrew, which means “evil tongue.” It is the legal term for speech about a person or persons that is harmful to them, even though it is true.

Lashon hara is considered to be a grave crime in the Jewish tradition. The speaker of lashon hara violates the Torah prohibition in Leviticus 19:16 of lo telech rachil b’ameicha, “You must not go up and down as a talebearer among your people.”

The New Testament also condemns slander and gossip as criminal and states the speaker will suffer consequences unless there is repentance (Romans 1:32). God holds you accountable for your words (Matthew 12:36-37).

Moses’s sister was punished with tzaraat

Miriam is a perfect example of tzaraat as a punishment. In Numbers 12:10 and 11, she is struck with tzaraat for criticizing Moses and his Cushite wife and quarantined outside the camp for seven days.

Torah tells Jews to remember six events

Jews are told in the Torah to remember six events. They are listed in many prayer books at the end of the morning service. The six are:

• The Exodus from Egypt.
  2) The sin of the Golden Calf.
  3) The giving of the Torah.
  4) The Shabbat.
  5) The attack of Amalek.
  6) The slander of Miriam

Why must Jews remember that Miriam was punished for slander?

We are encouraged to remember this event and realize that slander is so egregious that even pious Miriam was punished for doing it.

Summary

Mistakes such as Jerome’s are not unique. We need to study the Bible because it contains much to teach us. But we should both question what we read and turn to the writings of knowledgeable scholars who interpret the Bible for us. We should also learn from Leviticus 13’s tzaraat to avoid gossip and slander.

[1] The King James English translation repeated Jerome’s error by translating leprosy, as did many Jewish translations, such as The Pentateuch by Ben Isaiah and Sharfman. The Artscroll translation recognizes that it is a spiritual punishment for slander and avoids the problem by retaining the Hebrew tzaraat in its English translation.