Thirteenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

As the COVID-19 virus spread, we witnessed different economic, political, and social aspects of the pandemic. Besides questions of public health, it became impossible to ignore the cultural implications of the pandemic. Attitudes to the body, pain, and sickness are all influenced by culture. The coverage of the pandemic, from its beginning, has presented events as approaching an apocalypse. In my study, I reveal the roots of this foundational narrative, along with other narratives that constitute the cultural attitude to plagues and pandemics in Western culture. Utilizing a genealogical methodology, I evaluate the cultural sources of the attitudes to plague, disease, and the body as they are found in a foundational text of Western culture, the Bible. Genealogy is a method that delves into the past with the goal of understanding and critiquing the present. Modes of thinking and cultural norms can be revealed by examining the religious doctrines of a culture. Plagues are understood in the Bible as a form of collective punishment. The Hebrew word for plague, magefa, is derived from the verb root n.g.f, meaning hit or strike. In the Bible, religious action is required to stop a plague. In addition, the biblical approach to the body is mainly materialist. Revealing the sources of biblical narratives about plagues makes possible a reevaluation of the values and positions relevant to this topic in the Western culture in general and in Judaism in particular.