Disease and healing in the Bible and their religious significance

Abstract

It is a great pleasure and a great honour to me to be invited to address such a distinguished audience on such a memorable day which reminds you of your patron saint, who, as the author of one of the Gospels, happens to be also an acquaintance and a friend of mine. But at the very outset I must confess that the choice of the subject of my talk has been very embarrassing, for the subject either happened to be too specialized to arouse general interest, or too scantily attested by the Bible to provide sufficient matter for a conference. After many unsuccessful attempts and especially after reading a paper by Prof. J oh. Hempel, 'Heilung als Symbol und Wirklichkeit im biblischen Schriftum,' published in the T beo- logiscbe Literaturzeitung in 1957 and later, in an expanded form, as a book, I hit upon this subject: 'Disease and Healing in the Bible and their religious significance.' This subject, I dare hope, will strongly appeal to general medical interest and will help to clarify and strengthen your religious convictions.