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God often spoke to his people through dreams in the Bible. The ancients did not often draw a clear distinction between a dream and a vision - both were God's revelation to the conscious or subconscious mind. When evaluating contemporary dream/vision claims, we must ask a number of questions. Firstly, whether...
Elderly people often show evidence of disordered thermoregulation, and are particularly sensitive to extremes of environmental temperatures. They are therefore more vulnerable to hypothermia, which is defined as having a core body temperature of less than 35C. Risk factors for hypothermia are numerous. Impaired thermoregulation occurs in acute diseases such...
It would be unlikely that Goliath could have reached nine feet without a pre-pubertal disorder in growth hormone secretion. Even the tallest African tribe, the Tutsi tribe of Central Africa, only averages a height in males of 6 feet 5 inches. The tallest man on record, Robert Wadlow of Alton,...
Luke has a difficult task in determining the most likely diagnosis for the man who was healed on the Sabbath in the home of a prominent Pharisee. Although this example of healing is important to our understanding of the Lord’s day, we know very little about the person involved other...
One traditional view is that this was gout. Although rarely fatal, gout (hyperuricaemia) can lead to chronic renal disease and hypertension. Peripheral vascular disease can cause discolouration of the feet and legs. Circulatory dysfunction of the extremities can predispose to gangrene and this, with systemic complications, can lead to death....
Let's first examine the facts of the case. We are not told the age of the woman but we are informed that she had been suffering from a deformity of the spine for 18 years. She was bent over (Greek synkyptein - 'bent together') and unable to straighten herself up...
We are told that Nabal was descended from Caleb,[1] although no inherited predisposition to illnesses is noted. His pre-morbid state gives some clues. However we do know that he was 'surly and mean in his dealings' (vv2,3) and prone to angry outbursts (vv10-11,14), as well as being fond of banquets...
The Hebrew word translated in the NIV as 'injured' gives us no clues as elsewhere in scripture it is used in a very non-specific way (see Judges 16:7, 1 Samuel 19:14, 1 Kings 14:5, Psalm 35:13). However, we do know that falling from a height most often leads to traumatic...
Having been delivered divinely from the King of Assyria (1 Kings 18-19, see the last issue of Nucleus), Hezekiah now suffers a fatal illness related to a boil. Isaiah breaks the bad news: 'You are going to die!' The Hebrew word, here translated boil, is also used in Exodus 9:9,...
An infectious agent appears most likely, especially as siege camps were notorious for poor sanitation and polluted water supplies. One possibility is a virus. In 1918 an influenza epidemic caused 20 million deaths world-wide, almost more than the number of fatalities in World War I. Viral haemorrhagic fevers such as...
