Rhoda Klein Miller, a pastor at Oakridge Adventist Church in Vancouver, reflected on how this passage represents some of the earliest documented community health measures and “God-given directives for disease prevention.” An epidemiologist with the Federation of American Scientists shared the passage as an example of “masking and quarantining in the Bible.” This verse has been employed by Christians or people addressing Christians who want to encourage wearing masks and other public health precautions. They must live alone they must live outside the camp.” “As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. “Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’” it reads. Leviticus 13:45-46, which references infected people covering their faces, was 626 percent more popular on the Bible Gateway site than the year before. The individual verse that saw the biggest increase in traffic in 2021 also got a major boost from pandemic debates. New Testament scholar and charismatic Christian Craig Keener shot down arguments that the COVID-19 vaccine could represent the mark of the beast, noting the medical treatment is not accompanied by demands to renounce Jesus or worship a false god.
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This is not a mainstream biblical interpretation of Revelation’s warning against the “mark of the beast,” and it’s not how Christians who focus on the end times have traditionally understood the phrase. The term has been brought into the discussion of “Big Pharma” profiting off the COVID-19 vaccination since the Revelation passage references the importance of “merchants” in Babylon.Īustralian pastor Steve Cioccolanti, the author of multiple books about numerology and Donald Trump, recently tweeted, “Is it any wonder Revelation warns us about ‘pharmakeia’ drugs or sorcery? This is a drug mafia replacing Jehovah Rapha.” By your magic spell all the nations were led astray.” In the vaccine debates, Christians are more likely to point out its use in Revelation 18:23, where it’s translated as “magic spell” in a declaration made against Babylon: “Your merchants were the world’s important people. Pharmakeia is used in Galatians 5:20, Peterson noted, where it is listed among the “acts of the flesh” that Paul advises against. Some Christians have brought up the term when claiming that Scripture prophetically warns against the vaccine and vaccine mandates, since it shares a root with the word pharmaceuticals. Analysis of Bible Gateway’s annual trends came from Stephen Smith, senior director of digital projects on the site and the Bible tech guru behind. “The increase in sorceries is related to heightened interest in the Greek word pharmakeia, which, according to the Mounce Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament means ‘employment of drugs for any purpose sorcery, magic, enchantment,’” wrote Jonathan Peterson, content manager for Bible Gateway. The boost was inspired not by the recent rise in witchcraft but by arguments against the COVID-19 vaccine. The fastest-growing search term on Bible Gateway in the past year was “sorcery,” which drew 193 percent more queries than in 2020. A year later, their Bible searching habits reflect ongoing clashes around COVID-19 responses. As the pandemic first hit in 2020, Christians sought out Scripture about fear, comfort, and healing.