ABSTRACT
For many years now a number of biblical scholars have utilized medical anthropology to interpret healing reports in the Bible, especially the healing activity of Jesus (Pilch 1981; 1989). Medical anthropology is the study of “health care delivery systems” in a number of different societies and in a comparative way. To interpret sickness around the world in terms of our analysis of various sickness phenomena is called medicocentrism, which amounts to judging all medical systems in terms of our own. Fortunately, explanatory concepts like sickness, disease, illness, curing, and healing have eliminated or at least minimized the risks of falling into medicocentric interpretations (Pilch 2000).
