Misusing the Bible against Vaccination
by Alan M. Dershowitz • May 22, 2020 at 3:00 pm
These are God's words, as recorded in Leviticus, Chapters 13 and 14. "The priest shall isolate" the contagious person for seven days and then an additional seven days if the contagion persists. "And he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp." Nor was this quarantine voluntary. The priest could compel it.
Anti-vaxxers are free to cite science, philosophy, law— but do not miscite the Bible or God. It is irreligious and insults the intelligence of those who have actually studied the Bible by assuming, as many do, that the Bible opposes everything they oppose.
Invoking the Bible and God is intended not as a stimulus to further debate, but rather as an argument- stopper: God is against it; no further discussion, research or argument is necessary; the debate is over.
They simply assume that God is on the side of every political or ideological position they espouse. If that is not taking the name of God in vain, I don't know what is. And I have a source for that: The Ten Commandments.
Most of the emails and phone calls that I have gotten since I stated that the Constitution permits safe mandatory vaccination against highly contagious and lethal diseases have been from anti-vaxxers who claim the authority of the Bible. Have they actually read the Bible? Of course, the Bible says nothing about vaccinations: they were not even imagined at the time, but the Bible speaks volumes about the need to prevent the spread of contagious diseases. Large sections of the Bible deal with diagnosing contagious diseases such as leprosy and quarantining carriers outside the city walls until they were no longer contagious. The Bible also demands that we choose life over convenience, money or other values.
