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In this book, Stein uncovers the meaning behind mentions of mental symptoms found in the Old Testament. The verses of the Old Testament were written with a primary religious intention, but sometimes they reference well-known psychiatric symptoms, which only becomes clear when all religion, history, and myth are stripped away.
List of contents
Foreword by John Barton, FBA
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Job: A Man With Severe Depression
Chapter 3: Jeremiah: The Nature of His Woe
Chapter 4: Lamentations
Chapter 5: The Hebrew Psalms and Affective Disorder
Chapter 6: King Saul: The Nature of His Insanity
Chapter 7: Suicide, Suicidal Thoughts and Self-mutilation in the Bible
Chapter 8: Ezekiel: Schizophrenia or Schizo-Affective Disorder?
Chapter 9: Did Chronic Mental Illness Exist in the Ancient World?
Chapter 10: Proverbs and Personality Disorders: Male Types of Antisocial Personality Disorder
Chapter 11: The "Strange Woman" of Proverbs
Chapter 12: Psychosomatic Disorders and Other Miscellaneous Episodes
Chapter 13: Children
Chapter 14: Alcoholism in Ancient Israel
Chapter 15: Sirach: An Observer of Humanity and Psychiatry
Chapter 16: Concluding Remarks
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
About the author
Dr. George Stein worked for thirty years as a community psychiatrist in South-East London. He has published articles on postnatal depression, personality disorder and the clinical use of lithium, as well as co-edited two editions of a national textbook on general psychiatry.
Summary
In this book, Stein uncovers the meaning behind mentions of mental symptoms found in the Old Testament. The verses of the Old Testament were written with a primary religious intention, but sometimes they reference well-known psychiatric symptoms, which only becomes clear when all religion, history, and myth are stripped away.
