Children and Adults with Intellectual Disability in Antiquity and Modernity: Toward a Biblical and Sociological Model

Abstract

Children and Adults with Intellectual Disability in Antiquity and Modernity: Toward a Biblical and Sociological Model Edgar Kellenberger The following research is based on biblical source material that is relatively limited regarding this topic. Ancient texts mention intellectual disability less than physical disabilities, and it is more often related to adults than to children. Therefore, the method here employed is based upon cross‐cultural investigation. In undertaking that approach, one must be aware of the risk of easily overlooking cultural differences. This risk is increased by the fact that this research, by posing a modern question to ancient cultures, is based upon modern experience which is not altogether identical with the ancients' experience. There is a second difficulty. The scientific terminology employed in this field often lacks precision and coherence. The same terms may designate an intelligent person acting misguidedly, or a person with an intellectual disability, or one with a psychological illness. This is especially true of ancient descriptive words and metaphoric terms. Analogous ambiguities can be observed as well in modern languages. While in German “geistige Behinderung” designates an intellectual deficit, the English term “mental disability” usually designates psychological disorders, in contrast with “intellectual disability.” Modern medicine, of course, employs a strict distinction between intellectual (mental) impairment and psychological dysfunction. An argument might even be made for the suggestion that the terminology of modern medicine might be too rigid in its distinctions in this regard. Intellectual disability often has a manifold character that involves various forms of psychological dysfunction as a secondary facet of the disorder. The first part of this contribution discusses the topic including the medical perspectives in the ancient and modern world. This investigation produces a very limited amount of solid data. The second part, that follows a sociological perspective, puts more meat on the bone, so to speak. The third and last part of this treatise discusses some consequences for biblical exegesis and theology. Medical‐historical steps with the help of the terminology employed Terminology Terms designating a person with an intellectual disability are found in the Ancient Near East and in antiquity. Most common are: Akkadian lillu, Hebrew kĕsîl and petî, Mishnaic Hebrew šôṭê, Greek mōros, Latin morio and fatuus. In the majority of cases, these terms designate intelligent people with cognitive dysfunction. But in all these ancient cultures we find also deliberate formulations like “born fools” (physei mōroi / naturaliter fatui / engendering or bearing a lillu or a kesîl), both in medical and non‐medical texts. The term “fool” in these cases differs radically from the modern English use of “fool.” In current English usage the term “fool” means someone who is foolish, reckless, unwise, or irresponsible, while having the cognitive capacity to know better and behave more sensibly. The ancient usage of the word “fool” describes a person who is cognitively impaired and cannot make sense and cannot function with normal thoughtful reflection, and so behaves unwisely, lacking the ability to know better or do better. These ancient formulations point strikingly toward an innate intellectual disability. Such terminology is used rather seldom in ancient literature. Apparently it was not obligatory to designate such people in this manner. The formulations “born” and “by nature” appear in the ancient literature but are surprising because the number of incurable intellectual (and psychic) anomalies derived from birth (ek geneēs etc.) are relatively limited in ancient literature and modern experience. Conspicously, the ancient texts seem to be silent about healing an intellectual disability. It is impossible to find any hint in the ancient sources of such healing in the numerous narratives of a miraculous healing, in the extensive magical literature, and in the medical texts. This negative observation confirms the apodictic decision of C.F. Goodey in his recent History of Intelligence and Intellectual Disability: “Greek doctors denied that intellectual inferiority was the province of medicine; their mythical patron Asclepios made the blind see and the lame walk but, it was said, could not make a fool wise.” Admittedly, the stem mōr(os) is used on occasion by the physicians, for instance by Galen (ca. 40 items). But predominantly it is used as depreciation of other physicians contradicting Galen...