Bava Basra 3b ~ How to Mellify a Corpse

Herod the Weird

Today's page of Talmud contains a bizarre account of the sexual proclivities of Herod the Great, the Jewish Roman King who died in 4 BCE. Herod took a fancy to one of the women in the House of the Hasmoneans, where he was a slave. He led a rebellion, killing all members of the Hasmonean house but the one woman of his desires. Then comes this:  

בבא בתרא ג, ב

 כי חזת ההיא ינוקתא דקא בעי למינסבה סליקא לאיגרא ורמא קלא אמרה כל מאן דאתי ואמר מבית חשמונאי קאתינא עבדא הוא דלא אישתיירא מינייהו אלא ההיא ינוקתא וההיא ינוקתא נפלה מאיגרא לארעא טמנה שבע שנין בדובשא איכא דאמרי בא עליה איכא דאמרי לא בא עליה

When she saw that he [Herod] wanted to marry her, she went up on to a roof and cried out "...I am throwing myself down from this roof." He preserved her body in honey for seven years. Some say that he practiced necrophilia with her, others that he did not...

While studying Bava Kamma we discussed the medicinal properties of honey. We noted that although the Talmud described honey as being harmful to your health, it is in fact very good for you. It has antibiotic and antiviral properties, helps with a cough, and has been claimed as a therapy for dozens of medical conditions.  In today's page of Talmud we can add another use for honey: to preserve body parts. Or even whole bodies.

Honey as a MEDICAL Preservative

Dr. Shankargouda Patil is a senior lecturer at the Ramaiah Dental College in Bangalore, India, and has published two papers on honey as a preservative. In one experiment Dr. Patil took "commercially available fresh goat meat" and placed each bit into containers containing either formalin, water, honey or jaggery syrup. (Jaggery syrup being a coarse brown Indian sugar made by evaporating the sap of palm trees.) After waiting all of twenty-four hours he then processed the tissues and stained them as you would any medical specimen.  He noted that although formalin is routinely used to preserve medical specimens, it is highly toxic. And as I recall from my days in the lab, highly smelly. So it makes sense to see if there are alternative preservatives.  Like honey. 

Photomicrograph of the tissues fixed in: A. Formalin, B. Honey, C. Sugar syrup, D. Molasses syrup, E. Distilled water (H & E, 40X). From Patil S, Premalatha B R, Rao R S, Ganavi B S. Revelation in the Field of Tissue Preservation – A Preliminary Study on Natural Formalin Substitutes. J Int Oral Health 2013; 5(1):31-38.

Patil notes that honey's high osmolarity, low pH and the presence of components such as hydrogen peroxide and phenol inhibine in it all contribute to its anti-oxidative and antibacterial effect. Here is how he thinks honey works as a fixative:

From Patil S, Premalatha B R, Rao R S, Ganavi B S. Revelation in the Field of Tissue Preservation – A Preliminary Study on Natural Formalin Substitutes. J Int Oral Health 2013; 5(1):31-38.

Ever keen to push the boundaries of honey as a medical preservative, Dr Patil published a second paper titled Natural sweeteners as fixatives in histopathology: A longitudinal study. This time he studied the fixative property of jaggery and honey over a six-month period and compared them with formalin as a control.

From Patil S, et al. Natural sweeteners as fixatives in histopathology: A longitudinal study. Journal of Natural Science, Biology and Medicine 2015, 6 (1); 67-70  

Macroscopic appearance of tissues after 6 months of fixation with: (a) Formalin, (b) jaggery, and (c) honey. From Patil S, et al. 2015. 

The conclusion from all this was that at the end of six months, honey was as good a fixative as formalin. In addition, the tissues preserved in honey had no significant odor, while the formalin preserved tissues were "pungent."  On the down side though, honey left the tissues a light-brown color, while formalin caused no color change.  But all this is small potatoes compared to Herod's efforts to preserve an entire human corpse. And it turns out that Herod wasn't the only one who carried out this rather peculiar exercise. 

“הדבש נראה שיש לו שתי סגולות האחת למהר למחות ולכלות הדברים הנחתכים הנופלים לתוכו. והשניה להעמיד ולקיים הדברים הנחתכים הנטמנים בתוכו”

— שו"ת הרשב"א חלק א סימן פ

IT JUST GOT WEIRDER

Human female fetus (a) 20 weeks gestational age before and, (b) after embalming for one month in honey. From Sharquie K.E. Najim R.A. Embalming with honey. Saudi Med J 2004; 25 (11). 1755-1756.

In a paper published in 2004 in the Saudi Medical Journal, researchers from the medical college of Baghdad took these experiments to a whole new level. They preserved mice, rabbits and then ... two human fetuses in honey, to evaluate the embalming qualities of honey.

After embalming the 2 human fetuses in honey for one month and leaving them to dry at room temperature, they were mummified and shrunken. The weight of the first fetus changed from 500gm to 115gm while the second fetus weight changed from 400g to 95g. Both fetuses were darker in color. Both fetuses were observed for a period of one year without any change in their shape despite being kept at room temperature.

In case you were wondering, the authors note that "the protocol for the research project was approved by the ethical committee at the College of Medicine, University of Baghdad, Iraq. For human fetuses embalming, the nature of the experiment was explained to the parents and their approval was taken, to use the fetus for the experiments." Well that makes me feel a whole lot better.

Preserving Human Corpses in Honey

In her entertaining book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Mary Roach wrote that "in twelfth-century Arabia, it was possible to procure an item known as a mellified man. The verb to mellify" she continues, "comes from the Latin for honey, mel. Mellified man was dead human remains steeped in honey." Vicki Leon picks up the story in her equally entertaining book How to Mellify a Corpse: And Other Human Stories of Ancient Science and Superstition.

It had long been common knowledge that the Babylonians embalmed with wax and honey. But the big news began when Alexander the Great died at age thirty-three. Always organized, Alex had left pre-need instructions to mellify his remains. The high sugar content of honey draws water from cells and gradually dehydrates tissues. Thus, if honey happens to surround a corpse, under the right conditions it produces a drying action while also preserving.  It seemed to work for Alex. His body survived a 1,000-mile road trip, a corpse-napping and decades-long display u a glass coffin in Memphis, Egypt - and he was still being called 'lifelike' when last seen centuries later by Roman Emperor Carcalla.

The story of Herod's sexual proclivities with a dead body recounted in today's page of Talmud are, I hope, wildly exaggerated.  But the ability of honey to preserve a dead body are, it turns out, quite likely to be true.  Just try to forget all this by next Rosh Hashanah. 

Bava Metzia 106b - Kimah, the Pleiades, and the Planting Season in Iraq

בבא מציעא קו, ב

ועד אימת אמר רב פפא עד דאתו אריסי מדברא וקיימא כימה ארישייהו 

Until when is it considered to be the planting season? Rav Pappa said until the season when sharecroppers come in from the field and Kimah is overhead. [Bava Metzia 106b]

In today's page of Talmud, Rav Pappa, who lived near the Iraqi town of Sura, used the presence of Kimah overhead as a marker of the planting season.  Which of course raises the question of what, precisely, he meant by the term Kimah.

A color-composite image of the Pleiades from the Digitized Sky Survey ...

...and now in Hebrew.

Just what, and where, is Kimah?

The term Kimah (כימה) appears three times in the Bible. Here they are, along with the JPS translation.

עמוס ה', ח

עֹשֵׂה כִימָה וּכְסִיל, וְהֹפֵךְ לַבֹּקֶר צַלְמָוֶת, וְיוֹם, לַיְלָה הֶחְשִׁיךְ

Him that maketh the Pleiades and Orion, And bringeth on the shadow of death in the morning, And darkeneth the day into night.

איוב ט', ט

עֹשֶׂה-עָשׁ, כְּסִיל וְכִימָה; וְחַדְרֵי תֵמָן

Who maketh the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, And the chambers of the south.
 

איוב ל"ח, ל"א-ל"ב

הַתְקַשֵּׁר, מַעֲדַנּוֹת כִּימָה; אוֹ-מֹשְׁכוֹת כְּסִיל תְּפַתֵּחַ 

Canst thou bind the chains of the Pleiades, Or loose the bands of Orion?
 

But none of these verses in their original help us understand where in the sky Kimah can be found. Back in 1982, Chaim Milikowski, now a professor of Talmud at Bar-Ilan University, published  a paper with the catchy title of Kima and the Flood in Seder 'Olam and B.T. Rosh Ha-Shana. Stellar Time-Reckoning and Uranography in Rabbinic Literature. Here's what he says about the word Kimah:

... there is no doubt that it refers to a star or configuration of stars. It is generally taken to be the Pleiades, but various scholars have also suggested Sirius, Scorpio and Draco. Unfortunately, in none of its occurrences can kima be identified on the basis of
its context, nor does it appear in any contemporaneous cognate language. The identification of kima as Pleiades is based upon two considerations,neither conclusive.The Septuagint to Job 38:31 translates kima as Pleiades, as does also Symmachus and the Vulgate. However, at Amos 5:8, while Symmachus and Theodotion have Pleiades, Aquila and the Vulgate have no material contemporaneous ...but it does occasionally appear in the Babylonian Talmud and in the midrashim. A number of these passages support the identification of kima as the Pleiades.

And here is what Prof. Melikowski says about the passage from today's daf yomi:

From the statement of R. Papa (fourth-century Babylonian Amora)in B.T. Baba Mesi'a' 106b it follows that the position of kima at nightfall around February or March is the middle of the sky: this is roughly true of all astral bodies from the Pleiades to Sirius.

Melikowski ultimately concludes that Kimah is indeed the Pleiades, (at least it was for the authors of Seder Olam Rabbah). Identifying Kimah with the Pleiades is fairly common. The JPS translation of the Bible did it.  The Artscroll Complete Tisha B'Av Service (page 63) does so, as does Rabbi Avraham Rosenfeld in his Tisha B'Av Compendium (page 38) and Feldman in his 1931 Rabbinic Mathematics and Astronomy  (page 77). Lazarus Goldschmidt (d. 1950) who translated the Talmud into German, uses the word Siebengestirn, or the Seven-Star, which is Pleaides. The Soncino English Talmud translates Kimah as...Kimah, which is not very helpful, but in a footnote point out that Jastrow does not identify Kimah with the Pleiades.  Marcus Jastrow (d.1903) was a lone voice who did not agree with the general consensus. In his famous dictionary he wrote that Kimah was probably Draco and not Pleiades - though he did not elaborate.  So let's follow the majority and move on.

The Pleiades

The Pleiades are a cluster of hundreds of stars all about 400 light years from earth. They are often called the Seven Sisters, after their six brightest stars (go figure).  With the naked eye on a clear night you can see about six of them; with a really good pair of eyes you might get to see eleven. In In 1769, Charles Messier included the Pleiades as number 45 in his first list of comet-like objects, published in 1771, which is why the group is also referred to a M45.  You may not have noticed them in the sky, but I'm fairly sure you've noticed them on the front of a Subaru.

Rashi places this group in the tail of the constellation of Aires, based on his understanding of the Talmud in Berachot 58b. Most modern astronomy books place them in the shoulder of the constellation Taurus, but as you can see from the diagram below, there's nothing to drive this decision one way or the other.

The Pleidas (M45) sits right in between Taurus and Aires...

“Samuel (third-centuryBabylonian Amora) gives an etymology of the name kima: like a hundred (keme’ah) stars. Though only six or seven stars are easily visible to the naked eye, the Pleiades consist of several hundred stars bunched closely together. Consequently, Samuel’s description is very applicable though it remains a question how he can have known this.”

— Chaim Milikowsky. "Kima" and the Flood in "Seder 'Olam" and B.T. Rosh Ha-Shana Stellar Time-Reckoning and Uranography in Rabbinic Literature. Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 50 (1983), pp. 105-132

Rashi vs Tosafot on the Pleiades

Rav Pappa (c. 300-375 CE.) lived in Neharda which is very close to the modern Iraqi town of Sura.  So let's take a look at the sky around Sura on say, the 15th of Adar in the year 350 CE. According to Rashi, the workers would end at the end of the ninth hour of the day. On that day there would be about eleven hours of between sunrise and sunset. So around hour nine the sky in the southwest would look like this:

Of course you cannot see any stars in the sky, and the area where Kimah would be (shown in the crosshairs labelled M45) is also empty.  But if there was a total solar eclipse at that very moment, and the sun's light was extinguished, here's what you would see:

Without the light of the sun, Kimah is visible high in the sky, just like Rav Pappa said. Here is Rashi's explanantion:

עד זמן דכי אתא אריסא מדברא. ונכנס לבית בזמן שהן רגילין ליכנס דהיינו לאחר תשע שעות ביום קרוב לסוף העשירית קיימא כימה שהוא זנב טלה להדי רישייהו בראש כל אדם דהיינו באמצע הרקיע שנראה לכל אדם כאילו הוא על ראשו והן הן ימי אדר

Until the season when sharecroppers come in from the field, and go home. At the time they usually finish, namely after nine hours near to the end of the tenth hour. Then Kimah, which is located in the tail of Aires, is directly above the heads of the people, that is, it is in the zenith of the sky. It appears to all as if it is directly above, and this is during Adar...

There is of course one problem with Rashi's explanation. Barring a solar eclipse, no-one could ever see Kimah at the ninth hour of the day, because no stars are visible during the day. On the basis of this, Tosafot challenges the explanation of Rashi:

 ומה שפי' בקונטרס דביום ראשון של אדר בסוף שעה עשירית קיימא כימה באמצע הרקיע קשה דפועלים לא אתו מדברא עד צאת הכוכבים כדפי' בריש הפועלים (לעיל דף פג:) ותו דבסוף י' שעות הן עוד היום גדול ואין נראין הכוכבים ומשמע שבא ליתן סימן לאריסין להכיר שעה שיבאו מן השדה וזה דוחק לומר דה"ק כשיחשיך לילה אז רואין למפרע שבשעת הליכתן היתה כימה להדי רישייהו ונראה לפרש דאתו אריסי מדברא בתחילת הלילה וקיימא כימה להדי רישייהו היינו בתחילת שבט ואז כלה זמן הזרע והא דאמר בפ' כל הקרבנות (מנחות דף פה. ושם ד"ה וזורע) שהיו זורעים קודם הפסח ע' יום וזהו חמשה יומי בתוך שבט התם שקרקע חשובה היא שזורעין בה לצורך העומר נמשך שם ימי הזרע יותר א"נ דבתחילת שבט של חמה הוא דקיימא כימה להדי רישייהו ואין תחילת של שבט של חמה מתחיל ברוב שנים יותר מע' יום לפני הפסח

Rashi's explanation...is hard to accept. First, workers do not come in from the fields until nightfall...and furthermore, at the tenth hour it is clearly still daytime, and no stars can be seen. But the Talmud is giving a sign whereby the workers would know when to stop work. And it is far fetched to say that what is meant is that at nightfall it will become retroactively apparent that Kimah was at overhead when they stopped working...

Instead, Tosafot understands (1) workers finish at nightfall and (2) at this time Kimah must be overhead.  This turns out not to be in Adar, as posited by Rashi, but a month earlier, in Shevat, which coincides with December. If we go back to Sura in Shevat of 349, the Pleiades would indeed be seen after sunset, but rising in the east.

Pleiades (M45) rising one hour after sunset as seen from Sura, Iraq in 349 CE.

The upshot of all this is that according to Rashi the planting season in Iraq ends some time in March (Adar), whereas for Tosafot the season ends earlier, in early January (Shevat). Who is correct? If only we could find an Iraqi farmer willing to decide the matter for us.

Satellite Imagery from Iraq supports...Tosafot

I couldn't find a farmer, so I used a "Commodity Intelligence Report" from the US Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service (an agency that I fear may not be long for this world). In a report from last January, they wrote that "wheat, the major winter grain, and barley are planted at the beginning of October until the end of November" which is close to Tosafot's opinion that the planting ends in Tevet.  Here are some satellite images to prove the point:

Image courtesy of the USDA from here.

Satellite imagery from December 2014 indicated fields of winter grain starting to emerge near Arbil in northern Iraq

Finally, a report published by Reuters last January notes that the Iraqi planting season ended the previous month - that is, in December. And so, assuming that the planting seasons have not changed much since the time of Rav Pappa, the explanation that is most likely to be correct is that of Tosafot, written by French and German medieval talmudists who were unlikely to ever have travelled to Iraq, or spent time plantiing there.  

“Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising through the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.”

— Locksley Hall by Alfred Tennyson, 1835

Bava Metzia 85b ~ Rebbi's Ailments

בבא מציעא פה, ב 

שמואל ירחינאה אסייה דרבי הוה חלש רבי בעיניה א"ל אימלי לך סמא א"ל לא יכילנא אשטר לך משטר [א"ל] לא יכילנא הוה מותיב ליה בגובתא דסמני תותי בי סדיה ואיתסי

Shmuel Harchina'ah was Rebbi's physician. One day Rebbi was suffering from an eye ailment. Shmuel said to him, "I will insert this medication into your eyes." Rebbi told him "I cannot endure that treatment." Shmuel said to him "I will gently put a salve on the surface of your eyes." Rebbi replied "I cannot endure that either." So Shmuel put a tube of medicine under Rebbi's pillow, and he was cured." [Bava Metzia 85b]

RABBI YEHUDAH HANASSI, EDITOR EXTRAORDINAIRE

Rebbi, (Teacher) was the moniker of  Rebbi Yehudah Hanassi, Judah the Prince (~135-217 CE). Rebbe edited the Mishnah, and so had a pivotal role in the formation of Jewish practice and indeed the evolution of Judaism itself.  According to the great scholar of the Talmud David Halivni, the Mishnah came into being 

...as a result of the exigencies of the post-Temple era...towards the second half the of century with the termination of the oppressive Roman regimens, the Mishnah continued to flourish through the activities of the enormously prestigious R. Judah Hanassi...only to collapse of its own weight soon after R. Judah Hanassi's death.  

As a result, relatively few additions entered the Mishnah; it basically remained much the same as it was when compiled by the editor-anthologist.  This is why the Mishnah is the only classical rabbinic book about whose editor we are relatively certain.  We have no idea who the editors were of any of the other classic rabbinic texts (including the Talmud) but the evidence clearly indicates that R. Judah Hanassi was the editor-anthologist of the Mishnah.  This evidence is based on two sources: the occasional cross reference by R. Yochanan to R. Judah as editor-anthologizer and, above all, the fact that no one who lived after R. Judah Hanassi is mentioned in the Mishnah. 

Even though Rebbi was on very good terms with the leader of the Roman occupiers of Israel, the Emperor Macrus Aurelius Antoninus, he was not a healthy man, and suffered from a great many ailments. You may recall some of them when we studied Ketuvot. There we read that he suffered with an intestinal disorder, and Rebbi’s maid noted that he needed to use the latrine very often. This was causing him great distress –although apparently the distress was not because he needed to move his bowels so often, but rather that as a result of his condition, he could not wear tefillin. 

THE MEDICAL HISTORY OF RABBI YEHUDAH HANASSI

Recent scholars have been tempted to diagnose the many illnesses from which Rebbi suffered. In her Hebrew paper The Illnesses of Rabbi Yehudah HaNassi in Light of Modern Medicine, the historian Esther Divorshki  from the University of Haifa noted that more is known about the ailments of Rebbi than about any other talmudic sage. Some think that Rebbi suffered from painful hemorrhoids, to such a degree that his cries could be heard when he used the latrine (and as described in today's page of Talmud). Rebbi was so distressed by this illness that he ascribed to it a religious meaning, and proclaimed: “The righteous die though intestinal diseases.” But as Divorshki correctly notes, hemorrhoids are not painful to the degree described in the Talmud (– unless complicated by anal fissures). She therefore suggests that Rebbi’s illness - the one from which he died - was an inflammatory bowel disease.

Rebbi suffered from a number of other diseases throughout his life. In Nedarim  we learn that he had episodes of temporary memory loss. He was also afflicted with צמירתא and צפרנא (that's in taday's daf, Bava Metziah 85a). Divorshki the historian notes that some have suggested that צמירתא is kidney stones, perhaps complicated with urinary tract infections. As for צפרנא, (or, in variant forms, צפדנא) Avraham Steinberg from Sha'arei Tzedek Hospital suggests that since this disease was characterized by bleeding from the gums, “it seems reasonable to identify this illness with scurvy.” Julius Preuss had a similar suggestion, one he offered with great certainty: “There can be no doubt that tzafdina refers to stomatitis, perhaps scorbutic stomatitis which also occurs sporadically.” And if these were not enough, today we leaned that Rebbi also had an eye ailment, which his personal physician Shmuel was able to cure, as well as inflammation of his joints, (Yerushalmi Shabbat 16:1) that suggests the illness we call gout. 

A UNIFYING DIAGNOSIS?

Can a wise clinician put all this together and come up with a single unifying diagnosis that can explain all of Rebbi’s terrible symptoms? In 1978, Ari Shoshan suggested in Korot, The Israel Journal of the History of Medicine and Science, that Rebbi suffered from a psychosomatic disease. However, Divorshki suggests that the rapidly advancing field of genetics can provide a more satisfying solution. She posits that Rebbi had a seronegative spondyloarthritis associated with a specific tissue type called HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigen) B-27. (Don't be afraid. Seronegative means that the condition is not associated with rheumatoid factor, and spondyloarthritis is a group of conditions that causes inflammation of the joints - and other tissues.)  This tissue disorder –a kind of autoimmune disease - is associated with gout (Rebbi had that) and inflammation of the mouth (check) and uveitis – a painful inflammatory eye condition (that's the passage in today's daf with which we opened.). Perhaps, Divorshki notes, צמירתא was not in fact kidney stones or a urinary infection, but an inflammation of the bladder wall or referred pain from an inflammation of the intestines, caused by the same nasty tissue disorder. For reasons that are still not known, this autoimmune disease can flare up and then, just as mysteriously, become dormant for months or years, which could explain how Rebbi appeared to have been cured.

Schematic ribbon diagram of the HLA-B27 molecule’s peptide-binding cleft with a bound peptide (light blue); the letters N and C indicate, respectively, the amino and carboxy termini of the bound peptide. HLA-B*27:06, one of the two subtypes that seem to have no association with ankylosing spondylitis, and the disease-associated subtype HLA-B*27:04 (from which Rebbi may have been suffering) differ from each other by two residues at positions 114 and 116. From Khan, MA.  Polymorphism of HLA-B27: 105 Subtypes Currently Known.  Current Rheumatology Reports. (2013) 15:362

We now have identified at least 105 subtypes of HLA-B27, and the list continues to grow.  Today, seronegative spondyloarthitis, of the sort that may have afflicted Rebbi, can often be managed with medications that suppress the immune response. But without these, damage to the host tissues slowly builds until the organ systems start to fail, offering no respite from the painful symptoms of this disease. Perhaps now we are in a position to better understand Rebbi’s dying words, which appear on Ketuvot 104a.

“May it be Your will that there will be peace when I rest in eternity.”

Rebbi wanted nothing more than respite from his pain, and his wish was granted: ‘A voice from heaven emerged and said: “He will come with peace, they will rest on their resting places.”

[Repost from here.]

Bava Metzia 52b ~ The Not So Dead Sea

בבא מציעא נב, ב

לא יעשנה משקל בין משקלותיו ולא יזרקנה בין גרוטותיו ולא יקבנה ויתלנה בצואר בנו ובצואר בתו אלא או ישחוק או יתוך או יקוץ או יוליך לים המלח 

It was taught in a Baraisa: A person should not make [an eroded coin that does not contain enough metal] into a wight among his weights, not should he throw it among his pile of silver utensils, nor should he hang it as a necklace on the neck of his son or daughter. Instead, he should either grind it up, or melt it down, or cut it into pieces or bring it to the Dead Sea [and throw it in]. 

We have encountered the use of the Dead Sea as a dumping ground before, back when we were studying Nazir. There, the Talmud discussed the fate of various offerings (or money set aside to buy these offerings) that were designated to be brought to the Temple in Jerusalem but, that, for one reason or another, could not in the end be donated.  For example, the Talmud discussed the case of a father who declared that his son would be a nazarite, and set aside money to bring the associated Temple offerings. However, the son decided he did not want the ascetic life thank you very much, and declined to become a nazarite. What then should become of the money set aside? If the father had set aside the money and specifically for the purchase of a chatas - חטאת - a sin offering - he is rather out of luck.  The Mishnah states that the money must be cast into the Dead Sea - that is, it cannot be used for any purpose. (This is because the הטאת can never be offered as a voluntary sacrifice, and since the son will not become a nazir, the money cannot be used for a voluntary sacrifice- or any other purpose.) Here is the mishnah:

משנה נזיר כח, ב

היו לו מעות סתומין יפלו לנדבה מעות מפורשים דמי חטאת ילכו לים המלח

If he had set aside unspecified funds [for his son to bring as a nazir, and the son declined to follow through], they may be used for voluntary offerings. If he had set aside specified money [for a chatas sacrifice], he should bring it to the the Dead Sea [and throw it in]...  

THE FORMATION OF THE DEAD SEA

The Dead Sea lies on a boundary between the Arabian tectonic plate and the Sinai sub-plate, which is part of the larger African tectonic plate. In 1996 Garfunkel and Ben-Avraham published a paper on The Structure of the Dead Sea basin. They note that the Dead Sea rift was formed when the two tectonic plates moved apart from each other, creating a hole in the middle.  The Dead Sea is one of the most saline lakes in the world, containing more than 30% of dissolved salts, mostly sodium, calcium and magnesium, potassium and bromine; it is almost ten times more saline than the oceans. The lake lies about 400m below sea level, and in  some places the lake is as deep as 300m (for those of you in the US, that is almost 1,000 feet). It is these salts that make the lake so seemingly inhospitable to life, and explain why the rabbis chose the Dead Sea as an example  (perhaps the example) of the place to throw the money set aside for a sacrifice that could not be brought. Once the coins were thrown into the murky depths of the lake, they would sink into the silt, rust, and never be found. The Dead Sea is a metaphor for a place without life, which is probably why the Mishnah also rules that into it should be thrown any vessel on which is an idolatrous images. They will simply never be found again. 

 עבודה זרה מב, ב 

המוצא כלים ועליהם צורת חמה, צורת לבנה, צורת דרקון - יוליכם לים המלח

If one finds vessels on which is the likeness of the sun, the moon or a dragon [all of which were used for idolatry], the vessels should be thrown into the Dead Sea...

“The name “Dead Sea” is of relatively recent vintage. It was first introduced by Greek and Latin writers such as Pausanias (160-180 AD.) Galen (2nd century AD) and Trogus Pompeius 2nd century AD.)
”

— — Arie Nissenbaum. Life in a Dead Sea: Fables, Allegories, and Scientific Search. BioScience 1979: 29 (3). p153.

LIFE IN THE DEAD SEA

It is fascinating to note that while we refer to the lake as the Dead Sea, it is not called this in the Hebrew Bible or the Talmud. Rather, it is the Salt Sea - ים המלח - with no reference to anything about it being dead.  This choice turns out to have been a good one, for although the lake seems to be devoid of any life, there is life within it.  

“The increased salinity and the elevated concentration of divalent ions make the Dead Sea an extreme environment that is not tolerated by most organisms. This is reflected in a generally low diversity and very low abundance of microorganisms.
”

— — Ionescu D, Siebert C, Polerecky L, Munwes YY, Lott C, et al. (2012) Microbial and Chemical Characterization of Underwater Fresh Water Springs in the Dead Sea. PLoS ONE 7(6): e38319.

— Ionescu D, Siebert C, Polerecky L, Munwes YY, Lott C, et al. (2012) Microbial and Chemical Characterization of Underwater Fresh Water Springs in the Dead Sea. PLoS ONE 7(6): e38319.

Microorganisms were first discovered in the Dead Sea in the 1930s, and since then bacteria have been isolated in both the sediment and the water, albeit at low concentrations.  However a series of dives in June 2010 revealed a complex system of freshwater springs that feed the lake, and surrounding these springs are bacterial communities with much higher densities, and much greater cell diversity, than was previously known. (You can watch a two-minute video of divers at the bottom of the Dead Sea here. It is amazing to realize that they are the first humans to see the depths of the Dead Sea).  An international team of researchers described the findings from these dives in a paper titled Microbial and Chemical Characterization of Underwater Fresh Water Springs in the Dead Sea,that was published in 2012.  The colonies of cells that surround the freshwater springs are up to 100 times more dense than the found in the ambient water of the Dead Sea, and include bacteria that consume sulfides, and those that metabolize iron and nitrates. The authors conclude that the underwater system of springs that feed the Dead Sea are an "unknown source of diversity and metabolic potential."  

Graphical representation of the sequence frequency in the studied Dead Sea samples, showing major detected phyla and families of different functional groups of Bacteria. From Ionescu D, Siebert C, Polerecky L, Munwes YY, Lott C, et al. (2012) Microbial and Chemical Characterization of Underwater Fresh Water Springs in the Dead Sea. PLoS ONE 7(6): e38319.

Despite these findings of life, the Dead Sea is still in trouble. Its level is dropping at the rate of about three feet per year, and its surface area is now only 600 Km2, down from over 1,000 Km2 in the 1930s.  The prophecy of Ezekiel (47:8-9) that the water of the Dead Sea would be replaced with fresh water in which great numbers of fish will live is still a long, long way off.  

יחזקאל פרק מז, ח-ט 

ויאמר אלי המים האלה יוצאים אל הגלילה הקדמונה וירדו על הערבה ובאו הימה אל הימה המוצאים ונרפאו ונרפו המים:  והיה כל נפש חיה אשר ישרץ אל כל אשר יבוא שם נחלים יחיה והיה הדגה רבה מאד כי באו שמה המים האלה וירפאו וחי כל אשר יבוא שמה הנחל

He said to me, "This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the [Dead] Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh.Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live...(Ez. 47:8-9)

[Repost from Nazir 28.]