The second story describes a woman who suffered from what appears to be a chronic uterine hemorrhage. “She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had,” Mark noted, “yet instead of getting better she grew worse” (5:26). (What a sad and stark description of life with chronic illness.) Awful as this condition already was, it was made worse by the fact that the law prevented physical contact with menstruating women and considered them ritually impure for the duration of their periods and seven days after. This woman’s continual bleeding rendered her
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