EmailWhich is no mean feat for Eric Altschuler, a neuroscientist at the University of California in San Diego, since not only does no one know much about Ezekiel, who probably lived 600 years before the birth of Christ, but there is also some doubt about how much of his book he wrote himself.
Dr Altschuler, whose talk to a meeting of the San Diego Society for Neuroscience has found its way into New Scientist, claims that the prophet probably had a case of temporal lobe epilepsy. He suggests that Ezekiels symptoms in cluded frequent fainting spells, episodes of being unable to speak, aggression, delusions and pedantry.
The prophet probably also had a compulsive writing disorder, medically known as hypergraphia, diagnosed by Dr Altshuler on the grounds that the book of Ezekiel is the fourth longest in the Bible, only a little shorter than Genesis - and that it rambles on a bit. "Its impenetrable. He goes on and on," he said.
Another sure sign, apparently, is Ezekiels aggressive religiosity, a trait not unknown among prophets.
Dr Altschuler argues that his diagnosis helps put the book in perspective and serves to suggest that epilepsy is genetic in origin: "Once you appreciate that, you can see where hes coming from. If there were no old cases wed have to ask if there was something wrong in our environment."
The neuroscientist is becoming something of an expert at long range diagnoses. Earlier this year, in the same magazine, he claimed that Samson may have suffered from antisocial personality disorder - which is probably what the Philistines thought when he pulled the temple down on top of them.
As far as anyone really knows, Ezekiel was a member of a priestly family in Jerusalem, sent into exile in Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar about 597BC.
While there he had a series of visions, not only of God descending in a chariot, but also visions foreshadowing the destruction of Jerusalem in 586. After that came true, he softened his tone a bit, and foresaw the restoration of the people to whom God would grant a new heart and eternal bliss.
The prophet prophesied doom to foreign nations and the reunification of Israel, and he also included helpful building instructions for the reconstruction of the temple.
Although his ramblings are still cited by some fundamentalist sects such as Jehovahs Witnesses, most scholars now regard the prophesies as de void of serious or applicable meaning.
And, though Ezekiel may have supplied some of the inspiration, it is now thought likely that much of his book was written by scribes 150 years later, which may account for its rambling and repetitious nature.
Contemporaries ascribed Ezekiels fainting fits and trances to a touch of the divine hand - possibly a more charming if less prosaic explanation than Dr Altschulers.
