Anyone considering the history of spiritual healing is faced by two questions: Did the healing take place as reported? And if so, was it such as should properly be classed as spiritual healing?
The writers of the Old Testament believed in the greatness and goodness of God. They regarded Him as the healer of disease but also as sending disease as a punishment. Deeds of vengeance as well as of kindness are attributed to divine inspiration. For instance, remarkable healings at the hands of the prophets Elijah and Elisha are recorded, both of whom are declared to have raised the dead. But the accounts of both include narratives of wholesale slaughter— in one case, of children (see II Kings 1:10; 2:24).
Even the beautiful story of Naaman's healing is marred by the statement that Gehazi was punished for his greed and deceit by the transference of Naaman's leprosy to himself and to his "seed for ever."II Kings 5:27; We read also the strange tale of a dead man being resuscitated when his body touched Elisha's bones as it was being hurriedly buried (see II Kings 13).
