Paris - The Biblical prophet Ezekiel, whose writings chronicled the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC, may have suffered from an extreme form of epilepsy, a neurologist says. Ezekiel shows classic symptoms of a condition called temporal lobe epilepsy, according to Dr Eric Altschuler of the University of California at San Diego.
The prophet suffered from frequent fainting spells, episodes of being unable to speak, delusions, aggressiveness and pedantic speech. And he had a compulsive writing habit known as hypergraphia and was belligerently religious - two other traits closely associated with this inherited illness.
Dr Altschuler's research was reported to a meeting this week at the US Society for Neuroscience, the British weekly New Scientist reports in next Saturday's issue.