each of the other views suffers from one or more serious difficulties. The medicinal view is problematic for two reasons. First, evidence that anointing with oil was used for any medical problem is not found—and why mention only one (albeit widespread) remedy when many different illnesses would be encountered?581 Second, why should the elders of the church do the anointing if its purpose were solely medical? Surely others would have done this already were it an appropriate remedy for the complaint.
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