Um, I do vaguely remember there being something in Deuteronomy about not digging your latrines right next to your well. But that sort of thing really should just be common sense.
Actually, you probably remember it because there were discussions on this board before before that that's exactly its failing: it fails to mention "don't put it next to your well". In fact, I gave an alternate wording of a verse God
should have said a couple of times, as an example of how he
could give it without having to explain bacteria, which might (or might not) be what you're remembering. But that's really just a verse by Hans Mustermann, not from God. God doesn't actually say it.
The place in Deuteronomy is in
chapter 23, which talks about stuff to do while on military campaigns, verses 12 to 13:
12. Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself.
13. As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement.
To his credit, God does say to go outside the camp, dig a hole a bury your crap. But the problem is exactly that he doesn't say
where. Really, the above two verses are
all that God has to say about burying crap, and even then only when you're in a military camp.
The next verse, number 14, deals with the hare-brained reason why. Namely God walks around the camp at night to watch over you, and will be mightily pissed off if you crapped in your camp and he steps in it. And, hey, I would be too
Well, ok, not exactly in those words, but that's the whole gist: God is doing the rounds at night and he doesn't like crap in the camp.
In fact, verse 14 even make clear the scope. God isn't really all that concerned even about burying it generally, and much less about where, just as long as it's not in the camp. Really, the main idea is: dude, don't crap around in the military camp, it's disgusting.
And the previous verses, numbers 10 to 11, deal with people "unclean" because of a "nocturnal emission", who are to stay outside the camp all day and in the evening wash themselves and come back. The idea that to be clean, one must stay soiled all day outside the military camp and only wash himself of that "nocturnal emission" in the evening, instead of just washing oneself and one's loincloth immediately, is pretty much one of those absurdities that tell me God never had a microscope.
Also, that God doesn't understand how he built the human body, if he thinks a "nocturnal emission" is some transgression that makes one
spiritually unclean, and which warrants such a punishment as staying a day outside the safety zone of the military camp. A lone couple of people outside the camp are not only in danger from animals, but because it's a war and they're deep in enemy territory, from enemy scouts and raiding parties and even pissed off locals with a vengeance to settle, so make no mistake: it's a scary punishment.
But at any rate, that's it.
A) there is no verse before or after Deu 23:12-13 that says "don't do it near your well." And
B) it explicitly only applies to military campaigns. When you're at home, God doesn't give a crap about what you do with your crap.
And that's actually the
problem. A God who knew what the disease potential of that crap is, when he's at the topic of talking about it,
should have said something about where to bury it, or make it a more general rule than just something pertaining to military camps.
And really, as I've been saying before, iit's one of the things that God doesn't even need to explain bacteria to give a rule. I mean, if the excuse is that God doesn't want to tell people such stuff they haven't discovered yet, really, he doesn't have to. He can just pack it in some commandment like, "Don't bury your crap next to your water supply, or I the Lord thy God shall smite thee with such a case of diarrhea, that verily thou shalt think thine own soul is coming out thine arse." That's that lost verse of the prophet Hans Mustermann that, as I mentioned, I keep throwing around as what a knowing God
should have said, but unfortunately he didn't actually say it.
